Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Budget report published

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A huge effort this week has gone into finalising our budget proposals for next year.

We’ve spent months discussing options with Members and we’ve now published the report for Cabinet on December 14. The budget has been a consistent theme in my blog so you’ll know the issues we face in terms of government funding, new spending pressures and a number of our services are over-spent due to rising demand and pressures.

It hasn’t been easy to reach this point and I want to thank the officers across the council who’ve been involved in preparing proposals and completing EIAs, along with Ben Smith, Sarah Willis and the finance team and staff in Access to Services, Communications and Democratic Services.

Once Cabinet agree proposals we’ll be consulting with the public and staff. We’ve planned a series of staff roadshows in January where you can learn more and have your say.

CMT has agreed further steps to reduce this year’s over-spend. On top of the vacancy freeze and spending restrictions, we’re reducing non-essential spending in the following ways:

  • Review and reduce the number of p-cards.
  • A workshop for staff with “buyer access” to Oracle.
  • All non-essential items removed from the i-procurement catalogue.
  • Non-essential spending approved by:
  • ICT hardware and software – Jo Harley.
  • Furniture – Geoff Bacon.
  • Advertising and bulk printing (non MFD) – Lee Wenham
  • Publicity/promotions – Lee Wenham

It’s more important than ever that we all support these measures to help reduce our in-year spending.

Phones

We’ve all been facing problems with our phone network in the past week. But we’ve been working on a modern, longer-term solution with the roll-out of Unified Communications. The current system is old and will continue to give us problems, so the sooner we can complete this move to the new system the better. My thanks to our networks team who’ve been working so hard to fix these issues and to those staff helping us switch to the new system.

City Deal

On Thursday the Leader and I attended an event for businesses as a means of updating them on the City Deal.  Around 200 businesses attended and the progress made was recognised by all.  There was a welcome sense of real anticipation and positivity among the businesses given some of their concerns over Brexit and the economy.  The leadership demonstrated by the public sector was warmly welcomed.  The Welsh and UK governments will shortly be conducting an independent review of the whole City Deal as the final stage of the project approval process and I hope they use this review to streamline processes and remove bureaucracy from the current approval arrangements.

Openreach

Having had discussions with Openreach for the past few weeks, it’s good to see the roll-out of the fibre network in Swansea.  The initial phase for SA1, SA2 and SA5 will hopefully be quickly followed by a broader roll-out to put Swansea in the leading pack for digital connectivity in the UK.  It’ll be about 24 times faster than the current UK average. Thanks to all who’ve been involved in delivering this latest sign of private sector confidence in the city.

New First Minister

Mark Drakeford has been elected Leader of Welsh Labour which means that he is likely to become First Minister in due course. I hope his appointment will give local government more clarity on reorganisation, regional working and the final budget settlement. The Leader and Cabinet Members have worked closely with him in his previous Welsh Government roles so I hope we can build on this.

Supporting families

We’ve received a toolkit from the Home Office to support EU citizens and their families to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. Hopefully, it’ll help our staff deal with key issues such as housing, benefits, voting and safeguarding among others. We’ll provide further information to staff shortly.

Congratulations and thanks 

Colleagues in Social Services won a total of 16 awards at Tuesday’s Patient Choice Awards. The awards are a chance for patients, service users, carers, family and friends to say thanks to those who made a real difference by providing outstanding care. It’s great to get this recognition and I know many staff go the extra mile. Well done to all of you.

The team at our baling plant went the extra mile when a family got in touch to say their young daughter’s much-loved toy bunny had been accidentally placed in the waste compactor. She is about to go for her 39th operation and she’d had the toy as a baby. Plant supervisor Martin Rees along with Paul Brown, Andrew Phillips and Lee Howells emptied the skip and searched for the toy, eventually finding it after 45 minutes, much to the relief of the family. Thank you boys, that’s a lovely effort.

