Chief Exec's Blog

With a workforce of more than 11,000 delivering hundreds of services that touch the lives of thousands of people from birth to old age every day it’s fair to say we’re a large and complex organisation. So if you’re a new starter you might feel a bit daunted about exactly who we are and how you fit in. That’s why, as part of our workforce development strategy, we’re reviewing and revamping our induction programme. It’s early days and I’ll keep you posted about developments, but I caught up with the HR&OD team last week to go over an outline of how the programme will work. It’s planned that for those who don’t have regular access to the intranet, inductions will be delivered face-to-face by line managers with online support. Those who are largely office-based will likely have access to an online eLearning package. I’ll be part of the process, delivering my own perspective via video, welcoming the new starters and highlighting what I think about who we are and what we do. If you’ve got ideas on how we can make inductions more meaningful I’d like to hear from you. After all, the one thing we all have in common is that we were all starters once, but for some of us, it’s a little longer ago.

Many of us who have council email accounts will know of the attempted cyber-attack on our network earlier this week by criminals targeting us with an email purporting to be from a ‘HR manager’. Thankfully, it didn’t succeed and I’m grateful to all those who did the right thing by reporting it to our IT team. I’d also like to thank IT for its robust approach to keeping our data safe. It’s an important lesson that we all have our part to play in keeping such attacks at bay by being vigilant and not taking at face value every email or online correspondence each of us receives.

Yesterday Cabinet agreed to proceed with a feasibility study to determine the potential value of a district heating network that could help cut the carbon footprint of major public and private sector buildings in the city centre area. It’s an important milestone, partly because the study is being funded by the UK government and provides further confidence that we are moving closer to delivering the wider lagoon and Blue Eden project which would be a world-first innovation on our doorstep.

Also yesterday I was pleased to visit Olchfa Comprehensive School for the official opening of our latest 3G sports pitch. The £1.6m project will be a boost for sport at the school and will support the health and wellbeing of the wider community too. My thanks to those who’ve delivered this pitch and others like it around the city.

Our libraries service has been shortlisted in the UK Libraries Connected Awards for the outstanding work Swansea Central Library is doing to become a place of sanctuary and support that welcomes new people settling here. All our libraries are sanctuaries at the heart of their communities, so well done to all those involved and good luck in the final.

Congratulations also to our tourism team for their innovative video initiative promoting our city to the wider world. Featuring stories from local people and businesses, video views in the last 12 months have surpassed the 1m mark – significant backing for an industry worth £500m a year locally. They say Swansea is our happy place. They’re right.

Red tape is an issue faced by almost every large organisation any of us come into contact with, either in our work or personal lives. Put simply, red tape is official rules and processes that need to be in place to comply with our obligations but may seem unnecessary and get in the way of delivering results. In Swansea we need to constantly look for ways we can be more efficient so that we can deliver services for councillors and customers more effectively and sometimes red tape can impact on this. On Wednesday Leadership group reviewed progress on our efforts to remove red tape by simplifying the way we do things. A good example is the way we write reports. Lots of officers have to write them on a range of topics for audiences including councillors, senior officers and the public. To help save time, simplify the process and achieve more consistency in the way they’re written we’re going to look at the process involved and also put some new guidance together for officers. We’ll discuss with councillors before implementing it and I’ll keep you posted on that. In the meantime, if you know of any examples where our processes are a bit clunky and could be simplified by cutting out red tape, do let me know.

I was very pleased to be taken on a tour of our new IT data room at the Guildhall this week. It’s undergone a major £1m upgrade, transforming it into a cutting-edge facility with advanced backup and disaster recovery systems. The aim was to improve security, reliability, and backup systems while also reducing energy costs. Digital Services are in the process of transferring systems from the Civic Centre to the new facility, as well as to our Cloud environment. This upgrade means better, more resilient IT systems for our staff to benefit from now and in the years ahead, which is critical to ensure all our services can be delivered. My thanks to Jo Harley, Andrew Morris, Richard Jones and Brian Morris for the tour and the wider digital teams who delivered the project.

I caught up with my staff engagement group this week where we had a good discussion about the upcoming staff survey. We’re finalising the questions now and we’ve agreed that it’ll be part of our ongoing staff engagement programme. Look out for it as it’s expected to be published by early May and the more who take part, the more impact its results will have.

