Brexit

Keep your ideas coming

January 25, 2019 by Martin 8 Comments

Thanks to all those staff who attended the recent roadshows. More than 750 staff turned up and the fact so many expressed their views frankly to senior managers is encouraging. What can senior managers learn from the dialogue?

Well, firstly it’s clear many staff have deep concerns about the future of local government in the face of continuing austerity. This isn’t surprising given the continual pressure on services and insufficient funding. It’s clear, however, there are people keen to innovate and generate ideas which will help make us a more sustainable council.

A number of staff approached me after the events with suggestions and I’m conscious some people are not comfortable raising ideas in a large forum. CMT will discuss ideas with individual staff and there’s a staff suggestion scheme online for those with digital access, or you can give ideas to your manager. All suggestions are considered by the relevant Head of Service for implementation.

There’s also an impatience among some as to the pace of cultural change in the organisation and the need for us to focus on productivity and output rather than attendance and bureaucratic processes. CMT will consider the feedback from the roadshows over the coming weeks and I hope we can do justice to the invaluable feedback we’ve had.

Fostering stronger relations

The Leader and I have been discussing our relationship with the Welsh Government to raise Swansea’s profile nationally. In fairness we spend a large amount of time making the case for the city in the corridors on the Senedd and I’m impressing on the management team the need to have constructive dialogue with senior civil servants. There’s a danger policy makers at the national level are remote from the realities of working at the coal face and the impacts of their decisions or the missed opportunities for improving services. Unfortunately, demands of the job sometimes mean we struggle to devote enough time to this but I’ll be reinforcing the importance of building stronger relationships and presenting innovative proposals to the Welsh Government and making sure we exploit opportunities to attract more funding to this council and this city.

More Brexit sorry

Next Tuesday sees the next milestone in the runaway train that is Brexit as the debates will rage again in the House of Commons. It remains to be seen whether an unlikely compromise can be reached or whether we face a delay in Brexit or a further referendum. In the meantime, we’re continuing to plan for any eventuality. On Thursday I joined the discussions at the Welsh Government EU preparedness Advisory Panel. A lot of work has been done by the Welsh Government to support the economy, ensure continuity on the provision of health, care and education services and to mitigate the impacts of a no deal Brexit. There’s a website explaining what’s being done.

The Council hosted a roadshow presentation by the Home Office on the EU settlement scheme to inform EU citizens living in Swansea on the application process in relation to obtaining settled status. The roadshow was well supported with over 70 people hearing from the Home Office the steps they need to take and information and contacts they can contact to support them through the process. This also involved a Q&A session to address individual concerns and issues. The information and presentation will be uploaded to the web along with the information from the Q&A session.

Education

Our Director of Education, Nick Williams, has been off work due to ill health. I visited Nick this week and I’m delighted to say he’s doing well and looking forward to returning when he’s fully recovered.

Council last night agreed in Nick’s absence our Head of Vulnerable Learner Service, Mark Sheridan, will be our Statutory Director of Education on an interim basis.

A huge thank you to Mark, Helen Morgan-Rees, Brian Roles and the education team for stepping up to cover this crucially important role. Council also considered the strong progress made in delivering education department priorities last year and noted that the priorities for this academic year:

Improve teaching and learning with a particular focus on reducing inequalities for the most vulnerable
Improve leadership and school governance
Work in partnership to develop a sustainable education system
Embed the new ALN, wellbeing and behaviour strategies
Ensure all learning opportunities take place in safe environments

Fitting tribute

Pupils at Pontarddulais Comprehensive School will today be commemorating Sunday’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 and I’m encouraged our younger generations are so involved in today’s important event.

Great effort

Many thanks to staff in our winter maintenance team who worked around the clock making sure our roads were treated with grit during the low temperatures this week. While there were some issues on the roads I’m sure the work of our highways teams helped keep these to a minimum considering the conditions.

The uncertainty continues

January 18, 2019 by Martin 2 Comments

The debate on Brexit went much as expected this week and the Prime Minister is now seeking to develop a compromise proposal from the ashes of her proposed agreement for the UK to leave the European Union. This will require her to present a new plan for EU withdrawal to Parliament by 21 January prior to a further debate on January 29. It remains to be seen whether this can be achieved and those who were hoping for a greater sense of certainty by Wednesday would have been disappointed.

Closer to home we have been working on Brexit issues for many months having identified it as a key corporate risk. A working group has been considering the possible implications of the various outcomes that are possible and a number of contingency plans have been developed to ensure that disruption to services is minimised. I have also had direct discussions with NHS colleagues and other partners to make sure that our approach is joined-up.

Next week I will attend the Welsh Government EU Preparedness Advisory Panel as one of four chief executive representatives and I hope to provide further updates on Welsh Government actions after this.

There are a number of possible outcomes. Let’s see what happens on Monday but I have a sneaking feeling that the certainty that many of us would like to have will continue to evade us.

