Chief Exec's Blog

I’m pleased to say that the pay award for 2024/25 for the majority of our non-teaching staff has now been agreed by national employers and trade unions. Our payroll team is working towards implementing the award in time for the November pay date so staff can receive their backdated pay as soon as possible. You can find out more here.

This week our corporate management team looked at the issue of violence and aggression (V&A) against our staff by members of the public, which has been steadily on the rise over the last three years. Let me say that the council does not tolerate such behaviour and if you are the target of it, or witness a member of staff being abused, please report it to us. Action will be taken. At the moment each service area manages its own training for staff and we do have e-learning packages you can access. But we’re looking to bolster this work by recruiting a dedicated corporate V&A trainer who will bring consistency and further expertise to what we do. They will also develop accredited awareness training programmes tailored to specific roles within our departments. It’ll be more cost-effective as well as provide more consistency on the way we manage this important issue. We hope to have this in place by the start of the new financial year and I’ll keep you updated on progress. As an aside, don’t forget the clocks go back on Sunday, bringing darker evenings with it. So please spare a few minutes to take note of our latest personal safety advice here.

Also, at CMT, we looked at updating our corporate induction arrangements, including eLearning and Teams-based activities for new starters. One point coming out of the staff survey and our recent senior managers group discussions is the need to develop a more consistent approach to induction. Another was that staff wanted senior leaders to be more visible. In taking these points on board, we are, therefore, changing some elements of the induction process. We will include a virtual Chief Executive or Director ‘Town Hall’ event on Teams every quarter, along with a Q&A session. The sessions would be open to all, but mandatory for new starters. Managers will be asked to ensure staff without access to IT will have time and opportunity to join in or cascade the information locally. Any ideas on this are always welcome as, again, through the staff survey it’s clear that we aren’t reaching all front-line staffing groups. Town Hall meetings are a very exciting idea and part of wider engagement and induction changes and I’ll let you know when the first session is planned in plenty of time.

It was great last week to see our library service’s Summer Reading Challenge awards event at the National Waterfront Museum. The teams put a lot of effort into this work and this year more than 2,600 youngsters responded to the challenge, withdrawing 46,548 books. While the challenge is great fun for children, it has a wider impact by maintaining literacy during school holidays, giving young people activities to do as well as being free support for families at a time when finances can be tight.

I’ve got a number of thank-you messages this week to staff who have gone above and beyond to provide good services that have an impact on residents. Well done to our Tree Services team who were praised for their commitment and good humour by a resident who requested a tree be removed from near his home in Caswell Drive. Also thank you to the parks and cleansing team who were applauded by the management group at Trallwn Community Centre for the quality of a major clean-up in the grounds around their building. And congratulations to Greg Matthews in our housing team who was thanked by a tenant for his empathy, dedication and support over a number of years for him, his partner and their two sons with disabilities. If you have stories like these going on in your area, please get in touch with me and I’ll be pleased to share them in my blog.

This week our Revenues and Benefits team have launched a fundraising campaign in support of one of their colleagues, Rachel Davies, who has had to retire on medical grounds due to secondary breast cancer. Rachel and husband Dave, who also works for us, need to raise money for private treatment not funded by the NHS. You can read their story here. If you can contribute to Rachel’s GoFundMe page, please do.

We know that feeling safe on our streets and in our homes is a top priority for our residents and it’s always a subject that comes up during public consultations. I am pleased to see a range of improvements across the city, including the retention of increased city centre policing levels that had been reduced in previous years. Notwithstanding this, it’s important we keep the momentum going in tackling anti-social behaviour and crime locally, both by the council and with our partners. As such this month we’ve set up a council-wide Community Safety Forum, bringing together expertise and building on the links with external partners like the police. The forum is one of the results of the recent scrutiny inquiry panel on anti-social behaviour and its membership features staff from 16 areas, including culture and tourism, education, housing and wider Place services, social services and city centre teams.

We know this kind of joint working is effective because our Community Engagement team’s school summer holiday ‘City Chill’ initiative, staged alongside extra police action, saw anti-social behaviour in the city centre, marina and beach-front areas drop by almost 40%. It’s very encouraging and I’d like to thank all those involved.

This week the Leader and I met with James Price, the chief executive of Transport for Wales to discuss the challenges facing our public transport services, the Swansea Bay Metro and local rail. We also discussed the potential behind introducing bus franchising across Swansea and Wales. You can find out more about it here. Franchising would give us much greater control and would ensure that vital routes and services in Swansea which might not be commercially viable but matter when it comes to getting to and from work, the city centre or hospital, for example. I will keep you posted.

Staying with ideas that boost our local economy, yesterday I joined with councillors and partners from across South West England and South Wales at the latest Western Gateway convention in Newport. Western Gateway is a regional partnership supporting joint action on strategic development. At the convention we looked at how we can work together to boost activity that matters to us in Swansea, like jobs in technology, net zero and public transport including rail and buses.

The Leader and I have been contacted by a member of the public with high praise for our National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS) team member Mike Dalling and the staff at Bishopston Leisure Centre for helping him return to good health. You can find out more about NERS here. But it’s an important part of our overall effort to enable older people to lead independent lives for longer, promoting health and wellbeing and helping prevent the need for more intensive social care. My thanks to Mike and all the NERS team for their work.

