Election

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.

In the election spotlight

June 9, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

This has been another long 24 hours for me and the team who help me to run the UK Government Parliamentary election. I cast my vote as soon as my polling station opened and was greeted by an amazingly cheery and bright-eyed polling station team of Mal, Geraldine and Rebecca. Like all the other polling station staff they faced a long day and I am hugely indebted to everyone who helped run this election. Thanks for the warm welcome from the staff in the polling stations I was able to visit.

The elections team once again exceeded expectations, despite only just recovering from last month’s council elections. This time we faced heightened security concerns following the dreadful events at Manchester and London Bridge and the support from our security staff and special events team was outstanding. I was also grateful for the work done by our resilience team working with the Police.

Congratulations to Dean Howard, the first presiding officer to deliver his ballot papers to the election count. Dean came second at the local government election count but beat his personal best by arriving at around 10.15. As you can see from the photo Dean was pretty pleased with his performance. Mind you his polling station was only 100 yards from the count.

We had a lot of attention on the Gower constituency given the closeness of the 2015 result; a margin of only 27 votes. This wasn’t just from the local and national media companies. Gower was one of eight constituencies across the UK to be visited by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association team led by Callum Forster and made up of politicians from the governments of Bangladesh, South Africa, St Lucia and Ghana. Each of the eight constituencies is the subject of an election assessment to consider the conduct of the electoral process, and make recommendations for improvement. On Tuesday Huw Evans and I met with the CPA team and answered a range of questions about the electoral process and how it operates here in Swansea. They also visited the postal vote team and a number of polling stations in the Gower constituency. I look forward to their feedback and any suggestions on how the process could be improved in future. Huw and I made a few suggestions of our own which would require changes to national legislation and hopefully the CPA team will take these on board.

Congratulations to the MPs who have been elected to represent our three constituencies;

Swansea West – Geraint Davies

Swansea East – Carolyn Harris

Gower – Tonia Antoniazzi

Appointments

This week the appointments committee met to shortlist candidates for the post of Director of Resources. Interviews will be held on 26^th June and I am confident that Council will be able make an appointment the following day.

On a different note a number of people have asked me why the post of Chief Executive has been advertised. When I was appointed to the post last year it was on an interim basis for one year. Under local government rules interim appointments of the most senior staff should only be for a year. It was my view, and the Leader’s view, that an interim appointment would be the best way forward because it would allow the newly elected Council to choose their own permanent Chief Executive.

Approval of Swansea Central planning application

On Tuesday Planning Committee considered the planning application for Swansea Central. I have mentioned the project a number of times in previous blogs but the approval by Planning committee was a significant milestone and a green light to proceed with the regeneration plan for our City Centre. Comments at the committee reflected the quality and detail of the application. This has required a mammoth effort from our staff and a lot of people deserve to be thanked for their contributions not least of which are Phil Holmes, Huw Mowbray, Lee Richards, Katy Evans, Ryan Thomas, David Owen, Liam Smith and Stephen Smith.

The next phase is delivery and will be equally challenging but I am delighted that the key milestones have been met and confident that we can progress this apace.

Trading Standards

A Trading Standards case in Crown Court earlier this week has determined that a local shop owner jailed for selling dangerous ‘legal highs’ must now pay back more than £120,000 of the money he gained during the years he traded. This is great news and a further example of the hard work by Trading Standards and our Legal Team who have vigorously pursued the case, ensuring individuals do not profit from harmful trading activities.

City Centre

Demolition of the former Oceana building on Kingsway is now about 50% finished. Experts from Cuddy Group, who are demolishing the building for the council, are continuing to dismantle what remains of the building with a high-reach excavator. Scheduled for completion this summer, the demolition will pave the way on site for a new office development accommodating tech businesses.

High 5 Awards

Nominations are starting to increase for this year’s High 5 awards but we want more. The High 5 awards are open to any child, young person or group in three age ranges – under 13s, aged 14 to 19 or 20-25 year olds. We’ve also added a schools award this year which looks to recognise and reward larger school groups, even whole classes, years or teams.