Winter pressures

Discussions with our health board colleagues on coping with the pressures that winter brings to health and social care continued this week when Dave Howes and I met executives and clinicians from what will now be called Swansea Bay University Health Board, rather than ABMU. We agreed a number of practical steps to reduce the impact of bed blocking by better joining up our community services and adapting our facilities to cope with the demand for reablement.

ACEs

Cabinet yesterday considered a report from the People Policy Development Committee on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). This is a really excellent piece of work led by Councillor Ceri Evans and supported by a number of our staff who work with children. Cabinet agreed that we will now work on a “statement of purpose” and raise awareness of the issues involved in ACEs across the organisation and beyond. Thanks to Ceri and our team who supported this work.

Operation Timmia

Thanks to those members of staff who worked closely with the police on Operation Timmia which was launched after a high number of burglaries and aggravated burglaries were reported in the area in the past year. The operation involved raids to a number of properties in the City and was successful thanks to some excellent joint working.

Lagoon

The announcement that Hitachi have stopped work on the proposed nuclear plant at Wylfa will be a disappointment to many in North Wales. Considering that plans to build a nuclear power station at Moorside in Cumbria were halted by Toshiba in November and there are cost issues at the third plant at Hinckley Point there is room for concern about UK energy policy. All the more reason then to continue with our work to deliver tidal power in Swansea Bay and our team, led by Rob Stewart and Martin Nicholls, have made significant progress over the last few weeks as we seek interest in the project from the private sector following a Prior Information Notice being issued. The options are being considered for its delivery with a recommendations being submitted to Welsh Government by the end of March.

Brondeg House

Towards the end of 2018 Brondeg House, home to our Key Stage 4 Pupil Referral Unit had to be closed due to serious issues with the building. Corporate Building and Property Services have worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to ensure that the staff and pupils can return to their improved setting as quickly as possible. A big thanks to all those involved and to the PRU staff for their patience whilst the issues were addressed.

Congratulations

Well done to all those from the Waste Management and Parks Operations team (in their Christmas Jumpers) on passing their nine-month Waste Traineeship and NVQ Level 2. All the Trainees were presented with their well-earned certificates by Cabinet Member Cllr Mark Thomas.

Panto

This year’s pantomime, Cinderella, at the Grand Theatre was, as ever, a huge success – oh, yes it was.

Around 40,000 people flocked to the theatre to enjoy the festive treat starring Welsh singer, dancer and actor Ian H Watkins and Swansea’s very own Kevin Johns.

It was a brilliant occasion and it was particularly pleasing to know that 900 complimentary tickets were distributed to local groups and individuals who might not otherwise have been able to attend and join in the fun. My thanks to the Grand Theatre team for yet another successful Christmas run.

The team are now looking to make the all year round programme even more accessible, as they get ready for the 2020 panto Peter Pan.

We need your help

January 11, 2019 by Martin 8 Comments

You’ll all be aware of our difficult financial position we’re in and we need your help to reduce spending this year. The spending restrictions and vacancy freeze are already in place and now we’re controlling discretionary spend. You can take some easy steps by asking yourself, do I need to spend, can this purchase wait, are there other options and, if I need to buy, can it be done cheaper?

It sounds basic, and it is, but it’ll really help to pull back on spending this year so that we reduce our current and stubborn in-year overspend.

We’re also changing some of the formal procedures including reviewing and removing all non-core items from our i-purchase catalogues, new controls on spending restrictions, CMT will review non-compliant purchases and reviewing purchasing approval limits.

These are sensible and necessary changes and are aimed at savings jobs and protecting services. Please follow this link for more details.

Have your say

The budget has been a key theme of the on-going staff roadshows. We’ve been pleased with the turn out and response from staff so if you’re able to please come along to one of them to find out more about the budget, our plans for the future and to have your say in what we do.

On the Road Again

This week I’ve once again spent a lot of time on regional work. On Monday I met the ERW Joint Committee to discuss the way forward for regional collaboration in school improvement as we work to deliver the National Mission for education in Wales. After a difficult couple of years the way forward is becoming clearer and a broad consensus on future strategy is emerging.

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that some months ago I drafted in Geraint Rees, an experienced head teacher and education expert, to help me get ERW back on track and in his role as Interim Managing Director for ERW he presented the proposals to the members of the committee.

On Thursday I was invited to the regional ERW scrutiny committee along with the Chair, Ellen Ap Gwyn, and Geraint to answer questions about the performance and status of the regional consortium. I explained that we have had to deal with some difficult issues but we were now confident the future was clearer and brighter. Geraint repeated his presentation and the response of scrutiny was generally positive.

Bridgexit

On Tuesday I chaired with Western Bay Leadership Team as we prepare for the meeting of our Regional Partnership Board next week. Bridgend will formally leave the partnership at the end of March in a move that’s sometimes referred to as “Bridgexit” and we received an update on the progress of uncoupling that council from our regional arrangements. We also signed off the future direction of the Western Bay collaboration and will now be making a number of recommendations to the regional partnership board about how we’ll focus on a transformation programme for the future delivery of health and social care services in the region.

