city of culture

Hard Times

January 19, 2018 by Martin Leave a Comment

The budget for next year continues to dominate CMT’s work and we’ve been wrestling with some emerging issues to try to finalise our proposals.

The removal of some grants and increased spending pressures, including unfunded pay awards, have made the task of setting a balanced budget much more difficult this year. Over the coming weeks the details will be finalised with Cabinet before we report to Council following consultation.

I know this is a difficult time for staff and decisions will need to be taken that we wouldn’t consider if the financial position was easier. Where staff are under threat of redundancy I’ve asked for particular efforts to be made to ensure that our redeployment processes operate quickly and effectively.

I’m also conscious there’s been a good deal of misinformation circulating about the proposed funding for schools. Our Section 151 Officer, Ben Smith, and I will be writing to head teachers next week setting out the facts clearly so that the record can be put straight.

Local Government collaboration.

Yesterday the Leader and I met Alun Davies AM, Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services in the Welsh Government to discuss local government reform. I’m speculating but I think it’s possible that there might be a change of emphasis and it is always possible that the issue of merging councils might reappear over the coming weeks. This would have an impact on the current collaborations we’re involved in, particularly those involving education and economic development. We’ll find out more by mid-February and I’ll keep you posted on developments. In the meantime large amounts of my time, and that of colleagues, is tied up with regional collaborations and below is an update on the three main programmes.

ERW

This week I’ve been speaking to the six education directors in the ERW region about what needs to be done to improve the governance and effectiveness of the regional consortium and I’ll be meeting Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams in a few weeks to set out the position and make some recommendations for the future.

Western Bay

Last Friday I chaired the Western Bay Leadership Team where we discussed the progress made on the proposed move of Bridgend CBC to the Cwm Taf health board area. This will be a real challenge for all involved but it’s essential we retain a focus on services to the citizen, so I was pleased to hear about the excellent progress being made by the Western Bay partnership.

City Deal

The Leader and I, along with colleagues from our three partner councils, met the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, and the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Mark Drakeford. We discussed the issues that remain outstanding before we can proceed to signing the Joint Working Agreement and I’m optimistic we can resolve these so that a report can be made to Council before the end of the financial year.

Over the past few months I’ve been working with our Corporate Innovation Officer, Rhys Curtis, on a seminar for lead members and officers on what a smart and connected Swansea will look like as we progress the City Deal projects. I’ll say more about this in a couple of weeks but I’m anxious that we reach a wider audience of staff, councillors and partners so that the vision for the future can be shared and debated. The seminar will be held in early February and I’ll report back and add links to the presentations as soon as possible.

Thanks and well done

Thanks to the staff in ICT who arranged the migration of CMT to Office 365 this week. It was a smooth transition for which I’m very grateful.

Thanks to Mark Gosney and the High 5 team who this week organised a tea for this year’s winners with the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House. This followed the kind offer that the Lord Mayor made at the High 5 Awards ceremony.

On Monday evening the Mansion House was the venue for a thank you event for all our partners in the City of Culture bid which gave the opportunity to remind everyone that we’ll continue to work with Welsh Government to make Swansea the Welsh capital of culture.

Our city centre rangers dealt with 21,015 incidents last year, ranging from enquiries from the public to working with the police to report and tackle anti-social behaviour. They also support city centre events and activities, help businesses with their questions and queries, and put safety and security arrangements in place. Well done to all involved.

Next week is the last working week for Greg Jones in our Communications team. Greg is leaving to join the City Deal team so our paths will continue to cross frequently. I’d like to thank Greg for all his hard work over the years and wish him well for the future.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

December 28, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

My last blog of the 2017 is a chance to reflect on some of the major issues of the past year and to look ahead to our challenges in 2018.

We started the year in fine style by being awarded the Platinum Corporate Health Standard after excelling in corporate social responsibility and innovation. January also saw the Hendry Review say the Tidal Lagoon was a “no regrets” policy. Almost a year on we’re still waiting for a government decision!

The Welsh Government unveiled its ‘White Paper: Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’ including regionalised services and electoral reform.

Spring brought the City Deal signing which promises a £1.3bn transformation of our economy and we built on our track record of investing in young people by launching our Apprentice Strategy – more than 170 apprentices have come through since 2003.

April showed there were no fools in our waste team when they cleaned up at the IESE (Improvement and Efficiency South East) Awards.

In May we stood united with Manchester following the horrific terror attack which served as another reminder that we all have to be vigilant, particularly at our major events. And our elections team and volunteers pulled out all the stops to deliver yet another election with huge effort but minimum fuss.

The tragic events of Grenfell Tower threw the spotlight on high-rise flats across the UK and our Housing and Corporate Buildings teams led the way in Wales, acting quickly and professionally to reassure our residents. Another election, this time the General, once again saw our staff pull-out all the stops.

