Robs Weekly Round-Up

19 May 2023

Dear colleagues,

I am delighted to be able to open this week’s message by sharing some fantastic news. Yesterday I had confirmation that our Transport team has secured more than £4m of funding for active travel improvements in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Encouraging and enabling active travel – walking, cycling, and any other mode of travel that involves activity – is an important part of our work to build stronger and healthier communities in the Vale. Physical activity has numerous benefits to people’s health and exercising outdoors is shown to also protect against anxiety and depression. Encouraging mode shift to walking, wheeling and cycling is also one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing transport emissions, and to ensure cleaner air in our towns and villages.

This new funding will be used to deliver our top priority projects for 2023/24. Kyle Phillips and Lisa Elliot, who steer much of our active travel agenda, have both been instrumental in securing this funding. I’d like to thank them both and in particular recognise Lisa’s tenacious work in building relationships with Welsh Government, Transport for Wales, Sustrans, and many other agencies. Da iawn Lisa.

It is no coincidence that this news is being shared at the end of Walk to School week. An initiative that the team have been helping promote across the Vale. Some of you may have already seen in various press and social media outlets, the striking before and after pictures that show the impact of the temporary road closure the team has arranged to help pupils and parents at Fairfield Primary School in Penarth walk and cycle to school.

Headteacher Sian Lewis was quoted earlier this week saying “We are thrilled with the implementation of Fairfield School Street.  We now have a much safer and healthier environment at the beginning and end of the school day, with the new layout and rain gardens hugely improving the local area.  It has been rewarding to work with the community, Sustrans and the local authority to ensure the completion of this project.”

This is a great example of how the active travel policy agenda makes a very real difference to people’s lives. Many many hours are put in by our Transport team to managing the delivery of schemes like this and thanks to the platform the team have built, and the funding they have secured, there are very exciting times ahead. Super stuff. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

On Thursday of this week I was able to see first hand another example of how our teams work to engage communities from the Vale in our work when I called in to the Vale 50+ Forum’s ‘Have your say’ social event at Lower Penarth Community Centre. With an aging population in the county it is vital that our services are able to meet older people’s needs. The 50+ Forum plays an important role in advocating for older people and I personally received some great feedback in the short space of time that I spent speaking to those at the event. The Forum is supported by Sian Clemett-Davies in our Strategy and Policy team and I’d like to give a thanks to Sian and the rest of the team for making the event happen and for ensuring that it was such a positive experience for those in attendance.  

Engaging colleagues in our work is equally important. As you will hopefully already have seen on Wednesday as part of Learning at Work Week colleagues in our HR team launched the internal consultation on the Council’s new People Strategy.

The People Strategy has been developed to support the Council in achieving its objectives and sets the direction for us as an organisation from a HR perspective. It aims to show how the Council values and treats its staff while also recognising the challenges the organisation faces and what we need to do to support staff in facing these challenges. The strategy focuses on three key themes: Redesigning for Responsiveness; Driving Employee Experience; and Striving for High Performance.

This is an organisation that values everyone’s input and I want all staff to play a role in finalising the strategy. An overview of our strategy is available for all colleagues as well as the full version and our HR team has created a simple feedback form for everyone to use. The consultation is open until 26 May and I urge you all to take the time to read the document and share your views.

This week has also seen another significant milestone in our digital journey. As with many of the digital projects that happen behind the scenes the real measure of success is that very few colleagues will even have noticed that over the course of Wednesday and Thursday the Council’s many websites and intranet sites were migrated to a new cutting-edge platform. This was no small task and it was made possible by months of preparation and planning by colleagues in our ICT Services and Communications teams.

Managed expertly by our Web Editor Amy Auton and ICT Development Team Manager Dave Esseen, the successful project will enables big improvements to how we present information and allow people to access our services online. It would also not have been possible without Nick Farnham and Alex Heywood in the Development team, Myke Morgan in our Networks team and George Lambrev, Gavin Roberts, Russell Bligh in our Servers team. Fantastic work all.

In my message last Friday I mentioned that Monday would see the start of Foster Care Fortnight. As part of our celebration of foster care, on Wednesday the Vale’s Foster Wales team hosted a recognition event to thank and acknowledge every carer who fosters through the local authority. The event saw each foster carer receive a bouquet of flowers and certificate for their dedication from Lance Carver and Cllr Eddie Williams. The pictures of the event show just what it meant to those being honoured and I’d like to thank Megan Parry and her colleagues in Children and Young People Services who made it so special.

In another heart-warming and thought-provoking event hosted by our colleagues this week Holton Road Primary School hosted an art exhibition at King Square on Thursday. The Diversity art project, which has been supported by our Diverse network, includes self-portraits and portraits of school staff and will shortly open for the public to attend. It presents pupils’ work centred around diversity and celebrating what it means to them be part of the global majority and if you get the chance to view it at the Art Central gallery then I would highly recommend you do. Diolch yn fawr iawn to those colleagues at Holton Road Primary School and within the Diverse network who helped this very talented group of young people showcase their talent and challenge our thinking at the same time.

Also running across our internal and externals channels this week has been our support for mental health awareness week. This year’s theme is anxiety, something we can all experience from time-to time. Care First ran a series of webinars that are still available to view. I’d like to thank our Wellbeing Champions for their ongoing work to support colleagues. Thursday saw the second monthly meditation session and many colleagues will today be attending the latest woodland wellbeing session. There are many ways in which you can take time out from your work to look after yourself. Our wide offer has been designed to offer something suitable for everyone so please do check them out.

I’d like to end this week with a shout out to Rachel Matthews in our Social Services team. I was contacted recently and told that Rachel always looks out for my weekly round-up emails and is very enthusiastic in ensuring that the round-up is shared with her colleagues, and perhaps just as importantly as it signifies the end of another working week. Well Rachel, I’m afraid I can’t give you a direct instruction to immediately down tools and switch into party mode but I do hope you are getting very close to the end of your week and have some nice weekend plans ahead. Thank you and Enjoy!

Thanks as always to you all for your efforts this week. Diolch yn fawr pawb.

Rob