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.

 

Setting objectives

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I had my annual appraisal this week to review my performance and to set my objectives for the coming year. The appraisal is done by a cross party group of councillors (known as the Chief Executive’s Appraisal and Remuneration Committee) whose job it is to hold me to account for the organisation’s performance and the commitments I gave to them on my appointment.  You may remember that I published my objectives in the blog last year. Thanks mainly to the efforts of our staff I was able to give a good account of myself as we’ve maintained or improved performance in the majority of services, despite facing significant budget reductions. It goes without saying that I’m very grateful to you for this.  The latest telephone survey indicates that two-thirds of our citizens are satisfied with the way we deliver services, although only one-third are likely to speak highly about us.  This still puzzles me but our feedback compares well with most other councils in the UK. The Committee considered my objectives for the coming year and I’ll post them on my blog when they’re confirmed.  In short I’ve committed to making sure the Council takes a strong lead in regional working, to delivering the City Deal, continuing the transformation of the Council, managing the budget and reviewing the senior management structure. This will be a challenging year for all of us with a grim financial outlook, potential local government reform and a huge challenge in re-modelling our city.  I hope with your support I can demonstrate further progress when the committee reviews my performance next year.

Local Government Reform

At Corporate Management Team we discussed the principles behind the Council response to the Welsh Government consultation on Strengthening Local Government: Delivering for People.  You’ll remember the proposal is to reduce the current 22 local councils to 10.  We hope to bring a report shortly to make sure that the views of Council are set out very clearly to the Welsh Government.  I know that the scrutiny panel chaired by Councillor Lyndon Jones looking into this will shortly produce their report and this will also help to inform our response which might include the following points that were raised by CMT:

  • Swansea Council is open to the idea of merger.
  • A voluntary merger approach is unlikely to deliver what the Welsh Government has set out.
  • If there’s a will to do this then it needs to be done rapidly i.e. by 2022.
  • The best model is the one that would deliver sustainable services over parochial interests.
  • We must first have a clear vision for local government in Wales expressed in outcomes for the next 10 to 20 years and structures should follow this.
  • There is no guarantee that biggest is always best.
  • There should be a radical delayering of responsibilities and accountabilities in local government in Wales to reflect Welsh Government as policy maker, local government as deliverer and a single inspectorate.
  • The merger proposals will create confusion in relation to existing collaborations. If authorities were to agree to merge, they may have very different views on arrangements that could freeze decision making on some collaborations until there is clarity.
  • There’ll be a large financial cost associated with local government re-organisation during a time of severe austerity. In 2014, CIPFA estimated that up-front costs of reorganisation across the whole of Wales could range between £160m and £268m.

When the report to Council is published I’ll add the link to my blog.  My best guess is that nothing is likely to happen quickly when the consultation ends as the Welsh Government are focussed on other things.

On a similar note, the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales has started an Electoral Review of Swansea’s Boundaries.  The consultation runs until July 24 and can be found here.

Virgin Media

I mentioned last week that Virgin Media had announced the start of consultation on the proposal to close its Swansea operation.  On Wednesday the Leader and I met the company to better understand and challenge the rationale for closure.  Whilst it’s clear the nature of the business is changing to reflect the fact that better digital infrastructure has reduced the number of fault calls dealt with at the Swansea contact centre, we told them that we thought it was a short-sighted move in the context of our City Deal digital projects. We’re already working with the company and Welsh Government to soften the blow through redeployment but I hope the company will take our views, and those of the workforce, into account when finalising a decision.

Congratulations

I was delighted to see an email from Nicole Dummett in Corporate Building and Property Services following the two recent awareness campaigns on Domestic Violence.  Staff in the department raised £193.49 and £161.43 towards the campaign for which the staff at the Domestic Violence One Stop Shop were extremely grateful. The first donation was spent on a Christmas party for some of our service users and their children, confidence-building classes and three children’s craft workshops.  This time I understand the donation will be used to support the Shoe Box scheme, particularly for male victims of domestic violence as the numbers are increasing.

Summer ball

Last night’s Lord Mayor’s Summer Ball was a great success. A series of awards were given out in recognition of people’s contribution to Swansea. I’m grateful to Joanne Jones in Corporate Marketing and all the team involved for organising a great event.

Hoping for a miracle

It looks like the Swans’ stay in the Premier League is all but over, barring the ten goal turnaround required for them to stay up. It’ll be a real shame to see the Swans relegated, not just for fans like me, but for the city and the wider region. There’s no doubt that having a Premier League club has been a great selling point for Swansea. So here’s hoping for a minor miracle at the weekend or a better season next year!

