Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Great work

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It’s always important as Chief Executive to be able to highlight the council’s achievements and praise our staff.

Our trading standards team recently did some great work in helping to prosecute four people over a call centre scam. We’ve seen a number of these scams in Swansea which target the elderly and vulnerable. It’s never easy to bring successful prosecutions and it takes an awful lot of hard work from our staff. Thankfully on this occasion their efforts have been rewarded through the courts. It’s also been highlighted on BBC’s X-Ray programme where team leader Rhys Harries was interviewed. It’s not often that our trading standards team are in the spotlight so credit where credit is due. My thanks to the team involved, led by Nicola Murphy, and colleagues in legal.

Some of our Child and Family staff were recognised at this year’s BASW Cymru Social Work Awards. Helen Philpott was shortlisted in the Spirit of Social Work category, Lisa Collier in the Innovative Social Work category (Michelle Apthorpe collected her certificate for her and is pictured here) and the team at our Ty Nant home was shortlisted in the Social Work Team category. This is a great achievement and congratulations to all the staff involved.

Ania Negele, community coach in Cultural Services, has won a Sporting Excellence Award at the Evening Post Community Awards.  Ania was recognised following a successful year as a performance coach with Weightlifting Wales.  She is the first female Olympic Weightlifting Coach to represent Wales at a Commonwealth Games and is also the newly appointed Great Britain U20 Coach. Well done Ania.

A big thank you to two of our tree services staff who’ve been praised for stepping in after a disabled woman had been robbed in her own home. Matt Palmer and Paul Williams were in their council vehicle when they were approached by carer Jane Morgan seeking help in catching-up with the thief. Rather than allow her to go on alone, they made sure Mrs Morgan and her friend were safe.  The thief was later apprehended by police. Mrs Morgan later contacted the council to say how grateful she was for their help and kindness.

A group of our trainees have become the first to complete our inaugural waste management traineeships. They achieved WAMITAB NVQ level 2 in Sustainable Recycling Activities, run in conjunction with Gower College. Well done to everyone involved.

Last night’s Full Council meeting also recognised the recent achievements of some of our staff. Congratualtions went to Darran Kiley for being shortlisted for a St David’s Award for his bravery after he stepped in to confront a man armed with a knife in the city centre. Also recognised was the Corporate Health, Safety and Emergency Management Service who were shortlisted for a National Innovation Award in Health and Safety. There were congratulations too to the apprentices who picked up prizes at the Gower College Swansea Apprenticeship Awards. The council also collected the Apprenticeship Employer of the Year (250+ Employers). 

These are just some examples of the great work of our staff, if you know of any more please let me know.

On a less positive note you may have seen yesterday’s story about the regional Youth Offending Team being criticised following an inspection. It’s a disappointing report highlighting failings including management, governance, strategy and performance management. It’s important to stress this doesn’t reflect on individual staff who work extremely hard in very difficult circumstances. The regional arrangement covering Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot and Swansea, including ABMU health board, is ending and each authority will in future go back to providing its own service. This will undoubtedly help to focus efforts, but that in itself is not the full solution. When we fully analyse the report we’ll have to put in place arrangements and actions to rectify the findings as quickly as practicable and this will be a major focus in the coming months.

As noted above, last night I attended my first Council meeting since returning. The last time I attended I was kindly presented with a Nottingham Forest shirt as a leaving gift and left with a smile. Last night was slightly different! However, there were lots of familiar faces on the political benches and although the agenda was relatively light compared to recent meetings where issues like the budget have dominated, I was particularly interested in the presentation by Save the Children who we’ll continue to work closely with.

Finally, the mess around Brexit continues and, whatever your personal view, I’m sure you’ll agree we all need clarity as soon as possible. As a council we’re continuing to prepare for the unknown. An example of this is we don’t even know if we’ll be taking part in the European elections on May 23. A huge amount of work has to go into elections, but how far down that road do you go when it may not even happen? This is just one example and the issues facing the public and business sectors are huge, so the sooner they sort it the better for all of us.

Leadership team discusses our priorities

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I went to the first Leadership Team meeting since my return and it was a chance to meet our heads of service and set out my priorities.

I mentioned my priorities last week in my blog so I won’t repeat them now. It was good to see some familiar faces as well those Heads of Service that have been appointed in the past couple of years. It was also the last Leadership meeting for Rachel Moxey, Head of Poverty and Prevention, who is taking up a post in Pembrokeshire. I’d like to thank Rachel for all her hard work and wish her well.

Gower College came along to present their ideas for closer working with us on a training and apprenticeship programme. There’s potential for them to second a member of staff to us to better understand our needs and to deliver a programme for us. We all know how important apprenticeships are so this could be a really productive partnership.

The importance of this was highlighted this week at Gower College Apprenticeship Awards where a number of our staff were rightly rewarded with an Apprentice of the Year award. These are:

Aaron Redden – Bricklaying

Ingrid Parker (St Thomas Community School) – Childcare

Iestyn Thomas – Information, Advice and Guidance

Cameron Lewis – IT

Elizabeth Jarvis – Leadership and Management

Luke Evans – Apprentice of the Year

We also won the Employer of the Year award for organisations with more than 250 employees.

This is a great achievement by all of our staff and they should be rightly proud and I wish them well in their careers. It’s also recognition of our strong track record with apprentices. University isn’t for everyone and it’s crucial that we give people a choice. I’m sure our work links with Gower College will further strengthen this and create even more opportunities.

