Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Budget report published

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A huge effort this week has gone into finalising our budget proposals for next year.

We’ve spent months discussing options with Members and we’ve now published the report for Cabinet on December 14. The budget has been a consistent theme in my blog so you’ll know the issues we face in terms of government funding, new spending pressures and a number of our services are over-spent due to rising demand and pressures.

It hasn’t been easy to reach this point and I want to thank the officers across the council who’ve been involved in preparing proposals and completing EIAs, along with Ben Smith, Sarah Willis and the finance team and staff in Access to Services, Communications and Democratic Services.

Once Cabinet agree proposals we’ll be consulting with the public and staff. We’ve planned a series of staff roadshows in January where you can learn more and have your say.

CMT has agreed further steps to reduce this year’s over-spend. On top of the vacancy freeze and spending restrictions, we’re reducing non-essential spending in the following ways:

  • Review and reduce the number of p-cards.
  • A workshop for staff with “buyer access” to Oracle.
  • All non-essential items removed from the i-procurement catalogue.
  • Non-essential spending approved by:
  • ICT hardware and software – Jo Harley.
  • Furniture – Geoff Bacon.
  • Advertising and bulk printing (non MFD) – Lee Wenham
  • Publicity/promotions – Lee Wenham

It’s more important than ever that we all support these measures to help reduce our in-year spending.

Phones

We’ve all been facing problems with our phone network in the past week. But we’ve been working on a modern, longer-term solution with the roll-out of Unified Communications. The current system is old and will continue to give us problems, so the sooner we can complete this move to the new system the better. My thanks to our networks team who’ve been working so hard to fix these issues and to those staff helping us switch to the new system.

City Deal

On Thursday the Leader and I attended an event for businesses as a means of updating them on the City Deal.  Around 200 businesses attended and the progress made was recognised by all.  There was a welcome sense of real anticipation and positivity among the businesses given some of their concerns over Brexit and the economy.  The leadership demonstrated by the public sector was warmly welcomed.  The Welsh and UK governments will shortly be conducting an independent review of the whole City Deal as the final stage of the project approval process and I hope they use this review to streamline processes and remove bureaucracy from the current approval arrangements.

Openreach

Having had discussions with Openreach for the past few weeks, it’s good to see the roll-out of the fibre network in Swansea.  The initial phase for SA1, SA2 and SA5 will hopefully be quickly followed by a broader roll-out to put Swansea in the leading pack for digital connectivity in the UK.  It’ll be about 24 times faster than the current UK average. Thanks to all who’ve been involved in delivering this latest sign of private sector confidence in the city.

New First Minister

Mark Drakeford has been elected Leader of Welsh Labour which means that he is likely to become First Minister in due course. I hope his appointment will give local government more clarity on reorganisation, regional working and the final budget settlement. The Leader and Cabinet Members have worked closely with him in his previous Welsh Government roles so I hope we can build on this.

Supporting families

We’ve received a toolkit from the Home Office to support EU citizens and their families to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. Hopefully, it’ll help our staff deal with key issues such as housing, benefits, voting and safeguarding among others. We’ll provide further information to staff shortly.

Congratulations and thanks 

Colleagues in Social Services won a total of 16 awards at Tuesday’s Patient Choice Awards. The awards are a chance for patients, service users, carers, family and friends to say thanks to those who made a real difference by providing outstanding care. It’s great to get this recognition and I know many staff go the extra mile. Well done to all of you.

The team at our baling plant went the extra mile when a family got in touch to say their young daughter’s much-loved toy bunny had been accidentally placed in the waste compactor. She is about to go for her 39th operation and she’d had the toy as a baby. Plant supervisor Martin Rees along with Paul Brown, Andrew Phillips and Lee Howells emptied the skip and searched for the toy, eventually finding it after 45 minutes, much to the relief of the family. Thank you boys, that’s a lovely effort.

Our Property team have been praised in the Allotment and Leisure Gardener magazine. Having helped allotment holders manage their own sites, it said we’d done “everything to help this transition run smoothly”, and added: “Here in Swansea it’s an exciting future for the allotment movement.”

 

 

Promoting Swansea in Cardiff

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I’ve been in Cardiff quite a bit this week raising our profile and trying to secure some commitments from the Welsh Government.

