thanks – Page 9

A more agile council

March 31, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Agile working

We’re setting out on our agile working project and we’re creating a pilot office in the Civic Centre with a variety of new-look desks to suit different working needs, more open-plan and better natural lighting.

The first staff to try it out will be our Estates and Facilities team followed by roll-out to others in the coming months and years. Staff due to go agile will be invited to visit the pilot office before they receive laptops and other new technology which will give them the flexibility to work away from their main office.

As part of our new ways of working, software improvements will allow all our IT users to access their council work anywhere on any digital device.

Skype for Business, for instance, will mean that staff can connect internally with each other over the IT network without the need for an external phone line; its instant messaging will reduce the reliance on email. It allows video conferencing with colleagues at any time from any digital device. We’ll roll-out digital devices to staff over the next two years.

I know some staff have concerns about the move to agile working but I’m confident you’ll find the new approach, with its new look and IT solutions, really refreshing, professional and welcoming. Prior to any staff moving to agile, there’ll be drop-in sessions with project staff and training is being provided for the new technology.

Incidentally, to help plan our new workspaces small sensors will be fitted to some desks in the Civic for a short time. They’ll help us understand how frequently space is used and will not gather data on individual personnel or on teams.

There’s lots more information on our Agile FAQs page.

Bed (un)blocking

Many of us will be familiar with the term “bed blocking” which can be caused due to patients waiting for home care support or their homes being adapted before they are discharged from hospital.

But for the past three months there has not been a single case of bed blocking at Morriston Hospital due to social services-related issues.

This is a fantastic achievement for those working both in our hospital social work team and our integrated health and social care community teams who go above and beyond to ensure that delays are minimised.

Milestone

An outline planning application for the redevelopment of Swansea Central has been submitted with proposals for the north site (St David’s Shopping Centre, Oldway House and St David’s Car Park) for new retail, commercial, residential, leisure, non-residential institution and a multi-storey car park. On the south site (LC car park) there are proposals for a new arena, hotel/residential building, food and drink, car park and potential energy centre. It includes new public open space and the two sites would be connected by a wide pedestrian bridge across Oystermouth Road.

During the consultation there was overwhelming support for the proposals.

The full application will be considered by Planning with the aim of reaching a decision in June. It can be viewed here. If planning is granted work could start on the arena early next year.

I’m grateful to the large number of colleagues from various teams who’ve contributed significantly to the project.

Commissioning

On Monday I met Councillor Clive Lloyd and officers involved in the development of the next round of commissioning reviews. The cross-cutting reviews will be complex and we will need to progress them rapidly so that they can feed into budget considerations for 2018/19. I‘ll be saying more about the review programme over the coming weeks.

Apprenticeships

This week we received 450 applications for our 12 recently-advertised apprentice positions. We have also recently advertised for two apprentices in adult social care and we hope that other work areas will shortly follow suit, including ICT, waste management, highways, economic regeneration and parks. I’m grateful for the enthusiastic response from staff to this important initiative.

Great job

Congratulations to Peter Williams, one of our gardeners based at Cwmdonkin Park, for all the work he did with Joshua Dimaline, a young man with learning disabilities.

Joshua was so pleased with his work placement that he wrote a letter thanking Peter and staff who showed him the ropes. Joshua’s placement is one of many we organise for people with learning disabilities alongside Gower College Swansea.

Farewells

Today will be the last working day for a number of long-standing colleagues. Leanne Cutts is joining the DVLA and I’m indebted to her for driving the great work done by the Innovation Community. It’s been a real pleasure working with Leanne whose constant enthusiasm has motivated everyone involved and helped us to change the culture of the organisation and in my view has helped to make working for the council a better and happier experience. Leanne will be almost impossible to replace but we are in the process of recruiting to fill her post.

Richard Porch, Regeneration Projects Officer, is retiring after 31 years. Richard is a talented author and led the way on the SA1 art projects, but more recently he has been working on the Hafod Copperworks project and he was instrumental in establishing Swansea’s fantastic Blue Plaque scheme.

