Chief Exec's Blog

We’re launching our staff survey today to give you the chance to have your say on what’s important to you. Click here to join in.

It’s part of our efforts to improve staff engagement and to listen to your concerns and, importantly, to act upon them. We’ve already taken on board your views by changing the way we do the survey this year. In addition to the usual online and hand-out questionnaire surveys, managers will be holding meetings and gatherings to get your views as part of your team discussions. I meet staff every day and the feedback I get in our discussions is useful, but this is a chance to gather feedback from across the council on a range of issues and to identify changes and improvements we can make. It’d be great to have as many people as possible taking part so please take some time to give your views.

We now know the date of the General Election – July 4 – and we’ll be putting in place the usual plans. This will be a really busy time for staff managing election arrangements including postal votes, polling cards, polling stations and the election count. You’ll also need to be aware of the Pre-Election Period Protocol that starts Friday, May 31, 2024 (this date has been revised). It places restrictions on some of the things we’re allowed to say and do during the weeks leading up to the election, whilst continuing our daily services and functions. We’ll be sending out guidance shortly. We’ll also be recruiting election staff in the coming weeks with more details to follow. Following some boundary changes Swansea only has two parliamentary seats – Gower and Swansea West – with the former Swansea East seat aligning with Neath to create a new seat.

I’ve spent most of the week in Leeds promoting our city to investors and developers at a major business conference. UKREiiF was a chance to meet and speak to businesses to help deliver the next phase of our city centre regeneration. The response we had was excellent, the discussions were positive and there was lots of genuine interest in Swansea and the opportunities we can offer. It was also a chance to promote the proposed tidal lagoon and the huge green project we’re working on with DST. It was all really positive and we’ll be following-up these discussions in the coming weeks. It also fits with my priorities to help enhance Swansea’s reputation. We’re also about to start consultation on our place-making strategy for the city centre. It’s important we get people’ views on how they want the city centre to be shaped, including how we improve the retail, leisure and residential aspects. The consultation is due to go live on May 28 so please take the opportunity to give your views.

I’m meeting senior police officers today to discuss the city centre and local policing. I’ve been pleased with the increased police presence in the city centre and dealing with anti-social behaviour and our expectation is that this is a permanent presence. This also links to Swansea’s reputation so I’m keen to continue working with police and Safer Swansea partners on these matters.

Our city’s pioneering Swansea Arena was last night in the spotlight at this year’s RSAW (Royal Society of Architects in Wales) Welsh Architecture Awards 2024. Congratulations to our architects ACME and to the council team that turned our aspirations for this impressive landmark into a reality, helping attract many thousands of extra visitors to the city centre.

We’re bidding farewell this week to three long-serving members of staff. Kim Collis, whom many of you will know as our county archivist, leaves us on May 31 after 32 years with the council. More recently he became the council’s first data protection officer, stepping in to support us through the successful implementation of the GDPR and, subsequently, the Data Protection Act. Also retiring after 32 years with us is Patrick Holcroft, our housing team’s energy efficiency co-ordinator and Paul Rees, manager of our homes preparation unit who has served the council for 31 years. I’d like to thank all three for their contributions and wish all of them well in retirement.

Next week we are launching this year’s staff survey. I’m getting in touch with heads of service shortly to let them know it’s coming, but it’s really important that you take action and join in the conversation too. This can be done individually or as part of your normal team briefing session. We want to know what you think about your job, the council, how we engage with you and how you think we can do things better. As with all our staff surveys, we will act on what we learn from you. I’ll be coming back to this in more depth next week but for now, please keep an eye out for the survey on staffnet and for those without IT access please speak to your supervisor or manager.

Yesterday Cabinet approved the Successful and Sustainable Swansea Corporate Transformation Plan annual report. It sets out how the council will deliver its priorities between now and 2028. It may seem a dry subject and an issue a long way from you working on the frontline delivering your service to residents every day. But it is worth looking at because it highlights how improvements you have delivered have made a real difference to the people we serve. For example, our teams in social care have made real strides to cut waiting times for people needing domiciliary care and social workers in children’s services have changed working practices to spend even more time with children and families who need them. If you know of friends or families who might one day need that kind of support, it’s reassuring news. The report spotlights other similar transformation stories from across the council as we also stay on track to make essential budget savings in a difficult financial environment.

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that a key part of my appraisal is about reputation and my role to help deliver positive stories that promote our reputation to existing and new audiences. That’s why I was really pleased to be at a South Wales Constructing Excellence event earlier this week with the leader, raising the profile of our achievements in supporting local development so far and highlighting future opportunities for construction businesses from across the region.

I was very pleased that yesterday Full Council agreed to name a courtyard at 71/72 Kingsway ‘Mowbray’s Yard’ after our friend and colleague Huw Mowbray, who sadly passed away last year. You can find out more here. I’m sure you’ll agree it is a fitting tribute to someone who did so much to create the city centre skyline we see around us today that will benefit residents and visitors for generations to come. Further details will be confirmed once the development is completed.

