29 October, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

I hope this message finds you well. Some of you may be reading this on Monday morning after returning from a well-deserved break from work, and I hope you enjoyed your half term if so.

I must begin my message with another reminder that the pandemic is still far from over and that coronavirus has most certainly not gone away. Cardiff and the Vale has some of the highest rates of coronavirus in Wales, and Wales as a whole currently has the highest rates in the UK.

The First Minister has today announced that although Wales will remain at alert level zero, extra measures are being implemented to protect people’s health.

Most notably, the guidance around self-isolation is changing. Adults who are fully vaccinated and children and young people aged five to 17 will now be asked to self-isolate until they have received a negative PCR test if someone in their household has symptoms or tests positive for Covid-19.  

People who are not vaccinated will still have to self-isolate for 10 days following contact with someone who has tested positive, including close contacts outside of their household.

I know that the impact of changes to guidance is often felt keenly in our schools. The First Minister said today that headteachers will be given extra support to quickly put measures in place in their schools if case rates are high locally. Alongside this our Learning and Skills teams and the regional Test, Trace, Protect service will also be working to support school staff, pupils and their families.

This week I would like to give a shout out to one of our enforcement officers who was working at Barry Island on 21 October. A local resident witnessed an incident where another visitor was behaving very aggressively towards this officer. Unfortunately, many of our frontline staff do have to deal with confrontational situations on a regular basis but on this occasion I was very pleased to receive an email from a member of the public informing me of how impressed he was with the enforcement officer’s reaction, saying:

“Your warden showed remarkable restraint under what must have been threatening circumstances and he really is a credit to your organisation.” 

I have contacted my colleagues in the Neighbourhood Services Enforcement team and David Mitchell has passed on my thanks to the officer involved – Craig Handley.  I’d like to say well done to Craig for the professional manner in which you handled the situation and to all of our enforcement team for doing, what must be a difficult job in challenging circumstances. 

I would also like to congratulate colleagues in Shared Regulatory Services who have been recognised at two separate awards events recently. Congratulations and da iawn to all of the officers involved in the animal health and welfare service on receiving three Paw Prints awards from the RSPCA. And a further congratulations to Jemma Cox who received two awards from the Chartered Institute of Trading Standards recently for her outstanding performance in gaining professional qualifications. Da iawn Jemma!

Some of you may have spent time over the half term break picking or decorating pumpkins with your families. Research has shown that 12.8million pumpkins bought in the UK are unlikely to be eaten. That’s the equivalent of 67% of all UK families throwing away one pumpkin each. As an organisation that has committed to reducing carbon emissions, which includes recycling and reducing waste, I thought it might be useful to provide you with some other ideas of what to do with any leftover pumpkins. Love food, hate waste have shared some delicious pumpkin recipe ideas on their website:

• Pumpkin Spice Granola Muffins
• Red Lentil Lasagne with 'Spooky Pumpkin Seed Face'
• Spicy Pumpkin Soup
• Spiced Pumpkin, Mince & Tatties
• Pumpkin, Blue Cheese & Apple Risotto
• Pumpkin Seed Brownie

Why not get the family involved in cooking with your pumpkins this weekend?

Finally, this Sunday, 31 October, marks the beginning of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, which will take place in Glasgow over the next fortnight. World leaders will arrive in Scotland, alongside tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens for twelve days of talks. The aim of COP26 is to reach a global agreement to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions to net zero by mid-century. 

Through our Project Zero, we have committed to reducing our emissions to net zero by 2030, and I will be dedicating next week’s message to highlighting some of the projects, and teams, that will help us achieve this goal. This is in addition to regular communications during the next two weeks on what we as an organisation are doing to reduce our emissions and our impact on the planet.

On Monday, I am looking forward to meeting with Welsh Government Minister for Education and the Welsh Language – Jeremy Miles at the site of the new primary school at Rhoose Point, which is under development and will be delivered as a net zero school which we believe will be the first of its kind to be developed in Wales. It is critical that we continue to focus on all our activities – big and small and consider how we can reduce our impact on the environment and the climate. I will have more examples to share with you next week and until then, I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Best wishes / Cofion,

Rob.