All nominators need to do is fill in a nomination form here where they get the chance to explain why their choice of nominee should get a High 5, whatever the reason might be.

We’ve made it even more accessible to answer any query you have about High 5 this year with a new phone number we’ve set up. If you have a query or would like to leave a voice nomination call (01792) 635699 and leave a message.

UNESCO

Next week we will welcome visitors from across the UK and Europe who are keen to find out how Swansea is encouraging children and adults alike to learn about enterprise.

We were the first city in the UK to become a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities and are hosting a two-day meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Visitors will hear how we have worked with schools, colleges and universities to reduce the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET), and see at first hand the extensive efforts to inspire young people to think about setting up their own businesses.

More than a dozen delegates are expected from as far afield as Scandinavia. I hope we will all give them a warm welcome.

Agile working

In the Civic Centre it’s great to see our new Agile Working area expanding. It’s encouraging to read the positivity coming from staff already there. I particularly like Marlyn Dickson’s observation in her case study: “Business conversations are so much easier … every working day feels much more human and personable.” Still wondering what it’s all about? Pop in and chat to some of your colleagues there!

Congratulations

It was great to hear that Burlais Primary School will soon be home to a garden from the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show after their success in the Greening Grey Britain project. The new school which was completed in 2015 will soon have a courtyard filled with plant life and colour. There was great coverage on the One Show last Monday as well. Congratulations to Alison Bastion and her team.

Congratulations also to transformation officer Gemma Whyley, who helped lead a Welsh team to glory at a major global cheerleading championships in the USA. Gemma was one of two coaches involved with the Welsh Paracheer Unified Freestyle Pom team that won gold at the ICU International Cheerleading and Dance World Championships held in Orlando, Florida. Twenty-five per cent of the team – the first ever from Wales to win at the championships – is made up of young athletes with physical disabilities.

And finally….

Are you going to the Take That concert at the Liberty Stadium on Wednesday evening (June 14)?

If you are, then all the info you’ll need on car parking, taxi tips, drop-off points, pick-up points and road closures is here. My thanks to staff in special events and transport for all their work in the build-up to the event to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.

Manchester – a City United

May 26, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

The horrific events at the Manchester Arena shocked us all. Whilst it’s hard to identify what the authorities could have done to prevent the attack, it’s important that we redouble our efforts to mitigate against such dangers. We’ll continue to work with the police and other organisations on security for major events in the city. We’d urge everyone to continue to be vigilant and report anything suspicious.

In paying our respects to those caught up in the bombing, flags have been flown at half-mast and a vigil took place on Tuesday evening in Castle Square. I’m grateful for the staff who helped to arrange this at short notice.

On Wednesday parts of the city centre were evacuated due to a suspicious package, which seems to have been a “hoax”. I’m really angry about this because one of the purposes of terrorism is to inject chaos, disruption and paranoia into communities. Hoaxes compound this and assist those who commit acts of terror.

However, I’m grateful to all our staff and others who helped in the quick and safe evacuation. They were praised by the police for their efforts.

Unsurprisingly, CMT this week discussed emergency and civil contingency planning. We’ll be reviewing procedures and carrying out a practice exercise to test our readiness for a major emergency. I hope we never face the situation that confronted the authorities in Manchester, but if we do I want to make doubly sure that we, along with our community, are all prepared for the critical roles that would be required of us.