The Police and Crime Commissioner elections are due on May 2 and our elections team will have some new rules to deal with – one of them is about postal votes. You can find out more here. But the main message is that if you want to make sure your postal vote counts the best way to do it is to post it in a Royal Mail post box. Any other method runs a risk of it being rejected.

Good news this week – our work to transform Hafod Copperworks and education facilities at Bishopston Comprehensive has been recognised by the prestigious Constructing Excellence in Wales awards scheme. They’ve been shortlisted in the regeneration and retrofit categories respectively, so good luck to the teams who’ve made these important projects happen.

It’s goodbye this month to David Walker after an entire career of service at the council. David joined the parks team 46 years ago straight from school before moving to the baling plant. There, his dedication and flexibility over 36 years have helped ensure, among other things, we’ve been able to operate a seven-day-a-week service for our residents. Thank you David, enjoy your retirement.

Later this month we’ll be launching our staff survey. It’s the first one we’ve done since before the pandemic, so you won’t need me to say just how much has changed in that time. I said when I took on the role that a key aspect for me is to improve communication and engagement with all our staff. In addition, as a result of the rising demand for services and the financial challenges all local authorities face, we can expect to see more change in the months and years ahead. These are among the reasons why we’re doing the survey now as part of our normal engagement work and why it’s vital you have the chance to speak up and, more importantly, you’re listened to and action is taken on your feedback. The survey is part of this wider engagement and will be a topic for consideration at my staff engagement group who next week will get a final chance to offer its thoughts on the final draft before publication. My thanks to Rhian Millar’s team and all those who’ve contributed to the process so far. Please let me know if you have any views on what we should be asking in the survey.

The staff engagement group will also be getting a presentation from an external company called My Money Matters, specialists in providing personal financial guidance and additional voluntary contribution (AVC) pension schemes for staff in public sector organisations like ours. We’re anticipating the outcome will be to help develop further our staff benefits offer for you to take advantage of. I will keep you posted.

Our elections team is in full swing planning for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections taking place on May 2. For the first time in Swansea voters going to the polls will need to take a form of ID with them such as a driving licence or passport. It’ll be an additional issue for staff to deal with and the elections team will be providing them with support. If you’re planning to vote and you want to know more about acceptable forms of ID please go to this link.

In a previous blog I’ve mentioned a new Naming Policy which enables us to name civic facilities in honour of those who’ve made a significant contribution to the life or history of our city. Yesterday we officially re-named the Gloucester Room in Guildhall the Lilian Hopkin Room after our first-ever female Lord Mayor. Lilian was a well-known figure in the council and contributed hugely to the communities she served over many years, so this recognition is well deserved.

Finally, while most of us will hopefully have had the chance for some time out over Easter, I’d like to thank all those who were on duty or on call over the holiday period ensuring essential services our residents depend on continued to be maintained.

A regeneration programme worth over £1bn is ongoing in Swansea to create more jobs and opportunities for local people and local businesses, while also helping to attract even more investment in future.

Although this includes a number of new buildings like Swansea Arena, we’re also doing all we can to celebrate Swansea’s heritage and breathe new life into the city’s historic gems.

This includes our work to restore and transform The Palace Theatre on High Street, which dates back to 1888.

Along with other officers including Mark Wade, Elliott Williams and Tracy Nichols, I visited the theatre building yesterday to see first-hand the progress that’s taking place on site.

Due to be managed by Welsh business Tramshed Tech, the development is now coming on in leaps and bounds. With the scheme anticipated for completion by the end of the year, there’s now a real wow factor inside because the central space is free of scaffolding and you can see the shape of the theatre as it once was. It’s part of a £100m investment to help transform the High Street area.

Other developments including the 71/72 Kingsway office scheme are making considerable progress too, as Swansea’s transformation continues to gather pace.

That development, as well as Swansea Arena and the Innovation Matrix scheme being led by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, are being part-funded by the Swansea Bay City Deal.

On Wednesday, I was at a City Deal event in the arena to hear about the progress of many projects throughout South West Wales. Over 150 businesses and partner organisations were in attendance and it’s so encouraging to see the public and private sectors working so closely together to create a brighter future for both Swansea and the broader City Region as a whole. It was great to meet colleagues from the regional teams and other businesses plus many delegates who were very positive about the progress being made in Swansea

We’ve also started remarketing a hotel opportunity in recent days for the site between the arena and the LC in a further boost for Swansea’s transformation.