Earlier this week myself and our director of Place Mark Wade paid a visit to see manager Darren Cox and the team responsible for our award-winning indoor market. I witnessed how busy and buoyant the market is and was updated about plans for the future. My thanks to Darren and the city centre team for looking after the market so well. If you’d like me to visit your workplace, do get in touch.

Today I will be attending new Lord Mayor Cllr Paxton Hood-Williams’ inauguration at the Brangwyn Hall in front of an audience of councillors, their families, friends and guests. Cllr Wendy Fitzgerald will also be inaugurated as deputy Lord Mayor for the coming year. My congratulations to them both. My thanks also to Cllr Graham Thomas for his service as our city’s Lord Mayor and civic ambassador over the last 12 months. If you want to watch the event click on this link at 2pm and follow the instructions to the Ceremonial Council.

Finally I want to congratulate Keith Morris, one of our highways supervisors, who has been recognised for his bravery following the Morriston gas explosion last year. I and senior leaders thanked Keith at the time, but he has now received the South Wales Police Chief Superintendent’s Divisional Commendation for Bravery in its annual local policing awards. The citation says the award is in recognition of his bravery, selflessness and quick-thinking in entering the scene of the explosion on three separate occasions to rescue a female and protect lives. Well done Keith, you are a credit to us all.

I mentioned last week that reputation is one of my priorities, and improving the city centre is a big reputation issue for us. The public and businesses expect us to take the lead in creating the right conditions such as modern buildings and a clean and safe city centre to help attract investors and jobs. It was therefore great this week to meet some potential businesses looking to invest in Swansea and also see the continuing progress across a range of projects both by the council and private sector.  Three of these flagship regeneration projects will be coming to fruition shortly creating jobs footfall and interest in the city centre.

The sites at 71/72 Kingsway, Palace Theatre and Albert Hall are looking great and will soon be welcoming tenants. That’s why these projects are so important to the city and the council. On Friday I was able to attend to see the progress at 71/72 Kingsway, the former Oceana nightclub site, into a high-quality office space for 600 workers.  I will also shortly be visiting the 136-year-old Palace Theatre which is being brought back to life as a shared workspace, thanks to funding from the council and the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme. The Albert Hall, which dates back to 1864, will include new offices, health and lifestyle services, rooftop garden, workspace, gym, food hall, performance area and stage, private dining rooms and a children’s play centre. My thanks to all our officers for their work in bringing the schemes towards completion. We’re also working with businesses in the city to refresh the way we promote Swansea to investors. We know we have a great offer but now it’s about making it easier for companies to seize those opportunities for investing and locating here.

Later this month we’re going to the UKREiif event in Leeds where investors and developers gather to look at new investment opportunities. It’s a chance for us to promote Swansea and hopefully attract further interest and jobs. All the major towns and cities will be there but it’s up to put Swansea on the map through a series of talks and presentations. DST, the company working with us on the tidal lagoon and related developments, will be at the event and we hope to have some positive news from them.

On the theme of internal reputation we’re just putting the final touches to our latest staff survey which we’ll be issuing as part of our staff engagement efforts in the next few weeks. Staff will be able to make individual responses in the usual way and managers will also be gathering feedback as part of a team survey during your regular team meetings. Getting feedback from teams is a new way of doing it but the idea came from our staff engagement group so hopefully it’ll prove popular with you. It’s another chance for us to get feedback to learn more about how you’re feeling and to see whether our engagement efforts to date are having a positive effect. It’s a few years since we’ve done a staff survey so I really hope you’ll take the opportunity to participate and please take the opportunity to input as I really am keen to understand if we’re making progress with our staff engagement.

It’s great to see one of our completed development sites has been recognised by a prestigious awards scheme. The project to create a Penderyn Distillery & Visitor Centre at Landore is shortlisted in this year’s Insider Wales Property Awards, as commercial development of the year.It’s also shortlisted for the RICS regional awards and the Constructing Excellence in Wales Awards 2024. Congrats to all involved!

Finally, some of you may be aware that our transport team undertake work for the Welsh Ambulance service transporting non-emergency patients to and from hospital. As part of a recent audit, it was great to see that service received an excellent rating which is a testament to all the team who work to deliver such an outstanding service which is fully funded by WAST. My thanks and congratulations to Cathy Williams and all of the team based in our Fforestfach transport depot.

Today and yesterday most of my time has been taken up with the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Yesterday scores of polling stations across Swansea were open for electors to participate – the first time in Wales when showing photo ID was compulsory. Today we’re running the count in the Brangwyn Hall and our results will feed into the regional centre which, this time, is being hosted by colleagues in Neath Port Talbot. Seamless as it may seem to the general public, a huge amount of effort by our staff goes into these occasions. So my thanks go to Huw Evans, Alison O’Hara and their teams as well as the many staff who stepped up for a long day hosting voters in polling stations and at the Brangwyn today.

