Chief Exec's Blog

Some of you may remember we hosted a Panel Performance Assessment (PPA) visit by independent experts in the summer. All councils in Wales have these peer reviews every five years. The panel’s job is to look closely at a range of things including our governance, resources and performance, highlighting what we do well and point out areas needing attention. I’m pleased to say the panel was very impressed. They didn’t just interview staff, and councillors, they spoke to businesses, residents, stakeholders and partner organisations to get a full picture. Their conclusion was that your ‘Team Swansea’ approach to delivering quality services for local residents is making a real difference. The PPA team are experts in local government and public service, so they know good performance when they see it. Their report is a real endorsement of your hard work and commitment. Thank you for your dedication, professionalism and the way you support each other and our residents every day. The panel also highlighted areas where we can improve, and we’ll be responding with an action plan to make sure our successful and sustainable approach to transformation stays on track. The report and our response is being presented to governance and audit committee next week and you can view the agenda item here.

At Cabinet this week, members saw a report (agenda item 12) about how we look after our partnerships with other public bodies and regional collaborations like the Public Service Board, education consortium, our regional health and social care and the South West Wales city Deal and Corporate Joint Committee. It might seem a bit dry, but it’s important for our reputation because we lead on many of these partnerships and their actions have an impact across our services, supporting regeneration and jobs, education, tackling poverty, improving infrastructure, and climate action. For staff, working with strategic partners means economies of scale and more joined-up working across the region, helping us make a real difference in people’s lives. My thanks to all officers who contributed to this review and continue to drive partnership working forward.

Cabinet also agreed that Swansea will be the lead partner in the new DWP Connect to Work programme for South West Wales (agenda item 14), supporting people with disabilities, health conditions and complex barriers into sustainable employment. We already have a strong reputation in this area, and this latest move will only strengthen that. Under the programme, residents will get tailored help to find and keep jobs, boosting confidence, skills and wellbeing, and helping tackle poverty and economic inactivity. Thank you to everyone involved in creating this important programme – your work will have a lasting impact in our communities.

The next major step of the big move to Y Storfa starts on Monday with the closure of Central Library at Civic Centre. Coming soon will be the transfer of Housing Options from its home on High Street to Y Storfa. More, including the West Glamorgan Archive Service and the Contact Centre, will follow. My thanks to the Facilities team leading the way, as well as library, archive, housing staff and others for their involvement. It’s a great opportunity to join up more services in a single place whilst also boosting our footfall in the city centre aiding its ongoing regeneration.

It’s Fly-Tipping Awareness Week and our teams have been out with Keep Wales Tidy around the city, speaking to residents about simple steps we can all take to clean up our communities. My thanks to all those involved in the door-knocking in our communities this week.

Today we’ll see the launch of the Poppy Appeal at Swansea Market. As always, our teams will be supporting veterans and the Royal British Legion in the fundraising effort and civic events. If you can contribute, please do.

This week the LC has been hosting the World Championships of the International Combat Organisation (ICO). More than 900 people from all over the world have been here for the martial arts event organised by a Swansea group with quite a bit of support from our tourism and special events teams, among others. I attended the opening ceremony, and it was pretty impressive. My thanks to our teams who helped make it happen and good luck to the Wales team and all those from Swansea participating.

Congratulations to Claire Williams from our Parks and Cleansing team who’s just clocked up 30 years’ service. And farewell to Alison Morgan who’s retiring after 42 years with the council, 25 of them with Tre Uchaf Primary School and their nursery class. My thanks to Claire and Alison for their service.

Finally, Swansea will be on BBC TV this weekend with an edition of Antiques Roadshow from the National Waterfront Museum. The show wouldn’t have been possible without help from our staff behind and in front of the camera. Catch it if you can at 8pm on Sunday.

This week our work started on our budget plans for the budget for 2025/26 with a meeting between CMT and Cabinet. The budget proposals are at a very early stage but there were initial discussions on the challenges and opportunities in social services and education – the places where, necessarily,  the majority of our budget goes. More discussions about them and other departments will follow in the coming weeks and we’ll be picking up thoughts from heads of service as well. If you have views and ideas, please share them with your manager initially. Council takes the final decision next March and both staff and public will be consulted before any final decisions are made. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted.