On Monday I met our Skyline colleagues from New Zealand to further develop the proposals for their leisure scheme at Kilvey Hill.  Work continues apace and I hope we can give the project the final push towards delivery.  It would have a major impact on Swansea as a tourist destination but given the financial climate we’ll very likely be dependent upon grant support from Welsh Government to secure it. Councillors Stewart and Francis-Davies also attended and I know they’re doing everything they can to get that support.

On Tuesday I was with the Welsh Government to discuss the future funding for ethnic minority language support to our schools.  I was joined by the chief executives of Cardiff and Newport councils and they feel as strongly as I do about this subject.  It’s essential the Welsh Government recognises that councils can’t provide these essential services without the necessary funding and I pressed the case as forcefully as possible.  Whilst funding is secured for the next financial year we need firm commitments beyond that and I hope sense will prevail.

We continue to work with colleagues in Cardiff and Newport to promote our cities and to highlight to the Welsh Government the particular challenges faced by urban authorities and I think they got the point.

I also met with Geraint Rees who’s taken over the helm at ERW, our regional school improvement consortium.  I’ve mentioned previously there have been some problems at ERW and one year on since my appointment as lead Chief Executive for the consortium I’m now confident real progress is being made.  I emphasised the need for better engagement and stronger partnerships with schools to make sure we secure the best possible outcomes for our learners across the mid and southwest Wales region.  Geraint and I will be working on a report to the ERW Joint Committee in January that will chart the future and hopefully ensure all regional councils engage fully in the organisation.

Swansea Central

Cabinet yesterday approved an extra £3m to progress phase one of the Swansea Central project including the proposed digital arena. This is a major step forward and couldn’t have been possible without tremendous efforts of Huw Mowbray and his team along with many others such as finance, legal, planning and communications.

Swansea University

I was concerned to learn of the current issues at Swansea University and the suspension of four members of staff.  As major partners in our regeneration projects, the University has a key role, and I hope the current difficulties can be resolved quickly.  The Leader and I have sought reassurance that the progress we’re all making on the City Deal will not be hindered by this.  In the meantime I must thank the economic regeneration team and Deputy Chief Executive, Adam Hill, for their work on pushing the case forward with Welsh Government officials this week. Hopefully in the next week or so there’ll be some definitive statements on the first projects to be approved under the Swansea Bay City Deal.

YGG Lon Las

On Thursday I was at Lon Las School for the official opening with TV news presenter Huw Edwards.  Huw is a great advocate and promoter of Welsh medium education so I was delighted when he agreed to officially open the new £9.8m school. It has over 500 pupils and it’s a huge improvement with all the classrooms under one roof. There’s also a lovely new flat play area and a sports field.  Huw spoke eloquently about the importance of quality in education and choice in language.  Both Huw and I were impressed by this magnificent facility and the team responsible for delivering it should be rightly proud of their work.  Huw was brilliant with the children and has promised to return. Thanks to headteacher Karen Thomas and her fantastic team for making us all feel so welcome. And congratulations to the school on their very positive inspection report.

Additional Learning Needs

CMT considered our approach to implementing the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 – to support children and young people with additional learning needs (ALN). It replaces existing legislation for special educational needs and the assessment of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities in post-16 education and training.  There are major implications for us and the NHS, and the recent commissioning review of ALN has resulted in the development of a new strategic approach which will be taken to Members in the coming weeks.  Thanks to Mark Sheridan and Gemma Whyley for explaining this to CMT.  The financial implications of the new requirements give me cause for concern and I feel further discussions with Welsh Government over funding will be necessary.

Spending controls

CMT also discussed the need for re-enforced efforts to reduce ‘discretionary’ spend given our projected financial overspend for 18/19 and beyond.  We’re anxious not to create unmanageable levels of extra bureaucracy and bottle-necks in the approval process which frustrated previous implementation of enhanced spending controls.  But we must find a way to provide extra scrutiny of expenditure.  Ben Smith and I will shortly be meeting staff involved in purchasing to talk through the issues with them.

Awards

Well done to our Building Services team who won a gold award at the Careers Wales Valued Partner Awards.  It saluted their work on activity such as careers fairs and talks, work experience and mock interviews with school pupils.

The awards recognise the contribution made by those who support Wales’s workforce of the future.

