Innovation – Page 3

Being member-led?

September 15, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Many councils struggle with being a member-led authority. For anyone who’s not heard this term before, it broadly means that councillors set out what they want the council to achieve and officers put plans into place to deliver it.

In truth, every council should be member-led; after all councillors get elected on the back of their manifesto so they should be the ones who decide which policies will help deliver their election promises. Officers advise; members decide.

And that’s what’s happening here. The current administration translated their manifesto pledges into a series of policy commitments that we’re implementing.

Evidence shows the best performing councils have a positive collaboration between elected members and officers with an understanding and respect for their different roles and responsibilities.

In some other authorities the balance between officer and councillor roles hasn’t been quite right, either because councillors are unnecessarily involved in day-to-day management issues or they simply leave everything to the officers. As an elector the thought of policy and strategy being determined by unelected officers horrifies me. It’s contrary to our democratic principles.

Our Cabinet, CMT and Heads of Service along with the chairs of our Policy Development and Delivery Committees have been working on getting this balance right. We’ve had support from Ian Bottrill, a former council leader, who’s been useful in getting everyone to see how this will work best here. It’s really important because it gives all our staff clarity over what we need to focus on and who does what – both officers and councillors.

Now that Council has agreed our priorities in the policy commitments, it’s over to officers to put plans into place to deliver these priorities, taking into account the budgets, staff and timescale required.

Local Government Reform

I’m part of the Local Government Reform Task & Finish Group set up by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to consider the issues and challenges involved in LG reform. It’s chaired independently by our former Chief Executive, Jack Straw.

The rationale for reform is to reduce the current number of footprints for collaboration, improve services and deliver efficiencies. The key is to identify at what level things are best done; local, regional or national. The current different footprints for collaboration, ERW, Western Bay and City Deal, create real challenges for us. The Welsh Government’s line is less prescriptive than the previous Minister’s approach but it’s clear there’ll be an element of “mandation” in how some services are delivered; specifically social care, school improvement and economic development, transport and planning.

The proposals under consultation would create three Regional Governance Committees. Swansea would be aligned with Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Powys. These committees could determine and oversee how services are delivered collaboratively but there should be flexibility in which councils collaborate in each service area. There is clearly a lot of work to do but the road ahead is becoming clearer. I’ll update you as discussions continue.

Be the best you can be

This year’s staff engagement event is at the National Waterfront Museum on Friday, October 6. This builds on the great work done by our innovation community. Our guest speaker is extreme athlete and TV presenter Lowri Morgan. Lowri, a former pupil of Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr, will host two motivational talks at 11am and 1pm. Please come along, I’ll be at the event so if you want to talk to me feel free; I don’t bite!

Back the bid

We’ve had great support from our citizens, businesses, universities, arts community and professional sports clubs for our City of Culture bid. Tracey McNulty and her team have not missed an opportunity to canvass support from every quarter, including Rhod Gilbert during the wet but wonderful Proms in the Park. Our draft document needs to be completed this week and submitted to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport on September 29. After that we’ll be visited by the City of Culture panel in October and make presentations to the panel in December.

Great news

We welcome 15 new apprentices who’ll spend four days a week being mentored by qualified staff, with the other day in training. They get an NVQ Level 3 qualification and work on construction projects. Since 2003 we’ve trained 178 apprentices and linked to this we’ve won a Queen’s Award for Innovation as part of the regional Cyfle Building Skills initiative which sees young apprentices shared among various employers to develop their practical skills.

Swansea has achieved a low likelihood of digital exclusion rating, down from medium in 2015, which is a great achievement for us. It shows initiatives like our Get Swansea Online free courses are paying off and gives us more confidence in rolling-out more digital services.

Well done to our staff who helped the city centre retain its prestigious Purple Flag status. The team is now a finalist in the South Wales Police Annual Awards.

Huw Evans in our Democratic Services team was among a group of cyclists who rode to Ireland. They cycled 300 miles in four days to help fund a specialised motorised wheelchair for a Loughor boy. You still have time to donate by visiting www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/beicwyrrachel

A new relationship with citizens

August 4, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Councils are an easy target for criticism and humour. You know the old chestnuts like:

“How many people work for the Council?”
“About half of them”.