Council AGM

The annual General Meeting of Council took place last night. Councillor Rob Stewart was re-elected as Leader and Councillor Clive Lloyd was elected Deputy Leader

The Cabinet Members and their portfolios are:

Economy & Strategy – Leader – Rob Stewart

Service Transformation & Business Operations – Deputy Leader – Clive Lloyd

Education & Children – Jen Raynor

Health & Well Being – Mark Child

Housing & Energy – Andrea Lewis

Stronger Communities – Will Evans

Culture Tourism & Sport – Robert Francis-Davies

Commercial Opportunities & Innovation – David Hopkins

Future Generations – June Burtonshaw/ Mary Sherwood (job share)

Environment Services – Mark Thomas

Scrutiny programme committee – Mary Jones

Council also appointed chairs for the Policy Development and Delivery Committees, which replace the Cabinet Advisory Committees. The PD&D Committee chairs will be councillors Robert Smith, Mandy Evans, Erika Kirchner, Ryland Doyle and Paulette Smith. Councillor Penny Matthews will continue to chair the Licensing Committee and Councillor Paul Lloyd will carry on as Chair of Planning.

Congratulations to all.

A new Lord Mayor

The inauguration of the new Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress takes place this afternoon. Councillor Phil Downing is taking over from the current Lord Mayor, Councillor David Hopkins. David and his consort, Beverley, have done a magnificent job for the city over the last year. It’s been an incredibly busy year for them and I know they’ve enjoyed it. Thanks both for a job well done.

Election

Preparations for the General Election are continuing with just over 34,500 postal votes going out this week – the highest number we’ve ever had.

The elections team has added over 7,500 people to the register since the May election, and processed 1,600 postal vote applications on Monday and Tuesday. A great effort, well done!

Bishop Gore

Last week I visited Bishop Gore School to meet the head teacher, Ryan Davies, and his team. The school has over 1,200 pupils. It is a “green” school with 1 for standards and A for leadership. We discussed how we can ensure pupils are properly equipped for the world of work and further education. I was interested to hear how it’s difficult to find proper work placements for students and this is an area I think we can make progress on. One possibility is a database linking placement opportunities with students’ skills and ambitions. I’ll be discussing this with colleagues.

The school has implemented an innovative approach to educating children who arrive at the school from primary education with low levels of literacy and numeracy and this is making a real difference. They’ve also recently developed their horticultural skills by regenerating the school’s walled garden. This is a wonderful facility for learning and fun and I hope the team at the botanical gardens who’ve already assisted can help further. Ryan is leaving to move to Brynteg in Bridgend at the end of this term but I must pay tribute to his leadership and the achievements of his team.

Farewells

We have a number of long serving colleagues leaving us today. Mike Hawes, Director of Resources is retiring after 35 years. Mike has made a huge contribution and I’m grateful for his wise counsel and unwavering support, particularly since I took up post last year.

Dave Evans, Housing Business Manager, also retires today after 28 years. Dave and I worked together for many years on a variety of projects and he can be rightfully proud of his contribution in improving the quality of life for council tenants.

Also this month, Steve Colwill and Phil Lewis will be leaving Corporate Building and Property Services after 43 years and 26 years, respectively.

Thanks to all four who have clocked up 126 years of service between them!

Congratulations and thanks

Swansea Marina and four of our beaches – Caswell, Langland, Port Eynon and Bracelet Bay – have retained Blue Flag status for their quality of water, environmental education and management, safety and services.

The Blue Flag Award is a highly respected international across 49 countries.

Our city centre has retained prestigious Purple Flag status, demonstrating it’s a great, diverse and safe place to spend a night out. Well done to all involved.

A high-profile visitor has called into the Dylan Thomas Exhibition to find out about Dylan’s links with the USA. Lewis Lukens, the Chargé d’Affaires at the US Embassy in London, was shown around the exhibition by our literature officer, Jo Furber.

Blog

I’m on leave next week so my next blog will be on June 9.

Brave new world

May 12, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

The recent council elections will trigger a number of things that will impact on us. Council on May 25 will elect a Leader who will appoint a Cabinet and determine the responsibilities within each portfolio. The policy agenda will reflect the commitments made during the election which includes new projects and programmes. We’ve already held induction sessions for our councillors. In an induction presentation I explained to them how the organisation functions, the roles of councillors and officers and the importance of maintaining mutual respect. There were also a series of presentations from senior staff on our services. It’s a daunting prospect for our new politicians, with a huge amount of compulsory training ranging from planning and licensing to safeguarding and data management. I know officers will make a concerted effort to help the new members to settle in. We’ve made a good start by holding a market place event where councillors spoke to staff from every service area. Thanks to all the staff who organised and took part in the market place event and to the councillors who attended.