 

A busy week for appointments

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My blog is being published slightly later than usual today as I want to update staff on the senior management appointments that have been made this morning.

It has been a busy week on senior staffing appointments and my thanks go to the HR team for their excellent support throughout and to the members of the Appointments Committee and Council who have ensured that the review has been implemented rapidly to prevent any instability in the organisation.  This has meant six separate Appointments Committee meetings and an extraordinary Council.

This morning Council appointed Dave Howes to the post of Director of Social Services, Nick Williams as Director of Education and Ben Smith as Chief Finance Officer.  This has been an exhausting week for the candidates following assessment centres, competitive interviews and presentations to members while they continue to focus on their day jobs.  I am delighted with all these appointments and I know that the successful candidates will help us to tackle the difficult challenges ahead.

The Deputy Chief Executive will be appointed on 21st August.

Lagoon

You may have seen in the media reports that the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon can be delivered without UK government funding.  A report and addendum prepared by financial experts Holistic Capital said a Swansea Bay tidal lagoon is a fundamentally strong proposition and an ‘exceptional’ project that could provide clean power for generations to come.

A task force is being set up to take the lagoon concept forward. The aim is to adopt a new approach to procurement by bringing on board well-established construction partners and looking at ways to fund the project without the need for UK Government financial support.

I will keep you posted on developments as we try to find a way to deliver this innovative and sustainable project with our local and regional partners

High 5s

This year there’s been 135 nominations and there has been a real diversity in where the nominations have come from. There are 39 nominations from friends, family and sports clubs, 14 nominations from schools and many from council staff.  Judging takes place over the summer and the awards ceremony is in the autumn.  Thanks to all who have nominated

Awards

I’m delighted that we have four finalists in this year’s APSE Service Awards, a key reflector of public service excellence.  They are our apprenticeship and training programme (in the workforce initiative category), Team Around the Family in Schools (innovation / demand management initiative), corporate building service review (construction and building services team) and Trading Standards (environmental health, trading standards and regulatory service team). Winners will be announced in mid-September.  Well done to all involved!

Clyne Gardens has been shortlisted in the Leisure and Tourism category at the Swansea Life Awards  2018.  The awards night takes place on September 14 at the Brangwyn Hall.  Clyne Gardens is a proud Green Flag holder and has hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

Swansea Crematorium

Staff at the Crematorium have been praised by the Federation of Burial and Cremation Services for their dedication and commitment to the service. The federation’s role is to ensure services adhere to statutory requirements.  In their report inspectors said the grounds were in excellent condition. They were impressed with the presentation of the service at the crematorium and felt the staff should be congratulated for providing a high-quality service to the bereaved.

Cruise

The 193-metre long MS Amadea docked at the city’s port last Friday carrying 620 German passengers.  Our staff worked closely with Cruise Wales and Associated British Ports (ABP) to attract and arrange the visit.  Cllr Robert Francis-Davies, Swansea Council’s Cabinet Member for Innovation, Regeneration and Tourism, presented a plate to the ship’s captain to mark the occasion.

The feedback we received was exceptional – there were many smiling faces and the passengers complimented our tourism team on the welcome they received.  Thanks to all.

Summer holidays

The council is putting on 200 events over the school summer holidays in libraries, leisure centres, Swansea Museum, the Prom, Dylan Thomas centre and much else besides.

This weekend our teams are involved in the White Lady Festival in Mumbles and the Clean Air Roadshow in Castle Square on 28th. Details at: www.enjoyswanseabay.com or www.swansea.gov.uk/holidayactivities

If you’re heading to Oxwich Bay on August 4 you’ll be the first to get a glimpse of our Tourism Team’s brilliant new ‘Swansea Bay Surfari Bus’ on the opening date of a four-week tour of Wales and Ireland. The bus is a converted iconic VW Camper van complete with Visit Swansea Bay-branded livery. Funded through the Welsh Government Rural Development Programme, its purpose is to show visitors and potential visitors face-to-face what our brilliant coastline has to offer.

A 20-destination tour includes visits to Gower, mid and North Wales and then it’s across the sea to Dublin and Kilkenny. The Swansea Bay Surfari Bus is being supported by a Welsh Government grant and is part of the 2018 ‘Year of the Sea’ tourism campaign.