Congratulations this week to our head of revenues and benefits Julian Morgans and his senior revenues officer colleague Rob Jones are celebrating their 40^th anniversary at the council, having started on the same September day in 1984. Well done also to our Housing team’s neighbourhood officer Philippa Williams who is celebrating more than 41 years of service with the department, having started as a clerical officer in 1983. Thank you to them all for their outstanding commitment.

On a personal note, I’m a big supporter of the Welsh Blood service and I’m helping lead efforts in Wales encouraging business to enable their staff to donate. The service has just issued a new round of dates for donations in the Swansea area. So please take part if you can.

Finally, our latest resident survey is live now, so if you live in Swansea please join the conversation.

This week we’ve started work on the 2025/26 budget, including a number of meetings between Cabinet, CMT and heads of service. It’s the start of a process that ends with decisions by Full Council next March. This week featured line-by-line discussions about social services and education, with other service areas following in the coming weeks. The idea is to pull together a range of options for consideration and what happens depends on the impact on us of UK and Welsh Government budget announcements. They will inform further discussions, talks with trade unions, and consultation with you and the public. I’ll keep you updated.

The staff survey said our budget arrangements were among your top areas of interest and this week heads of service have been sent further detailed feedback from you about their areas. The next step is for them to analyse the responses and in the coming weeks come up with action plans to address the points you’ve raised. This is part of our commitment that we will feedback to you on what steps we intend to take so you can see what impact your views have had on the way we work. I will keep you updated on how this is going in future blogs, but if you want to raise issues or make any further points now, please do drop me a line via the blog or by email.

Another thread from the staff survey was about senior managers being visible among their staff and on the front line. So last Friday I was really pleased to meet the team that delivers our Youth Justice Service. They do an incredible job with young people who’ve committed crimes or are at risk of doing so. They engage with young people to jointly come up with constructive, realistic ideas and opportunities to help divert them from criminality and offer a sense of purpose in their lives. This can include training and education in areas as diverse as hairdressing and welding to carpentry and gym activities. My thanks to all involved, your work is highly valued. I want to visit as many areas of the council as I can, so if you want me or a director to come and see you, let me know.

This month is Cyber Awareness Month. Cyber security is fundamental to the effectiveness of the services we provide to residents day in and day out. So please play your part in keeping our services safe in a few simple steps.

My thanks this week go to Kelly Jon Renna from our revenue and benefits team and Celyn Evans, our School Funding and Information Officer, who have gone the extra mile to support our residents. Kelly-Jon’s empathy for a member of the public needing our support was so notable that they wrote to the council afterwards to thank him and confirm that ‘not all heroes wear capes’. While Celyn has been praised for her dedication in ensuring the public consultation on our Specialist Teaching Facilities is going smoothly, not an easy task with such a complicated set of proposals.

Finally, congratulations to three members of staff who have clocked up decades of service. Andrew O’Brien, who works in our audit team, has just completed an astonishing 50 years of service. Leasehold Officer Amanda Richards and Senior Housing Improvement Officer Sue Williams, two members of Housing and Public Health, are each celebrating for 40 years with the council. Remarkably, Amanda and Sue started on the same day – 8^th October 1984. Thank you all very much for your service.

Our leadership group, made up of heads of service and CMT, this week had an important discussion about the future of our management of absence policy. Working alongside managers, our HR and occupational health teams already do good work to support staff wellbeing and manage absence. But the policy has not been reviewed since well before the pandemic and as absence across the Council has been around 12 days per FTE for some time, we should take a fresh look. Leadership group has agreed on a set of principles to work into the policy – focusing on managing long-term absence, prioritising stress management, reducing unnecessary burdens where possible and ensuring an effective occupational health service. We’ve also started a positive dialogue with trade unions about the policy because we all want to ensure it continues to be fit for purpose and operates in the interests of staff wellbeing and the wider council. While the policy is jointly developed, we have started working on a toolkit of practical guidance and support needed in implementing any changes. I will keep you posted on progress.

Leadership group also considered the council’s budget position for the coming financial year, ahead of discussions opening with Cabinet members next week. We all accept the financial situation is challenging with difficult decisions ahead, and I’ll keep you updated on developments and the hope that more money is made available by both the UK and Welsh Governments. We also looked at the way we produce corporate reports for meetings to make them more straightforward for many of our staff who write them and Members who consider their contents. I’ll let you know how this goes over the coming weeks.

Last night I was pleased to be at Brangwyn Hall for the opening night of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales 2024/25 season. Brangwyn Hall is a working building for many of us but it’s a perfect and popular setting for set-piece events featuring top musicians and performers. They’ll be back in December for Carols for Christmas and next year too. The fact the BBC is showcasing Swansea in this way is testimony to our growing reputation as a year-round top-class destination for culture, the arts, music and events. Senior executives from both the BBC and the Arts Council for Wales couldn’t have been more positive about the venue and the support from the Council.