The summer brought a mixed bag of news – I was delighted to be permanently appointed Chief Executive and for us to be shortlisted for City of Culture. But this delight was dampened with the shelving of the rail electrification to Swansea and the worrying budget indications from the Government.

The annual local government “league tables” in September showed that despite budget cuts and service pressures:

29% of all our performance indicators were in the top quartile, up from 17% in 2014/15
A reduction in lower quartile PIs from 22% to 14%.
We’re ranked 9^thamong all 22 councils, up from 15^th last year. Considering we are an urban authority this is a major achievement.

We launched our Love the Lagoon campaign to unite the community in telling the Government we want and need the project.

October is always a highlight for me because of the High 5 Awards and this year a record number of young people were recognised. Autumn also sees the real work on our budget get under way and Corporate Management Team and Cabinet were locked in meetings to plug the budget gap due to government cuts. Each year is getting more difficult.

November was a month for lobbying in London when we took both our City of Culture and Love the Lagoon campaigns to Westminster. Closer to home our Christmas Parade was met with great feedback from the public.

Despite a fantastic effort, our City of Culture bid fell at the final hurdle in December. Since then we’ve had encouraging talks with the Welsh Government on how we can take culture forward. Our annual staff survey showed the vast majority of areas improving. However, there’s more work to do, particularly on appraisals. And just before the Christmas break I was delighted to hear primary school attendance was 95% for the 2017-2018 academic year, compared to 94.9% for each of the two previous years. The five-year trend since 2011-2012 has an improvement of 2% which is the highest rate of improvement in Wales. Congratulations to all our school and education staff for this impressive result.

So what does 2018 have in store for us? Hopefully a positive decision on the Tidal Lagoon with the clock running at 350 days since the Hendry Review recommended the government gets on with it. We’ll see some significant developments taking place around the Arena and Kingsway sites as the city centre regeneration gathers pace. This will involve major changes to the city centre road network and the development of the infrastructure for a Smart City.

I suspect we‘ll see a restatement of the Welsh Government approach on local government reform, possibly with greater emphasis on mandation unless the pace of collaboration between councils increases.

We’ll set a budget following the consultation process and hopefully continue to deliver excellent services in increasingly difficult circumstances. Our work on modernising and transforming the Council will continue, increasing our agile, digital and commercialism programmes to help us to combat future cuts in the revenue budget.

Above all I hope 2018 will be a healthy and happy year for you and for your families and I want to thank you once again for the fantastic work during 2017.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Merry Christmas

December 20, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

As we head into the Christmas break I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all staff and councillors for their work in the busiest year I can remember for Swansea as a city and as a Council. In my next blog I hope to recap on some of the events of the year but for those of you who’ll be on leave over Christmas I hope you enjoy your well-earned break. I’m sending my blog out early this week as I’m conscious our offices close at noon on Friday and some people will be taking leave to finish their preparations for the festivities.

However, a number of our staff won’t be relaxing over the coming week because they’ll be working to maintain vital services during the holiday period and I’m immensely grateful to them for this.

City of Culture

On Tuesday I met Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport at the Welsh Government, following the disappointment of missing out on the UK City of Culture 2021 title. Tracey McNulty and I shared with him the feedback I mentioned in last week’s blog. There were a lot of positive messages from the panel on the Swansea bid and a plea from the UK Minister for Culture to continue with elements of our proposed programme, irrespective of the decision. We outlined the huge amount of support for our bid, as demonstrated by the excellent social media campaign. We also explained that our strategy for culture remains in place and we’re keen to work with Welsh Government to develop an approach for Wales that would see Swansea at the forefront of its cultural agenda.

Lord Elis-Thomas expressed his support for this and has invited us to develop our proposals further over the next few weeks, so we’ll be working in earnest with councillors on this. It’s clear the Welsh Government is willing to help us to resource this which is great news for us all. Watch this space!

City Deal

The City Deal discussions are moving very quickly now and the Joint Working Agreement between us will be signed early in the New Year. Our teams in Place, Finance and Legal have worked hard on this for many months so thanks to them for their efforts. The Shadow Joint Committee received an update on Monday re progress with the 11 projects and details on how the digital strategy for the region will be delivered. The aim is to put Swansea and the region in pole position for the roll-out of 5G technology after 2020 and to become one of the UK’s leading Smart Cities and a test-bed for the Internet of Things. It all sounds a bit weird and far-fetched but just over a decade ago no-one could predict the impact, for good or ill, that smartphones would make to our working and our personal lives. The next generation of digital technology will be at least as disruptive as the last so we’d best prepare to make the best use of it for the benefit of the city and our citizens.

