Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Housing matters

by Leave a Comment

This week I was interviewed by the Wales Audit Office on progress we’re making to ensure our 13,000 council homes meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.  I know a number of other staff and councillors have also been interviewed and the messages were consistently hammered home by all.  The purpose of this review is to determine whether we have appropriate arrangements in place to enable us to deliver the WHQS by 2020 and how we engage with tenants in the process.  The bottom line is we’re making good progress towards meeting the WHQS by 2020, although some challenges remain. Thanks to all staff and councillors who are involved in this complex and difficult £300 million investment programme which will improve the lives of all our tenants. Thanks also to Colin Goddard from the Strategic Delivery Unit for co-ordinating the project for us and supporting the audit process.  I will say more when the report is issued by the WAO.

Regional working

It’s been another busy week for regional collaboration, which continues apace in spite of the current consultation on council mergers.  The City Deal working agreement should be presented to all four councils in the region for approval in June.  At the Shadow Joint Committee on Wednesday we discussed transport and digital programmes in some detail and I know a lot of work is being done by our teams to support this.

On school improvement I met the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams, to update her on progress made by ERW and the six councils over the last two months.  From 2016/17 to 2017/18 there’s been a 42% decrease in the number of schools causing concern in the ERW region and I’m particularly proud of the performance here in Swansea.  It’s a credit to all teachers, staff, councillors and governors involved.  In the meantime, we await the consultation on the new national model for education with interest as it could prompt further changes to how education services are delivered in Wales.

Have your say

We’re starting consulting on Monday on proposals that affect some of our day services and residential care for adults. Under the proposals we’d focus our residential care and day services on those with complex needs. We’ve also got over-capacity in these services so, if agreed following consultation, Parkway residential home and the day centres at the Hollies and Rose Cross would close. The proposals affect staff but we don’t anticipate compulsory job losses as we’ll be putting our efforts into redeployment, ER/VR etc. We’ve briefed staff and unions.  Details on how to have your say will be published on Monday.

New cafe

The refurbished 4th floor café re-opens on Monday with a new look and new name. The new cafe has an “industrial chic” feel and there’ll be free coffee on Monday 9.30-11am.  It’ll be a smart, informal meeting facility and the adjoining servery area will continue to offer food and drink and will itself be transformed soon.  Costs are being kept low thanks to the use of recycled and upcycled furnishings. Thanks to all the staff involved.

Data changes

New data protection laws come into force in less than a month.  It’s essential that all staff are aware of the changes these new GDPR regulations bring. Details here.

Foster Swansea

Foster Care Fortnight is rapidly approaching and yesterday I had my photo taken as part of the social media campaign to promote this vital service. I hope others will join the campaign and have their photos added. The campaign runs May 14 to 27. The theme for this year is once again ‘Foster care transforms lives’, using the hashtag #proudtofoster and #proudtosupportfostering

Congratulations and thanks

During the past few weeks we’ve been re-surfacing large parts of Fabian Way. Our teams have been working during the night to minimise traffic disruption. The work is now complete and it’s made a huge difference to one of the city’s main arteries. Thank you to all the staff involved for a great job.

 

 

 

 

Shifting boundaries

by Leave a Comment

The battle lines over local government reorganisation appear to have been drawn. Last Friday I updated you on the Welsh Government proposals to reduce to 10 councils, but on the same day you may have seen coverage of a feisty meeting between council leaders and the Cabinet Secretary.  I won’t make further comment at this time but I did say it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.  Swansea has consistently been open to considerations on merger but it’s unclear what the views of our neighbours are.  We’ll be holding discussions with them over the coming weeks to develop an understanding.  In the meantime, I’ve submitted some observations to our scrutiny inquiry panel which I hope will be helpful in their deliberations.

Education funding

I met with the Welsh Government Education team to discuss the thorny topic of the Minority Ethnic Achievement Grant.  You may have read about this in the media.  Councillors in Swansea and elsewhere have been unhappy about the funding reductions by the Welsh Government and I’ve been doing my best to recover the position, or at least some of it.  The Welsh Government have made it clear that they want consistent regional models for the distribution of education grant funding but this is not without issues, particularly for urban authorities like Swansea who face different pressures given our demographics.  I’m conscious that a number of staff in our Ethnic Minority Achievement Unit have been informed that their jobs are at risk and I’ve asked the education team to work closely with them during the consultation period to see how we can support schools, and the pupils who receive this service, following the Welsh Government changes.

