I start this week’s blog with some sad news. As many of you will know, our Councillor for Penllegaer and Deputy Lord Mayor, Cllr Wendy Fitzgerald passed away recently. Many have paid tribute to Wendy’s character and commitment to her local community. I’d like to echo their sentiments as Wendy was certainly a force of nature and an outstanding ward councillor. Wendy’s funeral will be a small, private event for family and friends only but the family have advised that a memorial service will be taking place later in the year. I’ll let you know more when I have the details. In the meantime, my condolences to Wendy’s family, her councillor colleagues here and all her friends.
Public consultation on our budget for the next financial year officially opened this morning. Please have your say here and you can find the Cabinet report here. This is the latest stage in a process that started back in October with discussions between CMT, heads of service and Cabinet members. It’s a painstaking job and one feature is that we do all we can to protect jobs as well as the services our residents depend on every day. This year around 15 posts are affected across the Council and managers will be speaking to you if these changes affect you. Due to the devolved nature of school budgets, staff in these services would be dealt with separately within individual schools. Schools collectively have been involved through meetings with the Leader and all headteachers and school representatives through the statutory School Budget Forum. Public consultation ends on February 16.
This winter, teams from across the council have been pulling out all the stops for vulnerable people in need of support, food or a warm place to have a chat and a coffee. Yesterday, this important work was recognised by Welsh Government Minister Jane Hutt on a visit to the Swansea Spaces venue at Canolfan y Bont in Pontarddulais. It’s one of 80 Swansea Spaces to have received funding from our £650,000 #HereForYouThisWinter campaign that has seen thousands of people benefit from hundreds of grants. It is great for our reputation that a government minister sees first-hand how we support our communities through the cost of living crisis. I’ve no doubt Ms Hutt will share our best practice story with others. My thanks to all those involved, including Jane Whitmore’s team who’ve managed the campaign as well as all the council venues and staff for their assistance.
Congratulations to the Foster Swansea Wales team on a very positive Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) evaluation report published this week. The report highlighted how children are supported to have their voices heard and carers are well-trained and motivated to promote child wellbeing. You can read the report here. Fostering changes lives for good – as Alex Simpson’s story this week shows. If you’re interested in becoming a foster carer, please get in touch with the team here.
It’s goodbye soon to Diane Clatworthy from our Legal, Democratic and Elections team who is retiring after 42 years’ service. Diane began her career in Estates in 1983 and has worked in a number of services over that time. Good luck Diane and thank you for your support over the years.
Finally, as we start a new year I wanted to extend my usual offer to try and meet as many staff and teams as is possible over the coming year. If you want me to come along or have any staff recognition events or indeed any public engagement or stakeholder events, then please get in touch as I will do my best to attend even if it’s just to say hello. Please get in touch.
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