I’ve enjoyed working with Richard on these projects and will miss his enthusiasm, extensive knowledge of our city’s history and his dry wit.

Wendy Parkin, our senior lawyer, was appointed as temporary conveyancer with West Glamorgan County Council in 1995. She was appointed to her current post in 2011. Wendy has helped me personally on a large number of very complex commercial projects and I really appreciate her patience and professionalism whenever I’ve given her impossible tasks to do.

Thank you also to Joe Kiley, fitter’s mate at the Central Transport Unit who is retiring in next month after 38 years’ service with us.

Last, but by no means least, Lynda Moulson, word processor operator and clerical assistant in the Council Tax team joined the council in April 1986 as a part-time cleaner. She later became a typist. I’ll miss Lynda’s lovely nature, bubbly personality and tendency to cuddle me whenever I bump into her.

I wish them all the best for the future and thank them for their contributions.

Also thank you to 80-year-old Kingsley McCarthy who’s saying goodbye to being a volunteer with our Road Safety team. He’s been helping teach young children how to cross roads safely for the last 15 years and I wish him a well-earned rest!

Red Nose Day

I met Trallwn School council last Friday. It was Red Nose day so Batgirl, SWAT police and various other costumed children were on the panel interviewing me. It was a challenging session and I was relieved when they voted I’d acquitted myself respectably in answering questions. They were also celebrating their Eco Schools Award having secured it for the third time. Congratulations to the school.

Our HR operations team held a bake-off last Friday to raise money for Red Nose Day. Congratulations to Alison Summers whose cake was voted the winner.

Congratulations to Helen Carter from Pensions who won the Marks & Spencer’s Hamper in the Guess the Buttons competition. Thanks to all who contributed.

City Deal – what it means

March 24, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

City Deal – what does it mean?

So we finally got the City Deal signed. So what? Why is it important? For what it’s worth here are my thoughts.

The City Region of South West Wales has faced a steady decline in its economic performance for more than 30 years. In comparison with the rest of Wales and the UK our productivity has worsened since 1996 in nearly every sector, bar the public sector. The economic conditions for regeneration have not been in our favour and despite our best endeavours and a significant amount of European funding we have not been able to halt that decline.

The City Deal is different. It represents a massive commitment from UK and Welsh Governments to helping local authorities tackle our challenges. It is a long-term plan to invest in our infrastructure, both physical and digital. The plan is evidence-based. The Team Swansea approach is a genuine one and the partners in the city are strongly behind it. It has a total value of £1.3bn, including a UK and Welsh Government contribution of £241m, and £673m of private investment. It will be invested in an area with a population of 680,000 and will create 33,000 jobs.

We have the opportunity to exploit a 15-year funding stream. Add this to the massive investment in housing following the Housing Revenue Account settlement with the Treasury and the strong possibility that the Tidal Lagoon will be approved, then the programme becomes truly ambitious.

The arena, office and health campus proposals will be the essential trigger for a more vibrant City Centre with an improved leisure and retail offer resulting from increased footfall.

There will be many challenges in the delivery of these projects. We must align the work we do in schools to the opportunities presented by the City Deal. In my discussions with primary head teachers at Ysgolion Cynradd Abertawe (YCA) this week there is clearly much enthusiasm for the City Deal, but a concern that without a focus on investing in education our children could miss out on the opportunities ahead. Changes to the curriculum must be given time to bed-in, key skills developed and we must identify clear pathways to employment for all our citizens. We must retain a focus on those who face the most challenges and break down the barriers that prevent them from achieving their potential. We must use our investment profile to secure social benefits for citizens, increase our apprenticeship programme and support local supply chains.

The work done by our staff to date is something that I will always be proud of but the future will require departments and staff to work together in an unprecedented way and with absolute focus. Anyone with an interest in skills and education, health and social care, energy, housing, transport, streetscene, sustainable development, tourism, culture, business support and technology will have an essential role to play in this ambition.

We must ensure that governance arrangements for the joint committee that will drive the City Deal are appropriate and that the resources for delivery are in place. Businesses will need a voice and democratic accountability must be transparent so the City Deal is subject to effective scrutiny.