Budget latest

CMT received an update from Ben Smith, our Chief Finance Officer, setting out an early view of the likely year-end position and ongoing risks around delivering some of the budget savings for 2018-19. It’s already clear that as austerity continues to bite in the form of further savings, that we, like many councils, will struggle to balance the books. We can’t just live within our existing budgets any longer, we also have try to underspend to offset the undoubted pressures and surprises that will emerge during the year. I know we’ve just come out of a really tough budget cycle, but I suspect these tough times will continue.

You may remember a significant number of staff were “at-risk” in Corporate Services. Thankfully, that number has now reduced to four due to the commitment of managers and our HR team in supporting staff. I’m also grateful to those staff who’ve been redeployed for being willing to take on a new challenge. I’m hopeful that we can work with the four remaining staff to get a positive outcome.

Bryntawe visit

After a number of unavoidable postponements I finally got to spend some time at Ysgol Gyfun Bryntawe this week.  I had been there in January to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day but I did not get a chance to talk to Simon Davies, headteacher, or any of the pupils. There is a lot of innovation happening at the school, particularly in the way that classes are organised, with teachers floating between rooms rather than pupils.  Simon took me on the visit and then I met the school council.  It is a school where culture, performance and music are alive and I’m proud to say, fiercely promoted, so amongst the topics for discussion was how austerity will hit arts funding.  We then talked about the possible impacts of austerity on school budgets and the general challenges the city faces (including the Lagoon again).  Thanks to all for the warm welcome and once again for the sense of optimism for the future of Swansea when you meet such articulate and intelligent young people.

Although it’s been relatively quiet in the media, work continues on pushing the case for the tidal lagoon. The Leader and I have held a number of meetings and conference calls to try to unblock the current deadlock.  I’ll keep you updated.

Awards

Our Colliers Way scheme has been commended in the Municipal Journal 2018 awards under the ‘Best Social Housing Initiative’ category. The judges were looking for interesting and innovative social housing projects with clear outcomes. There were a record number of entries this year so this a great achievement for the team.  Well done to all.

The South Wales Evening Post Community Award winners will be announced tonight. Phil Treseder, our Learning and Participation Officer, has made the final shortlist for the Community Champion Award for his commitment to YMCA Swansea, over the last 10 years as chairman and trustee.  Also Kevin Allen who was part of our City of Culture bid team has made the final for the Ambassador award.  For Twin Town fans if Kevin wins I’m confident he’ll be laying on sausage rolls and Welsh cakes in the gazebo.  Good luck to both.

Data changes

The new European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short, will change the way we work from May 25. It requires us to be more open and transparent with our citizens about how we use their personal data. Citizens’ rights regarding their data will be strengthened and the deadline for investigating data breaches becomes a challenging 72 hours. We need to finish creating a corporate overview of all our personal data processing activity and to ensure that, at each point where we ask people to provide their personal details, we make clear to them what we’re going to do with the personal data they’ve supplied, There’s information on GDPR on Staffnet: http://www.swansea.gov.uk/staffnet/gdprguide

Farewells

More long-serving members of staff are leaving at the end of the month. They include David Laytham from Facilities, Simon Clark from Pollution Control, Tina Evans from Housing , Jeanette Lewis in Economic Regeneration and Planning as well as Jayne Bool, Steve Holt, Simon Mason, Richard Thomas and Raymond Morgan from Digital and Transformation Services and Teresa O’Flynn from the Contact Centre. Also leaving after long service are Geraldine Baker, Christine Gravelle, Kevin Jenkins, Karen Preedy-Davies and Janet Monks from Financial Services and Service Centre, Wendy Baker from Health and Safety, Andrea Thomas from Unison and Ian Rowden from Fforestfach Day Service. Thank you for all your efforts and outstanding service.