In reality we deliver services that are fundamental to people. We protect and educate children, provide essential care for our older citizens, stop people getting poisoned through food safety and air quality monitoring, collect and recycle refuse, keep the city moving, house the homeless, help people find jobs, provide entertainment and events and provide people with a final resting place. In short, we offer cradle to grave services and most of these perform very well.

80% of our citizens are either satisfied or very satisfied with the services we provide for them. Yet only 40% would be willing to speak highly of us or recommend us to a friend. This is a puzzling fact and one that we need to address.

Part of the answer may be how we promote and market the organisation. This is how many organisations in other sectors protect and enhance their reputation. There’s little understanding among the population generally about the breadth of services councils deliver, many of which are below their radar. I could have added dozens more important and essential services to the list above.

But perhaps it’s also about how we engage and communicate with our customers. In future the delivery of some services will need to be with our citizens, rather than to them. Lee Wenham and I are discussing how we best allocate resources and people to do this. I‘ll be discussing the issue of reputation with colleagues over the coming months and asking the innovation community to help me with this.

Lagoon update

On Monday I was part of a delegation of Cabinet Members and senior officers that met with Mark Shorrock, CEO of Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, and his team. We discussed the proposal to set up a turbine assembly plant in Swansea when the lagoon is finally given the go ahead. We also discussed the current situation with the UK Government and what more needs to be done in terms of persuasion. Mark and his team are also keenly interested in working with us on our bid and programme for the UK City of Culture 2021 and they have some innovative and exciting suggestions about how they might be involved.

We’ve now had the feedback from UK Government on our City of Culture bid and we have a lot of work to do between now and the end of September. I hope staff and councillors will continue to engage in our campaign to demonstrate that the whole city supports this ambition.

Mandatory training; domestic violence

I mentioned last week the Domestic Abuse Hub and the need for all of us to be aware and respond to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence (VAWDASV). One in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic violence in their lifetime and one in five children have witnessed it, with devastating impact.

Under the VAWDASV (Wales) Act 2015, the local authority has to:

publish a local authority five-year training plan with annual targets
undertake a local needs training analysis
ensure 100% of the workforce undertake the Group 1 training by March 31, 2018
provide annual reports in respect of each financial year on the progress made regionally or locally

Corporate Management Team agreed to address the training requirements via a combination of e-learning and face- to-face sessions. It’ll be a massive challenge to train all staff before April and I’ll need your help and commitment to do so. The training will be a combination of eLearning and face to face sessions for those who do not have access to the on-line offer. The link to the online course can be accessed via logging in to the Learning Pool here.

All councillors will receive Group 1 training as part of their induction. One session has already been held and another session is planned in the autumn. CMT and the Leadership Team will undertake the training as soon as possible and we’ll be asking each service area to nominate champions.

Innovation

On Wednesday I met our new Corporate Innovation Officer, Rhys Curtis, who takes over the post vacated by Leanne Cutts. Rhys brings with him his experience in the private sector here and in the USA and will be spending the next few weeks navigating the organisation, getting to know people and offering to engage with services to support them. I know you’ll all give him a warm welcome and I look forward to us all working together to further embed innovation in our culture.

Congratulations

Well done to our Access to Services team for their work with our Disability Liaison Group, which has been recognised by other Welsh councils as an example of great practice. The group is led by representatives from Swansea’s disabled community to ensure their views on council services and schemes are considered and addressed. Anyone wanting more information on the Disability Liaison Group should contact Sherill Hopkins in Access to Services.

Our Sport and Health team is continuing to do great work to encourage more girls to take up sport. A well-attended event was held at Penyrheol Leisure Centre earlier this week, with more following this summer. Well done to everyone involved.

Blog

I’ll be trapped in a tent with three small children for the next couple of weeks so my next blog will be on August 25.

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.

Building for the future

July 7, 2016 by Martin 2 Comments

On Monday I attended the official opening by HRH the Prince of Wales of the Swansea University Bay Campus. As you might expect it was a grand affair and my congratulations go to the university on delivering this substantial and impressive project. I have been a member of the joint partnership group since the very beginning of this project more than eight years ago. It was a great experience to see the plans turn into reality as a fully functioning centre for the engineers of the future.