On Wednesday the Leader and I met with our counterparts from AMBU to discuss a number of issues including our joint response to winter pressures, ICT and information sharing, and the increasing profile of housing issues in health and care delivery. There’ll always be tensions between councils and the NHS, particularly over those areas where responsibilities are blurred, but we’re building a more positive and productive relationship with ABMU and this is recognised by both parties. Thanks to all the staff who have worked hard to achieve this as I’m conscious the real test of partnership arrangements is at the coalface rather than the boardroom. Retaining that focus on jointly providing seamless and excellent care services for our communities is the real challenge.

Brexit

Next week promises to be an interesting one as the House of Commons finally gets to vote on the PM’s Brexit deal. This will be a historical moment in UK politics and the strength of public feeling has been evident in the media with some disturbing and unacceptable behaviour towards politicians who are generally attempting to simply reflect the views of their constituents. But the divisions are clear and growing and we should be concerned about the consequences of this.

Whatever the outcome of the vote I hope we’ll be clearer on the future direction so that we can attempt in the next 80 days to properly prepare for the most significant event in UK politics for decades. I’ve been invited to join the Local Government [EU] Preparedness Advisory Panel which will meet later this month and I’ll share as much information with you as I can about the challenges and issues that Brexit presents. We’ve already responded to the Wales Audit Office request for information on preparations in Swansea and you can see the response here.

Bravery award

Darran Kiley who works in our waste management team has been nominated for a St David Award for Bravery. He helped South Wales Police apprehend a man with a knife in the city centre whilst on duty. The awards recognise and celebrate the exceptional achievements of people from all walks of life in Wales and will be held at the Senedd on March 21. Well done Darran, and good luck!

Charity efforts

Thanks to Building Services staff who recently raised more than £2,000 for charity.

Those to benefit included the Mr X Appeal, Mind Swansea and organisations supporting work with Alzheimer’s and cancer. Well done to all involved.

A promising year ahead

January 4, 2019 by Martin 2 Comments

A happy new year to you all. 2019 promises to be an interesting year. I suspect Brexit will continue to dominate the news and the political debates but we’ll continue in our mission to improve the city whatever happens.

Following the holiday period the work to regenerate the Kingsway will gather momentum again as this critical part of the city infrastructure gets a long-awaited facelift. I’m confident the plans Council approved will breathe new life into the city centre and the funding from UK and Welsh governments through the City Deal will supplement our own investment in this transformation.

At the same time we must maintain our focus on the other corporate priorities and we’ll be reinforcing this important message in the forthcoming staff roadshows – more on these below. As some of you know I’m not a big fan of Christmas but if I’d made a list to Santa it would have included;

Greater clarity on Brexit from the UK Government at the earliest opportunity
A sense of direction from the Welsh Government on the future shape of local government
Some real evidence that austerity is over, including a fair financial settlement for local government

Sadly thus far Santa has been unable to find my house but let’s hope 2019 will bring these to us at some point.

Staff roadshows

As you know, Cabinet agreed to consult on our budget proposals for next year. The public consultation is already under way, which staff can take part in, but on top of this we’re holding a series of staff roadshows at various council venues this month.

I’ll be attending some of the roadshows, and Adam Hill, our Deputy Chief Executive, will be fronting many of them along with directors and heads of service. I hope as many of you as possible can attend these so we can get your views and thoughts on where we are and where we’re heading as an organisation. Here’s a list of the roadshows, please agree with your manager which session to come along to.

We’re also producing a staff survey next week for you to give your views on proposals that affect our workforce.

Care home fire

On December 21 I was alerted at about 6.30pm that there had been a serious fire at a private dementia care home in Gorseinon. As you might expect the rest of the evening was spent on the phone as our emergency planning and social services colleagues worked tirelessly to relocate the 27 vulnerable people who needed to be rehoused immediately. This was one of the toughest logistical challenges we have faced for a number of years and the response was simply amazing.

I must thank all our colleagues who responded brilliantly. The residents were all assessed at the scene and two needed hospital treatment. Our emergency duty team had to find temporary accommodation for the remaining residents who moved into the spare beds we have at Parkway. It was a real team effort as our staff worked with colleagues from the fire, police, health services in very difficult circumstances.

From our end it involved colleagues from emergency planning, transport and social services who are too numerous to mention by name. Many, even though they were not on shift, made themselves available at no notice and worked long into the night. It really was a superb reaction. Thank you all.

Reverse advent calendar

Congratulations and thanks to all involved in the “Reverse Advent Calendar” in the run up to Christmas. Four charities, the West Wales Poundies, Morriston Hospital Children’s Ward, Zacs Place Homeless Support and the Salvation Army church, were all supported by the efforts and generous donations of our staff. Hats off to the organisers of this initiative which I hope will go from strength to strength in the future.