Our Property team have been praised in the Allotment and Leisure Gardener magazine. Having helped allotment holders manage their own sites, it said we’d done “everything to help this transition run smoothly”, and added: “Here in Swansea it’s an exciting future for the allotment movement.”

 

 

Are we a good parent?

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The Care Inspectorate Wales have been with us again this week and I met with them on Wednesday to talk through our approach as a corporate parent, our progress on safeguarding and the performance of our Children’s Services.

Thanks to Gemma Whyley and Julie Thomas for their support and guidance as the inspection process is an important one if we are to improve our services further.  Amongst the areas I felt confident but not complacent about was our performance as a corporate parent and the work done across the organisation to ensure children in our care have the best start in life and are able to realise their ambitions.  This is a reflection of the work done for children in care by staff across the council which I’m very proud of and grateful for.  This was particularly important as children in care was a key theme for the inspectors.

A good corporate parent should think the same way about the children in its care as any other parent should do.  Are they able to achieve their ambitions, experience a good education, feel safe and secure, live free from poverty and enjoy life?  There were a number of examples beyond the direct work of social services that I was able to give to demonstrate this commitment, including the measures we’ve taken on housing, education, council tax, the apprenticeship strategy, Beyond Bricks and Mortar and cultural event invites, all of which benefit children in our care and care leavers.

We won’t know the outcome from CIW for some weeks yet but thanks to all the staff involved in the inspection. I hope to thank them in person this afternoon at an event to mark the end of the three-week inspection.

Regionalisation

We’re waiting to hear the next steps in relation to local government reform following the scrapping of compulsory merger proposals.  It sounds like another working group is on its way and I’ll be seeking to be represented on it.  In the meantime, I’ve spent this week in joint committee meetings for ERW and Western Bay and at the City Deal programme board.  The workload associated with all this collaboration is growing massively and following the senior management restructure I’ll be looking at the best way to ensure we’re represented at the various meetings that have filled up my calendar.

There are some significant challenges in relation to ERW which I’ll be working with regional colleagues on and there’s much to be done on the Western Bay collaboration in preparation for Bridgend Council’s departure next April.

Your home, your health

I’ve been working with colleagues in housing, social care and the health board to organise a symposium on housing and health at the Liberty Stadium in October.  The links between good housing and good health outcomes are strong and I hope the symposium can help us develop our strategies and investment programmes to help promote independence for older people, combat the scourge of homelessness and tackle the impacts of welfare reform and fuel poverty.  I’ll say more about this as the date approaches but if you are interested then you might wish to mark October 5 as a date in your diary.

High 5

The nominations for this year’s High 5 Awards are closing today. Thank you to everyone who’s been involved and to those who’ve nominated young people. I look forward to the judging process and planning the awards night in the autumn.

End of term        

As the end of the school year approaches I’d like to thank all the teachers and support staff for their efforts during the year.  I’ve been impressed with the performance of schools across the city and this has been evidenced in a series of ESTYN inspection reports throughout the year.  Have a well-earned rest and come back refreshed after the summer break as the next cohort of learners will be arriving.  Thanks to all.

Best wishes

Another long-serving employee is leaving with Clare Watson setting out for a new life in Brittany. Clare has worked as a specialist teacher for 20 Years and has 37 years’ experience working with pupils with additional learning needs. Based at YG Bryn Tawe during the last 14 years, Clare has provided support to pupils from Welsh medium schools as well as providing essential training across Swansea.

 

Another one bites the dust

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During the past year I’ve mentioned local government reorganisation and last month I speculated the current proposals were going nowhere fast. Well, as predicted, at the recent WLGA Annual Conference in Llandudno it became very clear that the idea of compulsory mergers between councils is well and truly in the bin.  There’ll be no forced amalgamations of councils, but where do we go from here? There’s some logic to the argument there are too many councils in Wales and our council has remained consistently pragmatic on the merger issue.  The way forward now must be through stronger, more accountable and more consistent collaboration between the councils in Wales.  We have a strong record in driving these collaborations but they’re far from perfect.  Many councillors I speak to feel disengaged and distant from the new joint committees that run the City Deal, school improvement and health and social care.  There are no common footprints and our officers spend an increasing amount of time on regional work.  I suspect we’ll be collaborating further on the three footprints identified by the previous Cabinet Secretary, Mark Drakeford.

