Living within our budgets

It was a very busy Cabinet meeting yesterday at which members were discussing next year’s final budget plans to go to Council, our capital spending programme, the medium-term financial plan and the third quarter revenue and capital budget monitoring report, among others. Full Council will make the final decision on the budget and capital spending at its meeting on March 6th. But the third quarter revenue and capital report is a reminder that all of us still need to do all we can to live within our agreed budgets in the current financial year. The report says there remains huge pressure on services with rising demand and the cost of inflation causing overspends in a number of areas and it will be a significant challenge to ensure we balance our budget this year. Directors and heads of service are working to mitigate overspends, including freezing vacancies and I’d take this opportunity to remind you of the spending restrictions that are currently in force. You can find them here.

Yesterday I was pleased to see Swansea host a visit from the deputy director from the UK Government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Huw Bryer was catching up on the success stories here of investment through the Shared Prosperity Fund and Levelling Up Fund. When I met him, he was very impressed with the work done and the lead role Swansea is playing in the region on SPF. We’ve been really successful in tapping into these funds, attracting well over £20m to boost major projects like the Lower Swansea Valley regeneration programme as well as key community initiatives that support skills training, volunteering and neighbourhood improvements. My thanks to Paul Relf, Richard Horlock and their teams for facilitating this programme and for all the staff involved in ensuring our communities are seeing the tangible benefits of this funding.

I’ll be catching up with the staff engagement group in the next couple of weeks and one of the key topics we’ll be looking at is the upcoming staff survey. We’re working on finalising questions for the survey now, but one of the most important issues I want to raise in it is gauging views on how communication and engagement with staff have been going over the last year or two. There’s been a lot of change since we emerged from the pandemic and there’s more coming as part of our transformation programme. So it’s important that we understand better how well-informed you feel and how engaged you are – or want to be – with change programmes that affect the way you work.

Ironman 70.3, the recent addition to our summertime events schedule, has been voted one of the top three run courses of its kind in the world. The praise comes from the Global Athletes Choice Awards and it also means athletes think there’s no better run like it in Europe, the Middle East or Africa. It’s estimated that IRONMAN – which also includes swim and cycle elements – attracts around 20,000 spectators to Swansea and, together with the World Triathlon Para Series, it’s worth more than £2m to the local economy. My thanks to the cultural services and special events team for helping achieve this accolade.