The opening of this new facility marks the start of a new era for Swansea University in its 95th year and is part of a £450 million programme of development and expansion that includes further investment into the Singleton Park campus. Over the last five years the university has had a significant impact on the region with a 20% increase in students and staff and a 120% increase in research awards. In addition during the during the 26 months construction of the Bay Campus over 7,500 people worked on the site, 273 contracts were awarded and 165 individuals trained in accordance with the Council’s Beyond Bricks and Mortar policy. Overall the investment in both campuses is estimated to contribute over £3 billion to the economy over the next decade.

School visits

I have been continuing my visits to schools this week. On Tuesday I visited Morriston Comprehensive School which last year saw the completion of a £22 million rebuild. It is a fantastic learning environment for young people. I met the head teacher, Martin Franklin, who not only made me feel very welcome but also filled me with enthusiasm as he explained the impact of the investment and the improvements achieved in performance by the staff and pupils. He also gave me a guided tour of the school. It is a really first class facility.

On Wednesday afternoon I travelled to meet Rob Phillips, head teacher at Dylan Thomas Comprehensive School. Once again there was a warm welcome for me and Rob explained the challenges and achievements of the school very clearly. The school is making fantastic progress, recently receiving a Good/Good inspection from ESTYN. On our walkabout we visited the Dereck Roberts Centre which provides an education for children who are identified as having additional learning needs associated with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This is an impressive and important facility of which the school can feel rightly proud.

This week I also met with Ysgolion Cynradd Abertawe, the Swansea Primary Schools association made up of head teachers from all of the cluster areas. We discussed a number of topics including pupil attainment and the importance of the broader achievements and well-being of children, the landscape for local government, reorganisation and the financial outlook post the EU referendum. The YCA are a passionate and challenging group and I am looking forward to further discussions with them and a series of visits to primary schools in the autumn term.

What did I learn from the visits and the YCA discussions? Well quite a lot really but I think the most important message was that whilst buildings and the environment are important the most significant determination of good outcomes in education is to recruit and retain inspirational teachers. Those I met this week left me with a very positive feeling indeed.

Farewells and congratulations

Next week sees the departure of our Head of Poverty and Prevention, Sarah Crawley, following her appointment as Director of Barnardos Cymru, based in Cardiff. Sarah has made an excellent contribution to developing our corporate priority to tackle poverty and will be missed by colleagues. I wish her well for the future in her new role. We are in the process of recruiting another Head of Service but in the meantime I am delighted to announce that Jane Whitmore has been appointed to act up for the interim period.

Congratulations also to Julie Thomas on her appointment to the Head of Child and Family Services. Julie has been doing this challenging job on a temporary basis for the last 12 months but has now been made permanent Head of Service by the Appointments Committee.

It’s all about you

The second “It’s all About You” staff engagement event was held at Gors Community Centre last week. These events are about improving staff well-being and morale and to give staff the opportunity to express their views and ideas. 104 members of staff attended between 1.00pm and 4.00pm, and the event was organised by staff for staff – all of whom are volunteers. I had planned to drop in but unfortunately I could not be there. It sounded like a good afternoon was had by those who attended though.

Dancing in the street

This Saturday sees the return of another event, Dance Days, a free weekend of dance performance organised by Taliesin. It takes place in Swansea city centre and around the National Waterfront Museum on Saturday 9th July, and in and around the National Waterfront Museum on Sunday 10 July. There is a link to the Dance Days programme here.

Mametz Wood

You might remember last week I mentioned Swansea Council paid its own tribute to those from our city who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country in World War I at the Welsh Memorial to the Battle of Mametz Wood. The 100th anniversary of that battle starting was yesterday and I’ve included a picture of the wreath-laying by Karen Hallchurch from Special Events on behalf of us all.

Events

I thanked all staff who helped to deliver the Wales National Airshow last week but I have to repeat the message this week following another superb weekend for the City. An estimated 200,000 people attended over the two days, the sun shone and great fun was had by all. The feedback from the general public has been very positive indeed. The next Wales National Airshow will take place on 1st and 2nd July 2017.

If that wasn’t busy enough, in the midst of the Airshow weekend, our Events team was asked to consider staging a Fanzone for Wales’ Euro 2016 semi final. Castle Square had been the Fanzone for the games up to Wednesday this week, but it had a restricted capacity owing to its size, location and configuration.