The current senior management review that was agreed by Council on June 21 will put us in a stronger place to manage the increasing workload resulting from greater collaboration.  My aim is to complete the implementation of the changes by the end of August.

Appraisal review

At CMT we discussed the current arrangements for staff appraisal and performance management.  The existing process and supporting systems are outdated and it’s time for a root and branch review of the whole thing.  I‘ve asked that staff views are fully taken into account in this review so I hope you’ll all contribute to developing a better system.  Annual reviews are helpful but I’m keen to see more regular dialogue between managers and their teams and I know this already happens in some service areas.

We also received a comprehensive report on adult safeguarding from the Head of Adult Services, Alex Williams, before some detailed discussions on the current and future budget challenges.  The need to reduce spend in-year and to manage vacancies is an urgent one and CMT will continue to monitor this over the coming months.  I’d prefer to protect existing jobs from the threat of redundancy rather than employ additional staff who might subsequently find themselves under threat.   Discretionary spend must be contained and I know this will cause difficulties for all of us but there are some major pressures building up in the system which we will have to meet.  This is a situation that all councils in Wales face and it’s likely to get more difficult in the future.

SEQOHS

We’ve just been inspected by the Faculty of Occupational Medicine as part of the re-accreditation process for the Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service. Although we’re waiting for the formal outcome, the informal feedback is really pleasing. They recognised many areas of good practice, including our induction arrangements, business continuity plans and the quality of our service. My thanks to everyone involved.

Lagoon – regional talks

Last week I mentioned we’re continuing to look at options for the lagoon and on Monday the City Deal Joint Committee will be considering them.  I’ll keep you updated as these discussions progress.

Lost in Penyrheol

On Wednesday Penyrheol Primary School received a visit from our local songstress Bonnie Tyler.  It came about because the reception class chose to learn about Bonnie for Welsh Week. When she learned what they’d done she offered to visit and even sang Total Eclipse of the Heart, accompanied by the entire school during assembly. She then presented the reception pupils with signed photos and CDs. Well done to everyone involved.

Events

Despite the poor weather on Sunday this year’s Wales Airshow was another great success.  After spending the day on Swansea beach the clouds were a blessed relief.  On Sunday evening I went to the site to see how the clean-up operation was going and was astonished to see that it was almost complete.  Thanks to all involved for delivering this for the city.

This weekend sees the return of Dance Days which is one of my favourite annual events.  The programme, organised by the Taliesin Arts Centre, takes place in and around the National Waterfront Museum and is a must for fans of dance.  Apparently this is my 100th blog so thanks for taking the time to read it.

Pleasing performance

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Our latest annual performance results show we’re continuing to improve in our priority areas and national targets. We all know how tough the local government climate is with reduced budgets and growing demands, but our staff are continuing to make huge efforts to improve services for people.

We’ll be reporting the outturn to councillors in the coming weeks but in terms of our five Corporate Priorities, here’s a few highlights from the report:

  • Safeguarding people from harm – our preventative care model in Adult Services is having a positive impact and we’re continuing to make progress in Children’s Services, despite a higher than expected level of demand.
  • Improving education and skills – the picture is improving and we’ve had our best attendance levels and a number of pleasing school inspections. We’ll be working closely with schools to bring further improvements.
  • Transforming our economy and infrastructure – some major projects are moving forward, such as the Digital Arena. We’re providing training and employment via our Bricks and Mortar scheme and we’re above target in dealing with planning applications.
  • Tackling poverty – there’s progress through a range of initiatives and this’ll be further supported by our new Poverty Strategy.
  • Transformation and future council development – our ambitious changes continue through channel shift to online, completing and implementing 15 out of 17 Commissioning Reviews, although more work is needed on reducing sickness absence and managing our budgets.