As regards 5G technology I don’t know exactly what it will look like, nor do I yet fully understand its potential to transform the lives of our citizens or how it can help cities to operate. No-one does, or at least I haven’t met them yet. However I am confident that the City Deal will put us at the forefront of these developments.

The most important point is that the City Deal will open up new opportunities for our citizens and it is our responsibility to do all we can to make sure that they get the full advantage of them.

Penybryn School

Last Friday I visited Pen-y-Bryn Special School to talk to the head teacher, Gethin Sutton and the Chair of Governors, Huw Vaughan. Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn has a unit for autistic pupils and educates pupils, aged 3-19, who have a wide range of additional learning needs.

Gethin had recently helped us in the assessment centre for the recruitment of our Chief Education Officer, Nick Williams, and during the process he kindly invited me to the school. I was pleased to hear how well the school and the pupils were progressing and seriously impressed by the quality of the publications and audio books that the school produces. I visited all the classes to meet the children and had the pleasure of attending the weekly awards ceremony which was highly entertaining and a lot of fun. Thanks to Cerys, one of the school’s star pupils for showing me round.

The awards keep rolling in !!!

Beyond Bricks and Mortar has this week won the UK National GO Awards Excellence in Public Procurement for the Best Employment initiative. This is great recognition for the Council’s innovative approach to embedding community benefits in all we do. Including community benefits has never been more important with the opportunities that can be created through the forthcoming city centre regeneration, the City Deal and hopefully the Tidal Lagoon. My thanks to the Beyond Bricks and Mortar team who have put us on the map with this exemplary initiative.

I hope to bring you news about our entries in the MJ awards in the next couple of weeks.

World Social Work Day

Earlier this week our social workers celebrated World Social Work Day which aims to recognise the contribution they make to supporting some of the most vulnerable adults and children in society. Safeguarding is the council’s top priority and, alongside our partners, the work our social workers do makes a significant contribution to the wellbeing of our communities offering support, guidance and a listening ear. Over the past few years I’ve seen the service go from strength to strength, earning praise from the CSSIW and internationally for their pioneering work in areas like dementia and Signs of Safety. I’d like to thank our social workers for their continuing commitment.

Wales National Air Show

Congratulations to our events team after the RAF Red Arrows were again confirmed to take part in this year’s Wales National Airshow on July 1 and July 2. Swansea University has also now come on board as the main sponsors of this year’s event, with further aircraft taking part to be announced over coming weeks.

City of Culture

Thanks to Amanda Hegarty, our Residential Services Manager at Llanfair House, for sending me the photo of this fantastic art work created by the facility’s occupational therapist and service users from recycled material. The City of Culture is obviously alive and well at Llanfair House.

Farewells

There are a number of people leaving the organisation at the end of March and I will be paying tribute to some of them next week.

Yesterday our Staff Choir put on an excellent performance in the Civic Centre Foyer to raise £170 for Comic Relief. It was a lot of fun but sadly a farewell event for the Choir Director John Mills, a performance specialist in Education Effectiveness who is retiring this week after 33 years of service. John has given his free time to sort out the music and tutor the choir for over a year and he will be greatly missed. Thanks John from us all, but particularly the choir members who will miss your guidance and infinite patience.

Today is the last working day for Steve Phillips, Economic Development Team Leader. Steve and his team worked tirelessly on the delivery of our economic regeneration strategy which has formed the evidence base for, amongst other things, our European Funding programmes and our City Deal bid. I have enjoyed working with Steve and wish him well for the future.

Apprentice strategy launch

March 10, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Apprentice strategy launch

We launched of our Apprenticeship Strategy in the George Hall on Monday. It builds on the success of the apprenticeship scheme running in Corporate Building Services and is now a broader Corporate Strategy to run across all service areas. The aim is to provide apprenticeships, training and work experience opportunities including graduate placements and internships

This has been developed by a working group of representatives from across the council following the agreement in principle by Cabinet in July 2016.

Given our corporate priorities relating to poverty and safeguarding it’s essential we target opportunities for disadvantaged groups, particularly given our role as a corporate parent and we must reduce the barriers to allow access to these opportunities. I’ll be taking a personal interest in seeing this happens.