I will be on annual leave for the next two weeks so my next blog will be on 17th August

Two steps forward, one step back

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Economic development

The Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon has had a tough week, but we’ll continue to work with the company to deliver this much-needed project.  The company chairman, Keith Clarke, has made the position very clear and I hope they’ll take forward the proposals with renewed impetus. The Leader, Deputy Leader and I met Lord Adonis last week, former chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, to update him on the progress made to date.  He was very supportive of the lagoon and I know he’ll be helping to get some important messages to the Government in the coming weeks.

Yesterday I attended the City Deal Programme Board where we finalised the joint working agreement for approval at the joint committee next week.  We’ll then seek Council approval to sign it next month.  Thanks to all the officers who’ve helped to complete it.  We’ve also been discussing a potential future bid under the national Local Full Fibre Network programme and this would radically improve the city and regional digital infrastructure.  The next few months will be very busy as the City Deal projects get under way so thanks also to all involved in their delivery.

CMT

CMT discussed a lot of important issues.  In addition to the latest updates on the revenue and capital budgets, we considered a new Compact with the Third Sector, reward and recognition of staff and the Cultural Services commissioning review.  The Cultural Services review is a massive piece of work and thanks go to Tracey McNulty and Jamie Rewbridge who patiently took us through the reports and answered all of our questions.  This will now be presented to Cabinet for their consideration. Our discussion on reward and recognition covered a lot of ground, building on the work of the Innovation Community.  I’m conscious that our approach to reward and recognition has not been a consistent one across all services and I want us to put that right so that it’s fairly and equally done for all staff.  More on this in the near future.

Objectives

I mentioned last week I’d be publishing my objectives.  Please follow this link to see them.

Inauguration

Today marks the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor of Swansea, Councillor David Phillips, and Lady Mayoress Councillor Sybil Crouch.  I’ll be attending Council this afternoon for the formal ceremony.  I wish both an exciting and enjoyable year in their role which I know they’ll undertake with great enthusiasm. My thanks go to the outgoing Lord Mayor, Councillor Phil Downing who, along with his wife Lilian, has done a fantastic job representing the city at a mind-boggling number of events.  They have raised the profile of Swansea at every opportunity and I’m very grateful to them for that.

Congratulations

Our Corporate Health, Safety, Emergency Management & Wellbeing Service has been awarded the Health & Wellbeing Shield. It recognises the work of occupational health, mandatory and bespoke training, stress management, helping hands and bully buddies. We were also rewarded for outstanding Health & Safety performance. Martin Rogers, from Waste Management, was runner-up for Employee of the Year in recognition of his work to improve health and safety at the bailing plant. The HSE, which was part of the judging panel, now want to use us as the example of best practice for others. This is a great achievement and thank you to everyone for their efforts.

I was delighted to hear we had three finalists at the Welsh Teaching Awards last week, all from Pontarddulais Comprehensive School.  They were:

  • Dylan Lewis – Best Use of Digital Learning
  • Hannah Hopkins – Teacher of the Year
  • Jan Waldron – Headteacher of the Year.

Congratulations to all three and it was fantastic that Dylan and Jan won.  During my visit to the school last year I was very impressed by what they were doing and it’s wonderful news that they’ve been recognised on the national stage for their efforts.

Our run of impressive Estyn inspection reports continues with congratulations to head teacher Alison Williams and all the team at Craigfelen Primary. The school was rated excellent in three of the five inspection areas and good in the other two.

The report noted how pupils enjoy going to the school and are very proud of their achievements. Equally important was the inspectors’ comments about how much families value the school’s provision so highly. Well done to all.

The miracle that didn’t happen

Sadly the much hoped for miracle never happened last Sunday and the Swans were officially relegated from the Premier League.  Let’s hope they can rebuild next season and once again secure top flight football for the city.  The last seven years have seen the city profile rise and they can be truly proud of their achievement.