CMT meeting

Corporate Management Team considered a number of reports relating to performance management and a new suite of indicators to reflect the next set of policy commitments and service performance. This will be driven by a newly established Strategic Delivery Unit to work closely with service directorates to ensure coherent and joined up delivery of Council priorities.

We also discussed workforce issues, including sickness management, and we’ll be having further discussions on this in the coming weeks.

Rhian Millar updated CMT on the results of the telephone survey of customers and I’m always impressed by the number of people who rate what we do. Every two months we survey the public on a number of issues and we always score very highly on staff being friendly (89%) efficient (82%), treating customers with respect (89%) and the level of customer service we provide (83%). Overall satisfaction with the way we run things is (71%). This is a great reflection of our staff. But it’s also interesting that only 34% of people would speak highly of us. I’m not sure why there’s such a gap between these scores, but it’s something I want to look at more closely.

Communities First – where next?

Since the Welsh Government decided to discontinue the Communities First approach to tackling poverty, we’ve been working closely with them to develop a transition plan to focus on employability, empowerment and early years. I was delighted when Swansea was selected to be one of the “early adopters” to pilot the new approach and I’m grateful to all the staff who’ve been working on this. This is an excellent piece of work that will now be presented to the Welsh Government for approval. Key to making this plan successful will be a joined-up approach which links employability to our early years and schools work, our apprenticeships strategy, the major investment programmes for the city and our social benefits policies.

Congratulations

As a keen walker I was delighted to hear that Rebecca Tribe (Waste Management) and Terri Shaw (Corporate Building Services) have just completed the Great Wall of China challenge to raise money for Ty Hafan. They joined a team of fundraisers in China last week, walking for up to 9 hours a day! Between them all they managed to raise a fantastic £70,000 for the local charity. Ever dedicated to her job – Rebecca even managed to take a photo of the recycling bins along the way! Congratulations to Rebecca and Terri for a fantastic achievement.

Ian George, contract monitoring officer in adult services, recently completed the London Marathon. Ian was thrilled to have finished in 5 hours and 21 minutes. Currently the funds raised stands at over £5,000 and this will help Shaw Trust to support vulnerable people in academy schools. You can donate here

Our Food and Safety team received a Certificate of Commendation from the Swansea and West Wales Occupational Safety Group. It’s in recognition of the team visiting local businesses and manufacturers to talk to them about health and safety in the workplace.

We’re on a bit of a roll at national award ceremonies and our latest successes came at Sunday’s inaugural Professional Teaching Awards Cymru. Mark Thompson, who has led St Helen’s Primary School since 2011 and supports other schools in Swansea as a challenge adviser, was named Head Teacher of the Year. Bethan Baglow of Olchfa Comprehensive School won the award for School Business Manager, while Hafod Primary School, shortlisted for the Whole School Award for promoting relationships with parents and the community, just missed out. Many congratulations to everyone involved.

Staff events

Many of our colleagues have already become Dementia Champions as part of our commitment to make Swansea a Dementia Friendly city. On Thursday (May 18) Dementia Friendly Swansea is holding an open morning at the Waterfront Museum as part of Dementia Awareness Week.

On Tuesday (May 16) between 6pm and 8pm the Foster Swansea team will be staging the first of two information evenings at the Civic Centre so that anyone considering becoming a foster carer can find out more.

C’mon the Swans!

Finally, this weekend could well be a significant one for our local football club, Swansea City, who travel to Sunderland in an attempt to avoid relegation from the Premier League. I suspect the issue of who gets relegated will not be determined until next Sunday but I hope any staff who are travelling have a safe trip and an enjoyable day. It’s really important for the city that the Swans retain their Premier League status.

Another election!

