Corporate Health Standard

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

December 28, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

My last blog of the 2017 is a chance to reflect on some of the major issues of the past year and to look ahead to our challenges in 2018.

We started the year in fine style by being awarded the Platinum Corporate Health Standard after excelling in corporate social responsibility and innovation. January also saw the Hendry Review say the Tidal Lagoon was a “no regrets” policy. Almost a year on we’re still waiting for a government decision!

The Welsh Government unveiled its ‘White Paper: Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’ including regionalised services and electoral reform.

Spring brought the City Deal signing which promises a £1.3bn transformation of our economy and we built on our track record of investing in young people by launching our Apprentice Strategy – more than 170 apprentices have come through since 2003.

April showed there were no fools in our waste team when they cleaned up at the IESE (Improvement and Efficiency South East) Awards.

In May we stood united with Manchester following the horrific terror attack which served as another reminder that we all have to be vigilant, particularly at our major events. And our elections team and volunteers pulled out all the stops to deliver yet another election with huge effort but minimum fuss.

The tragic events of Grenfell Tower threw the spotlight on high-rise flats across the UK and our Housing and Corporate Buildings teams led the way in Wales, acting quickly and professionally to reassure our residents. Another election, this time the General, once again saw our staff pull-out all the stops.

The summer brought a mixed bag of news – I was delighted to be permanently appointed Chief Executive and for us to be shortlisted for City of Culture. But this delight was dampened with the shelving of the rail electrification to Swansea and the worrying budget indications from the Government.

The annual local government “league tables” in September showed that despite budget cuts and service pressures:

29% of all our performance indicators were in the top quartile, up from 17% in 2014/15
A reduction in lower quartile PIs from 22% to 14%.
We’re ranked 9^thamong all 22 councils, up from 15^th last year. Considering we are an urban authority this is a major achievement.

We launched our Love the Lagoon campaign to unite the community in telling the Government we want and need the project.

October is always a highlight for me because of the High 5 Awards and this year a record number of young people were recognised. Autumn also sees the real work on our budget get under way and Corporate Management Team and Cabinet were locked in meetings to plug the budget gap due to government cuts. Each year is getting more difficult.

November was a month for lobbying in London when we took both our City of Culture and Love the Lagoon campaigns to Westminster. Closer to home our Christmas Parade was met with great feedback from the public.

Despite a fantastic effort, our City of Culture bid fell at the final hurdle in December. Since then we’ve had encouraging talks with the Welsh Government on how we can take culture forward. Our annual staff survey showed the vast majority of areas improving. However, there’s more work to do, particularly on appraisals. And just before the Christmas break I was delighted to hear primary school attendance was 95% for the 2017-2018 academic year, compared to 94.9% for each of the two previous years. The five-year trend since 2011-2012 has an improvement of 2% which is the highest rate of improvement in Wales. Congratulations to all our school and education staff for this impressive result.

So what does 2018 have in store for us? Hopefully a positive decision on the Tidal Lagoon with the clock running at 350 days since the Hendry Review recommended the government gets on with it. We’ll see some significant developments taking place around the Arena and Kingsway sites as the city centre regeneration gathers pace. This will involve major changes to the city centre road network and the development of the infrastructure for a Smart City.

I suspect we‘ll see a restatement of the Welsh Government approach on local government reform, possibly with greater emphasis on mandation unless the pace of collaboration between councils increases.

We’ll set a budget following the consultation process and hopefully continue to deliver excellent services in increasingly difficult circumstances. Our work on modernising and transforming the Council will continue, increasing our agile, digital and commercialism programmes to help us to combat future cuts in the revenue budget.

Above all I hope 2018 will be a healthy and happy year for you and for your families and I want to thank you once again for the fantastic work during 2017.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Pride in our standards

January 20, 2017 by Martin 3 Comments

Corporate Health Standard

A week on from gaining the Platinum Corporate Health Standard I’ve had time to digest the assessors comments and it’s something that we can all be proud of.

To get Platinum an organisation really has to excel in terms of wider corporate social responsibility and innovation across the six categories – transport, facilities management, procurement, employment and skills, capital build, and community engagement. You also have to demonstrate that sustainability runs through each of these, providing a direct link to the Well-being of Future Generations Act.

Assessors met with 15 service users and staff and were impressed with a range of projects. These include the Fforestfach Day Service which is doing great things to support adults with learning disabilities to benefit from jobs and work experience that makes a difference to them and to local communities. The service deserves great credit for seven brilliant projects ranging from the well-known NEAT teams to catering services at the Victoria Park Kiosk, the Fforestfach fruit and vegetable nursery and the Grounds Maintenance Team which supports management of wildlife and environmental habitats.

The service is celebrating its 10^th birthday this year and during that period 245 people have been supported into paid employment so it’s really fitting that their story has helped us gain the Platinum award.

