Chief Exec's Blog

An update from the Chief Executive

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

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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 9th among all 22 councils, up from 15th 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.

Peter Blake

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.

Merry Christmas

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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.

Budget top of the agenda

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Our budget proposals were approved by Cabinet yesterday and they’ll soon go out for consultation with the public.

The feedback from the public will be important in helping Cabinet make final decisions around February. It’s also important that staff get involved in these discussions. The recent staff roadshows have been well attended and have given Heads of Service and Directors the opportunity set out our priorities and budget situation. Hopefully managers will be discussing how these proposals affect their teams and services in team meetings in the coming weeks.

I know these proposals mean changes and reductions in services and this will inevitably cause concerns among staff. We’re committed to doing everything we can to minimise the impact on staff, although every year is becoming more difficult to avoid compulsory job losses. If you have any concerns please speak to your manager.

Culture feedback

We’ve had some initial feedback on our City of Culture bid. The judging panel said the quality of the bids was so high that all the cities could have delivered a fantastic year – but fine judgements had to be made in choosing a winning city. On the positives they highlighted our youth leadership as a real bonus and opportunity; Swansea is a great place – and city of culture is clearly the right vehicle for the city – our commitment to youth is good, and they praised the drive and energy of the bid team. They recognised that ‘cultural leadership’ in the council was strong but felt we needed to do more work to build the capacity both within and outside the council which to help deliver something on this scale and create a broader impact.

Appointment

Last week I was appointed to take on the role of lead Chief Executive for ERW, our regional school improvement consortium.  The consortium covers Swansea, NPT, Carmarthen, Pembrokeshire, Powys and Ceredigion. The aim is to work together to improve teaching and learning to secure the best outcomes for all learners. I know this won’t be an easy task and from my discussions with teachers and colleagues in our education service I’m conscious that there’s much to be done over the coming months.

Homeless event

Congratulations to all the councillors, officers and volunteers who helped make Tuesday’s event at the Brangwyn Hall such a success. More than 200 homeless and vulnerable people attended and ate a hearty dinner served up by the Leader and his colleagues. Tenancy and health advice were also on hand along with free haircuts. I was particularly pleased to see that counterfeit jumpers confiscated by our Trading Standards team were handed out on the day. Congratulations to Rhys Harries and the Trading Standards team for that. It was also lovely to see an anonymous donation of sleeping bags – thank you, whoever you are! I spoke to a number of people who attended the event and they were universally grateful for the team effort. A number had quite harrowing stories of loneliness, isolation and extreme poverty that reinforced the message that homelessness is not just a problem in winter and at Christmas but an issue for us all year round.

Long service

A number of staff have recently reached 40 years’ service, which is an amazing achievement: Ieuan Pelzer, Gary Cornell, Paul Conipane (all Corporate Building Maintenance), Charles Davies (Glynn Vivian), Julia Incebel (Grand Theatre), Paul Parcell (Construction), Paul Griffiths (Drainage and Coastal Management), Patricia Joslyn (Road Safety), Gethyn Havard (Area 1 Team), Jeanette Lewis (Business Support), Sheila Watts (Cleaning) and Sheila Lewis (Penyrheol Comprehensive). Thank you for all your hard work and support during the past four decades.

Christmas jumpers

Thanks to everyone who took part in the HR annual Christmas quiz. There were some pretty spectacular Christmas jumpers on show and even a visit from Santa!  Teams taking part raised almost £300 for Save the Children which is great.  The quiz was part of Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day and I’m sure staff across the council will be wearing some outrageous jumpers today.

 

A Curate’s Egg

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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.

 

 

London Calling

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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 7th 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.