Education

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.

Yes, we are a good parent

October 19, 2018 by Martin 2 Comments

In my 20^th July blog I asked the question, “Are we a good parent?”. Well this week we had the answer with the CIW inspection report into our Child and Family Service which identified good quality practice with positive outcomes for many children and young people.

The inspectors found the service was effectively led and staff were dedicated, well supported and enjoyed working for a local authority where there was a culture of support. The children and young people they heard from were generally positive about the support they received and were appreciative of the relationships with their social workers. The report also found there’s good support in place for care leavers who were helped with a range of housing options, employment and further educational opportunities and access to benefits.

The report identified a number of areas for improvement and that although some children and young people are achieving good educational outcomes and no looked after children have been permanently excluded from school, there’s scope to improve support and opportunities for others. I’m less concerned about this because we know it’s already a current area of focus with some great work being done in our education service. We’ve reorganised this service and invested in it and we’re also in the process of developing a new £8 million purpose-built centre for children educated other than at school (EOTAS). In fact, Cabinet yesterday approved the contract to build it and if we get Welsh Government funding we hope to start work next month.

Despite the positive findings in the report there’s no room for complacency and achieving the best well-being outcomes for our children, particularly those in our care, will remain a top priority for CMT. However, I must thank all the staff involved in providing these services. It’s rare to get such a positive endorsement from the regulators and you can all feel justifiably proud of the work you do.

More good news

Our annual review of performance highlights the great work our staff do and the documents are available on the Cabinet meeting page from 18 October. We have to publish the report as part of the Well-Being of Future Generations Act. Basically, we set out what we plan to achieve and then we have to report against those objectives. I know the budget news is gloomy at the moment, but the dedication of our staff never diminishes and I’m really grateful to everyone for their efforts.

Education

I attended two meetings with head teachers from the primary schools (YCA) and the secondary schools (SCCASH) to explain the budget settlement and the likely impacts in the coming years. It’s clear to me schools have the same concerns as the rest of the Council in relation to the funding priorities at national level and I hope we can work closely with them on a concerted campaign to communicate our collective feelings.

I also took the opportunity to explain the changes we’re making to our regional school improvement consortium, ERW. We’ve changed the management arrangements and the lead officer for ERW is now Geraint Rees, an experienced head teacher who has been working with Welsh Government on a range of education programmes. We’ll also be developing a revised model of joint working across the regions and I know Geraint will be talking to as many people as possible to make sure we get this right. I’m confident we can improve on the current arrangements and deliver what schools want and deserve in terms of support for school improvement.

Responding to the storms

Our highways and cleansing teams did a great job keeping people safe and motorists on the move during Storm Callum.

Long before the storm came they’d cleared roads of debris to prevent flooding, checked high-risk watercourses for blockages, checked the sea walls and shifted wind-blown sand from Oystermouth Road.

When the storm arrived they tackled localised flooding, setting up diversions and offering advice to motorists and residents near the Morriston by-pass cut-off due to a flood. One team even caught a fish swimming along the A4067 which had to be closed for a spell due to the deluge.

I’m also aware that lots of staff went about their normal duties during the storm. My thanks to everyone involved; it was a terrific team effort.

Well done and thank you

We’ve been successful in attracting funding to install innovative energy design and features into new council homes.

The £1.5m Innovative Housing Programme grant from the Welsh Government will help install features such as solar panels and battery-powered energy. Well done to the housing team for their hard work.

Staff and service users at Fforestfach Day Service recently held a festival staging bands and solo artists.

More than 200 people attended and for many of them it was their first experience of a concert. They also set up bars and sold food.

It was so successful they plan to do it again next summer. Well done to everyone involved in a great team effort.

Hate Crime Awareness Week ends tomorrow and the council has been playing its part with partners like Safer Swansea and Victim Support to highlight this blight on our communities.

No-one has to put up with it as a victim or as a witness.

It can be reported FREE on 0300 3031982 or online at the Report Hate Crime website.

My thanks to council colleagues involved in the campaign.

Education changes and budget blow

September 28, 2018 by Martin 2 Comments

Yesterday I travelled to Cardiff to attend a conference on the future of education in Wales and the delivery of the National Mission. The Cabinet Secretary, Kirsty Williams, introduced the event which was particularly focused on accountability through the new evaluation and improvement framework. The main message for councils was that the drive to increase regional working will continue through the education consortia but there’ll be changes to how they function and how Estyn operates. I hope to circulate the presentations to schools and education colleagues when they are available. It’s clear the emerging accountability system will be based on self-evaluation, peer review and a wider range of evaluation indicators.

Earlier in the week we had even more difficult news elsewhere on the budget when we learned that council contributions to teachers’ pension costs will likely rise from 16.48% to 23.8% in 2019, a sum far greater than previously indicated. This will add a further £4 million to the budget gap with no sign of help coming from Westminster at this stage. CMT will discuss the implications of this next week but it seems inevitable that more savings will need to be identified. Here’s the latest warning from the WLGA.

Leisure staff

Next Monday six of our community leisure centres and the LC will be operated by not-for-profit trust Freedom Leisure. This is an exciting new partnership for us. The facilities will remain council venues offering council services – and the same friendly staff (transferring from the council and Bay Leisure) will help customers stay healthy and active. This change will help contribute towards our budget challenges. Freedom Leisure has a proven track record and the ability to deliver leisure services effectively and sustainably. Thank you to everyone involved for making this a smooth transition.

Great effort

Corporate Building Services came to the rescue when Penllergaer school was forced to close due to a burst water main. They got the call on Tuesday and completed the repairs on Wednesday. The school re-opened on Thursday which meant pupils only lost one full-day of education. My thanks to Andrew McFenton, Barry Morgan and Mike Boat for their great work.

Guildhall transformed

The Guildhall has been transformed into a scene from World War One as part of an exciting production. Created by Swansea-born artist Marc Rees, Now the Hero is the headline piece for the 2018 Swansea International Festival. The production uses three interweaving stories of war inspired by an epic poem, an intimate portrait of a serving Swansea soldier and the Brangwyn Hall’s British Empire Panels. The production has spread across the Guildhall as you’ll see from these photos. Well done and thank you to everyone involved.

On a similar note, a true story about a team of young rugby players from India who took the under-14 Rugby World Cup by storm is being filmed in Swansea in November and December. We’ve been involved in supporting the production from the outset and it’ll showcase our city to huge new audiences across India, the world’s biggest movie market, so my thanks go to the team who’ve made it possible. And if you want a walk-on part in ‘The Jungle Cry’ you can to sign-up as an extra in the movie.

Awards

Congratulations to our highways and transportation team for winning the Value Award at this year’s Construction Excellence Wales ceremony. The award is linked to the development of the Morfa distributor road which opened last year.

Retirements

There are a couple of notable retirements this week, including Jenni Spencer Davies who’s leaving after 18 years’ service as the curator at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. Jenni successfully oversaw the £8m gallery refurbishment and established partnerships with Tate Britain, The British Council and Artes Mundi. Also, Julia Incebel who’s worked at the Grand Theatre as an usherette for 42 years. Julia started on Boxing Day with her mum because they were short-staffed and stayed ever since! Best wishes to both Jenni and Julia and all our other retiring staff.