Apprenticeships are key to develop skills needed for the future and will help address skill shortages. I’m indebted to Martin Nicholls, Director of Place, and his team for their enthusiasm and drive in preparing the strategy. The team are preparing guides for managers to help provide a consistent approach to taking on an apprentice, trainee or offering work experience. We‘ll also work with other public sector bodies and learn from best practice available. We’ve already advertised 14 opportunities and we’ll be seeking to identify 30 to 40 more during the next few months.

Along with Martin, the Leader and Councillor Andrea Lewis, Cabinet Member for Next Generation Services, spoke at the launch to underline their commitment to the strategy. We must now make sure it’s delivered across the organisation as effectively and efficiently as possible.

This week I almost met Lord Heseltine!

It’s been a frustrating week for those of us involved in the Swansea Bay City Deal. I mentioned last week that following the pitch to the UK Government we had provided all the information requested and were optimistic the deal could be agreed and announced in Wednesday’s budget. The final meeting was arranged with Lord Heseltine here in Swansea on budget day but was cancelled following his sacking late on Tuesday evening. As a result we held yet another meeting with civil servants to go back over some old ground. The budget statement included the following words, which stopped some distance short of what we had hoped for:

“The government continues to make good progress towards city deals for Edinburgh and Swansea and is working constructively with local partners and the Scottish and Welsh Governments respectively to achieve this.”

The meeting with civil servants was followed by a session with representatives from the private sector who have given strong support for our bid. I detected a lot of impatience and frustration from many of these representatives who are struggling to understand why the Welsh Government considers the deal complete, but the UK Government does not. The Leader and I will be doing whatever we can to push this given that every day of delay is a missed opportunity for our citizens.

This week I did meet Sir Charles Hendry

On Tuesday evening the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress hosted a dinner for Sir Charles Hendry, author of the Government review into tidal lagoons. It was an opportunity to discuss the report and its findings and learn about the process of how the report was commissioned and delivered by Sir Charles. It became clear that Sir Charles has not only learned a lot about the city, he has also developed a fondness for it. He reiterated his conclusion that the lagoon must be built and that we must get on with it immediately so it was also frustrating that there was no mention of it in the Chancellor’s budget speech on Wednesday. We remain optimistic that an announcement is imminent.

Congratulations

Swansea has two nominations at a national film award ceremony next week. Our Child and Family Services worked with 15 young people to make a short film about being in care and it’s on a shortlist of three in the Best Animation: 13 and Over category at the Into Film Awards.

And Amy Parry, from Cwmrhydyceirw Primary School in Morriston, is on the shortlist for Teacher of the Year.

Into Film is a UK-wide charity that aims to raise standards of achievement and aspiration among youngsters through film and the awards take place at the Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square on Tuesday (March 14). Fingers crossed for both when the golden envelopes, hopefully the right ones, are opened.

Last Friday we took part in the Patient Choice Awards at Singleton Hospital. It was introduced by the ABMU Health Board back in 2015 to give patients, carers, relatives and visitors the chance to say thanks to a member of staff or team they feel have made a real difference and provided outstanding care.

The ceremony saw some of our social workers and care workers stand alongside district nurses, GPs and therapists in being recognised for the work they have done.

It was a terrific opportunity to celebrate the commitment they give to helping vulnerable adults to stay safe and independent and really demonstrated that our staff go above and beyond, showing professionalism, kindness and compassion to people at really difficult times in their lives. Well done to everyone involved.

The Swansea Bay 10k organised by our events team has been shortlisted in two categories for this year’s Running Awards: best 10k and best child-friendly event.

Voting closes on Monday March 20, so head to this link to get your vote in and make sure the event gets the recognition it deserves.

Info-Nation was re-launched this week, providing free and confidential information and advice on a range of subjects including sexual health, relationships, substance misuse and finding work.

It now includes the Bays+ service which provides services for young people aged 16 or older who are in need of care, support or accommodation. DrugAid Cymru also has its ‘Choices’ young people’s service based in the shop for a number of years.