Early intervention

Our Early Intervention staff at Swansea Children’s Centre in Penlan and our Jig-so midwives saved a four-week-old baby’s life last week. The baby stopped breathing during a group session at the centre and our staff performed CPR and then the air ambulance landed within 10 minutes of the call. Their intervention helped to make sure that the baby, who is now able to breathe unaided and is improving, got to hospital safely. Fantastic work! Further congratulations to our Early Intervention team who led the Mr X Scheme again this year. They have put in a huge effort along with community volunteers to ensure that over 4,500 children and young people received gifts this Christmas.

And some lucky children had an early visit from Santa, in the form of our refuse collectors, who kindly took it upon themselves to give out selection boxes to the children who get excited to see them on their route each week. Well done to everyone involved.

Farewell

Thanks to Chris Tonkin, head teacher at Townhill Community Primary School, who’s retiring. I wish Chris all the best for the future and we’re grateful for all your work in improving the school and the lives of the children in Townhill.

Just another manic Monday

November 24, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

I spent Monday in London lobbying for the tidal lagoon and the UK City of Culture 2021.

The Leader and Deputy Leader joined me, along with Nigel Short, owner of Penderyn Whisky. They delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street and took our giant postcard to the Wales Office in Whitehall.

It marked the end of the current phase of our Love the Lagoon campaign and was timed to drive the message home before the Chancellor’s budget speech. We hope the lagoon will be included in the UK Industrial Strategy when it’s unveiled soon.

We then went to the House of Commons for the UK City of Culture reception.

It was a well-attended event with speeches from Geraint Davies MP and our Leader, Rob Stewart. Alun Cairns, the Welsh Secretary, also spoke in support of our bid.

I met one of our cultural champions, Sir Peter Blake, best known, rather unfairly, for the design of the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP cover.

His exhibition of illustrations for Under Milk Wood kicked-off our Dylan Thomas centenary events in 2014. His support is greatly appreciated.

“Dying to work” charter

We’ve signed a workers’ charter to provide further support to staff facing terminal illness. We already support key elements of the charter, including ensuring employees with a terminal illness have access to appropriate counselling and financial advice, and that we deal with terminal illness in a sensitive and supportive way.

Thanks to all the councillors, officers and trade unions who’ve been involved.

Leading the way

Congratulations to everyone involved in Monday’s event to celebrate our role in placing children’s rights at the heart of education. Schools have taken part in the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools initiative and more than 48,000 children and young people, 2,050 teaching staff and 1,320 non-teaching staff have played their part.

We’re the first council in the UK to embed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of everything we do and that’s real cause for celebration.

Linked to this, the #IAMME Young People’s group collected their prestigious Diana Award, and were a credit to our looked after children. The awards’ roll of honour now states: “#Iamme are an incredible group of young people who have made a significant contribution to ensuring that the voice of looked after children is represented.” This is a fantastic achievement and I’m very proud!

Pontlliw Primary School

During a visit to Pontlliw Primary school I was delighted to see a clear focus on the STEMM subjects and a real commitment to promote science. The school will be visiting Valencia as part of the ERASMUS project to see how science and technology is taught elsewhere. Despite the uncertainty over Brexit and its impact on ERASMUS, I hope these exchanges continue. Thanks to headteacher Alison Norman, her team and the pupils for the warm welcome and I hope you bring back some great ideas from Valencia.

Well-being

In 2016, Swansea’s Public Services Board (PSB) started a conversation about well-being in the local area. People told us Swansea’s a great place to live but we need to work together to make sure everyone can live well, benefit from and be proud of Swansea.

Based on this we’ve developed a draft Local Well-being Plan, but we need your views to make sure we’ve got it right. I hope you can let us have your views by completing the survey here.

Christmas

I went to the fantastic Christmas Parade in the city centre along with 40,000 other people – the biggest crowd we’ve had at the lights switch-on. Congratulations to our events team for staging a successful parade and for getting Waterfront Winterland open on time.

Our cleansing team was on the case straight after the event – ensuring the city centre was back to normal for the start of the week.

We’ve already had loads of enquiries from people and organisations wanting to take part in next year’s parade and that speaks volumes. Thanks and congratulations to the many staff involved from all the departments who contributed.

Children in Need

Fund-raising events for Children in Need were held across the council. Just one example saw the Highways and Transportation team at Clydach raise £88 by selling cakes and dressing down.

Well done to all and here’s a picture of Lee O’Hara entering into the dressing down with gusto!

White Ribbon

A White Ribbon Day event will be held at Swansea’s Domestic Abuse One Stop Shop today as part of a national campaign. We’re working with Swansea Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Partnership to spread the message that domestic abuse and violence are unacceptable. You’ll find further information about the campaign here.

Sad loss

Grenville Phillips, Honorary Alderman and former Lord Mayor of Swansea, has passed away. Grenville was also Honorary Burgermeister of Mannheim and founder of the Portmead and Blaenymaes Community Centre. I worked alongside him as he strove to improve the lives of his constituents in the Penderry ward.

