Robs Weekly Round Up 

27 October 2023

Dear colleagues,

This week I’ve been lucky enough to do two of my favourite parts of my job in short succession – celebrating the success of some of our longest serving members of staff and welcoming new colleagues to the Vale.

On Tuesday afternoon I was at our latest Long Service Awards session. The session on Tuesday was the best attended yet, with a group of colleagues from across the organisation joining the Leader and I for a trip down memory lane, and the infamous music quiz.

Following feedback from staff we moved the timing of the session to later in the afternoon. This makes it much easier for those colleagues working in our schools to join us and it was great to meet an even wider range of staff. One of our schools staff Domini from Rhws Primary got in touch with our HR team afterwards to say what a lovely time she’d had. Great to hear that Domini and diolch yn fawr to everyone who made time to attend. It is always a pleasure to hear people’s stories, to recognise the achievements and the dedication of our colleagues to public service . A lot of the session is spent talking about memorable times and moments. It says so much about our staff that these are invariably memories of helping residents, supporting others, and feelings of making a difference. Well, those that aren’t about the old staff bar at least!

Two of those there on Tuesday afternoon, Dawn Bowen and Lynis Hessey, were celebrating an incredible 40 years’ service with the Council. No mean feat at all. It was particularly nice to have chance to catch up with Dawn who was one of the first people I met when I joined the Vale in 1996 as a new recruit to the then Planning Department. As a new member of staff she made me feel incredibly welcome and I know has been an invaluable support to the Planning team throughout her time here.

On Thursday morning it was time to welcome new colleagues to the organisation at our latest Welcome to the Vale session. There were 27 new starters in attendance and the conversations throughout the morning focused on culture, change and development.

Amongst the new faces was Nicki Johns, our new Head of Digital. Nicki will be leading delivery of the Digital Strategy that colleagues across the organisation have helped shape over the past year. I am sure Nicki will be introducing herself to many of you over the coming weeks and months and I know would welcome any thoughts you may have on how to push us forward on our digital journey.

I mentioned last week that the Council is doing a number of things to mark Black History Month. On Wednesday our Diverse network had their very first meeting with Holton Road Primary School’s very own Junior Diverse group. The pupils discussed the role of the group and the importance of representation for diverse backgrounds and cultures both within their school and in the wider community.

Members of Junior Diverse shared projects that they have been working on in class around Black history, an upcoming art project which celebrates the diverse cultures of their students, and what work they do as a school to be actively anti-racist.

Laura Eddins, Vice Chair of Diverse, got in touch to say “it was such a pleasure to hear from the kids - they raised some really interesting points and ideas that we hadn’t considered ourselves in Diverse. As we move forward, we’re looking to work in partnership with Junior Diverse and incorporate some of their suggestions into the work that we carry out on anti-racism and racial equality.”

First and foremost, it is incredible to see such maturity and understanding from the pupils. I am hoping to arrange to speak to them directly in the coming weeks to hear more about their lived experience. The staff at the school should also be commended for giving the pupils the space and support to come together in this way.

The importance of networks and safe spaces has been put across really elegantly by Curtis Griffin from our Learning and Skills team in his recent piece on StaffNet+. I’d like to thank Curtis for being so open and generous in sharing his story with us and would recommend you all take time to read it. Diolch yn fawr iawn Curtis.

An area in which we as a Council have always been a trailblazer and have had real success in recent years is collaborative partnerships with other local authorities. This week has seen two more steps forward in this area.

Tuesday saw the official launch of Ardal, a new innovative procurement service launched by Cardiff, Monmouthshire, Torfaen, and the Vale of Glamorgan Councils. Ardal has socially responsible procurement, increased collaboration, and greater community impact as its core values. The new partnership has been designed to harness the skills, knowledge and expertise across all Ardal councils, as well as other partners, and will allow us to develop more cost-effective ways of procuring goods and services together.

Shared Regulatory Servies and the Regional Internal Audit Service have already proven how effectively Council services can be delivered on a regional footprint, while also reducing the cost to the public sector. I look forward to seeing similar success in this new venture. The new service will also be vital in ensuring we wring the maximum value out of every penny of public money spent in the future. Something that is more important than ever in the current financial climate.

I am also pleased to be able to share with you all that Debbie Marles, our Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal and Democratic Services, will also be taking on Monitoring Officer duties for Cardiff Council for up to six months as part of another regional collaboration.

This is a very important and high-profile post and the fact that Cardiff Council approached us reflects extremely well on the organisation, our Legal and Democratic Services team, and Debbie as Monitoring Officer. Debbie is undeniably an expert in her field and her willingness to step in to support our neighbours is a demonstration of her commitment to public service. Debbie will combine the two roles and continue to have oversight on matters in the Vale. As always she will be ably assisted by Victoria Davidson, Operational Manager Legal Services and Deputy Monitoring Officer.

The benefits to our residents of collaboration is perhaps most evident in the partnership working of our Social Services teams and their colleagues in the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. The pressures on both social care and the NHS are constant and so it was especially heartening to receive a message from the Chief Operating Officer at the UHB thanking the Council amnd our Social Services colleagues in particular for “the phenomenal work and effort that has seen such an improvement in the delayed pathway of care numbers over the last few months”.

This has been an area of concentrated effort for teams in Social Services and its impact is very well illustrated in a message of thanks from a resident passed to me via the Leader this week. After being helped to arrange some extra care for their father after he returned home from hospital the resident wrote “It’s been brilliant. Everything has been very well coordinated by the Vale team, in conjunction with the UHB. Domiciliary care, a district nurse, physio, telecare, and home adaptations have all be arranged. Things do work when you value them. Diolch!” Whilst this was a short message it was extremely uplifting to read and demonstrates the true value of the services that we offer to our residents in the most testing of times.  Well done and thank you.  Da iawn a diolch.

Finally, you will hopefully have seen our annual Speak Out campaign is running once again. Speaking out or whistleblowing can be a difficult subject to broach but understanding what to do is essential to protecting the Council's finances and reputation, and keeping colleagues and customers safe.

In line with the feedback received from staff last year, the Whistleblowing Policy has been updated and we have enhanced the Speak Out hub on StaffNet+. This year’s campaign also includes an easy read version, and a summary animation. An iDev module will also be available soon.

We want to continue to improve how we support colleagues in calling out wrongdoing and so this year's survey has been designed to highlight common themes and identify areas for improvement. Please do spare the time to look at the latest campaign and share your thoughts on what we can do next via the latest survey. Thanks in advance for your help.

Next week is half term and for those of you taking time off I hope you are able to relax and enjoy yourselves. Indeed, I hope even those who aren’t on leave are able to squeeze in a little of this over the weekend.

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

Rob.