Success – Page 8

Fingers-crossed for City of Culture bid

July 14, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

City of Culture

We’ll learn at about 10.30 tonight if Swansea has been shortlisted for the UK City of Culture 2021 competition. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed as this would open up some great opportunities for the city and its citizens. My thanks to Tracey McNulty and her team who have put all their effort into getting our bid over the line.

Dragon’s Den

I attended the Grand Final of Moving Towards Successful Futures, which promotes entrepreneurship among children. It’s an important part of the new curriculum and Alison Williams from Craigfelen Primary School invited me to the event after reading my recent blog comments about Be the Spark.

Each school group had to design a product, develop a pitch and sell their goods to the public. They took over the central tables in Swansea Market for a day, selling products ranging from notebooks and soap to pots of slime, mostly from recycled materials. I spoke to all the groups and the enthusiasm of the pupils was impressive.

This was a fun event with a serious purpose and my thanks to all the teachers, pupils and staff who have worked so hard on this and particularly to Alison for inviting me.

The winning schools were:

Craigfelen Best Financial

Pontybrenin Best Idea

Craigcefnparc Best Marketing

Clase Best Customer Service

Terrace Road Best Research and Planning

Ynystawe Best Brand

Llwynderw Best Environmental

Christchurch Best Sales

Pentregraig Best Team Work

Blaenymaes Best Display Stand

Trallwn Best Social Media

Oystermouth Best Pitch

Take Care

We’re one of only two councils selected to work with Save the Children as part of the “Take Care Project” which aims to understand the issues relating to children in emergency or disaster situations. Year Six children from Trallwn Primary gave a presentation and wrote a song giving advice on what to do if you were caught up in a fire. They also made a video, which covered how they’d feel and what they’d want following an evacuation, which certainly provoked thought. The event will help change the way we plan and manage emergencies, such as including children in some exercises which was something they specifically asked for.

High 5s

Don’t miss the deadline of July 21 for nominating for the High 5 awards for inspirational children, young people and young adults. Staff can nominate staff as the age limit is 25 so have a think about the younger members of your teams, volunteers and apprentices you work with and consider if they are worthy of a High 5 Award. Swansea City FC star Leon Britton is our High 5 Ambassador again this year. All details here

Awards

We won three awards at the Swansea Life Awards. The Airshow was named Best Event so thank you to our Special Events team, Tourism Marketing, Highways and Transportation, Street Scene and Cleansing for ensuring a safe and enjoyable event. Clyne Gardens won the Best Tourism and Leisure Attraction thanks to the efforts of our Parks Operations and Development and Outreach teams, Tourism Marketing and the park’s Friends. The LC won Best Health/Gym/Spa. Well done to everyone involved.

We’ve been shortlisted for four national APSE Awards for the following categories; Highways, Waste Management, Building Services and Construction and the Best Workforce Initiative, which includes our apprentice scheme. The awards take place on September 7.

The Constructing Excellence Awards are being held today and we’ve been shortlisted for Health and Safety, Client of the Year and also for Project of the Year. Well done to everyone involved and it’s great to see your work being recognised by others.

Farewells

A number of school staff are moving onto pastures new or retiring – Catrin Pugh-Jones, Trui Williams, Jonathan Mead, Gareth Widlake and Sue Hollister. I’m very grateful for their dedication and commitment to children and young people.

I haven’t met them all but they have all made a real difference to their schools. I’ve met Sue Hollister who’s leadership and community engagement at Cefn Hengoed has had a huger impact on its improvement. The school has been judged twice to be an excellent school by Estyn and attendance rates have risen by 10% to over 94%. For the last four years, every single child has gained at least one qualification before leaving school and a range of other results have risen significantly. I’m grateful for her massive contribution. Diolch Sue.

Sad news

I was sorry to hear that one of our former councillors, Mair Gibbs, passed away this week. Mair was an excellent ward councillor who made a major contribution to the well-being of Bonymaen and Swansea. I worked with her on a number of projects and admired her tenacity in pursuing the interests of her constituents. Mair, a former Lord Mayor, was a great ambassador for our city and she will be sorely missed.

Reassurance on our high-rise blocks

July 7, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Update on our high rise blocks

This week we continued our work on tenant reassurance at our high rise blocks. It’s been a difficult week, starting on Saturday morning when I received notification that four blocks had failed the UK Government tests. By mid-morning on Sunday our magnificent staff had implemented all the required measures and more and the Housing team had delivered reassurance messages to all 672 tenants. This was a massive piece of work and I’m indebted to staff in Housing, Corporate Building and Communications for their brilliant response.

Four of our high-rise buildings – three at Clyne Court and Jeffreys Court – contain Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) and were tested at the request of the Welsh Government. Our other seven sites have not been tested because they do not contain ACM. The tests failed and we’ve been seeking further advice from the Welsh and UK Governments. So far all cladding tested from buildings in England and Wales have failed the tests.

