schools – Page 4

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.

A Curate’s Egg

December 1, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

The latest staff survey results are now published and as usual they throw up a largely pleasing, but mixed picture of views.

Pleasingly, staff perception of the council as a whole has improved compared to previous years and the vast majority of areas have improved and a few have stayed the same. Here’s a selection of results, but full details are via this link:

80% of staff would recommend the council as a place to work, up 5%.
83% say the council is committed to improving service delivery, up 5%.
72% say the council has a clear vision about where it is going and what it wants to achieve, up 8%.

On the issue of bullying the number of incidents have decreased, although there’s a 1% increase in incidents experienced by staff from services users. However, 61% who experienced harassment, bullying or abuse did not report it which is 2% less than last year.

A big concern for me is a third of staff have not had an appraisal in the last 12 months. In the coming weeks Corporate Management Team will be considering how we deal with this, including a review of our on-line appraisal system, and Leadership Team will be developing plans to respond to the survey results.

Thanks to the 2,182 people who completed the survey providing a 26% response rate – 2% more than last year.

To further promote ‘staff wellbeing’ we’re holding a Big Wellbeing Event on January 31 at the Brangwyn Hall. The event will include wellbeing-themed stalls along with council services stalls and charity stalls. There’ll be talks throughout the day from renowned speakers and taster workshops you can get involved in. Details will be advertised shortly.

Staff Roadshows

We’re holding a series of roadshows starting next week to talk with you about the council’s priorities for the coming year and the forthcoming budget.
The roadshow will take the form of a presentation delivered by senior members of staff and will also provide an opportunity to ask questions.
Please make every effort to attend one of these sessions to be able to have your say on our budget proposals, and get a clearer understanding of our approach to meeting the challenges facing the council in the future.

Awards

The awards keep on coming in and it’s a brilliant reflection of our staff and the work they do. In the last few days alone, we’ve had these:

Swansea Museum has been granted full accredited status by the Accreditation Panel appointed by Arts Council England. Congratulations and thanks go to Barry Hughes and the team.

There was great news from one of the public sector’s most prominent awards events on Tuesday night – our Team Around the Family in Schools (TIS) programme won the Learning and Development category of the prestigious Guardian Public Service Awards 2017. Congratulations to all involved! This prize is tremendous recognition for a genuinely innovative, practical and effective service. You can read the Guardian story on TIS.

The Morfa Distributor Road won the Environmental Sustainability Award at the CIHT (Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation) Wales awards. Congratulations to the Highways and Transportation team for their hard work and determination on this project.

And we won the ACES 2017 Award for Excellence for the Accommodation Strategy/Agile programme. ACES is the Association of Chief Estates and Property Managers in the public sector with 300 member organisations. The new agile space in the Civic Centre has more than 200 plus staff working in 141 work spaces. This has freed-up more than 2,000 square metres of space. Significantly, sickness rates for staff working in the agile area hasvereduced from an average of 5 days per person to 0.2 days for the same period last year. Congratulations to Becky Jones and the team. For a second I thought it was Alan Carr presenting the award!

School visits

On a visit to Casllwchwr Primary School I met head teacher, Peter Owen, and Councillor Christine Richards. It’s a great school in a fabulous setting and is one of the happiest schools I’ve been to. I met the children who had lots of questions about what’s happening in the city and the work we do.

The school’s road safety committee raised concerns over the loss of their school crossing patrol. Fortunately, Councillor Richards has a plan to lower the speed limit and introduce a “puffin” crossing from her budget and I promised the children we’d do the work as quickly as we could. Thanks to all at the school for the warm welcome.

I also visited Blaenymaes Primary School to meet with pupils Ethan, Mia and Isaac and hear about the rights respecting work they’ve done. They also told me about their recent meeting with Hillary Clinton that I wrote about earlier this month. Thanks to head teacher Mark Dennis and Helen Spencer who explained the important work she’s doing with families in the area.