Last week I mentioned I’d be returning to themes from my appraisal from time to time. The first of the seven topics is about reputation and the action I’ll need to take to provide visible leadership to promote the city and the council locally, nationally and regionally, working closely with the Leader to promote Team Swansea. There’s a list of measures that considers issues like performance and the staff and residents’ surveys which all provide vital information about the impact we’re having on supporting Swansea communities. Every contact you have with the public, and every effort you make to improve what you do can make a difference to the services we provide to our communities. It all affects our reputation and that is why it’s as essential to my appraisal assessment as it is to yours. Thank you again for your support and ongoing commitment.

On Tuesday I was pleased to join colleagues from the council and partner organisations across Swansea to celebrate the achievements of the Swansea Poverty Truth Commission, the first of its kind in Wales. The event was staged at the Dylan Thomas Centre and brought to an end the work of the commission over the last couple of years. You can find out more about it here. There are many to thank including Swansea Council for Voluntary Service who led the work, but most especially those who live with poverty every day for sharing their experiences so we can improve our services for people like them.

Well done to our Evolve youth service, our Early Help Hubs, the Partnership & Involvement team and our Ageing Well team for working with city youngsters to help break down barriers with older people. A recent initiative developed by young people themselves to invite elders to a series of tea parties around the city paid off with a final event at the National Waterfront Museum at the weekend.

Birthday greetings this week go to Sketty Library which celebrated its centenary day on Wednesday. Sketty Library’s history demonstrates just how much their vitality depends upon those who work there. My congratulations to Anthony Ball and the team at Sketty and to all our library staff who do a great job supporting their neighbourhoods.

Farewell today to three leavers, who have put in well over a century of service to our communities. Sarah Williams retires after 23 years in our library service, most recently as manager in Brynhyfryd. Jon Roberts and Mark Singh leave us after 41 years and 42 years respectively in Building Control. As it happens Mark and I go back a very long way – to the mid-1980s in fact, when we studied on the same HND course at Swansea Institute. You will all be a huge loss to the Council, and I wanted to wish you good luck to you all with your plans for the future.

As we’ve just started a new financial year, appraisal season is also upon us. Everyone must have an appraisal. It’s your opportunity to talk to your manager in-depth about your role and plan for the future. It’s also a chance to highlight how your performance contributes to the council’s overall objectives, supporting the services we provide that touch the lives of residents every day. It’s important that everyone has an appraisal to allow two-way feedback but it also allows us to set our objectives for the year ahead and identify and training needs for our staff.  I had my appraisal this week with the council’s political leadership on the Chief Executive’s Appraisal and Remuneration Committee. We looked at seven themes; reputation, regional collaboration, city regeneration, our transformation programme, budget, our corporate priorities and plan as well as corporate governance. Alongside those themes are actions I have to take and measures by which my performance will be monitored and assessed over the coming year. It’s quite exacting and very challenging, as it should be but I’m really looking forward to the year ahead. I intend to go through the themes in more depth in future blogs but it goes without saying that the ability for me to deliver on these objectives is fundamentally dependent on your support. That’s why I continue to be grateful for your commitment and hard work every day.

We had a Cabinet and CMT away day yesterday which included an item on anti-social behaviour in our communities, including the city centre. This builds on the work undertaken by a recent scrutiny report by councillors which acknowledged anti-social behaviour is a challenging and complex issue, it has a real impact on those affected and there are no easy, overnight solutions. But the presentation we received outlined the good progress being made by us and our partner organisations in the city centre and elsewhere to tackle the problem. My thanks to Jane Whitmore, Lisa Wells and Phil John for their update. There are a few things for us to do over the coming weeks and months and one of these will to set up a cross-council ASB forum which will allow input from all the services involved in this agenda and we will be looking of nominations shortly.

Earlier this week CMT got a progress report from Kate Phillips, Head of Vulnerable Learners, in our education team. Supporting children and young people in education settings who have complex physical or mental health needs is among the most important work we do. Although the work is led by Kate and her team, the support we provide comes from across the council and helps change young lives for the better. My thanks to Kate and all those involved. 

My congratulations to our child and family team who yesterday won a prestigious Social Care Wales’ 2024 Accolade for giving children and families a new brighter future through the Born into Care project. Born into Care is a multi-agency project that supports parents at risk of having their child taken into care, from the early stages of pregnancy through to the child’s birth and beyond. Families’ voices and experiences are at the heart of what the team does.

Our award-winning indoor market has won yet more praise. This time it’s from the National Market Traders Federation (NMTF) who named our market supervisor Darren Cox their Market Manager of the Year. Well done Darren and the whole market team whose innovative work was also showcased to much acclaim by their peers at the NMTF conference in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Finally, this week I had pleasure of attending the Varsity rugby matches between Swansea and Cardiff universities. It’s important to attend occasions like this to develop and maintain links with key partners like the universities as well as ensure we in Swansea remain a focal point for sporting excellence. On the pitch, both teams put in great performances and while the girls team came off second-best this time, the boys secured a well-deserved victory.