A further example of this is the first-ever Swansea Arts Weekend which starts today – find out more about it here. My thanks to Tracey McNulty and her teams for their ongoing work in this area. It not only boosts the council’s reputation for organising and hosting such occasions, but their wider efforts also inspire our creative communities and have tangible benefits for businesses too.

Thursday was also the day of our annual Council where all Councillors meet to approve various reports and policies. Yesterday included our director of Social Services, Dave Howes who gave his annual report about our social services provision which as you will know is one of our corporate well-being objectives but a cornerstone of why we are here in local government to provide services to some of the most in need and vulnerable within our communities. Dave’s report gave a story of expectation work in extremely challenging circumstances but showed how our staff are helping people and improving outcomes for our residents across both child family, and adult services. This is a testament to everyone involved in the service and you should all be incredibly proud of your continued achievements. Dave also rightly highlighted the challenges including unrelenting demand and budget pressures facing social care across the UK and how we are looking to meet this in Swansea. My thanks to everyone involved in all the work you do.

As it happens today I’m heading off to meet the Youth Justice Service, part of our Child and Family Service team. The service works with children, families, carers and victims to prevent offending or re-offending among children. It’s important, challenging work that can change lives for the better, so I’m looking forward to finding out more which I’ll cover in next week’s blog.

Congratulations this week to the parks and cleansing team, who are celebrating long service awards for nine members of their staff. Added together, their service to the people of Swansea amounts to more than 300 years. There’s also great news about James Horner and Lyn Hovvels of our building services team who have won the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) awards for Student of the Year at HND and HNC level respectively.

I want to thank the Cleansing Ward Operatives Team (CWOT) for their ongoing work deep-cleaning our neighbourhoods and clearing paths and streets of weeds and debris. Their efforts in the Landore ward in particular were praised by local Members.

These are the kind of great news stories about staff achievement and effort that make a real difference in the communities we serve that I want to include in future blogs. So, please get in touch with me about yours.   

Sorry this week’s blog is a bit longer than usual but I hope you can see there was a lot to pack in.

As someone who’s built a career in the council, I’m committed to ensuring our staff have every opportunity to learn new skills and develop. Staff training was one of the main talking points at this week’s CMT meeting. We reviewed our training programme which includes staff development opportunities, mandatory training and health and safety courses. It’s fair to say our training offer is comprehensive, but we always need to make sure we aren’t missing any obvious requirements within specific services. It’s also important to make it easier for staff to access and complete training online where possible, but recognise that some must be provided face-to-face where necessary. We’re discussing development needs with heads of service and senior managers. At the same time, colleagues in human resources are working with each service to understand their staff development needs and how we can support staff in their role to develop their skills as part of growing our own so that we can develop and promote officers from within. All staff can influence this during their appraisals and 121s and supervision, so please raise if you need to.

We had our regular Cabinet/CMT away day this week which gave us the chance to look at some major issues in detail. This month included looking at the budget challenges facing our schools and how best we can meet the needs of some of our young people in accessing our core support services in and around the city. Further work will continue in both these areas over the coming months. In addition, we also discussed the regeneration of the High Street and surrounding areas which historically have suffered from some issues. We are heading in the right direction with improvements but there is still more to do. In addition to the work the council is doing, we are working with the likes of Coastal to bring new life to old buildings and create a vibrant area where people can live and work. The proposals are exciting and we’ll be developing them further in the coming months with a view to a public launch early in 2025.

We also reviewed the success of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund where we’ve been able to invest £1.3m in 132 small businesses and gain £1m in match-funding from the private sector which has helped create around 90 jobs. It’s also seen £1m invested in securing the future of some of our heritage sites, £3.6m in developing skills locally, and more than £3m invested in third sector and community organisations and activities. It’s a great tribute to our officers, especially Paul Relf and his team, who have successfully applied for and distributed the funding to boost the local economy and have also led on the work for the region.

Linked to this, it’s great to see how two historic city centre locations have been transformed into modern venues. The refurbished Albert Hall is officially opening today, and the Palace Theatre will be re-opening on November 7. Across the Palace’s six floors, Tramshed Tech will offer versatile workspaces, including co-working, meeting rooms, office space, a podcast studio and a coffee shop. Both venues look fantastic, promise to add to our city centre offer and boost our reputation as a council and city. My thanks to all the officers who’ve been involved.

Perhaps a less exciting but equally important subject, I met with Audit Wales this week to discuss our arrangements for managing our finance, governance, risks and so on. Across Wales councils are facing similar challenges, but it’s an opportunity to share our plans with our regulators and to get an external view. It was a positive meeting and in January we’ll be catching up with Audit Wales along with Estyn and Care Inspectorate Wales for our annual review meeting to discuss how we’re delivering our priorities and meeting our key challenges.

Finally today we will see Chris Howell, our Head of Waste, Parks and Cleansing retire after 11 years with the council. I have worked alongside Chris for many years and he has been a great asset to the council, bringing his thoughts and innovation to these services. I have personally welcomed his input both to the service and corporately over this time and pass on my best wishes for the future. Going forward Nigel Williams will now oversee the waste service and Tracey McNulty will take on the parks and cleansing service while the council considers its longer-term options.