Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Poverty is everyone’s business

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Our efforts to tackle poverty across all our services is moving forward at pace.

Council recently agreed ‘Working Towards Prosperity for All in Swansea’ A Tackling Poverty Strategy for Swansea 2017 – 2020.  The strategy has three themes:

  • Empowering local people through involvement and participation
  • Changing cultures to reflect that tackling poverty is everyone’s business
  • Targeting resources to maximise access to opportunity and prosperity

The delivery plan has 81 objectives which touch virtually every part of our organisation so we all have a role in helping to tackle poverty. And this week I chaired the Poverty Forum network which agreed its delivery plan and then considered a presentation on the impacts of Universal Credit on Swansea and its citizens.  The simple fact is that more than 9,000 households in Swansea are worse off as a consequence of the changes.  The introduction of Universal Credit has presented some unique challenges for a number of organisations including ours.  A key issue is that all claimants require an email address which raises issues around digital inclusion – many claimants are arriving with no e-mail addresses and no means to access the internet.  I know that staff in libraries as elsewhere do fantastic work to support claimants. The presentation can be found here.

Budget update

Cabinet yesterday approved its budget which will now be discussed by Full Council on March 1. It includes:

  • Extra £3.5m for education.
  • Extra £2.7m for social care services
  • Around £150m for more 21stcentury schools
  • More than £57m on new council housing and a council house kitchen and bathroom replacement programme.
  • £1.4m extra in capital funding to help maintain roads and traffic management
  • £6m for a new fleet of waste collection vehicles
  • Proposals to charge school staff for parking on-site are not being mandated, although individual schools can charge for parking if they want to.

I know some staff are still “at risk” but I’m grateful to officers in HR who are continuing to redeploy staff and deal with ER/VR applications to help reduce any compulsory redundancies.

Western Bay

The Western Bay Regional Partnership Board reviewed and agreed the priorities for joint working outlined in its 2018-2023 plan. The main focus of this plan is on priorities for regional and integrated working between health and social care, including the use of the Integrated Care Fund in relation to:

  • Older People
  • Children and Young People with Complex Needs
  • Mental Health
  • Learning Disabilities (including Autism)
  • Carers and Young Carers

We suggested some amendments and endorsed the plan which will now be considered by each of the statutory partners (health board and local authorities). It’ll be submitted to Welsh Government and hopefully published  on April 1.  Sara Harvey and the Western Bay team have done a great job keeping this on track and dealing with the diverse views of partners.

Staff Suggestion Scheme

CMT received a presentation from Michael Owens and Rhys Curtis on the IT system to support the staff suggestion scheme that has been developed by the innovation community.  They’ve done a great job and we’ll be piloting and testing the system over the coming weeks.  I hope staff take the opportunity to use it.

Better relations

Our Services in the Community cross-cutting project is looking for staff to help develop and design services with the communities and build on new/existing relationships. It’s a chance to gain new skills such as co-production, bring their experiences to the project and develop new relationships with citizens. Further info is here Staff Net Pages – Services in the Community Project.

Have your say

Following the decision not to proceed with rail electrification to Swansea a number of ideas have been generated, including a South West Wales metro. It’s time to have your say, whatever your views are.  The UK Government has launched a consultation on the future of the Great Western Franchise and is asking passengers, businesses and councils for their views at two consultation events on 13 February 2018.  https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/great-western-rail-franchise

Big conversation

The first primary school Big Conversation was held at St Teilo’s Cwtch with 120 attendees and 70 children as part of the consultation for the Local Wellbeing Plan. Feedback from primary schools has been fantastic with a desire for more events to help engage young people. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and taking part in the event.

More from Blaenymaes

It’s busy times again at Blaenymaes Primary School who recently achieved the Eco Green Flag award. Their Eco Ambassadors celebrated by inviting Iolo Williams, TV presenter, to the school. Iolo told the school stories about his adventures including an encounter with a grizzly bear. Iolo and the Ambassadors raised the Eco flag with the rest of the school watching. Thanks to Amy Bacon and Amy Smith (Eco School Coordinators) who led the assessment for the eco award and the visit from Iolo Williams.