The assessors points included:

Innovation and commitment
Not afraid to try something new
Passion/belief
Leadership, not just management, at all levels
Lots of creativity
People feel empowered
Engagement – from the top all the way down
Passionate
Lots of partnership work and not worried about who gets the credit
The range of organisations we work with is great
Exemplar of good practice

This award really is a great credit to all our staff so thank you very much for all your commitment, you should all be proud of what you’ve achieved!

Tanya Nash

Next Friday will be the last working day here for Tanya Nash, our Sustainable Development Team Leader. Tanya has secured a new and an important role as Head of Performance with the Future Generations Commissioner’s office.

Tanya will be a great loss to this Council. For almost 17 years she has worked tirelessly to help us embed sustainable development principles into our organisation. On that journey she’s met many challenges including a number from our former Chief Executive Jack Straw, who once memorably asked her “what’s the point in having resources if you don’t consume them?” He was of course joking but it was interesting to witness Tanya’s way of handling such scepticism with a combination of patience, logic and persuasion which has characterised her career with us.

I wish Tanya all the best for the future and thank her for the excellent contribution she’s made to both the Council and the city. I know that we will still see Tanya in her new role and I look forward to further discussion on how we can ensure that sustainability is completely embedded in our organisation.

City Deal

Hot on the heels of Sir Charles Hendry backing plans for the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, we’re hoping the UK Government will approve the Swansea Bay City Region’s City Deal bid by the end of February. If approved, it’d be hugely positive news for Swansea because of the thousands of jobs it would generate and the billions of pounds it’s worth to the local economy. A report going to Council on January 26 asks Councillors to give authority to the Leader and me to sign an “in-principle” City Deal agreement.

So far the City Deal projects have been prioritised and agreed. We’ve held a pitch session to the First Minister and effectively have Welsh Government support and approval. We’ve also held a number of meetings with the Secretary of State for Wales – including meeting reps from supporting businesses.

In terms of the next steps, we’re preparing for a pitch session to UK Ministers in two weeks and hopefully we’ll get a positive announcement towards by the end of February.

Sustainable Swansea commissioning priorities

During the recent staff roadshows we highlighted how the Sustainable Swansea programme is evolving into a cross-cutting themes approach. At this week’s Corporate Management Team away day we considered potential priority areas for the next round of commissioning reviews which will be outcome-based rather than service specific. These include outcomes for children outcomes for adults, transportation, capital programme, sustainable communities and prevention.

Once finalised the priorities will be the focus for the Sustainable Swansea Programme. Sarah Caulkin, our Chief Transformation Officer, is pulling together a transformation register of all activity as we recognise that change is going on across the organisation.

The next step will be to discuss these priorities at Leadership Team, involving Heads of Service and Directors to get support. There are also workshops planned for February where managers will be engaging staff in their own areas to discuss the priorities and to agree what can be done in individual teams and services to put them into action.

Inappropriate behaviour

You’ll know from previous blogs how strongly I feel about people treating our staff with respect. There’s no place for abusive behaviour and I’m delighted that the Innovation Community has been looking at this issue. Today I’m meeting some staff to consider how we turn their ideas into actions. It’s not an easy issue but we want to be creative in our approach so that we get the message across to the public that they should treat our staff with respect. I’ll update you as we make progress.

Well done

An independent panel has now shortlisted nominees for the annual Swansea Sports Awards, which are organised by our sport and health team. A special mention to three members of staff who’ve been shortlisted: Karen Gibbins, in our library service, and Sam Richards, in our cultural services team, both for volunteer of the year; and Adam Thomas, also from our cultural services team, for young volunteer of the year. Fingers crossed for all three who deserve recognition for their efforts.

It’s great to see more than 15 of our schools have now achieved RRS (Rights Respecting School) Level 2 – the highest level of the award granted by Unicef UK to schools that have fully embedded children’s rights in their policies, practice and ethos. YGG Llwynderw has become the first Welsh medium school in Wales to achieve the award. Assessors were full of praise for the staff and pupils and noted that it had an inclusive, warm and nurturing atmosphere which is based on an appreciation of rights and respecting one another. Congratulations to headteacher Gayle Shenton and everyone at the school.

The Guildhall is featuring in a trailer for a new movie starring Gemma Arterton, Bill Nighy and Jeremy Irons. Cast and crew were here in the autumn to film scenes for ‘Their Finest’ – a film set in World War Two. My thanks to staff in marketing for facilitating the filming request.

It’s All About You

November 25, 2016 by Martin 2 Comments

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the It’s All About You 2 event at the Marriott Hotel which was a massive success. Thanks to all the staff who attended and particularly those who spoke to me while I was wandering round or in the “Confidentiality Booth”. It was great to see so many people there, particularly from staff based at the depots as well as office based employees. We received a huge number of innovative suggestions about how services can be improved, how staff can be better involved and supported, and ways in which we can save money and generate income. A comprehensive list will be prepared for the Corporate Management Team to consider over the coming weeks.