April 28, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

I returned from a week’s annual leave to discover we’ll now be running two elections within five weeks following the announcement of a general election on June 8. I have mentioned previously that unless you are involved in the process you have no idea of the volume of work that’s required to run an election. The prospect of a general election was a bit of a shock for the elections team who are currently up to their necks opening postal votes and making all the necessary arrangements for the council elections on May 4. Despite a few technical hiccoughs they’ve made excellent progress and will be working over the bank holiday. Thanks to all of them who’ll probably be sick of the sight of me before too long!

Another point I have made in previous blogs is to ask that you exercise your democratic right and cast your vote next week.

Digital progress

This week the Corporate Management Team discussed the progress made in our aspirations to become a digital business by 2020. Sarah Caulkin, Chief Transformation Officer, presented the report which covered the four strategic layers that underpin our work People Communities and Businesses, Organisation and delivery, Platforms and interfaces and Infrastructure and technology.
We reviewed the excellent progress made since we brought the ICT service back in-house and agreed the priorities to recommend to Cabinet for the coming year. Thanks to all the staff involved in this.

High 5 launch

On Wednesday we launched the High 5 awards at Dylan Thomas School. The head teacher Rob Phillips agreed to host the event and the school hall was packed with pupils who gave us a fantastic welcome.

The plan had been for Leon Britton from Swansea City FC and me to announce the opening of the nominations process. Five minutes before we were due to start we got the message that Leon was unable to attend so we had to change the arrangements. The Lord Mayor attended and we were nearly decapitated when Cyril the Swan menacingly launched a football with a ferocious volley that flew over our heads. Other than that the event went very smoothly!

Curtis Cana, a former pupil of Dylan Thomas School and previous High 5 winner took to the stage and explained what the award meant to him. Curtis is now a youth worker with our Poverty & Prevention service and he gave a great speech in front of a huge number of people. Good job Curtis!

This year’s awards promise to be the biggest and best yet as the team led by Mark Gosney who do such a great job organising the event have secured more sponsors and developed a number of innovative ideas to improve it. Thanks to everyone involved in the launch. Keep those nominations coming in and give those of us on the judging panel a big job of work to do.

Appointments

This week Nigel Williams and Geoff Bacon have been appointed to the posts of interim Head of Corporate Building Services and interim Head of Property respectively, following interviews. Congratulations to them both.

Regeneration

On Monday evening I spoke at the Built Environment Network, along with representatives from Swansea Bay Tidal lagoon and the University of Wales, Trinity St David. It was to raise the profile of regeneration projects to the architects, planners, engineers and surveyors. The presentations were followed by a Q&A session which focussed on connectivity, the need for more residential development and the challenges of procurement. Those in attendance had travelled from all over the UK to attend the event and it’s clear that the development activity in Swansea is generating a lot of interest across the UK.

Sad news

I was deeply saddened to hear that Terry Whomsley, who many of you will know, passed away this week. Terry and I worked together for many years. He was a highly valued and well respected member of our ICT team. I lost count of the number of times he sorted out complex and difficult technical issues that have faced us, and me in particular. He was a true public servant, dedicated and professional throughout his career. His loss has hit everyone who worked with him very hard and our thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Congratulations and thanks

Well done to staff involved in the organisation of the Clean Air Roadshow in Castle Square last Saturday, showcasing electric and hydrogen vehicle technology to 6,000 visitors. We’ve already got electric vehicles in our fleet and more electric cars will be arriving to cut our costs and our carbon footprint.

Thanks to Tracey McNulty and her team in Cultural Services for all their work on the UK City of Culture 2021 bid, being submitted today. If we win the status, it will celebrate our rich culture through a world class programme of events.

Staff in Events are celebrating after the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k won two awards at the UK Running Awards 2017. The event won silver for best 10k in the UK and gold for the UK’s best child-friendly event of its kind.

Congratulations to David Walker who has clocked up 40 years’ service with us. He spent 10 years with Parks before becoming a HGV driver at the Bailing Plant.

This is a magnificent achievement and I’d like to thank David for his outstanding service.