Your weekly update from the Managing Director

27 August 2021

Dear colleagues,

The sun is shining at the end of another busy week. I hope this email finds you looking forward to a relaxing (or exhilarating – whichever you prefer!) bank holiday weekend.

For me this has been a week that has more so than usual brought home to me the phenomenal range of work our colleagues do and the very real impact this has on our residents’ lives.

At Thursday morning’s meeting of our Senior Leadership Team, we started with an urgent item from our Head of Housing Services, Mike Ingram, and Regional Refugee Resettlement Coordinator, Tom Dodsworth. The item was an update on the Council’s preparations to welcome refugee families from Afghanistan.

I am sure everyone reading this will have felt the same sense of shock at the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the desperate situation those trying to leave the country find themselves in.

We have a very proud history of supporting those in need of our help, most recently through our participation in both the former Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and the current UK Resettlement Scheme. Like other Councils we will be working closely with the UK Government in the weeks ahead to provide accommodation and support arrangements for the most vulnerable Afghan people. Arranging this is an incredibly complex process and I would like to thank everyone, most notably Tom, who is working around the clock to make sure we are able to do whatever we can to support people fleeing persecution and hate.

Supporting people when they need it most is part of the day job for many of our teams, especially for those working in Social Services. I was moved this week to have shared with me a letter of thanks from a resident who was supported by our Children Services team last year. For obvious reasons I cannot share it here but what I can say is that reading it made me incredibly proud to be able to call Rhian Robson and Emma Reynolds colleagues. Diolch to you both.

I have made mention twice in recent weeks of the great work being done by our Neighbourhood Services teams in the face of unrelenting pressures, most recently the shortage of HGV drivers. I would like to give a particular shout out this week to all the staff at the Alps garage. The team work extremely hard to keep a fleet of more than 300 vehicles on the road, including the bin wagons and tippers, without our waste collection and street cleaning services simply could not function.

While many of you may be having a well-earned early finish ahead of the long weekend, members of the fleet team will, as they do every Friday, be working until 9:30pm to ensure the fleet is ready for the morning collection service. Every one of the fitters, administration team, and fleet manager do a great job. Diolch yn fawr team.

Finally, I’d like to give a mention to our Communications team. I’ve also seen this week a note of thanks from the Welsh Blood Service for the work the team have done to help promote blood donation in the Vale. This is in addition to and alongside their excellent work with other partners like Cardiff and Vale UHB and South Wales Police in sharing key messages throughout the last 18 months.

Working from home has had a huge impact on the number of blood donations nationally but there has of course been no drop in the number of patients that require it. Our comms team has been working with the blood service since the start of the pandemic to find effective ways of promoting drop-in clinic online. Blood donations in July were enough to help 21,000 patients in Wales and it is great to know we are playing a valued role in supporting this. If you’d like to make a potentially lifesaving contribution then you can make plans to give blood today.

As always, I’ll end with a thank you to every member of staff for their work this week. Next week I will have news on the Vale Culture Book, something you'll be hearing a lot about ahead of its launch in September. I hope you all have a good bank holiday weekend. Diolch yn fawr pawb.

Rob.