He was a deeply committed and fair politician and I‘ll always be grateful for his unwavering support, particularly through the challenging PRC homes project which saw the demolition and redevelopment of a large part of the Blaenymaes and Portmead estate.

London Calling

November 17, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

Next week officers and councillors are in London to continue two important campaigns; the Tidal Lagoon and the City of Culture.

Hopefully you’ll have seen our giant postcard that’s been signed by hundreds of lagoon supporters. We’ll be delivering it to the Wales Office in Whitehall on Monday morning with a clear message to the Chancellor to announce its approval in his Autumn Statement. A few hours later we’ll be handing in a letter to the Prime Minister signed by more than 110 leading businesses calling for the lagoon’s go ahead. The campaign has been magnificent, driven by our Communications team and supported by a huge number of staff across the organisation. I’m grateful to every one of you. The highlight of the campaign for me has been the videos from some of our schools. Click on the attached link to see examples of their art submissions.

We’ll then be heading to the House of Commons to attend a City of Culture bid reception to win over the hearts and minds of MPs and to demonstrate what becoming the UK City of Culture 2021 would mean for Swansea. We’re entering the last two weeks of this campaign so I’d urge everyone who supports the bid to express themselves through our social media platforms as we head for the line in Hull on December 8.

The Sky’s the limit

We’re anxiously awaiting the decision of board of the Skyline Luge organisation on the location of their next project. I mentioned this in my blog on October 27. Following the visit by Skyline New Zealand our team of officers and members have been pulling out all the stops to attract this game-changing attraction. Whatever the outcome the team couldn’t have tried harder and deserve a big vote of thanks for their efforts. Fingers crossed!

Liberty Stadium

Cabinet this week approved the terms of an agreement with Swansea City FC for new lease arrangements for the Liberty Stadium. The report can be found here. Over the last few years the over-complicated existing arrangements have become increasingly outdated. The agreement will see a guaranteed rental income and, subject to continued Premier League status, a share in any naming rights deal the club secures. The agreement will also allow the Ospreys continued playing rights and the provision of a number of 3G pitches for the Council. My thanks to those involved in securing this deal.

School visits

On Tuesday I went to Penllergaer Primary School to meet the head teacher, Jayne Woolcock. We discussed a range of topics including her role as challenge adviser, the progress of the school improvement consortium (ERW) and the issues facing the Council and the school. Last year the school became the only school in Wales to be awarded Associate School status by the Royal Society so I was particularly interested in the work the school’s doing in relation to STEMM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics and medicine). I’m hoping we can link with Swansea University’s Soapbox Science programme which I mentioned in my July 7^th blog. The school is already working closely with the university in a partnership which sees pupils regularly going to the second campus to dig deep into science activities like using a scanning electron microscope. I also met Kelly Thomas, the school’s Science Leader, who recently won a national Outstanding Teacher Award at the Primary Science Teaching Trust 2017 Awards for her innovative approach to teaching science, encouraging inquisitive, critical thinking among pupils. Well done Kelly.

Congratulations and thanks

This week witnessed the start of the transformational changes along the Kingsway, a critical piece in the city centre jigsaw. Our Highways team have done a great job in implementing the traffic changes, introducing a temporary roundabout along with a number of other changes. They had to do this whilst ‘juggling’ the traffic which was no mean feat and was delivered with minimum disruption. We’ll be removing buses from the Metro track along with the temporary pedestrian barrier on the central reserve. We’re also putting in new bus stops and removing and planting trees. Thanks to all involved.

I was delighted to hear that all our Band B schools bids to Welsh Government have been successful. This means we’ll see an unprecedented capital investment in our schools estate over the coming years. Thanks and congratulations to all the staff and councillors involved in preparing our submissions.

Our Beyond Bricks and Mortar Community Benefit policy has won the Go Awards Wales “Go Procurement Innovation/ Initiative award” against 10 other entries. This regional award follows the national award we won last March at Go Awards UK for “Best Employment Initiative”. We automatically go into the national awards taking place in Manchester in April. Congratulations to our Beyond Bricks and Mortar team who have every reason to be proud of their achievements.

You may have seen DIY SOS on BBC1 on Wednesday, which was all about the construction of a new base for The Roots Foundation in Fforestfach. Our staff in teams including building, parks, highways, building regulations, planning and social services were instrumental in helping support this Children in Need project, so my thanks to all involved. And I know many staff will be raising funds today for Children in Need. Thank you for all your efforts.

Christmas in Swansea starts today with the opening of the Christmas Market on Oxford Street and the Waterfront Winterland at Museum Park. With the Christmas Parade in the city centre on Sunday, I’d like to thank all staff involved in organising these events. Head to www.swanseachristmas.com for more information.