Update following Welsh Government Lockdown Announcement 

Message to all staff from the Managing Director and Leader 

19 October 2020

Dear colleagues, 

As promised, we are writing to you to provide you with an update, following the First Minister’s announcement today that Wales will enter a fire-break lockdown from 6pm this coming Friday, 23 October for a period of two weeks in response to the continued rise in coronavirus cases across Wales. 

The fire-break lockdown restrictions will be time limited and come to an end on Monday 9 November.  

What this means in practice is that national measures will replace the current local lockdown restrictions and residents in Wales will be advised to stay home once again. 

As we saw earlier in the year, people will be able to leave home to work if it is impossible to do so from home, for essential supplies and to take exercise which should begin and end at home. 

The restrictions mean all hospitality, non-essential retail, beauty and leisure businesses will be closed for this period. Childcare services will remain open. 

Mixing between households indoors and outdoors will be banned, except in very limited circumstances, including for single adults living alone or who are a single parent household who can form a temporary extended household with one other household.  

We met with the First Minister and other local authority Leaders and Chief Executives last week and again over the weekend to discuss the worrying rise in coronavirus cases across the country. We discussed the implications of placing the whole of Wales under national lockdown measures once again and the need to find a way to work together to reduce the spread of the virus. These decisions are not easy. We understand they will have significant impacts for our colleagues, communities and the economy.  

We will be meeting with the Council’s Strategic Leadership Team and Cabinet later today to discuss the ways in which individual Council services will be affected for this period. Some services that have partially reopened will need to temporarily close again, such as receptions, libraries and our household waste recycling centres. We will continue to keep you and our residents regularly updated via Staffnet+, on social media and the Council’s website. 

It is vitally important that we limit the disruption to our young peoples’ education. Therefore, our schools staff and pupils will have their usual half term break for a week from this Friday. From week commencing 2 November nursery, primary and special schools will reopen for all pupils. For secondary schools, Year 7 and 8 pupils will attend school for the week of 2 November with all other year groups learning from home, with the exception of pupils attending school to sit exams. Our Education colleagues will be working closely with headteachers to support preparations and to ensure pupils and parents are aware of the arrangements for their school. 

Where staff are currently working from home, this must continue. However, the introduction of these new restrictions means that now only our critical frontline workers should travel from their homes to carry out their roles. Office locations will be closed to all staff other than critical workers. Managers will be working with their teams in the coming days to discuss any changes that will impact you and to ensure, as always, that you are supported. 

Whilst shielding is not being reintroduced at the current time, our Crisis Support Team will be on hand once again to support vulnerable residents and the Vale Heroes website contains lots of important information to support our communities. 

We recognise that the prospect of a return to lockdown measures is not something any of us wanted to see. We’d like to highlight some advice and support shared by our colleagues in Organisational Development & Learning last week, ‘Self-care is an important part of keeping your mental wellbeing in good shape.’ Take a look at this iDev resource titled ‘The Wellbeing Mindset’, which looks at little ways to weave self-care into your day. There is lots of information available on StaffNet+ to support you.

From the outset of the pandemic, we have been humbled to see the commitment and dedication shown by all of our colleagues to supporting each other and our residents. We all now have a renewed responsibility to work together, to follow these new rules and protect one another. We have seen that we can achieve amazing things when we pull together as ‘Team Vale’ and have no doubt that together we can rise to the next set of challenges that face us. 

For now our message to you is simple, stay home and stay safe. Diolch yn fawr. 
 
Rob Thomas            Neil Moore 

Managing Director   Leader