Sad news

Peter Campbell, our former Assistant Director of Housing, passed away last week.  Peter worked for the Council for 35 years and was a valued and trusted colleague.  I’ve written to his family expressing our condolences and our thanks for his major contribution to improving the lives of council tenants.

Plugging the gap

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I mentioned last week just how difficult this year’s budget process is.  I’ve spent most of the week dealing with a number of 11th hour issues including discussions with Welsh Government over education grants.  Unfortunately, this has driven a coach and horses through my diary so apologies to those people I was scheduled to meet.  Amongst the cancelled appointments in my diary was the Staff Well-being event held in the Brangwyn Hall on Wednesday which by all accounts was a massive success.  I’ll say more about it next week.

The public consultation on the budget process finishes today which gives us the time to ensure that reports are finalised in time for Council on March 1.  I know that discussions are taking place with staff affected by the proposals and I’ve urged managers to make every effort to avoid redundancies, however difficult that may be.  I hope to see staff, managers and unions working together to come up with other options.

Work will then begin immediately on next year’s financial challenge and my thanks go to all who’ve worked harder than ever before to prepare the budget.

I know some staff may be considering taking ER/VR so it’s worth me flagging up some changes to the scheme. We’ve been offering an enhanced ER/VR scheme, giving staff additional benefits using a 45-week calculator. Unfortunately, the pot of money we set aside to fund these enhanced payments will run out by the end of June. This means we can’t offer the enhanced rate after March 31, so applications after that date will be considered on the 30-week calculator. In the past we’ve been able to extend the deadline for the enhanced rate because there was money left in the pot, but our Head of Financial Services and Service Centre, Ben Smith, has made it clear that’ll definitely not be the case after March 31 because the money will have run out.

Staff travel

Leadership Team looked at the issue of staff travel and how we can make it easier and more efficient for employees. A lot of time and effort is spent on travelling both in and out-of-county as part of our jobs, but with changing technology and new ways of working there’s an opportunity to take a fresh look at what we do. It’s early days in the discussions but we considered issues such as car share, parking at council locations, using Skype to avoid travel, pool cars and our existing fleet. Our Highways and Transportation team will carry out further work and I’ll update you.

CMT

Corporate Management Team this week considered a range of issues including the budget, social care charging policy and the Prevention Strategy. We also had a demonstration of the online sickness absence system that’s being developed by our in-house IT team.  Hopefully this will produce accurate and timely information to help us all manage sickness absence more effectively.  Sickness has a heavy cost to the Council each year which compounds the budget challenge and increases the likelihood of job losses.  We’ll be working with the Leadership Team to refine the system over the coming weeks.  Thanks to Leanne Casey and Richard John who came to CMT to present this to us.

Schools

I know opinion is divided over the Welsh Government’s school categorisation process but I was delighted to see the performance of Swansea schools in the latest round.  We were one of a handful of councils with no schools in the red category and my thanks go to all the staff in our schools and education service for their efforts.

The Biggest Weekend

The Biggest Weekend is coming to Swansea this summer with Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift headlining at Singleton Park. This is a fantastic coup and something our Events Team has been working on for a number of years.  It adds to our summer events which include Man Engine, Little Mix and The Killers at Liberty Stadium, the Wales Airshow and Now the Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr which justifies our position as Wales’ Capital of Culture. Tickets for The Biggest Weekend go on sale on Monday, February 12, at £18 plus £4.50 booking fee. Further information here  or www.bbc.co.uk/biggestweekend

Well-being

You can have your say on plans to develop a better Swansea as part of the consultation on the Local Well-being Plan. It’s been drafted by the Swansea Public Service Board and an online survey can be found at https://www.swansea.gov.uk/psb or in sessions held at the Civic Centre on Feb 6 at 4pm-5pm, the Baling Plant on Feb 12, 9.30am-10.30am and Heol y Gors on Feb 9 at 7.30am-10.30am.

New build

Plans to develop a new purpose-built school for vulnerable young people as part of our EOTAS provision have cleared an important hurdle. The Welsh Government’s Capital Panel recommended to approve the business case. This approval is now subject to the Cabinet Secretary’s final decision. Let’s hope it gets agreed.