Today is the last working day at the council for John Lewis, our Principal Design and Technical Officer, based in Cultural Services. John has worked for us since October 1974 when he started with Swansea City Council as a Draughtsman and then Graphic Designer. Since then he’s held a range of posts in Tourism and was instrumental in helping me with the first blue plaque in Swansea in tribute to Pete Ham. Since then he’s helped me with many other things – always with patience and good humour – and I’ll miss his knowledge, skills and innovation very much. I wish him a long and happy retirement.

Celebrating diversity

March 3, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Our Abertawe

On Saturday we’ll be staging our new “Our Abertawe – Celebrating Swansea Together” event. This is an opportunity to celebrate Swansea and what it means to us all as individuals and together, whether a Jack by birth or habit; disabled; young; or old; whatever our sexual orientation, beliefs, culture, language or abilities. Many communities make up our diverse City and the events will focus on bringing people together to celebrate Swansea and what it means to us all.

It will be held at Castle Square from 11am till 6.30pm, ending with a parade from Castle Square to the National Waterfront Museum. The main exhibition marquee will be located on Princess Way and will include various information, activity and cultural stands as well as an exhibition celebrating the history of Swansea’s cultural diversity.

There’ll be stages for performances at Castle Square and Portland Street, along with busking sites throughout the city centre. Cookery demonstrations and workshops will take place in a marquee on Princess Way and there’s a treasure hunt at our fantastic Swansea Market for children.

The Big Screen will show two special videos. ‘My Swansea’ – produced by students from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the second video has been developed by Chinese students from Swansea University capturing what Swansea is all about.

Also part of the event is the returning AberDewi festival which includes a Twmpath, St Davids Parade, choral sing along of Calon Lan and the rhythms of Samba Tawe.

Local schools are involved in the day with a number of junior schools entering the dragon competition to head the parade. The senior schools are taking part in an “Apprentice”-style competition, which involves raising money on the day for two charities for the homeless.

The Saturday event is unique which will celebrate both our Welsh heritage and Swansea’s modern, multi-cultural make-up.

I’m indebted to all who have helped to organise this fantastic event, but particularly grateful to Riaz Hassan, our Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator based in Poverty and Prevention, who has worked tirelessly on it.

For the latest information take a look at this link.

Pontarddulais School

A few weeks ago I visited Pontarddulais Comprehensive School for the first time. I was shown around the building and its grounds by four enthusiastic pupils who were excellent ambassadors and a credit to the school. I was impressed by the genuine respect for pupil voice at Pontarddulais and the commitment to working together as a team for the benefit of the whole school community. This was underlined in the discussion that followed with the pupils and the head teacher, Jan Waldron. Jan was very clear about how the approach had helped to create a positive learning environment for the school and this is certainly borne out by the excellent results being achieved by the students. Thanks to Jan and all at Pontarddulais for the warm welcome and a highly interesting and informative afternoon.

It came as no surprise, therefore, when I learned that Pontarddulais Comprehensive, along with Cefn Hengoed Community School, St Helen’s Primary and Penllergaer Primary schools received “Excellent” inspection judgements from ESTYN. I understand that on March 9 ESTYN will be holding an awards evening for schools, colleges and other providers who received ‘Excellent’ inspection judgements for current performance, prospects for improvement (or both) in the academic year 2015–16. This event will focus on the common factors that lie behind excellence and improvement and how inspection supports this. Congratulations and thanks to all.

Pentre’r Graig School

On Tuesday I attended the opening of the newly-refurbished Pentre’r Graig Primary School in Morriston. The school has undergone extensive remodelling under our 21st Century Schools Programme with £2.7m of investment funded jointly by us and the Welsh Government. The work was undertaken by our Corporate Building and Property Services team and I’m delighted to say they’ve done an excellent job in what must have been very difficult circumstances. It can’t be easy to deliver a complex refurbishment project whilst keeping the school running, but aided by our Education team and the patience and support of the school staff and pupils, the job is almost complete.

The pupils welcomed the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, local councillors and governors and conducted a whistle-stop tour of the new facilities, including the “Learning Street”. We also had a couple of songs and some highly entertaining discussions with the pupils.