On a related subject, along with senior colleagues, I caught up this week with Audit Wales for one of our regular discussions about their overview of our governance arrangements including financial management and performance. They make an important contribution towards providing reassurance that our arrangements are appropriate and transparent, identifying areas for improvement. Audit Wales provide a valued external challenge to how we operate but it’s also our opportunity to demonstrate good practice to an influential external regulator, and I’m pleased to say we agreed a constructive way forward.

This week, along with the deputy leader Cllr Andrea Williams and senior officers, I also met colleagues on the Registered Social Landlords group including Pobl and Beacon, formerly Coastal Housing. It’s a quarterly meeting to discuss areas of common interest around housing supply, homelessness and how we manage our stock. We’re the biggest social landlord in the city and our housing teams are making a difference to people’s lives every day. These regular meetings ensure all of us play our part to support our tenants at a time when there is intense pressure on the housing market.

On Monday, the Leader and senior officers met with business representatives, public bodies and others in what’s called the Development Advisory Group. It might appear a bit dry and high level, but its members include some of the major private sector players with influence, interest and financial muscle to support the ongoing regeneration of our city. Sharing ideas, insights and working together has helped attract hundreds of millions of pounds of private and public sector investment as well as build our reputation locally and further afield as a place for business and investment.

Staying with reputation and regeneration, I want to congratulate everyone involved in the recent Placemaking Wales Charter fifth anniversary event at 71/72 Kingsway, which showcased our leadership in creating places that put people and communities first. Delegates were given a walking tour of the city centre to show off some of what’s been achieved. Hosting this milestone event was recognition of the council’s commitment to partnership, innovation, and a shared vision for our city’s future. My thanks to our placemaking and heritage team including Steve Smith, Krystyna Williams and Toby O’Connor. 

I’m always pleased to hear of occasions when our staff go above and beyond the norm to support our residents. This week I want to thank rents officer Lisa Cox for her quick and compassionate thinking while speaking to a diabetic tenant in distress. Thanks to her prompt actions an ambulance and a friend were able to get to his home with the support he needed in good time. And while I’m about it, tune in to BBC1’s DIY SOS show at 8pm tonight where you’ll see the heartwarming story of local man Dan Richards and the role we and others played in supporting him following a freak surfing accident. Our teams helped make the show possible and my thanks again to them for that.

There are farewells this week for two members of staff, Ray Foulston from Trading Standards and Barrie Gilbert from the transport team, after a collective 65 years’ commitment to serving our residents. Thank you both for your service and we all wish you well in retirement. Also, congratulations to Louise Gough, project support officer in the development and physical regeneration team, for clocking up 40 years’ service with the council. Thank you for your continued dedication, Louise.

Don’t forget it’s the Swansea Arts Weekend tomorrow and Sunday. Led by our cultural services team, the entire event is free of charge, so why not check it out here and choose the things you want to see. My thanks to the cultural services team, special events, highways, and other council staff for their commitment to making it a success.

And finally, a reminder to join the conversation about the council in our 2025 staff survey. It’ll only take a few minutes so click on the link now. Thank you.

The 2025 staff survey is launched this week. You can find the link here. You can do it either individually or as part of your team at a team meeting. If you want to do it as a team, please have a chat with your manager. This is an important task as it allows us to understand if your communications across the council is improving and you are finding out what you need to know. As such, both I and Corporate Management Team feel strongly that as we’re asking you to take a few minutes out of your day to do the survey, it’s important we show you we take action on what you say and that’s our commitment this year as it was last year. You can find out more about some of the things we did after your feedback on the 2024 staff survey here. If you want to know more detail about what happened in your area, please speak to your manager or head of service.