Happy Easter

I‘ll be on holiday for a few weeks so my next blog will be on  April 20.  In the meantime, I want to wish you a happy Easter break and thank you all for your work to improve the organisation and the city.  As usual the events team have been very busy and there will be lots to do as you will see from this link.

Budget approved

by 2 Comments

This week Council approved our budget for 2018/19.  The last few weeks have been a hectic time for Ben Smith and the Finance Team and I’ve written to them to thank them for their work which is greatly appreciated.  Amendments were proposed and debated and after over two hours of deliberation the budget was agreed.  The overwhelming message for me from the debate was that austerity has arrived in Wales with a vengeance but members of Council are determined to protect core services and ensure that allocation of resources reflects our five corporate priorities.

Officers and members must now work harder than ever before to bring spending in line with the budget as there’s no longer any wriggle room or potential to rely on reserves as a fall-back.  There’s never been a greater need for financial discipline in the organisation.  Corporate Management Team will be working with Cabinet to ensure that the reporting mechanisms are fit for purpose and that risks are managed effectively.

Linked to this, the consultation period for staff in Corporate Services ended yesterday and during this time we’ve managed to reduce the previous number of staff at risk down from 26 to 10.   Discussions are ongoing with the remaining staff and whilst there’s still uncertainty for them, we’re still making efforts to look for redeployment and to reduce this number further.  It’s also worth reminding staff our enhanced ER/VR scheme is in place until the end of the month and even those who may previously have been turned down can apply again. My thanks to the HR staff involved in supporting at-risk staff.

Immediately before the Council meeting there was a photoshoot of our female councillors outside the chamber as part of our celebration of International Women’s Day.

 

 

Thanks to the councillors and staff who’ve worked on the programme to celebrate women’s achievements and promote gender parity. I know Councillors Gibbard and Sherwood have worked hard with Chris Sivers, Lucy Hyde and others to raise the profile of IWD across our organisation. Thanks to all involved.

When we build again

I have to confess if anyone had asked me 10 years ago if we would see councils building houses for rent again I’d have dismissed it pretty quickly.  I remember reading a book 30 years ago called “When We Build Again” and formed my views at that time, but this week I’ve been proved wrong! The fact that we’re amongst the first pioneers in this new drive to provide affordable housing for direct management by the Council makes me very proud.

Yesterday Carwyn Jones AM, the First Minister of Wales, officially opened our new housing development at Cwrt Trefor, Colliers Way. All of the tenants have moved in and are happy in their new homes which are modern and energy efficient. The scheme has had so many extra benefits, including energy bill savings of up to £100 a year for each home, it provided 450 apprentice learning days, two long-term unemployed people secured work, we created 15 trade-based jobs and during last week’s “Beast from the East” storm the homes were heated using only solar power. There are too many people to thank but I met most of them on site yesterday.  Thanks, you’ve done a fantastic job

Collaboration

This week the Leader and I met with our counterparts at Cardiff Council to discuss our continuing collaboration on a range of issues including education funding, economic development and migration.  Clearly both councils are concerned about the future impact of Brexit on trade and economic growth and we discussed our strategies for mitigating the possible risks and impacts.  I’m convinced that partnerships between the Welsh cities is the right approach and over the coming months we’ll explore ways of work together along with our neighbours.

On Tuesday the Leader, Deputy Leader and I met Rhys Curtis, our innovation co-ordinator, to develop proposals for building on the Smart Cities seminar we held last month.  Over the next few months we’ll be engaging with schools, colleges and universities, the health board and businesses to raise awareness about the future direction of technology and digital developments through the City Deal.  We’ll be holding a second seminar for these partners and I’ll say more about this nearer the time.

Congratulations and thanks

Congratulations to Nigel Fletcher from the Waste Commercial Team who has gone 10 years without a day of sickness.

 

 

The Jig-so Integrated team of midwives, family facilitators, early language development practitioners and nursery nurses has won the Reducing Inequalities Award at the annual national Royal College of Midwifery Awards. This is great news for the families supported by the team and I’m particularly pleased because this project has reported to the Public Services Board over the last 18 months. It shows the PSBs influence in sponsoring such collaborative working and in this instance bringing together our Early Intervention Services and ABMU’s Midwifery Service to work together to benefit both the young parents and their children. Thanks and congratulations to all involved.