I was sad to hear that the head teacher, Julie Tucker, will soon be retiring because she’s done such an excellent job not only seeing the school refurbished and transformed but also achieving “green status” in the schools categorisation in the process. Congratulations to Julie and her team.

Culture bid

We’re bidding for UK City of Culture 2021. After reaching the shortlist for the 2017 title, we hope to go one step further this time. A successful bid will provide a significant boost to the city’s regeneration as we set out a commitment to not only deliver a 12-month festival of world class arts and cultural activity, but also to create long-lasting benefits for residents, the economy and visitors to the city.

City Deal

Another bid hopefully coming to fruition is the City Deal. Following the Leader’s recent presentation to a team including Lord Heseltine it looks like we’ll have some positive news next week. Our officers have continued to supply extra information requested by the UK and Welsh governments and Lord Heseltine, and we’re now satisfied we’ve done everything asked of us.

Apprentice scheme

We’re launching our new Corporate Apprentice and Trainee Strategy in an event at Guildhall on Monday (March 6). To coincide with the launch and the start of National Apprenticeship Week, we’ll soon be advertising for new apprentices in our corporate building and adult social care departments. Other apprentice and trainee positions could also soon be made available in departments including IT, waste management, highways, economic regeneration and parks.

Some apprenticeship and work experience placements would be specifically targeted at young people, the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged groups. Opportunities would also link into our corporate parenting role for young people leaving care.

The new strategy is initially being launched as a pilot scheme to help us get a better understanding of realistic targets and sources of funding that may be available.

Recycling success

It’s great to see that changes made as part of the on-going commissioning reviews are having a positive impact. In Waste Management, changes to some of the city’s recycling centres have resulted in us now sending 800 tonnes less waste to landfill sites each month since the changes were made. Well done to everyone involved.

New competition?

leek Geoff Mellor in Housing took inspiration from our Christmas jumper competition for this week’s St David’s celebrations. He claims to have invented the worst St David’s Day leek-tie competition!! Despite his efforts, unfortunately, as the only entrant he won’t be getting a prize. However the bonus Geoff is that at least when it goes out of fashion he can eat it. Thank you Geoff, you made me smile!

Bananas, Bacteria and the School of Rock

February 17, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Awards

I mentioned last week that following discussions with the Leader we‘ve submitted a number of our projects and services for the Municipal Journal (MJ) Awards.

These awards recognise the best local government services and personnel. Judges look for evidence of ability, ingenuity and performance. They’re often impressed by the dedication of local government staff and the practical outcomes we achieve. An MJ Award allows local authorities to be recognised for the delivery of their services over the past 12 months and to share their expertise with peers. It also provides staff with the recognition they deserve.

There were a number of possible candidates for consideration but after much deliberation we‘ve submitted in the following categories

Category	Main Content
Local Authority of the Year	All-council – City Deal, Tidal Lagoon, City Centre, Sustainable Swansea, Vision, Values
Delivering Better Outcomes	Helping Hands Volunteer Service, Stress Management & Counselling, South Wales Estates Project, Delivering Better Outcomes, Swans Academy Pilot, Health & Safety Engagement
Delivering Better Outcomes	Domestic Abuse Hub Swansea (Child & Family, Poverty & Prevention)
Excellence in Community Engagement	Work Development Service – vulnerable/ disadvantaged people create a cleaner and safer Swansea.
Reinventing Public Services	Western Bay Health and Social Care Programme’s Optimal Model of Intermediate Care
Workforce Transformation	Sustainable Swansea

Thanks to all the staff who helped to prepare the submissions in a very short space of time and particular thanks to Andy Pearson, Communications and Engagement Officer, for pulling the whole process together for us. Well done Andy.

Poverty

CMT met at the Mansion House on Wednesday to discuss a number of issues including the on-going commissioning review of catering services, the Band B school improvement programme and the Poverty Strategy. You’ll be aware that tackling poverty is a corporate priority for us all and the timely review of the Poverty Strategy allows us to reflect on what has been achieved, but more importantly to determine what we’ll collectively do in the coming months and years. This will be set out in the Delivery Plan and it was encouraging to see contributions coming from a large number of service areas. We have a real opportunity to make a difference in the coming years providing we believe that tackling poverty, like safeguarding, is everyone’s business.