Our directors and  heads of service  met this week to discuss a range of issues. Rachael Davies, our head of HR and OD, presented a report about the next round of Oracle upgrades featuring even more self-service accessibility for you and your managers. We also got an update about progress and impact so far of our commitment to tackling climate change. And as the start of the 2026/27 budget process gets on the starting blocks, our director of finance Ben Smith gave us an update on where we are and what the timeline’s going to be. It starts shortly with Cabinet, CMT and heads of service discussions. Early in the New Year you’ll have your formal opportunity to have your say ahead of a final report to Council. If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas in the meantime , please raise them with your manager.

On Tuesday I joined up with the Western Bay Area Planning Board to look at a new report by the Drugs Commission about the problem of previous increased  drugs in South West Wales. The board includes colleagues from Neath Port Talbot, health services, the voluntary sector and South Wales Police. As a board, we commissioned the report ourselves and it makes for sobering and challenging reading. Tuesday’s event was set up to look at how we can deliver meaningful changes to substance abuse services which have an impact on the ground. As a council we need to play our part, and I’ll keep you posted on the action the Council will be taking on the coming weeks and months.

This week I’m pleased to say Welsh Government Minister for North Wales and Transport Ken Skates has signed off our Regional Transport Plan. The work was led by Stuart Davies and our transport team. It’s a vital document setting out plans for improving public transport services across our region from St David’s in the west to Neath in the east. Welsh Government endorsement matters because it means millions of pounds of grants will follow to help deliver on the ambition it has agreed to. My thanks to all for getting it over the line as getting a consensus across a range of partners is not always easy.

Last week I mentioned the countdown has started on the move of library and other frontline services to their new city centre home at Y Storfa. Have a look at the fly-through to see what our staff and customers can expect. It is pretty impressive and I’m grateful to all those involved in making this flagship project a success.

Staying in the city centre a little longer, there’s been significant progress at 71/72 Kingsway which is now filling up with our keynote tenants TUi and others. Find out more here. Its important we all continue to stress the message that our strategy to improve the city centre is to have more people working and living there allowing city centre retailers  to feel the benefit of higher footfall on the back of both these important schemes and I’d like to thank the regeneration team for their continuing commitment to the cause.

Finally, its Swansea Arts Weekend on October 11 and 12, organised by our cultural services team. It says something about their work, our reputation and Swansea’s cultural pulling power that names like Michael Sheen and Russell T Davies are appearing. My thanks to the teams who are making this happen.

The staff survey for 2025 will be launching shortly. I’ve always said in my blogs that it’s a really important opportunity for everyone to share their views on working for the council, our communication with you, and ways we can improve. As we did last year, the survey will gather both individual and team responses. I’d ask managers to make sure all staff are encouraged to take part, whether that’s by completing individual surveys or joining in team surveys at their next team meetings. For colleagues without IT access, please make sure hard copy surveys are available so that everyone can have their say. This is very important as it helps us understand detail within the survey but also gives us insight on how good our wider communication is with staff across the council so please make every effort to participate. If you’ve not yet had your say in the separate residents’ survey please act now as it closes tonight.

This week our Leader, Cllr Rob Stewart, announced some changes to the make-up of the Cabinet. Councillors Rebecca Fogarty and Andrew Williams will share the new post of Corporate Services in a mini re-shuffle that will continue during a temporary leave of absence by Cllr Robert Francis-Davies. I’m sure you will join me in welcoming them both to their new roles and wishing Cllr Francis-Davies well in his recovery.

Earlier this week I was involved in Exercise Pegasus, an ongoing UK-wide Government-led exercise testing public sector resilience in the face of a pandemic-level event. Although it’s a relief to say such things are tremendously rare, the lessons learnt from the Covid pandemic taught us that we need to be ready and prepared to deal with major incidents hence such exercises are crucial. This week’s test engaged teams from around the council and my thanks to them for their involvement and to Tim Kingham and Ben Cromie for facilitating our participation in this important work.

In the same vein of responding to incidents, it’s great to see progress being made after last week’s issues at Cwmbwrla roundabout. I’m pleased to say that thanks to the work of our highways team, the situation is now largely stable, the road into the city is partially open and plans are in place to deal with further flooding risk although this will take a while to resolve given the issue is on private land and there are several complicating factors involved. Elsewhere our parks and cleansing team have been very busy clearing blocked gullies, watercourses, and culverts to help prevent flooding as we move into the winter period. My thanks to all involved.