Overall, the performance is really pleasing and, whilst there’s always more to be done, I and Corporate Management Team are delighted with the efforts of staff and I’d like to thank you for everything you do. The report will now go through the political cycle and the details will be published.

New Cabinet

Leader Rob Stewart has unveiled a new Cabinet structure to tackle the council’s priorities and the challenges we face.  The structure was agreed at yesterday’s Annual Council Meeting:

  • Rob Stewart – Economy and Strategy (Leader)
  • Clive Lloyd – Business Transformation and Performance (Deputy Leader)
  • David Hopkins – Delivery
  • Mark Child – Care, Health and Ageing Well
  • Jen Raynor – Education Improvement, Learning and Skills
  • Robert Francis-Davies – Investment, Regeneration and Tourism
  • Andrea Lewis – Homes and Energy
  • Mark Thomas – Environment and Infrastructure Management
  • Elliott King – Children’s Services Early Years
  • Will Evans – Children’s Services Young People
  • June Burtonshaw – Better Communities Place
  • Mary Sherwood – Better Communities People

Further details of individual Cabinet portfolios are here and information on committees will be updated later today.

Children’s Services Inspection

We were notified this week that the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) will undertake an inspection of our Children’s Services in July. The inspection will focus on the effectiveness of services and arrangements to help and protect children and their families and will particularly consider the experience and progress of looked after children and care leavers including the quality of preventative interventions, decision-making, care and support and pathway planning.  The inspection will consider arrangements for permanence for looked after children and children who return home. This will include the use of fostering, including adherence to fostering service regulation and national minimum standards, residential care and children placed out of local authority area.   It will also evaluate the quality of leadership, corporate parenting, including the management and governance arrangements in place to develop and support service delivery.

Children’s Services has remained consistently on the agenda for CMT since the difficulties we experienced some years ago and I’ve been particularly pleased with the corporate commitment to some of our innovations.  I mentioned in a recent blog that the Children’s Commissioner published her Hidden Ambitions report which recognised our work in helping care leavers to become apprentices, supporting their housing needs and using our Beyond Bricks and Mortar scheme to secure training and employment opportunities. Inspections are often unsettling experiences but I’m confident that staff and councillors will demonstrate our commitment to this critical service area.

City Deal

All is now set for approving the City Deal Joint Working Agreement at Council next month.  At this week’s shadow joint committee meeting we discussed the regional digital infrastructure projects.  A series of bids are being prepared to deliver the fibre-based infrastructure that will ensure the city and the region are digitally ready for the next wave of technology.

The Biggest Weekend

The eyes and ears of the music world will be on Swansea this weekend when the BBC’s Biggest Weekend comes to Singleton Park. The likes of Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran will be leading the greatest collection of pop stars the city has seen in a single event. This has taken a huge amount of planning and organising and I’m grateful to all our staff who’ve worked so hard to bring this prestigious event to Swansea. There’s a series of spin-off initiatives as well that’ll have a lasting legacy.

Congratulations

The positive impact of Western Bay’s regional working across health and social care has landed two prestigious prizes at the All Wales Continuous Improvement Community’s (AWCIC) Annual Awards.  Western Bay won ‘Best Local Government Initiative’, and ‘Achieving a Common Purpose’ for its Commissioning for Complex Needs Programme which addresses irregularities in the quality of care across the region.  Well done to everyone involved.

I’m delighted that our city centre has once again been awarded the Purple Flag by the Association of Town and City Management. It’s great recognition for the partnership we’re involved in to make this area’s night-time economy safe and welcoming. Thank you to everyone for their efforts.

GDPR

New data protection laws (GDPR) take effect today and means people will have more rights over how personal information is used.  It also increases the responsibility of organisations like ours in the way we collect, store, use and share personal data – with much larger fines for breaches in the law.  More: www.swansea.gov.uk/staffnet/gdpr

I’m away next week so my next blog will be on June 8.

