swansea sports awards

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.

Directors and Cabinet have been locked in budget discussions this week as we look to bridge our £14m budget gap.

We’re trying to do it in a way that minimises disruption to services and protects jobs, but this is obviously going to be tricky given the size of the savings and previous budget reductions. By the end of today we should have a series of proposals which will form the basis of consultation with staff, councillors, trade unions and the public. Our budget proposals will reflect our corporate priorities, particularly education and social care. The discussions have been quite challenging and a huge amount of work has been done to generate savings ideas, many of which have come from individual employees. They also include ideas that are cross-cutting which shows we are moving away from the silo approach. The budget proposals are due to go to Cabinet on December 12 so the report will be published in early December. We have a series of staff roadshows planned and I’d encourage everyone to attend so that we can update you on the budget and Sustainable Swansea.

Big deal

Another big issue for me this week has been the City Deal. Yesterday the Leader and I went to Cardiff with colleagues from the City Region to make a pitch for the Swansea Bay City Deal to First Minister Carwyn Jones. He was joined by Cabinet colleagues Mark Drakeford (Finance and Local Government) and Ken Skates (Economy and Infrastructure). Our Leader, Rob Stewart, made the presentation, clearly and confidently setting out the reasons why the Welsh Government should support the bid, click here for details. This was followed by 90 minutes of in-depth challenge from the assembly members present. The purpose of the pitch was to explain the challenges and ambitions facing South West Wales and to seek Welsh Government support for the 11 regional projects over the next 20 years. The next step in the coming weeks will be a similar exercise with the UK government in London. Following that we’d hope for an announcement prior to Christmas. Financial support from both governments is essential.

Remembrance

Today at 11am we’ll be observing the two-minute silence to remember the sacrifices of our armed services down the years and in the present day. Please observe the occasion. My thanks also to the team organising Silence in the Square in Castle Square this morning.

Coming to the rescue

We often say our employees go the extra mile, but this week three members of staff performed heroics. Tim Orrell and Ellen Richards, who work in in the Nature Conservation Team, were on the second floor of the Civic Centre when they saw a lady in distress on the beach. She had a suspected broken ankle, having been knocked over by a dog. They realised she was getting cold so went and got a space blanket to try and keep her warm. The ambulance couldn’t reach the lady so they contacted their colleague Sean Hathaway, who had access to a 4×4 truck, and he took the lady from the beach to the ambulance. My thanks to Tim, Ellen and Sean for all their care and efforts.

Child care

We’ve been chosen as one of six trial areas for a new Welsh Government pilot initiative that aims to provide families with 30 hours of early years education and childcare a week. We’ve been chosen because of our impressive record of innovation in this area of practice which is already transforming education attainment opportunities among families in some of our city’s most deprived areas. This kind of recognition is great for our reputation as a forward-looking local authority and my thanks go to the teams involved and particularly to Sian Bingham who co-ordinated the bid.

Hillary is a Jack!

Hillary Clinton may not be heading to the White House but that hasn’t stopped our archives team tracing her Swansea family tree. Their research shows that her great-great grandfather, Edwin Howell, worked for a decade in the metal industries of South Wales in the 1870s – five years of which were spent in the Landore area of Swansea. One of Edwin’s sons, Benjamin Alfred Howell – Hillary’s great-great uncle – was born in Landore in 1872 in an area called Maesydd, according to his birth certificate, which archivists estimate to be the area around Mysydd Road in Swansea. At the moment there appears to be no Swansea connection with Mr Trump.

Regeneration latest

There’s been progress this week on our regeneration plans for the Civic Centre and St David’s development sites. We’ve now advertised for an indoor arena operator for the St David’s site, with an outline planning application for the overall scheme set for submission in March next year. We’re also in discussions with Swansea University and Trebor Developments, the company we’ve appointed to manage the regeneration of the Civic Centre site, about an interactive science gallery that could, along with a public aquarium, form part of the hydro hub planned for the site. This gallery would present examples of cutting-edge Swansea University research through hands-on exhibits. I’ll continue to keep you updated.

The Leader and Tracey McNulty, our head of cultural services, were at the restored and redeveloped Glynn Vivian Art Gallery yesterday for a Ministerial visit. Ken Skates, the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, was hugely impressed with the attraction, which has welcomed more than 10,000 visitors since re-opening on October 15. Well done to everyone involved.

Give your vote

A fantastic community project that helps people with learning disabilities needs your help. Staff in our day services team have been raising money for the past 18 months for the Trewarren garden project. It now features in the Aviva Community Fund awards which provides money to those projects with the highest number of votes. To learn more about the project and to vote please follow this link

Nominations are now open for the Swansea Sports Awards 2016, being run by our sport and health team. Visit this link to get your nominations in to recognise outstanding sporting achievements made by both our local and high profile sportspeople this year.

Pride in our standards

Bridging the budget gap