However, we were advised on Tuesday that additional tests on the full system that we’ve been asking for over the last fortnight had been carried out by BRE on panels that are identical to the ones used in Swansea.

These additional tests – known as BR 135 – confirm the panels are fully compliant with building regulations. This provides further reassurance to tenants about the safety of their homes because it confirms the cladding will not contribute to the spread of a fire should there be one.

We’ve communicated this to our tenants and we’ve shared the information with Welsh Government as we hope they’ll confirm our understanding of the situation as soon as possible in order that tenants are fully reassured.

And yesterday there were more developments. Firstly, the Welsh Government requested a review of school buildings before the end of term. And then the UK Government finally announced new testing of the entire cladding system – something we’ve requested for the past two weeks.

Leadership Team

At Leadership Team Directors and Heads of Service considered ways of increasing the number of staff who reply to our annual staff survey. This’ll be the fourth year we’ve done the survey and we want as many staff as possible to complete it. We have to use different methods to reach different staff, especially those who don’t have access to IT in work. If you have any ideas please let me know.

We also had a demo of the new contact portal that we’ll be introducing to our switchboard. Staff can use voice-activation when using the switchboard from September and then we’ll roll it out for the public. Other councils and organisations use it successfully and with more than 20,000 calls into our switchboard every month this should help make us more efficient in dealing with staff and customer calls.

Poverty Forum

Reducing poverty is one of the five corporate objectives and we can use our power as an employer, developer, landlord and investor to achieve this. Opportunities like Welsh Housing Quality Standard, City Deal and tidal lagoon don’t come round every day so we must exploit them to the full.

This week I chaired a meeting of the Poverty Forum Network, an internal officer group, to take stock on where we are, think about how we will monitor progress and agree some key projects to work on.

The recently revised poverty strategy and delivery plan and scrutiny work makes this the right time to reignite the corporate approach through the poverty forum and I’m going to put my personal time and commitment into this and I’d like all staff to do the same.

Congratulations and thanks

The Wales Airshow last weekend was the best yet with 250,000 people enjoying the event. We owe a huge vote of thanks to all those involved in the logistics of this event. Our traffic team managed the required road closures, the special events team were a model of efficiency as were all the staff and volunteers who helped with running the event and clearing up afterwards. The Council even got a round of applause at the end! I’m very proud of all who contributed because it is a massive challenge to deliver this event. Well done all.

I’m delighted the city centre has retained its prestigious Purple Flag status. It was first awarded the status in 2015 in recognition of the excellence of its evening and night-time economy.

Rhys Harries in our Trading Standards Team received the Special Individual Achievement Award at the Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) Awards. Rhys was instrumental in an investigation that resulted in £1 million of counterfeit goods being seized.

Events

Following on from the Airshow, there’s a lot happening in the next few weeks. The Soapbox Science returns to the city centre on Saturday to promote cutting edge research and encourage children to take an interest in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) subjects.

On Sunday the ‘Eid in the Park’ event is being hosted by Swansea University in Abbey Meadow on the Singleton Campus from 11.30am to 4.30pm. It’s a great family event.

Swansea’s International Dance Festival, Dance Days, also returns this weekend with a mix of free dance performance for everyone.

And the annual Swansea Beach Soccer Festival returns to Swansea Bay on Saturday, July 8 to promote sport and the area as a hub for sport and activity.

Reassuring residents after Grenfell Tower disaster

June 16, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Grenfell Tower

I watched in shock and disbelief as the dreadful events unfolded at Grenfell Tower. The impact on the community has been devastating and our thoughts go to the families of friends of all those who lost their lives or suffered injury as a result of the tragic fire.

Our Housing and Corporate Building teams responded immediately to reassure our high rise residents through letters hand-delivered on the day of the fire. We have 11 high rise blocks and 672 tenants living in them. Every flat has a hard-wired smoke detector which is tested annually as part of the gas service inspection. In addition, all communal areas have a full annual risk assessment by us and Mid and West Fire Service, to make sure that all the blocks are to the highest standard and to ensure that any issues identified are addressed immediately. We will review our procedures as further information emerges.

Although it’s too early to determine the cause of the fire there’s been some speculation about the cladding on the buildings. We’ve been carrying out improvement works to a number of the high rise blocks and this includes cladding the buildings’ exterior. Our schemes have only used non-combustible products both as cladding and fixing frames with a series of full fire breaks. However, there’s no room for complacency and our teams are conducting further investigations to provide absolute reassurance to our residents. Thanks to all involved for the rapid and comprehensive response.