History month

To mark LGBT History month, we’ll be flying the pride flag at the Civic Centre in a series of events taking place across the city.  Supported by our Staff LGBT+ Group, our library service has a display created from newspaper cuttings celebrating the history of LGBT in Swansea.  They’re also showing ‘Britain on Film: LGBT Britain’ on February 24.

Swans

And finally, congratulations to the Swans on another well-deserved victory against one of the top clubs on Monday.  Even I’m starting to regain hope they’ll survive in the Premier League which will be another massive plus for the city.

Hard Times

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The budget for next year continues to dominate CMT’s work and we’ve been wrestling with some emerging issues to try to finalise our proposals.

The removal of some grants and increased spending pressures, including unfunded pay awards, have made the task of setting a balanced budget much more difficult this year. Over the coming weeks the details will be finalised with Cabinet before we report to Council following consultation.

I know this is a difficult time for staff and decisions will need to be taken that we wouldn’t consider if the financial position was easier.  Where staff are under threat of redundancy I’ve asked for particular efforts to be made to ensure that our redeployment processes operate quickly and effectively.

I’m also conscious there’s been a good deal of misinformation circulating about the proposed funding for schools.  Our Section 151 Officer, Ben Smith, and I will be writing to head teachers next week setting out the facts clearly so that the record can be put straight.

Local Government collaboration.

Yesterday the Leader and I met Alun Davies AM, Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services in the Welsh Government to discuss local government reform.  I’m speculating but I think it’s possible that there might be a change of emphasis and it is always possible that the issue of merging councils might reappear over the coming weeks.  This would have an impact on the current collaborations we’re involved in, particularly those involving education and economic development.  We’ll find out more by mid-February and I’ll keep you posted on developments.  In the meantime large amounts of my time, and that of colleagues, is tied up with regional collaborations and below is an update on the three main programmes.

ERW

This week I’ve been speaking to the six education directors in the ERW region about what needs to be done to improve the governance and effectiveness of the regional consortium and I’ll be meeting Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams in a few weeks to set out the position and make some recommendations for the future.

Western Bay

Last Friday I chaired the Western Bay Leadership Team where we discussed the progress made on the proposed move of Bridgend CBC to the Cwm Taf health board area.  This will be a real challenge for all involved but it’s essential we retain a focus on services to the citizen, so I was pleased to hear about the excellent progress being made by the Western Bay partnership.

City Deal

The Leader and I, along with colleagues from our three partner councils, met the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, and the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Mark Drakeford.  We discussed the issues that remain outstanding before we can proceed to signing the Joint Working Agreement and I’m optimistic we can resolve these so that a report can be made to Council before the end of the financial year.

Over the past few months I’ve been working with our Corporate Innovation Officer, Rhys Curtis, on a seminar for lead members and officers on what a smart and connected Swansea will look like as we progress the City Deal projects.  I’ll say more about this in a couple of weeks but I’m anxious that we reach a wider audience of staff, councillors and partners so that the vision for the future can be shared and debated.  The seminar will be held in early February and I’ll report back and add links to the presentations as soon as possible.

Thanks and well done

Thanks to the staff in ICT who arranged the migration of CMT to Office 365 this week.  It was a smooth transition for which I’m very grateful.

Thanks to Mark Gosney and the High 5 team who this week organised a tea for this year’s winners with the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House.  This followed the kind offer that the Lord Mayor made at the High 5 Awards ceremony.

On Monday evening the Mansion House was the venue for a thank you event for all our partners in the City of Culture bid which gave the opportunity to remind everyone that we’ll continue to work with Welsh Government to make Swansea the Welsh capital of culture.

Our city centre rangers dealt with 21,015 incidents last year, ranging from enquiries from the public to working with the police to report and tackle anti-social behaviour. They also support city centre events and activities, help businesses with their questions and queries, and put safety and security arrangements in place. Well done to all involved.

Next week is the last working week for Greg Jones in our Communications team.  Greg is leaving to join the City Deal team so our paths will continue to cross frequently.  I’d like to thank Greg for all his hard work over the years and wish him well for the future.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

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My last blog of the 2017 is a chance to reflect on some of the major issues of the past year and to look ahead to our challenges in 2018.