Gower power

It’s not just Dylan Thomas who says Swansea is the best place – celebrities, journalists and visitors from all over the UK are heaping praise on glorious Gower.

TV presenter Sean Fletcher has fallen for Britain’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty big-time and his story featured in the latest edition of the best-selling Countryfile magazine. The eight-page feature is just one of the ways our Tourism team pulls out all the stops to encourage people to visit.

And it’s all part of the countdown to next year’s ‘Year of the Sea’ theme, part of a Wales-wide initiative to celebrate our coastal culture, in which the team will be highlighting Swansea’s beautiful, award-winning coastline.

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.

Our performance is improving

September 22, 2017 by Martin 8 Comments

Amazing achievement

Once again I want to sing the praises of our staff who continue to do a great job despite budget pressures.

The latest Local Authority Performance Bulletin published this week shows just how good a job staff have done. The all-Wales bulletin compares all 22 councils on a broad range of indicators, from the condition of roads to the performance of schools. Last year:

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^th among all 22 councils, up from 15^th last year.

We’re performing in the top quartile in 32% of the indicators compared Cardiff’s 24% and Newport’s 12%. Given the financial pressure and as an urban area we face tougher challenges, this improvement is really impressive. You can view the bulletin here.

On top of this, our own quarterly performance report shows 80% of our corporate plan indicators met their target and 60% showed improvement compared to the first quarter last year.

We can’t be complacent; only yesterday a report warned that services like libraries and leisure centres could become unaffordable because about 56p in every pound spent by the Welsh Government on public services could go to the NHS.

We already knew the financial outlook is difficult as we need to save tens of millions of pounds again this year, but I’m inspired by the way our staff continue to meet these challenges and provide great services.

Thank you to everyone, I really appreciate your efforts.

More than one way to skin a cat

I attended a presentation about an alternative approach to improving rail connectivity to the city and the region. Professor Mark Barry from Cardiff University, who was instrumental in developing the South East Metro plans, believes his latest proposal can achieve more than electrification would have given us. He proposes the creation of a direct rail link from Port Talbot to Swansea via the new Bay Campus and SA1, and a Swansea Bay Metro connecting Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot. It could reduce travel times to Cardiff by 30 minutes and reach London in just over two hours. This would greatly benefit West Wales. It’s at a very early stage but we hope to work closely with regional partners and Welsh Government to develop the business case and engage with UK government to explore how it could be funded.

Schools

My week started on a high note with a visit to Brynmill Primary School where I met Jo Simons, headteacher, and her team. I know the school well as my children were educated there and my granddaughter is currently in the reception class. Jo highlighted the specific challenges that face this landlocked school, its Victorian design and lack of safe play space. The team and the children have done a great job of making the environment colourful and welcoming but more remains to be done and in the current financial environment any improvements will require an innovative approach. I promised to give this some thought.

Mike Penrose, Chief Executive at UNICEF, visited us to see how we’ve embedded UNCRC into everything we do. So far almost 50,000 children and young people have been engaged in the Rights Respecting Schools programme. Mike was clearly impressed, citing Hafod Primary as possibly the best example he had seen across the globe for the Rights Respecting approach. Thanks to all the schools and staff involved in driving this initiative forward.

I met YCA, the Primary Head teachers Association, to update them on the budget, local government reform and the plans for the city, including a plea for all schools to engage with our City of Culture and Tidal Lagoon campaigns. Schools and pupils have a very important role in helping to promote the opportunities our regeneration plans present for the young people. Thanks to the YCA for such a warm welcome and I look forward to our next meeting.

Congratulations to Donna Caswell and her team at Llanrhidian Primary School for their recent Excellent/Excellent Estyn inspection result. The report is a great reflection of the school, its staff and pupils.

Farewells

Thelma Maguire, Performance Management Officer in our Housing team is retiring after 41 years. Also Jennifer Griffiths, Capital and Revenue Monitoring Officer in our Education Service, is leaving after 45 years fantastic contribution to the work on our schools estate. I wish them both well after such outstanding service.