Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Our city deal projects are on track

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One of the major issues for us is to deliver the City Deal projects, especially the multi-million pound regeneration of the city centre. We need the City Deal funding to build the planned Digital Arena and other key development sites. You may have seen the recent adverse coverage over one of the other projects, the wellness village in Carmarthenshire. This led to some Swansea University staff being suspended and intervention by the UK and Welsh Governments which led to a review being carried out. At the same time the City Region joint committee commissioned an independent review. Both reviews looked at the governance arrangements rather than those issues related to the university staff. These have now been published and have recommended changes to improve the governance. At the moment too much responsibility and work rests with Carmarthenshire and it’s recognised other partners have to share this load. But one of the more positive outcomes was the recognition that the business case for the city centre is fit for purpose and will now move forward to the joint committee and the UK government, which is in stark contrast to the wellness village. Although there are still some steps to take, this is great news and I’d like to thank all the staff involved in preparing this business case.

The major item at this week’s Corporate Management Team was ensuring we deliver on next year’s budget savings. We can’t have a repeat of the overspends that have occurred in recent years and it’s vital that we have an oversight process in place where senior members and officers together monitor progress on a regular basis. We have to ensure where savings can’t be delivered that we have alternatives in place as we have to hit the overall target, given that we’ve nearly exhausted our reserves. I’ll keep you updated on progress.

CMT also looked at mandatory training for staff which at the moment looks messy and inconsistent. As always, the dilemma is how we provide it to those who don’t have computer access because some of this training relates to issues like health and safety and safeguarding and there shouldn’t be any excuse for not doing it. I think there’s a lack of clarity about what mandatory training we need to do, and it’s important that staff know what training they should be undertaking. Leadership Team have been given a few weeks to sort this out.

I mentioned last week that officers reacted brilliantly to the sad demise of Dawnus who were our main contractor on the Kingsway scheme and our new Pupil Referral Unit at Cockett. Our staff have been on site this week making it safe and secure and carrying out some works. Others have been putting in place the necessary steps to appoint a new contractor which is now nearing completion. We hope to re-start work on site in the coming weeks and we’re taking similar steps on the PRU scheme. Thank you to all the staff who’ve really pulled out all the stops on this.

After many months of discussion and consultation, the closure of two schools were approved by Cabinet yesterday. Officers and Cabinet have looked at a range of options for YGG Felindre and Craigcefnparc where pupil numbers are very low. We believe this is the best option for pupils, although it’s never an easy decision to close schools. Thank you to all the staff in areas including education, legal and finance for their professionalism throughout.

Finally, I met Mary Sherwood, Cabinet Member for Better Communities, to discuss progress with the poverty forum, a subject which is very important to me. We agreed to arrange a forum in the next few weeks to ensure a continued focus on this work.

We are preparing for Brexit, whatever that means!

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The role of chief executive, like many jobs, ranges from the mundane to the interesting, but in recent days it’s certainly moved to the bizarre!

I’ve been asked to prepare for Brexit, but if anyone out there can tell me what I’m meant to be preparing for I’d be really grateful. We also recently received a small grant for the extra costs Brexit will generate, but I’m not sure what those extra costs are yet!

On a more serious note, Adam Hill and Craig Gimblett have attended various working groups set up by the Welsh Government to look at issues like loss of food and fuel supplies. But to me, this doesn’t seem entirely realistic, although more may become clearer in the next week or so.

Our £12m scheme for the Kingsway is in the news because our main contractor, Dawnus, is in difficulties. But behind these headlines there’s the human story of the workers facing financial and other implications. Given this is a Swansea firm this is clearly a concern for us. As always, when faced with a crisis, our officers have risen to the challenge and a team of people are working to deal with the consequences of Dawnus’ plight and to ensure we complete this scheme. Dawnus were also our main contractor at our new pupil referral unit at Cockett and we’re taking similar steps to ensure this scheme goes ahead. There are many people involved, but particular thanks to Martin Nicholls, Stuart Davies, Alun Thomas, Gareth Hughes and Debbie Smith.

Today we’ll be launching the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Swansea’s city status. Throughout the year we’ll be staging a programme of events and activities to celebrate everything good about our city, and today’s event is to spread the word to our stakeholders and partners who can “be part of it”. We’ve create a logo for the 50th and we’ll be using this on our website, social media, printed materials etc to help promote Swansea. We’re also adding it to our email signature so please follow this guidance and adopt the logo on your work emails.