We started the year in fine style by being awarded the Platinum Corporate Health Standard after excelling in corporate social responsibility and innovation. January also saw the Hendry Review say the Tidal Lagoon was a “no regrets” policy. Almost a year on we’re still waiting for a government decision!

The Welsh Government unveiled its ‘White Paper: Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’ including regionalised services and electoral reform.

Spring brought the City Deal signing which promises a £1.3bn transformation of our economy and we built on our track record of investing in young people by launching our Apprentice Strategy – more than 170 apprentices have come through since 2003.

April showed there were no fools in our waste team when they cleaned up at the IESE (Improvement and Efficiency South East) Awards.

In May we stood united with Manchester following the horrific terror attack which served as another reminder that we all have to be vigilant, particularly at our major events. And our elections team and volunteers pulled out all the stops to deliver yet another election with huge effort but minimum fuss.

The tragic events of Grenfell Tower threw the spotlight on high-rise flats across the UK and our Housing and Corporate Buildings teams led the way in Wales, acting quickly and professionally to reassure our residents. Another election, this time the General, once again saw our staff pull-out all the stops.

The summer brought a mixed bag of news – I was delighted to be permanently appointed Chief Executive and for us to be shortlisted for City of Culture. But this delight was dampened with the shelving of the rail electrification to Swansea and the worrying budget indications from the Government.

The annual local government “league tables” in September showed that despite budget cuts and service pressures:

  • 29% of all our performance indicators were in the top quartile, up from 17% in 2014/15
  • A reduction in lower quartile PIs from 22% to 14%.
  • We’re ranked 9th among all 22 councils, up from 15th last year. Considering we are an urban authority this is a major achievement.

We launched our Love the Lagoon campaign to unite the community in telling the Government we want and need the project.

October is always a highlight for me because of the High 5 Awards and this year a record number of young people were recognised. Autumn also sees the real work on our budget get under way and Corporate Management Team and Cabinet were locked in meetings to plug the budget gap due to government cuts. Each year is getting more difficult.

 

November was a month for lobbying in London when we took both our City of Culture and Love the Lagoon campaigns to Westminster. Closer to home our Christmas Parade was met with great feedback from the public.

Peter Blake

Despite a fantastic effort, our City of Culture bid fell at the final hurdle in December. Since then we’ve had encouraging talks with the Welsh Government on how we can take culture forward. Our annual staff survey showed the vast majority of areas improving. However, there’s more work to do, particularly on appraisals. And just before the Christmas break I was delighted to hear primary school attendance was 95% for the 2017-2018 academic year, compared to 94.9% for each of the two previous years.  The five-year trend since 2011-2012 has an improvement of 2% which is the highest rate of improvement in Wales. Congratulations to all our school and education staff for this impressive result.

So what does 2018 have in store for us? Hopefully a positive decision on the Tidal Lagoon with the clock running at 350 days since the Hendry Review recommended the government gets on with it.  We’ll  see some significant developments taking place around the Arena and Kingsway sites as the city centre regeneration gathers pace.  This will involve major changes to the city centre road network and the development of the infrastructure for a Smart City.

I suspect we‘ll see a restatement of the Welsh Government approach on local government reform, possibly with greater emphasis on mandation unless the pace of collaboration between councils increases.

We’ll set a budget following the consultation process and hopefully continue to deliver excellent services in increasingly difficult circumstances. Our work on modernising and transforming the Council will continue, increasing our agile, digital and commercialism programmes to help us to combat future cuts in the revenue budget.

Above all I hope 2018 will be a healthy and happy year for you and for your families and I want  to thank you once again for the fantastic work during 2017.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

London Calling

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Next week officers and councillors are in London to continue two important campaigns; the Tidal Lagoon and the City of Culture.