Shifting boundaries

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The battle lines over local government reorganisation appear to have been drawn. Last Friday I updated you on the Welsh Government proposals to reduce to 10 councils, but on the same day you may have seen coverage of a feisty meeting between council leaders and the Cabinet Secretary.  I won’t make further comment at this time but I did say it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.  Swansea has consistently been open to considerations on merger but it’s unclear what the views of our neighbours are.  We’ll be holding discussions with them over the coming weeks to develop an understanding.  In the meantime, I’ve submitted some observations to our scrutiny inquiry panel which I hope will be helpful in their deliberations.

Education funding

I met with the Welsh Government Education team to discuss the thorny topic of the Minority Ethnic Achievement Grant.  You may have read about this in the media.  Councillors in Swansea and elsewhere have been unhappy about the funding reductions by the Welsh Government and I’ve been doing my best to recover the position, or at least some of it.  The Welsh Government have made it clear that they want consistent regional models for the distribution of education grant funding but this is not without issues, particularly for urban authorities like Swansea who face different pressures given our demographics.  I’m conscious that a number of staff in our Ethnic Minority Achievement Unit have been informed that their jobs are at risk and I’ve asked the education team to work closely with them during the consultation period to see how we can support schools, and the pupils who receive this service, following the Welsh Government changes.

Budget latest

CMT received an update from Ben Smith, our Chief Finance Officer, setting out an early view of the likely year-end position and ongoing risks around delivering some of the budget savings for 2018-19. It’s already clear that as austerity continues to bite in the form of further savings, that we, like many councils, will struggle to balance the books. We can’t just live within our existing budgets any longer, we also have try to underspend to offset the undoubted pressures and surprises that will emerge during the year. I know we’ve just come out of a really tough budget cycle, but I suspect these tough times will continue.

You may remember a significant number of staff were “at-risk” in Corporate Services. Thankfully, that number has now reduced to four due to the commitment of managers and our HR team in supporting staff. I’m also grateful to those staff who’ve been redeployed for being willing to take on a new challenge. I’m hopeful that we can work with the four remaining staff to get a positive outcome.

Bryntawe visit

After a number of unavoidable postponements I finally got to spend some time at Ysgol Gyfun Bryntawe this week.  I had been there in January to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day but I did not get a chance to talk to Simon Davies, headteacher, or any of the pupils. There is a lot of innovation happening at the school, particularly in the way that classes are organised, with teachers floating between rooms rather than pupils.  Simon took me on the visit and then I met the school council.  It is a school where culture, performance and music are alive and I’m proud to say, fiercely promoted, so amongst the topics for discussion was how austerity will hit arts funding.  We then talked about the possible impacts of austerity on school budgets and the general challenges the city faces (including the Lagoon again).  Thanks to all for the warm welcome and once again for the sense of optimism for the future of Swansea when you meet such articulate and intelligent young people.

Although it’s been relatively quiet in the media, work continues on pushing the case for the tidal lagoon. The Leader and I have held a number of meetings and conference calls to try to unblock the current deadlock.  I’ll keep you updated.

Awards

Our Colliers Way scheme has been commended in the Municipal Journal 2018 awards under the ‘Best Social Housing Initiative’ category. The judges were looking for interesting and innovative social housing projects with clear outcomes. There were a record number of entries this year so this a great achievement for the team.  Well done to all.

The South Wales Evening Post Community Award winners will be announced tonight. Phil Treseder, our Learning and Participation Officer, has made the final shortlist for the Community Champion Award for his commitment to YMCA Swansea, over the last 10 years as chairman and trustee.  Also Kevin Allen who was part of our City of Culture bid team has made the final for the Ambassador award.  For Twin Town fans if Kevin wins I’m confident he’ll be laying on sausage rolls and Welsh cakes in the gazebo.  Good luck to both.

Data changes

The new European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short, will change the way we work from May 25. It requires us to be more open and transparent with our citizens about how we use their personal data. Citizens’ rights regarding their data will be strengthened and the deadline for investigating data breaches becomes a challenging 72 hours. We need to finish creating a corporate overview of all our personal data processing activity and to ensure that, at each point where we ask people to provide their personal details, we make clear to them what we’re going to do with the personal data they’ve supplied, There’s information on GDPR on Staffnet: http://www.swansea.gov.uk/staffnet/gdprguide

Farewells

More long-serving members of staff are leaving at the end of the month. They include David Laytham from Facilities, Simon Clark from Pollution Control, Tina Evans from Housing , Jeanette Lewis in Economic Regeneration and Planning as well as Jayne Bool, Steve Holt, Simon Mason, Richard Thomas and Raymond Morgan from Digital and Transformation Services and Teresa O’Flynn from the Contact Centre. Also leaving after long service are Geraldine Baker, Christine Gravelle, Kevin Jenkins, Karen Preedy-Davies and Janet Monks from Financial Services and Service Centre, Wendy Baker from Health and Safety, Andrea Thomas from Unison and Ian Rowden from Fforestfach Day Service. Thank you for all your efforts and outstanding service.