Setting objectives

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I had my annual appraisal this week to review my performance and to set my objectives for the coming year. The appraisal is done by a cross party group of councillors (known as the Chief Executive’s Appraisal and Remuneration Committee) whose job it is to hold me to account for the organisation’s performance and the commitments I gave to them on my appointment.  You may remember that I published my objectives in the blog last year. Thanks mainly to the efforts of our staff I was able to give a good account of myself as we’ve maintained or improved performance in the majority of services, despite facing significant budget reductions. It goes without saying that I’m very grateful to you for this.  The latest telephone survey indicates that two-thirds of our citizens are satisfied with the way we deliver services, although only one-third are likely to speak highly about us.  This still puzzles me but our feedback compares well with most other councils in the UK. The Committee considered my objectives for the coming year and I’ll post them on my blog when they’re confirmed.  In short I’ve committed to making sure the Council takes a strong lead in regional working, to delivering the City Deal, continuing the transformation of the Council, managing the budget and reviewing the senior management structure. This will be a challenging year for all of us with a grim financial outlook, potential local government reform and a huge challenge in re-modelling our city.  I hope with your support I can demonstrate further progress when the committee reviews my performance next year.

Local Government Reform

At Corporate Management Team we discussed the principles behind the Council response to the Welsh Government consultation on Strengthening Local Government: Delivering for People.  You’ll remember the proposal is to reduce the current 22 local councils to 10.  We hope to bring a report shortly to make sure that the views of Council are set out very clearly to the Welsh Government.  I know that the scrutiny panel chaired by Councillor Lyndon Jones looking into this will shortly produce their report and this will also help to inform our response which might include the following points that were raised by CMT:

  • Swansea Council is open to the idea of merger.
  • A voluntary merger approach is unlikely to deliver what the Welsh Government has set out.
  • If there’s a will to do this then it needs to be done rapidly i.e. by 2022.
  • The best model is the one that would deliver sustainable services over parochial interests.
  • We must first have a clear vision for local government in Wales expressed in outcomes for the next 10 to 20 years and structures should follow this.
  • There is no guarantee that biggest is always best.
  • There should be a radical delayering of responsibilities and accountabilities in local government in Wales to reflect Welsh Government as policy maker, local government as deliverer and a single inspectorate.
  • The merger proposals will create confusion in relation to existing collaborations. If authorities were to agree to merge, they may have very different views on arrangements that could freeze decision making on some collaborations until there is clarity.
  • There’ll be a large financial cost associated with local government re-organisation during a time of severe austerity. In 2014, CIPFA estimated that up-front costs of reorganisation across the whole of Wales could range between £160m and £268m.

When the report to Council is published I’ll add the link to my blog.  My best guess is that nothing is likely to happen quickly when the consultation ends as the Welsh Government are focussed on other things.

On a similar note, the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales has started an Electoral Review of Swansea’s Boundaries.  The consultation runs until July 24 and can be found here.

Virgin Media

I mentioned last week that Virgin Media had announced the start of consultation on the proposal to close its Swansea operation.  On Wednesday the Leader and I met the company to better understand and challenge the rationale for closure.  Whilst it’s clear the nature of the business is changing to reflect the fact that better digital infrastructure has reduced the number of fault calls dealt with at the Swansea contact centre, we told them that we thought it was a short-sighted move in the context of our City Deal digital projects. We’re already working with the company and Welsh Government to soften the blow through redeployment but I hope the company will take our views, and those of the workforce, into account when finalising a decision.

Congratulations

I was delighted to see an email from Nicole Dummett in Corporate Building and Property Services following the two recent awareness campaigns on Domestic Violence.  Staff in the department raised £193.49 and £161.43 towards the campaign for which the staff at the Domestic Violence One Stop Shop were extremely grateful. The first donation was spent on a Christmas party for some of our service users and their children, confidence-building classes and three children’s craft workshops.  This time I understand the donation will be used to support the Shoe Box scheme, particularly for male victims of domestic violence as the numbers are increasing.

Summer ball

Last night’s Lord Mayor’s Summer Ball was a great success. A series of awards were given out in recognition of people’s contribution to Swansea. I’m grateful to Joanne Jones in Corporate Marketing and all the team involved for organising a great event.

Hoping for a miracle

It looks like the Swans’ stay in the Premier League is all but over, barring the ten goal turnaround required for them to stay up. It’ll be a real shame to see the Swans relegated, not just for fans like me, but for the city and the wider region. There’s no doubt that having a Premier League club has been a great selling point for Swansea. So here’s hoping for a minor miracle at the weekend or a better season next year!