Corporate Management Team

CMT has been working closely with Cabinet on the arrangements for resourcing the new Policy Development and Delivery committees. It’s important we align the work programmes for the committees to the council’s policy commitments and priorities. There’ll be a report to Council next Thursday which will define the remit of the committees and I‘ll expand further on this next week.

CMT discussed a number of reports including the progress being made on adult safeguarding and the finance and performance outturn reports for 2016/17.

We also agreed proposals for a new self-serve switchboard for staff. In future staff will be able to call the switchboard and use voice-activation to get through to a colleague elsewhere. Last year our switchboard answered more than 255,000 calls and 18% of these were from staff so this initiative will improve efficiency. To help with this, it’s essential staff update their contact details on Oracle.

Better communications

We’re making Skype for Business available to staff in the next few weeks to help improve communications. It can be used on PCs and other digital devices to talk to council colleagues via instant messaging, voice calls and video calls. It allows us to work more agilely and end the reliance on phone and email, which many of us complain about. We’re rolling-out more digital improvements and I’d encourage you to give it a try.

Ambition Week at St Helens

On Tuesday I was invited to meet the Year 6 pupils at St Helens Primary School for a Q&A session as part of their ambition week. They asked me what councils do, how do you get to work for them, where their money comes from and our plans for the city? This was followed by questions ranging from my “typical day”, to terrorism and whether I’d been on TV!

The ambition week is a great opportunity for pupils to think about their futures and to learn more about the world of work. Congratulations to head teacher Mark Thompson for organising the event and Jack Branford, the teacher who facilitated it excellently.

Race Council Cymru

On Thursday I met with Uzo Iwobi, chief executive of Race Council Cymru which is an umbrella body bringing together key organisations in Wales to cooperate on promoting integration, championing justice and race equality in institutions and society. The RCC are asking us to work with them on the celebrations for Black History Month which is held every October and to work with us on our UK City of Culture 2021 bid.

Vigilance in our buildings

The on-going terror threat needs to be kept into perspective, but at the same time we all need to be vigilant. As part of this, councillors, staff and the public may be asked to open their bags for our security officers to carry out checks. We should also wear our ID cards at all times and politely challenge anyone tailgating at security doors or not wearing ID. These small steps will help improve security for us all.

Take That

It’s not my cup of tea but I understand the Take That concert at the Liberty Stadium was a resounding success. There were a number of complaints about long queues that resulted from enhanced security checks but I guess that’s something we are all going to have to get used to whilst the UK threat level remains at severe.

Thanks to all the staff who helped with the logistics for the concert. It’s not an easy job when 32,000 descend on the stadium and it was very well co-ordinated by the Council.

Congratulations and thanks

Our Registration team has received glowing report from the General Register Office. The team is responsible for recording all births, deaths and marriages in the city. The team’s improved customer service has also been praised and is very welcome in a service that can often be dealing with difficult circumstances. Well done to everyone involved.

Many of you will know Jane Guy who’s retiring next week after nearly 44 years’ service. Jane was the first clerical officer appointed to West Glamorgan County Council in Nov 1973 (prior to the 1974 local government reorganisation) and during her career Jane’s worked for eight chief executives. Well done Jane, have a lovely retirement.

We were shortlisted for two honours in the annual MJ Achievement Awards which concluded with an event in London last night.

Our Social Services Work Development Service was acknowledged for its excellence in community engagement. Also our Sustainable Swansea: Fit for the Future initiative was saluted for its achievements in workforce transformation. Well done to everyone involved because getting shortlisted in these UK awards is a huge achievement.

In the election spotlight

June 9, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

This has been another long 24 hours for me and the team who help me to run the UK Government Parliamentary election. I cast my vote as soon as my polling station opened and was greeted by an amazingly cheery and bright-eyed polling station team of Mal, Geraldine and Rebecca. Like all the other polling station staff they faced a long day and I am hugely indebted to everyone who helped run this election. Thanks for the warm welcome from the staff in the polling stations I was able to visit.

The elections team once again exceeded expectations, despite only just recovering from last month’s council elections. This time we faced heightened security concerns following the dreadful events at Manchester and London Bridge and the support from our security staff and special events team was outstanding. I was also grateful for the work done by our resilience team working with the Police.

Congratulations to Dean Howard, the first presiding officer to deliver his ballot papers to the election count. Dean came second at the local government election count but beat his personal best by arriving at around 10.15. As you can see from the photo Dean was pretty pleased with his performance. Mind you his polling station was only 100 yards from the count.

We had a lot of attention on the Gower constituency given the closeness of the 2015 result; a margin of only 27 votes. This wasn’t just from the local and national media companies. Gower was one of eight constituencies across the UK to be visited by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association team led by Callum Forster and made up of politicians from the governments of Bangladesh, South Africa, St Lucia and Ghana. Each of the eight constituencies is the subject of an election assessment to consider the conduct of the electoral process, and make recommendations for improvement. On Tuesday Huw Evans and I met with the CPA team and answered a range of questions about the electoral process and how it operates here in Swansea. They also visited the postal vote team and a number of polling stations in the Gower constituency. I look forward to their feedback and any suggestions on how the process could be improved in future. Huw and I made a few suggestions of our own which would require changes to national legislation and hopefully the CPA team will take these on board.