Happy Easter

I‘ll be on holiday for a few weeks so my next blog will be on  April 20.  In the meantime, I want to wish you a happy Easter break and thank you all for your work to improve the organisation and the city.  As usual the events team have been very busy and there will be lots to do as you will see from this link.

Budget approved

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This week Council approved our budget for 2018/19.  The last few weeks have been a hectic time for Ben Smith and the Finance Team and I’ve written to them to thank them for their work which is greatly appreciated.  Amendments were proposed and debated and after over two hours of deliberation the budget was agreed.  The overwhelming message for me from the debate was that austerity has arrived in Wales with a vengeance but members of Council are determined to protect core services and ensure that allocation of resources reflects our five corporate priorities.

Officers and members must now work harder than ever before to bring spending in line with the budget as there’s no longer any wriggle room or potential to rely on reserves as a fall-back.  There’s never been a greater need for financial discipline in the organisation.  Corporate Management Team will be working with Cabinet to ensure that the reporting mechanisms are fit for purpose and that risks are managed effectively.

Linked to this, the consultation period for staff in Corporate Services ended yesterday and during this time we’ve managed to reduce the previous number of staff at risk down from 26 to 10.   Discussions are ongoing with the remaining staff and whilst there’s still uncertainty for them, we’re still making efforts to look for redeployment and to reduce this number further.  It’s also worth reminding staff our enhanced ER/VR scheme is in place until the end of the month and even those who may previously have been turned down can apply again. My thanks to the HR staff involved in supporting at-risk staff.

Immediately before the Council meeting there was a photoshoot of our female councillors outside the chamber as part of our celebration of International Women’s Day.

 

 

Thanks to the councillors and staff who’ve worked on the programme to celebrate women’s achievements and promote gender parity. I know Councillors Gibbard and Sherwood have worked hard with Chris Sivers, Lucy Hyde and others to raise the profile of IWD across our organisation. Thanks to all involved.

When we build again

I have to confess if anyone had asked me 10 years ago if we would see councils building houses for rent again I’d have dismissed it pretty quickly.  I remember reading a book 30 years ago called “When We Build Again” and formed my views at that time, but this week I’ve been proved wrong! The fact that we’re amongst the first pioneers in this new drive to provide affordable housing for direct management by the Council makes me very proud.

Yesterday Carwyn Jones AM, the First Minister of Wales, officially opened our new housing development at Cwrt Trefor, Colliers Way. All of the tenants have moved in and are happy in their new homes which are modern and energy efficient. The scheme has had so many extra benefits, including energy bill savings of up to £100 a year for each home, it provided 450 apprentice learning days, two long-term unemployed people secured work, we created 15 trade-based jobs and during last week’s “Beast from the East” storm the homes were heated using only solar power. There are too many people to thank but I met most of them on site yesterday.  Thanks, you’ve done a fantastic job

Collaboration

This week the Leader and I met with our counterparts at Cardiff Council to discuss our continuing collaboration on a range of issues including education funding, economic development and migration.  Clearly both councils are concerned about the future impact of Brexit on trade and economic growth and we discussed our strategies for mitigating the possible risks and impacts.  I’m convinced that partnerships between the Welsh cities is the right approach and over the coming months we’ll explore ways of work together along with our neighbours.

On Tuesday the Leader, Deputy Leader and I met Rhys Curtis, our innovation co-ordinator, to develop proposals for building on the Smart Cities seminar we held last month.  Over the next few months we’ll be engaging with schools, colleges and universities, the health board and businesses to raise awareness about the future direction of technology and digital developments through the City Deal.  We’ll be holding a second seminar for these partners and I’ll say more about this nearer the time.

Congratulations and thanks

Congratulations to Nigel Fletcher from the Waste Commercial Team who has gone 10 years without a day of sickness.

 

 

The Jig-so Integrated team of midwives, family facilitators, early language development practitioners and nursery nurses has won the Reducing Inequalities Award at the annual national Royal College of Midwifery Awards. This is great news for the families supported by the team and I’m particularly pleased because this project has reported to the Public Services Board over the last 18 months. It shows the PSBs influence in sponsoring such collaborative working and in this instance bringing together our Early Intervention Services and ABMU’s Midwifery Service to work together to benefit both the young parents and their children. Thanks and congratulations to all involved.

Finally, I know I mentioned it last week, but thanks once again to all the staff who kept services going during the winter storm.