The Y Storfa transformation is gathering pace as the countdown to its initial opening towards the end of the year continues. This week we announced the current Central Library at the Civic Centre will be closed from Monday 20 October to allow staff to prepare for the move. This will include the relocation of more than 60,000 books and thousands of other items like maps and microfilm reels, as well as setting up library services and spaces at Y Storfa. When fully open Y Storfa will bring together a wide range of other services including the West Glamorgan Archive Service, Lifelong Learning, Housing Options, the Contact Centre and Revenue and Benefits. My thanks to everyone overseeing the Y Storfa development, and to our Facilities and library teams for all their hard work in getting this vital project into the home stretch.

A key aspect of our workforce development strategy is around maximising the opportunities for personal development of our staff. I was really pleased to see a great example of this in our Housing and Public Health team who have made excellent progress in career coaching and staff development, with support from Elaina Brutto. Coaching sessions are helping staff secure job offers, and training and development opportunities are being picked up through appraisals. There’s been a noticeable increase in staff confidence and skills, and managers are benefiting from support sessions and toolkits. The service has also welcomed two apprentices, with two more starting soon. Congratulations to the team for their success so far. Such initiatives are available across the council, albeit locally tailored to suit service needs, so please take the opportunity to find out what’s going on in your area.

Well done to the housing team on the success of their biggest-ever tenants’ drop-in event at the Brangwyn Hall on Wednesday. The feedback from tenants, councillors and participants has been very positive. Also, congratulations to the occupational health team for their efforts at Wednesday’s staff Macmillan Coffee Morning at Guildhall. More than £200 was raised for a great cause and my thanks to all those who contributed to the event.

As many of you will know our highways and traffic teams have been dealing with a major flooding incident at Cwmbwrla roundabout. Since last weekend’s heavy rainfall, they’ve been working round the clock to manage what is a highly complex situation. I want to thank them, other council staff who have been drawn in to support their work and partner organisations like Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, South Wales Police and Mid and West Wales Fire Service. As always, the resilience and commitment of our staff is at its best when our residents need us most. I also want to tackle one or two myths you might have seen on social media about the situation. We believe the problem is with a culvert which is blocked on private land and  can’t currently be accessed. This means the only way to deal with the water in the short term is to pump away as much of it as we can. Alongside our partners, our priority is to protect the public, their property and keep our roads as open as much as possible until the culvert can be accessed and repaired. I’ll keep you posted and if you live, work or use roads in the area please keep an eye on our social media for updates. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and support.

This week I was pleased to attend two events that celebrate the role of unsung heroes who rarely get the recognition from the wider community that they deserve. Yesterday, alongside colleagues in the West Glamorgan Carers Partnership, we hosted the annual Unpaid Carers Event at Swansea.com Stadium to thank them for their work, share information, and offer networking opportunities. The day before our community development team hosted a city-wide Volunteers Recognition Day at Brangwyn Hall to thank them for their dedication and commitment over the last year. It’s no exaggeration to say that without unpaid carers and volunteers our public services would struggle to deliver and our communities would be much poorer. My thanks to them and to the teams who organised these two important events.

Yesterday Cabinet saw two reports about our performance in the first quarter of the financial year. On our financial position Cabinet was told we are well-placed to manage the challenges we face in the year ahead of rising demand for services and cost pressures. We will, of course, need to deliver on our savings targets to achieve break-even by the end of the year. Our performance monitoring report also offered room for optimism. While there remain significant challenges in some areas, most of our services are delivering or exceeding our expectations and that’s down to you, so a huge thanks from me.

Congratulations to our car parks team for being named Britain’s best at what they do in this year’s British Parking Awards. They were the only Welsh council shortlisted, and they picked up the award for best back office services as well as the Team of the Year prize, the event’s main award.

Also well done to our tackling poverty and enabling communities team for earning the praise of their peers at this year’s APSE awards.  Although they didn’t win, it is a significant achievement to be finalists for two awards at such a prestigious occasion.