During the last week, I also met staff in our welfare rights team who continue to do so much great work to benefit many thousands of local residents. This is especially important given the ongoing cost of living crisis, so my thanks to Jane Storer for talking me through their work and the challenges they face.

This week is National Social Work Week 2024, which helps shine a light on all the great work done by social workers across the country. That’s certainly the case here at the council, so my thanks to our social services team for all they do every day for children, young people, adults, carers and families.

Switching to education, cabinet yesterday approved a £3.25m investment in Townhill Primary School that will lead to an all-weather pitch, a new school dining area, kitchen and community facilities there. This follows-on from the recent addition of a new play area for local children at the Phoenix Centre as we continue to invest in communities across the city.

Well done to our trading standards team too for their recent work in seizing illegal vapes with a street value of more than £47,000, along with large amounts of counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco. They were found in a disused WW2 bunker in a Swansea garden.

This week marks the retirement of two long-serving members of staff – Paul Lilley and Dave Meyrick.

Paul has been with the council for 42 years, taking over the housing finance function in 2014. His knowledge of the Housing Revenue Account and the numerous financial functions will be hugely missed.

Dave joined the council in 1986, with his most recent role being housing programme and planning delivery manager. He had a big input into the work involved in preparing for and achieving the Welsh Housing Quality Standard and numerous other maintenance and improvement projects.

They’ll be enormously missed by their colleagues so I’d like to join them in wishing both Paul and Dave my best wishes for long, happy retirements.

I’ll be taking some leave next week, so it’s an early Happy Easter from me to all staff.

The blog will return two weeks today (Friday April 5).

I’m sure we all agree with the old Dylan Thomas quote that Swansea is the best place. Over the last decade or so Jack Straw, Phil Roberts and I have used the blog to update you about our leading role in city regeneration and the impact it has on our staff and the future of the city. We’ve been making great progress in recent years, thanks to the arena and developments like 71/72 Kingsway alongside the private sector, Welsh Government and UK Government investment. Now we, BID, universities and private sector businesses are looking at how to make sure our success story is used as a platform to attract yet more investment into Swansea and the wider region. Yesterday, the Leader, Cllr Robert Francis-Davies and myself met representatives from BID and private sector partners to consider setting up an inward investment initiative called the Swansea Investment Group. We’re all passionate about our city and believe a collective joined-up approach to telling the Swansea success story will encourage others from the UK and abroad to come here and invest in their future and ours. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes but I want to thank the many officers around the council who’ve helped turn our regeneration aspirations into the reality we see around us every day.

A practical example of our leadership role in city regeneration is the Destination Management Plan – our strategic approach to supporting the £500m-a-year local tourism industry. Recently our tourism team gave an update on the latest plan to more than 20 local tourism and hospitality businesses which was really well-received. We want tourists to go home and tell their friends great stories about us so they come and visit too. A strong partnership between us and local businesses helps make that happen and aligns with our USP for the wider investment opportunities referenced above. My thanks to Tracey McNulty, Steve Hopkins and the tourism team for their work in this area.

This week we earned architectural accolades for two of our landmark projects. The Penderyn Visitor Centre at Hafod Copperworks has been nominated for a heritage award by the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS). And judges from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) were in the city to inspect Swansea Arena after it too was shortlisted for a major architectural award. Good luck to both.

The Police and Crime Commissioner elections are approaching in May and our elections team are looking for support staff, particularly presiding officers. If you can help, please drop an email to the team here: electionstaffing@swansea.gov.uk

Finally, it’s time to say farewell to three long-serving members of staff who are leaving this month after clocking up well over a century of service between them. Karen Telford from our Trading Standards team is retiring after 49 years protecting our communities from rogue traders. Sue Woodward leaves us after 29 years of supporting businesses and people into jobs through, not least, her work in inward investment business support and the Beyond Bricks and Mortar initiative. Also leaving at the end of the month is Liz Edmonds, a member of my support team. Liz joined our Lliw Valley predecessor authority in 1985 and worked in a variety of roles in leisure before becoming a key part of the team that’s supported me, Phil and Jack to do our jobs in recent years. My thanks to all three for their service and I wish them all the best for the future.