Finally, I know I mentioned it last week, but thanks once again to all the staff who kept services going during the winter storm.

Thanks for a great response

by Leave a Comment

Thanks to all the staff who’ve gone the extra mile in the last few days to make sure the city keeps running during the freezing conditions.  A special thanks must go to our highways staff for keeping the traffic moving and I know this is appreciated by officers and members across the Council as well as residents, hospitals and businesses.  I’m also conscious that our social care teams face particular challenges and I’m indebted to them for their commitment and care.

Planning our response to Storm Emma has been a really big task for the Corporate Management Team, with red and amber threat forecasts constantly shifting and making it difficult to predict snowfall.  Sometimes we have to err on the side of caution to keep people safe and sadly this meant the postponement of the annual budget Council meeting yesterday.  The meeting will now be held next Tuesday at 5pm. It also meant some of our St David’s Day celebrations were cancelled but others have moved indoors and the parade is still due to go ahead on Saturday.

We’ll try to keep everyone up to date via Staffnet and team briefings. The guidance to staff on inclement weather has been published again on Staffnet.

Thanks also to our schools who managed to remain open for as long as practicable.  Thankfully the weather looks set to warm up a bit next week so hopefully normal service will resume as soon as possible.

International Women’s Day

A range of activities have been planned this important year in women’s history. With the centenary last month of partial women’s suffrage and other important anniversaries this year we are making a big splash for International Women’s Day on Thursday March 8th.

The theme this year is “Press for Progress” which for us in Swansea Council means celebrating how far we have come but recognising there is still a way to go until gender and other types of equality are achieved here and in wider society.  Swansea Council has a far better gender balance than almost all the other councils in Wales at senior management level, where 50% of directors team and 44% of Leadership Team are female.  This is also the case with our elected members with women composing 42% of Council.

All staff and councillors are invited to a special event on Thursday 8th March at 1pm in the Civic Centre Council Chamber in which Swansea University’s Dr Alys Einon will talk about gender stereotyping in the workplace which we are sure will provide some important food for thought.

To book and for more details go here.

Scrutiny review

On Tuesday I was interviewed by the Wales Audit Office who’ve been exploring how ‘fit for the future’ our scrutiny functions are, whilst also considering how we’re responding to the current challenges including the Well-being of Future Generations Act.  Thanks to the great work done by our officers and councillors on scrutiny and policy development I was able to give a good account and point to examples of work produced by scrutiny and policy development and delivery committees.  Hopefully they’ll recognise the excellent work done in Swansea but we can always learn from other councils and so I’ll be keen to see any possible areas for improvement when they publish their findings.

Congratulations

The Dylan Thomas Exhibiton at the Dylan Thomas Centre has been named as the Best Family Venue in the UK, by Fantastic for Families. The Awards recognise the contributions of organisations made to arts and culture for families during 2017, and last night the Dylan Thomas Centre was named as the Best Family Venue ahead of the likes of Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park and artsdepot in London.  Thanks to Jo Furber, Georgia Thomas and the team at the Dylan Thomas Centre for securing this national award for us.

Congratulations also to Timm Dadds from Cwmrhdyceirw Primary School who has been nominated for an Into Film Educator of the Year Award. The ceremony will take place in Leicester Square on March 13  and Timm is shortlisted with two others in the whole of the UK. Fingers crossed for Timm.

Farewell

I learned this week that Sara Harvey will be leaving her current post as Regional Programme Director with the Western Bay Programme to return to the Welsh Local Government Association.  Sara has done an excellent job over the past few years and I wish her well for the future. Thanks Sara.

Poverty is everyone’s business

by Leave a Comment

Our efforts to tackle poverty across all our services is moving forward at pace.