Given the anticipated high volume of people expected to watch the game at a Swansea Fanzone, it was decided to move the location to Singleton Park which could cater for much bigger numbers. It was just as well we did as more than 10,000 turned out to cheer Wales on against Portugal. They didn’t quite make the final of the European Championships but their performances in the competition earned praise from all over the world. Well done Wales.

Regenerating Our City Centre

June 9, 2016 by Martin 4 Comments

Occasionally I’ll be using part of my blog to update everyone with progress against our Corporate Priorities. This week the focus is on the city centre.

In February, 1941, Swansea was targeted by the German air force in a series of bombing raids popularly known as the Three Night Blitz. The city centre was almost completely flattened; 230 people were killed and more than 7,000 were left homeless.

The following decades saw attempts to regenerate the core retail area. Some, for example The Quadrant, were successful while others, most notably the St David’s Shopping Centre, were not. Overall the city centre is failing to achieve its potential. It has too few residents and workers, dated public realm and limited, poor quality office provision. Unless this is addressed the retail and leisure offer in the city centre will not improve and the region will decline. In the modern economy cities are the engines of economic growth and so this is a priority for the Council and the whole of South West Wales through the Swansea Bay City Region Board.

The response of the Council in recent years has been to develop a plan in the form of the Swansea City Centre Strategic Framework and to encourage a programme of development on key sites. You will probably be aware that the team in Economic Regeneration and Planning are working closely with development partners, Rivington and Trebor, on the St David’s and Civic Centre sites (weblinks).

Over the coming months we’re likely to see significant activity in the city centre and I’ll try to keep you up to date on developments in my blog. This week saw the announcement that the Council is considering the future of Castle Square and, subject to the outcome of the public open space process, will draw up a development brief for consultation. I would encourage everyone to respond to this. Also, the new development at Mariner Street was approved at Planning Committee this week and this will generate activity and footfall in the High Street.

Corporate Management Team (formerly the Executive Board) this week considered the next Staff Survey following some interesting and valuable feedback from the Innovation Community. Of particular interest to me is the proposal to improve the survey process so that more people are likely to take part. Over the past two years the survey has provided an important insight into the reality and the perceptions of working for the Council and we’ve been able to act together to tackle some of the issues, for example through the Show Bullying the Red Light campaign. The survey will take place this autumn and will be available online with hard copies being made available via managers, at our main sites, in staff canteens and libraries. There will be more information about this in future blogs.

As part of the senior management review Council agreed in April that a new post of Chief Transformation Officer be established to drive forward the modernisation of the Council. The post will be advertised in the next few weeks but we need to increase the pace of this work immediately. On Tuesday Mike Hawes and I interviewed candidates to act up into this position until the longer term appointment is made. I am delighted to announce that Sarah Caulkin has been appointed and will take up the post immediately. The implementation of the new model for business support is the priority and this will impact upon us all over the coming weeks and months.

I was shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden death of Ian Thomas, Principal Officer for Health and Safety last Sunday. I have known Ian for many years and worked with him in Housing, Business Support and more recently in his role with Corporate Health and Safety. Ian was a respected and well liked officer who will be deeply missed. My thoughts go to his family, friends and colleagues at their loss.

The EU Referendum date is almost upon us and I visited the Elections team last week as they sent out the postal votes. I’m grateful for their hard work and look forward to seeing them again on the day of the Referendum. This is an important decision for Swansea, Wales and the UK and I hope as many of us as possible will exercise their right to vote on June 23.

On the subject of voting I’d like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that nominations for this year’s High 5 awards close on July 22. The High 5 Awards are open to any child or young person in three age ranges (up to 13, 14-19, and 20-25) or group and they have to either be a resident, educated in or receiving support in Swansea. They celebrate the inspirational achievements of children and young people, culminating in the Awards Ceremony at the Liberty Stadium in the autumn. Our former Chief Executive, Jack Straw, has agreed to be on the judging panel for the awards.

Good luck to our Scrutiny team and Members who’ll find out next week if they’ve won an MJ Award for ‘Excellence in Governance and Scrutiny’

And finally good luck to the Wales national football team in the first match of the European Championships against Slovakia on Saturday. The match kicks off at 5pm and will be shown live on the big screen in Castle Square – well done to our Events team. I know football isn’t everyone’s taste but it’s the first occasion in my lifetime that Wales have qualified for a major international football competition so it certainly is a reason for celebration. Come on Wales!