It was good to see more than 100 of our Senior Management Group at Brangwyn Hall yesterday. SMG is a quarterly catch-up that aims to keep managers informed about key corporate plans and issue so they can update you. The meetings are part of our response to last year’s annual staff survey to continue to do as much as we can to keep you informed. We’re just finalising this year’s staff survey which should be with you next month, so keep an eye out for it.
Yesterday’s SMG included a briefing from finance director Ben Smith. In general, we are in a reasonably good position to weather the uncertainties around inflation, government funding and rising demand for services. Next month we’ll start the process of budget planning for 2026/27 and in the meantime we need to keep working hard to stay within our existing budgets and deliver on our agreed savings and transformation. At SMG I said we’ll be publishing a report soon on the Performance Panel Assessment we had earlier this year. The feedback was overall very positive, especially about staff commitment and compassion in their roles. So, my thanks to all of you who participated in the process. I’ll go into more depth about what else the panel said in a future blog. I also discussed with SMG the importance of appraisals. With the exception of some staff in education, who are working to an academic rota, everyone should have had their appraisal by now. If you’re among those who still haven’t had theirs, please speak to your manager now or raise it with your head of service.
SMG also had a try-out of our new Copilot 365 AI system. We’ve now bought more than 1,000 professional Copilot licences for our teams to use and what’s clear is that it can make a real difference. So if you’ve got a licence or access to the free Copilot, please make the most of it. I’ve tried it myself and it’s a pretty impressive time-saver. We also had a presentation about how we can further improve our use of data to develop and direct services and budgets more effectively and efficiently.
Another outcome from last year’s staff survey was a re-vamp of our new-starter induction programme and visibility of our senior management across the organisation. The latest induction session for new staff with me and our corporate management team is next week. We encourage those invited to attend the virtual event and ask that managers assist in making appropriate arrangements wherever possible.
Meeting senior UK and Welsh Government figures is an essential part of the promotion work we do to help keep Swansea’s growing reputation as a place to live, work and do business uppermost in their minds when key decisions are being made. Yesterday I met with officials from the Welsh Office to catch-up on issues of common interest. It included a discussion about Westminster Government grants like the Shared Prosperity Fund, which is having real impact in Swansea thanks to the work our regeneration and wider teams are doing to target resources to where they’re most needed. Today the leader and myself will be meeting Ken Skates, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales. We’ll be raising the importance of the regional transport plan in helping ensure everyone benefits from our investment in jobs and economic regeneration. My thanks to Stuart Davies and his team in transport for leading work on the plan for us and partner councils.
This week I also met up with Kelly Fountain, the new chief executive of Gower College Swansea. Many of you will have benefited from our partnership with the college in areas including apprenticeships, manager development and training. So it’s a vital relationship for us and it was great to catch-up with Kelly to learn more about the college’s plans for the future and continue to build on our effective partnership.
Well done to our Project Zero team for their latest initiative that promotes our city’s independent coffee shops, the city centre and net zero all in one go. The enterprise encourages people to reusable takeaway coffee cups by offering discounts every time they use one. Check it out here.
And finally, it’s farewell to David Hughes, one of our transport team’s vehicle fitters, who is retiring after 45 years. David is looking forward to spending his retirement on his smallholding. Good luck with that David and thank you for your service.
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