Two steps forward, one step back

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Economic development

The Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon has had a tough week, but we’ll continue to work with the company to deliver this much-needed project.  The company chairman, Keith Clarke, has made the position very clear and I hope they’ll take forward the proposals with renewed impetus. The Leader, Deputy Leader and I met Lord Adonis last week, former chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, to update him on the progress made to date.  He was very supportive of the lagoon and I know he’ll be helping to get some important messages to the Government in the coming weeks.

Yesterday I attended the City Deal Programme Board where we finalised the joint working agreement for approval at the joint committee next week.  We’ll then seek Council approval to sign it next month.  Thanks to all the officers who’ve helped to complete it.  We’ve also been discussing a potential future bid under the national Local Full Fibre Network programme and this would radically improve the city and regional digital infrastructure.  The next few months will be very busy as the City Deal projects get under way so thanks also to all involved in their delivery.

CMT

CMT discussed a lot of important issues.  In addition to the latest updates on the revenue and capital budgets, we considered a new Compact with the Third Sector, reward and recognition of staff and the Cultural Services commissioning review.  The Cultural Services review is a massive piece of work and thanks go to Tracey McNulty and Jamie Rewbridge who patiently took us through the reports and answered all of our questions.  This will now be presented to Cabinet for their consideration. Our discussion on reward and recognition covered a lot of ground, building on the work of the Innovation Community.  I’m conscious that our approach to reward and recognition has not been a consistent one across all services and I want us to put that right so that it’s fairly and equally done for all staff.  More on this in the near future.

Objectives

I mentioned last week I’d be publishing my objectives.  Please follow this link to see them.

Inauguration

Today marks the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor of Swansea, Councillor David Phillips, and Lady Mayoress Councillor Sybil Crouch.  I’ll be attending Council this afternoon for the formal ceremony.  I wish both an exciting and enjoyable year in their role which I know they’ll undertake with great enthusiasm. My thanks go to the outgoing Lord Mayor, Councillor Phil Downing who, along with his wife Lilian, has done a fantastic job representing the city at a mind-boggling number of events.  They have raised the profile of Swansea at every opportunity and I’m very grateful to them for that.

Congratulations

Our Corporate Health, Safety, Emergency Management & Wellbeing Service has been awarded the Health & Wellbeing Shield. It recognises the work of occupational health, mandatory and bespoke training, stress management, helping hands and bully buddies. We were also rewarded for outstanding Health & Safety performance. Martin Rogers, from Waste Management, was runner-up for Employee of the Year in recognition of his work to improve health and safety at the bailing plant. The HSE, which was part of the judging panel, now want to use us as the example of best practice for others. This is a great achievement and thank you to everyone for their efforts.

I was delighted to hear we had three finalists at the Welsh Teaching Awards last week, all from Pontarddulais Comprehensive School.  They were:

  • Dylan Lewis – Best Use of Digital Learning
  • Hannah Hopkins – Teacher of the Year
  • Jan Waldron – Headteacher of the Year.

Congratulations to all three and it was fantastic that Dylan and Jan won.  During my visit to the school last year I was very impressed by what they were doing and it’s wonderful news that they’ve been recognised on the national stage for their efforts.

Our run of impressive Estyn inspection reports continues with congratulations to head teacher Alison Williams and all the team at Craigfelen Primary. The school was rated excellent in three of the five inspection areas and good in the other two.

The report noted how pupils enjoy going to the school and are very proud of their achievements. Equally important was the inspectors’ comments about how much families value the school’s provision so highly. Well done to all.

The miracle that didn’t happen

Sadly the much hoped for miracle never happened last Sunday and the Swans were officially relegated from the Premier League.  Let’s hope they can rebuild next season and once again secure top flight football for the city.  The last seven years have seen the city profile rise and they can be truly proud of their achievement.