Rob's Weekly Round-Up

18 February 2022

Dear colleagues, 

I hope you are all safe and well and that Storm Eunice has not caused any lasting or significant damage in your area. 

I start this week with Storm Eunice - the last 48 hours have shown just how quickly Team Vale can mobilise to keep our residents and communities safe. Things developed very quickly over the course of yesterday but thanks to the great work of our Emergency Planning and colleagues across the organisation we were able to move at place to put contingency plans into action. 

As soon as the alert level was escalated yesterday morning, immediate decisions were taken relating to key services, such as schools and other Council functions, a tactical meeting was called for 12:00 and within an hour plans were being agreed for all other service changes. Everyone’s safety is always our top priority and while decisions to advise schools to close, to suspend waste collections, and cancel day centre sessions are not taken lightly, as soon as the potential risk to staff, pupils and residents was identified there was no need for further discussion. 

By the time the statement from the First Minister was released advising people to travel only if absolutely necessary we had plans in place to ensure services to our most vulnerable would be staffed whatever the level of transport disruption. The full set of service changes was then being communicated to our residents and colleagues by mid-afternoon. 

There were far too many colleagues and teams involved in yesterday’s planning effort for me to be able to name check them all. Instead, I’d like to say thank you to every one of our colleagues. I know there will be people across the organisation who are going above and beyond to balance their family life with their work today to make sure the great service we provide for the Vale does not slip. I know that at just a few hours notice, our schools had their remote working arrangements back in place. I know that our Neighbourhood Services teams and Building Control colleagues will be out today to keep the roads clear and public spaces safe. And I know that those who really need our support will be confident that we’ll be there when they call. Diolch pawb. 

Before the storm took over the news agenda some of you may have seen the announcement by Welsh Government that all care leavers in Wales will be offered a regular monthly income for two years to help their transition to living independently under a Welsh government basic income pilot. Our Council is a corporate parent to more than 200 children and young people. I am incredibly proud of the work of our colleagues in supporting them. The Council was recently recognised for its good practice as one of the first local authorities in Wales to adopt a pioneering charter, enshrining the rights of care-experienced parents. It is great to know there will be even more support for give care leavers the best possible opportunities. 

Another area where our colleagues in Social Services have been working hard to support residents is in our Resources and Planning team. I heard this week from Gaynor Jones who wanted to highlight the scale of work done to enable payments to care providers and carers as a result of the Welsh Government’s various financial support initiatives. To date, the team have made the 7715 payments to carers totalling £5.21m, and 15600 payments to providers from various Hardship Funds totalling £9.53m.  All of this has been achieved by a small team of dedicated staff who have received, processed and paid the amounts within the short timescales given. Numerous compliments have been received from providers about how professional the team have been and the timeliness of the payments, which have helped providers through difficult times. This valuable work has been led by Naomi Meredith who has taken on these additional schemes without a murmur of anxiety or frustration, despite the huge amount of work on top of her day job. Working alongside Mark Evans and Naomi Thomas who also deserve great praise, the work is on-going until at least June 2022 so it is great to know those that need it will continue to benefit. Thanks to everyone who has played a part in this.  Diolch i chi gyd.

Finally, with these weekly messages offering so many examples of the good work of colleagues I am delighted to announce that in 2022 we will be able to come together once again to celebrate all that is great about the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Our Employee Awards night will return in September of this year. The first planning meeting for the awards took place this week and I will have more information to offer as the preparations progress. I absolutely cannot wait to share another evening of celebration with you all and it will be long overdue after the challenges of the last two years.

Thanks as always for your efforts this week and please do take care to stay safe this weekend, given the severe weather conditions.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

Rob.