Heroes in a crisis

For our last internal #Rainbowheroes piece we thought it would be fitting to pay tribute to the team who have steered the Council through the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Monday 22 June, 2020

For those that are unfamiliar with the Civil Protection Unit, this team is responsible for ensuring that the Council is prepared for incidents and emergencies. Normally, this relates to flooding, fire or snow as was the case in March 2018 with the ‘Beast from the East’.  

As a Category 1 Responder, under the Civil Contingencies Act, the Council has a legal duty to ensure that critical services continue to function in an emergency situation. 

During lockdown, emergency planning has been vital in coordinating the response to the current emergency, Covid-19, which is an emergency like no other and one that has lasted several months.

This includes coordinating our internal CMT Gold Meetings, which initially took place daily at 9am, external Strategic Coordination Group (SCG) meetings and Tactical Coordination Group (TCG) meetings via the South Wales Local Resilience Forum (SWLRF). 

As the host authority for South Wales Local Resilience Forum (SWLRF) we have well established working relationships with our partner agencies. This includes other local authorities, South Wales Police, South Wales Fire & Rescue Service, Public Health Wales and Welsh Government to name a few. This forum allows Category 1 organisations to come together which helps coordination and cooperation between responders to a major incident. 

Melanie, who works in the Civil Protection Unit, has been responsible for coordinating the twice weekly SCG and TCG meetings as well as submitting a daily situation report to the Welsh Government to ensure South Wales has a coordinated response to this ongoing incident. As the current lockdown is slowly eased, the work of the Council and the LRF turns towards Recovery and the establishment of a Recovery Coordination Group, again coordinated by Melanie.  

In addition to the above the team have been instrumental in setting up the Council's PPE store at the Civic Offices to ensure all key frontline workers had access to the right PPE at all times.

The team will be instrumental to the Council's recovery work, providing support and guidance to directors. 

Rob Thomas, Managing Director, has worked closely with the team throughout the response to the pandemic, and wanted to say a special thank you:

"Debbie, Carl and Melanie have worked tirelessly to support the Council in its response to Covid-19. Debbie has been present at every single CMT Gold Meeting since lockdown began.  Her experience and expertise has shone through at a time of crisis – she has been invaluable and has proven herself to be reliable and calm under pressure. I'm very grateful to her and her brilliant team for their work. Diolch yn fawr."