Council recently agreed ‘Working Towards Prosperity for All in Swansea’ A Tackling Poverty Strategy for Swansea 2017 – 2020.  The strategy has three themes:

  • Empowering local people through involvement and participation
  • Changing cultures to reflect that tackling poverty is everyone’s business
  • Targeting resources to maximise access to opportunity and prosperity

The delivery plan has 81 objectives which touch virtually every part of our organisation so we all have a role in helping to tackle poverty. And this week I chaired the Poverty Forum network which agreed its delivery plan and then considered a presentation on the impacts of Universal Credit on Swansea and its citizens.  The simple fact is that more than 9,000 households in Swansea are worse off as a consequence of the changes.  The introduction of Universal Credit has presented some unique challenges for a number of organisations including ours.  A key issue is that all claimants require an email address which raises issues around digital inclusion – many claimants are arriving with no e-mail addresses and no means to access the internet.  I know that staff in libraries as elsewhere do fantastic work to support claimants. The presentation can be found here.

Budget update

Cabinet yesterday approved its budget which will now be discussed by Full Council on March 1. It includes:

  • Extra £3.5m for education.
  • Extra £2.7m for social care services
  • Around £150m for more 21stcentury schools
  • More than £57m on new council housing and a council house kitchen and bathroom replacement programme.
  • £1.4m extra in capital funding to help maintain roads and traffic management
  • £6m for a new fleet of waste collection vehicles
  • Proposals to charge school staff for parking on-site are not being mandated, although individual schools can charge for parking if they want to.

I know some staff are still “at risk” but I’m grateful to officers in HR who are continuing to redeploy staff and deal with ER/VR applications to help reduce any compulsory redundancies.

Western Bay

The Western Bay Regional Partnership Board reviewed and agreed the priorities for joint working outlined in its 2018-2023 plan. The main focus of this plan is on priorities for regional and integrated working between health and social care, including the use of the Integrated Care Fund in relation to:

  • Older People
  • Children and Young People with Complex Needs
  • Mental Health
  • Learning Disabilities (including Autism)
  • Carers and Young Carers

We suggested some amendments and endorsed the plan which will now be considered by each of the statutory partners (health board and local authorities). It’ll be submitted to Welsh Government and hopefully published  on April 1.  Sara Harvey and the Western Bay team have done a great job keeping this on track and dealing with the diverse views of partners.

Staff Suggestion Scheme

CMT received a presentation from Michael Owens and Rhys Curtis on the IT system to support the staff suggestion scheme that has been developed by the innovation community.  They’ve done a great job and we’ll be piloting and testing the system over the coming weeks.  I hope staff take the opportunity to use it.

Better relations

Our Services in the Community cross-cutting project is looking for staff to help develop and design services with the communities and build on new/existing relationships. It’s a chance to gain new skills such as co-production, bring their experiences to the project and develop new relationships with citizens. Further info is here Staff Net Pages – Services in the Community Project.

Have your say

Following the decision not to proceed with rail electrification to Swansea a number of ideas have been generated, including a South West Wales metro. It’s time to have your say, whatever your views are.  The UK Government has launched a consultation on the future of the Great Western Franchise and is asking passengers, businesses and councils for their views at two consultation events on 13 February 2018.  https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/great-western-rail-franchise

Big conversation

The first primary school Big Conversation was held at St Teilo’s Cwtch with 120 attendees and 70 children as part of the consultation for the Local Wellbeing Plan. Feedback from primary schools has been fantastic with a desire for more events to help engage young people. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and taking part in the event.

More from Blaenymaes

It’s busy times again at Blaenymaes Primary School who recently achieved the Eco Green Flag award. Their Eco Ambassadors celebrated by inviting Iolo Williams, TV presenter, to the school. Iolo told the school stories about his adventures including an encounter with a grizzly bear. Iolo and the Ambassadors raised the Eco flag with the rest of the school watching. Thanks to Amy Bacon and Amy Smith (Eco School Coordinators) who led the assessment for the eco award and the visit from Iolo Williams.

Sad news

Peter Campbell, our former Assistant Director of Housing, passed away last week.  Peter worked for the Council for 35 years and was a valued and trusted colleague.  I’ve written to his family expressing our condolences and our thanks for his major contribution to improving the lives of council tenants.