Jack

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

Welcome to my new blog. I think it is only appropriate that I start my first blog with a note of thanks to our previous Chief Executive, Jack Straw, and to wish him all the best for the future. A huge number of staff turned out last Friday to say farewell to Jack and to hear me describe his major achievements (and a few less positive stories of course). I owe a great debt to Jack for his leadership and friendship during the 27 years we have known each other and I wish him well in whatever he chooses to do in the coming years. He has certainly left big boots to fill!

The leaving party was an emotional event. Jack was certainly quite “emotional” by the end of it. The highlight of the evening for me was the video message from Swansea City FC midfielder, Leon Britton, Sue Hollister, the head teacher at Cefn Hengoed School and most importantly from some of the young people who had won High 5 awards. Although he was grateful for all those messages I know the words of thanks from the young people meant more to him than anything Leon, Sue or the rest of us could ever have said. One of the roles I most look forward to inheriting from Jack is the leadership of the High 5s.

Lee Wenham gave Jack a bound copy of all his blogs as one of his leaving gifts and he really appreciated that. A number of colleagues have asked me to continue to write a weekly Chief Executive’s blog and, although I cannot promise that it will be on a par with Jack’s, I am committed to continuing to do so. So here goes.

Following the Senior Management Review I am pleased to announce that Mike Hawes has been appointed as our Director of Resources from 1^st June. I have known Mike for many years and his appointment will help to stabilise the management of the organisation following the departure of Jack and Dean Taylor. On Tuesday Mike and I attended the Budget and Performance review group where, along with senior councillors, we consider the main issues relating to finance and service performance that face the Council. It’s certainly a challenging time for everyone and Mike’s knowledge and experience will be essential in developing and driving the budget strategy for us. I will keep you up to date with developments.

Yesterday I received a briefing on the Counter Terrorism Local Profile along with Chris Sivers, Director of People and future Chair of the Western Bay Contest Board. The board is charged with making sure all agencies plan and work together to combat the threat of terrorism and make sure that appropriate arrangements are in place.

A related issue is the impact and disruption of the recent school bomb hoaxes in the region. There have been many examples of this across the UK and the police take hoaxes extremely seriously because they divert police resources and cause disruption and alarm to the public. Last week saw the evacuation of 400 pupils from Gwyrosydd Primary School. All reports indicate that this was handled in an exemplary way by the head teacher, Jonathan Atter, his team and the pupils. A big thank you to all involved in the evacuation and in helping to reassure the children and parents. Guidance has been sent to all schools in the city and this includes the procedures that must be followed in the event of any future incidents.

The coming weeks and months will be critical for Swansea. The crisis in the steel industry is a major concern. Although Tata’s major facilities are not within Swansea’s boundaries most of us know at least one person or family that would be affected by closure, many of whom live in Swansea. The steel industry contributes 5.8% of the output of the Welsh economy and many other businesses in the city and the region will suffer if the rescue package currently being prepared is not successful. The Leader and I have been supporting the Swansea Bay City Region Board, led by Sir Terry Matthews, to do what we can to help shape the case for continued steel production in Wales.

On a similar note the Leader and I will be meeting the Chairman of the Government Independent Review into tidal lagoons, the Rt Hon Charles Hendry, next week. Our job will be to explain the importance of the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon to our city and the local economy. More on this in future blogs.

It’s always nice to have some good news, so I’m delighted to offer my congratulations to County Archivist Kim Collis who’s been awarded the prestigious Distinguished Service Award by the Archives and Records Association of the UK and Ireland for services to archives in Wales.

Similarly, a number of our attractions and events are up for a Swansea Life Award next month. They include the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k, Swansea Museum, Christmas by Candlelight at the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea Market, the Wales National Air Show, Proms in the Park, Waterfront Winterland, Singleton Botanical Gardens, Clyne Gardens, Plantasia, Penyrheol Leisure Centre, Swansea Grand Theatre and the Swansea Library Service. Well done to all the staff involved in these.

Go to SLVOTE16 to vote by Wednesday June 8. Please encourage as many people to vote for these as possible. Our recent customer feedback shows how highly these events are thought of by the public.

The Brangwyn Hall has again been awarded a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor, the world’s leading travel website. Brangwyn customers have given the venue a 93% average satisfaction rating on TripAdvisor. Over 65% of visitors also gave the attraction the top five-star rating, making the Brangwyn Hall Swansea’s favourite venue for concerts and shows. Thank you to all the staff.

And finally thanks must go to all the officers and councillors who have worked tirelessly on the Hafod Copperworks Project. Earlier this week the Heritage Lottery Fund announced that the Council has been successful in the first round bid for a £3.75m funding bid that could see restoration of historically significant buildings and the Penderyn whisky company invest £4.2 million in the expansion of their business into the city with a new distillery and visitor centre at the former Hafod Morfa Copperworks site. Judging by the amount of whisky people bought Jack on Friday night it will not come a moment too soon.

Being member-led?

Big Boots