Congratulations to the MPs who have been elected to represent our three constituencies;

Swansea West – Geraint Davies

Swansea East – Carolyn Harris

Gower – Tonia Antoniazzi

Appointments

This week the appointments committee met to shortlist candidates for the post of Director of Resources. Interviews will be held on 26^th June and I am confident that Council will be able make an appointment the following day.

On a different note a number of people have asked me why the post of Chief Executive has been advertised. When I was appointed to the post last year it was on an interim basis for one year. Under local government rules interim appointments of the most senior staff should only be for a year. It was my view, and the Leader’s view, that an interim appointment would be the best way forward because it would allow the newly elected Council to choose their own permanent Chief Executive.

Approval of Swansea Central planning application

On Tuesday Planning Committee considered the planning application for Swansea Central. I have mentioned the project a number of times in previous blogs but the approval by Planning committee was a significant milestone and a green light to proceed with the regeneration plan for our City Centre. Comments at the committee reflected the quality and detail of the application. This has required a mammoth effort from our staff and a lot of people deserve to be thanked for their contributions not least of which are Phil Holmes, Huw Mowbray, Lee Richards, Katy Evans, Ryan Thomas, David Owen, Liam Smith and Stephen Smith.

The next phase is delivery and will be equally challenging but I am delighted that the key milestones have been met and confident that we can progress this apace.

Trading Standards

A Trading Standards case in Crown Court earlier this week has determined that a local shop owner jailed for selling dangerous ‘legal highs’ must now pay back more than £120,000 of the money he gained during the years he traded. This is great news and a further example of the hard work by Trading Standards and our Legal Team who have vigorously pursued the case, ensuring individuals do not profit from harmful trading activities.

City Centre

Demolition of the former Oceana building on Kingsway is now about 50% finished. Experts from Cuddy Group, who are demolishing the building for the council, are continuing to dismantle what remains of the building with a high-reach excavator. Scheduled for completion this summer, the demolition will pave the way on site for a new office development accommodating tech businesses.

High 5 Awards

Nominations are starting to increase for this year’s High 5 awards but we want more. The High 5 awards are open to any child, young person or group in three age ranges – under 13s, aged 14 to 19 or 20-25 year olds. We’ve also added a schools award this year which looks to recognise and reward larger school groups, even whole classes, years or teams.

All nominators need to do is fill in a nomination form here where they get the chance to explain why their choice of nominee should get a High 5, whatever the reason might be.

We’ve made it even more accessible to answer any query you have about High 5 this year with a new phone number we’ve set up. If you have a query or would like to leave a voice nomination call (01792) 635699 and leave a message.

UNESCO

Next week we will welcome visitors from across the UK and Europe who are keen to find out how Swansea is encouraging children and adults alike to learn about enterprise.

We were the first city in the UK to become a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities and are hosting a two-day meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Visitors will hear how we have worked with schools, colleges and universities to reduce the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET), and see at first hand the extensive efforts to inspire young people to think about setting up their own businesses.

More than a dozen delegates are expected from as far afield as Scandinavia. I hope we will all give them a warm welcome.

Agile working

In the Civic Centre it’s great to see our new Agile Working area expanding. It’s encouraging to read the positivity coming from staff already there. I particularly like Marlyn Dickson’s observation in her case study: “Business conversations are so much easier … every working day feels much more human and personable.” Still wondering what it’s all about? Pop in and chat to some of your colleagues there!

Congratulations

It was great to hear that Burlais Primary School will soon be home to a garden from the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show after their success in the Greening Grey Britain project. The new school which was completed in 2015 will soon have a courtyard filled with plant life and colour. There was great coverage on the One Show last Monday as well. Congratulations to Alison Bastion and her team.

Congratulations also to transformation officer Gemma Whyley, who helped lead a Welsh team to glory at a major global cheerleading championships in the USA. Gemma was one of two coaches involved with the Welsh Paracheer Unified Freestyle Pom team that won gold at the ICU International Cheerleading and Dance World Championships held in Orlando, Florida. Twenty-five per cent of the team – the first ever from Wales to win at the championships – is made up of young athletes with physical disabilities.

And finally….

Are you going to the Take That concert at the Liberty Stadium on Wednesday evening (June 14)?

If you are, then all the info you’ll need on car parking, taxi tips, drop-off points, pick-up points and road closures is here. My thanks to staff in special events and transport for all their work in the build-up to the event to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.

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.