The event may have appeared chaotic but was incredibly well organised and my thanks go to all involved including Leanne Cutts, Bob Fenwick, Ann Smith, Anne Sennett, Rebecca Tribe, Mark Gosney, Lee O’Hara and Katja Davies. Congratulations also must go to the former Swans striker Lee Trundle who outscored the entire Corporate Management Team in his knowledge of unusual council statistics, including what types of animals have been left in council houses and how many thousands of tons of sand had been shifted to create dunes at Swansea Bay. A report of the day will be posted on Staffnet shortly.

This event along with the staff survey feedback and the upcoming staff roadshows show our determination to engage staff.

We’ll be holding staff roadshows in the next few weeks to update people on the budget and Sustainable Swansea. There are roadshows next week for senior managers followed by a series of events for staff starting on December 5 for two weeks. I’d like as many staff as possible to go along so please make every effort to attend.

We’re improving

The Wales Audit Office Annual Improvement Report (AIR) was presented to Council by Steve Barry from the WAO last night. The report concludes the Council has continued to improve in its priority areas and its arrangements are likely to support future improvement. This is excellent news and the report was well received by the members of Council. This report reflects the work done by officers and councillors in this authority and I’m delighted that your efforts have been reflected and praised by the WAO. Having said this, there is still more to do and the WAO make further recommendations on how we might improve the effectiveness of decision making, the external reporting of performance, performance management, delivery of savings and service business planning. The Corporate Management Team have action plans in place to respond to these recommendations so that we can maintain the pace of progress

City Centre

The Leader was at Meridian Tower on Monday to give a presentation of the progress of plans to regenerate the city centre to to Swansea’s business community. He was joined by representatives of Rivington Land, the company managing the regeneration of the site. The was the launch of the first stage of pre-application consultation on the proposals for Swansea Central (the development of the St David’s and Oystermouth Road sites in Swansea city centre). This was an important part of the planning process and around 50 people attended.

A new indoor arena, new shops, restaurants, a boutique cinema, a hotel and a broad footbridge over Oystermouth Road are among the ideas and concepts, which have now gone out for consultation. All feedback received will help inform the submission of an outline planning application in March, 2017. You can have your say by visiting or by going along to a public exhibition next to New Look in St Mary’s Square on Thursday December 1 (10am to 8pm), Friday December 2 (10am to 4pm) or Saturday December 3 (10am to 4pm).

A second event is being held at the Grand Theatre on 16 December.

Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

This week’s budget statement contained a number of headlines but I think it was hugely significant that the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, recommitted the Government’s support for the Swansea Bay City Deal. The Leader and I will be visiting London in the next week or so to meet with the Secretary of State, Alun Cairns, along with the business leaders who are supporting our bid. Wales will also get an extra £400m over five years to spend on capital projects, although it is not yet clear what this money will be targeted on.

Corporate Health Standard Gold Award

Congratulations to all involved in the recent visit by the assessor from Public Health Wales who was inspecting our work on wellbeing and as part of the revalidation process under the new Wales Government criteria for Gold Awards. We were successful in this, receiving significant praise from the assessor for the all the pro-active work and innovation. They recognised our commitment, strategy, innovation and investment in the staff wellbeing. Helping Hands was also praised for the idea, growth, its quality, staff engagement, diversity and support it offers. A report will be submitted shortly highlighting our strengths, improvements and development points for the future. The Welsh Government will receive the recommendation to issue us with the new Gold Award shortly.

White Ribbon Day

Today (Friday November 25) is White Ribbon Day, where we’ll again be highlighting the issue of tackling male domestic violence against women. To mark the day, an event is taking place at the domestic abuse one-stop shop on Singleton Street, opposite the Grand Theatre, from 10am to 3pm.

Sparkle

Swansea Diversity Seminar takes place today to raise awareness of the diversity present within the transgender community and provide an opportunity for networking across a number of agencies. It’s held in the Guildhall Council Chamber from 9am-1.30pm. and Swansea’s fifth Transgender Sparkle Event will be held at the National Waterfront Museum tomorrow. There’ll be information and retail stalls and evening entertainment from 7pm, including local performers and a resident DJ.

Amazing staff stories

We all felt the terrible weather earlier this week but thankfully our staff responded magnificently. Our highways teams were worked through the night to keep our city moving and our call centre were kept busy across all services, with one member of the team taking 175 calls in a day! These are just a few examples so thank you to everyone who responded so brilliantly.

Talk about going the extra mile to benefit residents! Sue Walters in our registrars team was conducting a wedding at the King Arthur Hotel on Saturday when she slipped and broke her leg. But unaware of the extent of her injury, Sue soldiered on in great discomfort to conduct another two weddings after her accident. Well done Sue and I hope you recover quickly.

And finally, our events staff do a terrific job every year in organising the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k. Now we can help them get the recognition they deserve by voting for the race to be named the best 10k in the UK at the 2017 Running Awards. Please get your vote in for the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k here and vote by the end of the month.

The race came in second place earlier this year, so this is a chance to make sure it gets top spot next year.