Hopefully you’ll have seen our giant postcard that’s been signed by hundreds of lagoon supporters.  We’ll be delivering it to the Wales Office in Whitehall on Monday morning with a clear message to the Chancellor to announce its approval in his Autumn Statement.  A few hours later we’ll be handing in a letter to the Prime Minister signed by more than 110 leading businesses calling for the lagoon’s go ahead. The campaign has been magnificent, driven by our Communications team and supported by a huge number of staff across the organisation.  I’m grateful to every one of you.  The highlight of the campaign for me has been the videos from some of our schools.  Click on the attached link to see examples of their art submissions.

We’ll then be heading to the House of Commons to attend a City of Culture bid reception to win over the hearts and minds of MPs and to demonstrate what becoming the UK City of Culture 2021 would mean for Swansea.  We’re entering the last two weeks of this campaign so I’d urge everyone who supports the bid to express themselves through our social media platforms as we head for the line in Hull on December 8.

The Sky’s the limit

We’re anxiously awaiting the decision of board of the Skyline Luge organisation on the location of their next project. I mentioned this in my blog on October 27.  Following the visit by Skyline New Zealand our team of officers and members have been pulling out all the stops to attract this game-changing attraction.  Whatever the outcome the team couldn’t have tried harder and deserve a big vote of thanks for their efforts. Fingers crossed!

Liberty Stadium

Cabinet this week approved the terms of an agreement with Swansea City FC for new lease arrangements for the Liberty Stadium.  The report can be found here.  Over the last few years the over-complicated existing arrangements have become increasingly outdated.  The agreement will see a guaranteed rental income and, subject to continued Premier League status, a share in any naming rights deal the club secures.  The agreement will also allow the Ospreys continued playing rights and the provision of a number of 3G pitches for the Council. My thanks to those involved in securing this deal.

School visits

On Tuesday I went to Penllergaer Primary School to meet the head teacher, Jayne Woolcock.  We discussed a range of topics including her role as challenge adviser, the progress of the school improvement consortium (ERW) and the issues facing the Council and the school. Last year the school became the only school in Wales to be awarded Associate School status by the Royal Society so I was particularly interested in the work the school’s doing in relation to STEMM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics and medicine).  I’m hoping we can link with Swansea University’s Soapbox Science programme which I mentioned in my July 7th blog. The school is already working closely with the university in a partnership which sees pupils regularly going to the second campus to dig deep into science activities like using a scanning electron microscope. I also met Kelly Thomas, the school’s Science Leader, who recently won a national Outstanding Teacher Award at the Primary Science Teaching Trust 2017 Awards for her innovative approach to teaching science, encouraging inquisitive, critical thinking among pupils. Well done Kelly.

Congratulations and thanks

This week witnessed the start of the transformational changes along the Kingsway, a critical piece in the city centre jigsaw.  Our Highways team have done a great job in implementing the traffic changes, introducing a temporary roundabout along with a number of other changes.  They had to do this whilst ‘juggling’ the traffic which was no mean feat and was delivered with minimum disruption. We’ll be removing buses from the Metro track along with the temporary pedestrian barrier on the central reserve. We’re also putting in new bus stops and removing and planting trees. Thanks to all involved.

I was delighted to hear that all our Band B schools bids to Welsh Government have been successful.  This means we’ll see an unprecedented capital investment in our schools estate over the coming years.  Thanks and congratulations to all the staff and councillors involved in preparing our submissions.

Our Beyond Bricks and Mortar Community Benefit policy has won the Go Awards Wales “Go Procurement Innovation/ Initiative award” against 10 other entries.  This regional award follows the national award we won last March at Go Awards UK for “Best Employment Initiative”.   We automatically go into the national awards taking place in Manchester in April.  Congratulations to our Beyond Bricks and Mortar team who have every reason to be proud of their achievements.

You may have seen DIY SOS on BBC1 on Wednesday, which was all about the construction of a new base for The Roots Foundation in Fforestfach. Our staff in teams including building, parks, highways, building regulations, planning and social services were instrumental in helping support this Children in Need project, so my thanks to all involved. And I know many staff will be raising funds today for Children in Need. Thank you for all your efforts.

Christmas in Swansea starts today with the opening of the Christmas Market on Oxford Street and the Waterfront Winterland at Museum Park. With the Christmas Parade in the city centre on Sunday, I’d like to thank all staff involved in organising these events. Head to www.swanseachristmas.com for more information.