This week’s Corporate Management Team meeting looked at the issue of mental health services and a new strategy being developed by ABMU health board and local authorities in the region. Those of us living in Swansea may already be aware through personal experience that services are pretty weak, particularly around prevention and early treatment and out of hours support. The strategy is designed to get all the partners to agree a model for future services which set out the shape and scope of services. This will be going to Cabinet in the coming months, but the big challenge is the need for major investment in these services which will not be possible without national funding. That will be an interesting debate in the coming months.

When I was appointed Chief Executive in 2011 one of the first meetings I attended with a range of officers from across the council was about the Local Development Plan. At the time we were looking at candidates sites and it was clear then that this was a huge and complex task. So it’s quite amazing to be back at a time when the LDP has been approved by Council eight years after that initial meeting. It demonstrates the professionalism, determination and stamina of those officers involved. Following comprehensive public consultation and engagement including a rigorous independent examination by the Planning Inspectorate, the LDP was approved by Council. It’s the most up-to-date plan of its kind in Wales and the primary strategy and policy document against which the Council will make decisions on development proposals. The LDP is based on a strong ‘Place-making’ agenda and seeks to address the need for new homes, jobs, infrastructure and community facilities to support economic growth and raise standards of living. It also includes policies that require proposals to respect and promote cultural heritage, important landscapes and sensitive environments. My thanks to Paul Meller, Tom Evans, Rachel Willis, David Rees, Ruth Henderson, Sarah Jenkins, Andrew McTaggart and Lisa Roberts for all their hard work. It’s much appreciated.

The uncertainty continues

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The debate on Brexit went much as expected this week and the Prime Minister is now seeking to develop a compromise proposal from the ashes of her proposed agreement for the UK to leave the European Union. This will require her to present a new plan for EU withdrawal to Parliament by 21 January prior to a further debate on January 29. It remains to be seen whether this can be achieved and those who were hoping for a greater sense of certainty by Wednesday would have been disappointed.

Closer to home we have been working on Brexit issues for many months having identified it as a key corporate risk.  A working group has been considering the possible implications of the various outcomes that are possible and a number of contingency plans have been developed to ensure that disruption to services is minimised.  I have also had direct discussions with NHS colleagues and other partners to make sure that our approach is joined-up.

Next week I will attend the Welsh Government EU Preparedness Advisory Panel as one of four chief executive representatives and I hope to provide further updates on Welsh Government actions after this.

There are a number of possible outcomes.  Let’s see what happens on Monday but I have a sneaking feeling that the certainty that many of us would like to have will continue to evade us.

Winter pressures

Discussions with our health board colleagues on coping with the pressures that winter brings to health and social care continued this week when Dave Howes and I met executives and clinicians from what will now be called Swansea Bay University Health Board, rather than ABMU.  We agreed a number of practical steps to reduce the impact of bed blocking by better joining up our community services and adapting our facilities to cope with the demand for reablement.

ACEs

Cabinet yesterday considered a report from the People Policy Development Committee on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).  This is a really excellent piece of work led by Councillor Ceri Evans and supported by a number of our staff who work with children.  Cabinet agreed that we will now work on a “statement of purpose” and raise awareness of the issues involved in ACEs across the organisation and beyond.  Thanks to Ceri and our team who supported this work.

Operation Timmia

Thanks to those members of staff who worked closely with the police on Operation Timmia which was launched after a high number of burglaries and aggravated burglaries were reported in the area in the past year.  The operation involved raids to a number of properties in the City and was successful thanks to some excellent joint working.

Lagoon

The announcement that Hitachi have stopped work on the proposed nuclear plant at Wylfa will be a disappointment to many in North Wales.  Considering that plans to build a nuclear power station at Moorside in Cumbria were halted by Toshiba in November and there are cost issues at the third plant at Hinckley Point there is room for concern about UK energy policy.  All the more reason then to continue with our work to deliver tidal power in Swansea Bay and our team, led by Rob Stewart and Martin Nicholls, have made significant progress over the last few weeks as we seek interest in the project from the private sector  following a Prior Information Notice being issued. The options are being considered for its delivery with a recommendations being submitted to Welsh Government by the end of March.

Brondeg House

Towards the end of 2018 Brondeg House, home to our Key Stage 4 Pupil Referral Unit had to be closed due to serious issues with the building. Corporate Building and Property Services have worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to ensure that the staff and pupils can return to their improved setting as quickly as possible. A big thanks to all those involved and to the PRU staff for their patience whilst the issues were addressed.

Congratulations

Well done to all those from the Waste Management and Parks Operations team (in their Christmas Jumpers) on passing their nine-month Waste Traineeship and NVQ Level 2.  All the Trainees were presented with their well-earned certificates by Cabinet Member Cllr Mark Thomas.

Panto

This year’s pantomime, Cinderella, at the Grand Theatre was, as ever, a huge success – oh, yes it was.

Around 40,000 people flocked to the theatre to enjoy the festive treat starring Welsh singer, dancer and actor Ian H Watkins and Swansea’s very own Kevin Johns.

It was a brilliant occasion and it was particularly pleasing to know that 900 complimentary tickets were distributed to local groups and individuals who might not otherwise have been able to attend and join in the fun. My thanks to the Grand Theatre team for yet another successful Christmas run.

The team are now looking to make the all year round programme even more accessible, as they get ready for the 2020 panto Peter Pan.