Three years ago Council approved an economic regeneration strategy which aimed to increase prosperity through a series of targeted interventions, many being reflected in the current projects within our City Deal and Tidal Lagoon proposals. But critically the strategy identified that unless we adopted the right approaches to skills, training, apprenticeships and managing supply chains we could experience 20 years of what economists call “jobless growth”. Productivity rises but unemployment and economic inactivity increases. As a consequence relative poverty increases. We’ve been working locally and regionally to tackle this through projects like Workways, Beyond Bricks and Mortar, our Apprenticeship Strategy and Communities First.

You may have seen the announcement this week by Carl Sargeant that Communities First, the flagship policy aimed at boosting deprived communities across Wales, is set to be dropped. The Communities Secretary said he was not convinced that “continuing to focus on 52 small areas is the most effective way to deliver for Wales”. Mr Sargeant told AMs that a new Wales-wide approach would focus on employment, early years and “empowerment”.

It‘s too early for us to understand the full impact of these changes on our organisation. I appreciate these will be uncertain times for many employees but we’ll be working with our staff to determine a way forward which will give us the confidence that our Poverty Strategy and Delivery Plan will be implemented.

Penyrheol Primary School

Last Friday I was privileged to be invited to Penyrheol Primary School to present a High 5 award to the Year 5 pupils, along with our fantastic High 5 ambassador and Swansea City star, Leon Britton.

The High 5 judging panel had decided that they would award the whole of Year 5 for the support they have given to their classmate, Ellis. The children had been nominated by Ellis’ mother, Heidi.

Ellis is confined to a wheelchair but this has not stopped him participating in virtually everything the class does. Year 5 have gone out of their way to ensure he can take part in activities ranging from climbing trees to playing rugby and football. They are magnificent role models and show a degree of empathy and caring that puts most of us adults to shame.

The head teacher, Alison Williams, had invited the whole school and the parents in Year 5 to celebrate the achievement so I was a bit taken aback when I entered the school hall which was crammed full of people.

At that point it all started to get a bit surreal. Leon entered the hall to a fanfare of cheering and he and I were marched onto the stage. I was then handed a guitar and asked to play along with four songs with the Penyrheol School of Rock, flanked by children dressed as bananas and bacteria.

It was a lovely celebration by the school, for the school, and set up fantastically by Alison and her team. I promised to go back there soon to talk to the school council but I suspect they won’t ask me to play the guitar again.

Thanks to the pupils, parents, governors and staff for making Leon and I feel so welcome. And thanks to Year 5 for setting a fantastic example for us all.

Pre-election period

With the local government elections taking place in May, we’ll soon be entering the pre-election period. Sometimes known as “purdah”, it begins on March 17 and affects some of the things we do. It’d be a good idea for all staff to read the latest guidance that you can find via this link.

Chief Education Officer

Council has confirmed the appointment of Nick Williams as our new Chief Education Officer. Nick, our current Head of the Learner Support Service, was appointed by competitive interview following a recruitment process that attracted a lot of competition. Well done to Nick. I‘m delighted with his appointment. He will commence duties immediately on the departure of Lindsay Harvey in March.

Ambassador

Sarah Jones, who is of our many inspirational carers with Foster Swansea, has recently been appointed one of six Foster Carer Ambassadors in Wales.

As part of her new role she’ll host and speak at events, showcase foster care achievement, offer support to fellow carers and help raise the profile of what they do.

Along with the other ambassadors, she will also act as a voice for foster carers across Wales. Foster carers in Swansea do an amazing job and I’m sure we all wish Sarah well.

Neat work

Well done to members of our NEAT team who assisted Mid & West Wales Fire Service, retrieving more than 60 abandoned shopping trolleys from the River Tawe.

Next week

There’ll be no blog next week as I’ll be on annual leave. The next one will be on March 3.