Staff Roadshow

Thanks to all those staff who attended the recent roadshows. More than 750 staff turned up and the fact so many expressed their views frankly to senior managers is encouraging. What can senior managers learn from the dialogue?

Well, firstly it’s clear many staff have deep concerns about the future of local government in the face of continuing austerity. This isn’t surprising given the continual pressure on services and insufficient funding. It’s clear, however, there are people keen to innovate and generate ideas which will help make us a more sustainable council.

A number of staff approached me after the events with suggestions and I’m conscious some people are not comfortable raising ideas in a large forum. CMT will discuss ideas with individual staff and there’s a staff suggestion scheme online for those with digital access, or you can give ideas to your manager. All suggestions are considered by the relevant Head of Service for implementation.

There’s also an impatience among some as to the pace of cultural change in the organisation and the need for us to focus on productivity and output rather than attendance and bureaucratic processes. CMT will consider the feedback from the roadshows over the coming weeks and I hope we can do justice to the invaluable feedback we’ve had.

Fostering stronger relations

The Leader and I have been discussing our relationship with the Welsh Government to raise Swansea’s profile nationally. In fairness we spend a large amount of time making the case for the city in the corridors on the Senedd and I’m impressing on the management team the need to have constructive dialogue with senior civil servants. There’s a danger policy makers at the national level are remote from the realities of working at the coal face and the impacts of their decisions or the missed opportunities for improving services. Unfortunately, demands of the job sometimes mean we struggle to devote enough time to this but I’ll be reinforcing the importance of building stronger relationships and presenting innovative proposals to the Welsh Government and making sure we exploit opportunities to attract more funding to this council and this city.

More Brexit sorry

Next Tuesday sees the next milestone in the runaway train that is Brexit as the debates will rage again in the House of Commons. It remains to be seen whether an unlikely compromise can be reached or whether we face a delay in Brexit or a further referendum. In the meantime, we’re continuing to plan for any eventuality. On Thursday I joined the discussions at the Welsh Government EU preparedness Advisory Panel. A lot of work has been done by the Welsh Government to support the economy, ensure continuity on the provision of health, care and education services and to mitigate the impacts of a no deal Brexit. There’s a website explaining what’s being done.

The Council hosted a roadshow presentation by the Home Office on the EU settlement scheme to inform EU citizens living in Swansea on the application process in relation to obtaining settled status. The roadshow was well supported with over 70 people hearing from the Home Office the steps they need to take and information and contacts they can contact to support them through the process. This also involved a Q&A session to address individual concerns and issues. The information and presentation will be uploaded to the web along with the information from the Q&A session.

Education

Our Director of Education, Nick Williams, has been off work due to ill health. I visited Nick this week and I’m delighted to say he’s doing well and looking forward to returning when he’s fully recovered.

Council last night agreed in Nick’s absence our Head of Vulnerable Learner Service, Mark Sheridan, will be our Statutory Director of Education on an interim basis.

A huge thank you to Mark, Helen Morgan-Rees, Brian Roles and the education team for stepping up to cover this crucially important role. Council also considered the strong progress made in delivering education department priorities last year and noted that the priorities for this academic year:

Improve teaching and learning with a particular focus on reducing inequalities for the most vulnerable
Improve leadership and school governance
Work in partnership to develop a sustainable education system
Embed the new ALN, wellbeing and behaviour strategies
Ensure all learning opportunities take place in safe environments

Fitting tribute

Pupils at Pontarddulais Comprehensive School will today be commemorating Sunday’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 and I’m encouraged our younger generations are so involved in today’s important event.

Great effort

Many thanks to staff in our winter maintenance team who worked around the clock making sure our roads were treated with grit during the low temperatures this week. While there were some issues on the roads I’m sure the work of our highways teams helped keep these to a minimum considering the conditions.

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.

Keep your ideas coming

A promising year ahead