Regional working across issues like health and education were a feature of local government life when I left in 2016 and it remains so today. I understand the current Welsh Local Government Minister, Julie James, will be introducing legislative steps this Spring to encourage further regional working. So it’s with some dismay that I see Neath Port Talbot are threatening to leave ERW, the regional education consortium, along with refusing to make their financial contributions this year or in the year of their notice. This council’s position is that we’re committed to working with others in regional structures which are resourced and governed properly so it can be seen to make a positive contribution to outcomes for children and young people. The NPT position appears to be borne out of self-interest and is in my opinion unprofessional. We’ll pursue their financial contribution so that it doesn’t impact on other partners. The reality is that regionalisation, or elements of it, is the direction of travel and we have a duty to make it work.

Corporate Management Team reviewed our corporate risk register. It seems to me the continuing loss of funding increases the probability of some of these risks occurring so we have to be clear about the mitigation we put in place.

We also considered proposals for replacing our Oracle system covering finance and HR. As always with IT we face the dilemma that the current system will become obsolete, but there are costs and resource implications when implementing the new version. CMT understood the case for replacing the system, but we’re not prepared to commit the financial or human resource until an implementation plan is devised giving assurance we can actually deliver it.

Rachel Moxey, Head of Poverty and Prevention, Gavin Evans and Damian James gave CMT a briefing on the future of our outdoor activity centres which are used by young people from across Swansea. CMT acknowledged the good work undertaken to improve the financial performance and operation of the centres which will help in the next few years. The briefing also looked at potential options for making the centres more sustainable in the longer term, but ultimately this will be a political decision and we’ll need to consider the resources needed if we were to, for example, go down the route of creating a trust.

Rachel is due to leave us to take up a new post in Pembrokeshire and Dave Howes, Director of Social Services, thanked her for her hard work and we wish her well.

Finally, I’ve received feedback in relation to my comments on the mental health strategy last week. Whilst I highlighted the service pressures and shortcomings, I should also have acknowledged the sterling work that our mental health social workers do in very challenging circumstances.

A promising year ahead

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A happy new year to you all. 2019 promises to be an interesting year.  I suspect Brexit will continue to dominate the news and the political debates but we’ll continue in our mission to improve the city whatever happens.

Following the holiday period the work to regenerate the Kingsway will gather momentum again as this critical part of the city infrastructure gets a long-awaited facelift.  I’m confident the plans Council approved will breathe new life into the city centre and the funding from UK and Welsh governments through the City Deal will supplement our own investment in this transformation.

At the same time we must maintain our focus on the other corporate priorities and we’ll be reinforcing this important message in the forthcoming staff roadshows – more on these below.  As some of you know I’m not a big fan of Christmas but if I’d made a list to Santa it would have included;

  • Greater clarity on Brexit from the UK Government at the earliest opportunity
  • A sense of direction from the Welsh Government on the future shape of local government
  • Some real evidence that austerity is over, including a fair financial settlement for local government

Sadly thus far Santa has been unable to find my house but let’s hope 2019 will bring these to us at some point.

Staff roadshows

As you know, Cabinet agreed to consult on our budget proposals for next year. The public consultation is already under way, which staff can take part in, but on top of this we’re holding a series of staff roadshows at various council venues this month.

I’ll be attending some of the roadshows, and Adam Hill, our Deputy Chief Executive, will be fronting many of them along with directors and heads of service. I hope as many of you as possible can attend these so we can get your views and thoughts on where we are and where we’re heading as an organisation. Here’s a list of the roadshows, please agree with your manager which session to come along to.

We’re also producing a staff survey next week for you to give your views on proposals that affect our workforce.

Care home fire

On December 21 I was alerted at about 6.30pm that there had been a serious fire at a private dementia care home in Gorseinon.  As you might expect the rest of the evening was spent on the phone as our emergency planning and social services colleagues worked tirelessly to relocate the 27 vulnerable people who needed to be rehoused immediately.  This was one of the toughest logistical challenges we have faced for a number of years and the response was simply amazing.

I must thank all our colleagues who responded brilliantly. The residents were all assessed at the scene and two needed hospital treatment. Our emergency duty team had to find temporary accommodation for the remaining residents who moved into the spare beds we have at Parkway. It was a real team effort as our staff worked with colleagues from the fire, police, health services in very difficult circumstances.

From our end it involved colleagues from emergency planning, transport and social services who are too numerous to mention by name. Many, even though they were not on shift, made themselves available at no notice and worked long into the night.  It really was a superb reaction. Thank you all.

Reverse advent calendar

Congratulations and thanks to all involved in the “Reverse Advent Calendar” in the run up to Christmas.  Four charities, the West Wales Poundies, Morriston Hospital Children’s Ward, Zacs Place Homeless Support and the Salvation Army church, were all supported by the efforts and generous donations of our staff.  Hats off to the organisers of this initiative which I hope will go from strength to strength in the future.