Robs Weekly Round Up

04 October 2024

Dear colleagues,

I write a lot in my messages about the Team Vale mindset that makes us so special. Last Friday saw an excellent example of this.

Many of you will have enjoyed the courtyard garden in the Civic Offices, which in recent years has been transformed into a bright and colourful area for staff to take a break during their working day or catch-up with colleagues in a less formal setting.

This transformation has been led by Lynne Clarke from our Customer Relations team. When colleagues in our Highways Maintenance team found out just how much time and effort Lynne puts in, outside of her working hours, they wanted to lend a hand too.

On Friday Matthew Buckley, Samual Hillier, Nathan Thomas and Kyle Snooks gave up their afternoon to get the garden ready for autumn and winter. Together they removed all of the summer plants and any weeds and gave the space a general once-over. I’ve been in to have a look this week and can confirm it’s looking neat and tidy once again.

For me, Nathan’s comment in the StaffNet piece on this sums up everything that makes our Council a great place to work. He said “When I was first made aware that Lynne tends to this garden in her spare time, outside of her working hours, I more than happy to offer up some of my time knowing full well that officers of the Highway Maintenance team would also be fully supportive. Lynne has spent significant time supporting us in updating our knowledge base to ensure our customers reach the right team responsible when they’ve called us with queries and that their experience is positive.”

This sense of wanting to support each other and repay help we’ve given each other is just what Team Vale is all about. It is great to see from everyone involved.

This attitude is what will carry us through the coming years and in this regard two very significant reports have gone live today, ahead of consideration by Cabinet next week.

The first sets out our draft Corporate Plan for 2025-2030, consultation on which will begin later this month. The key themes of the plan are what SLT colleagues and I discussed with you all as part of the Welcome to the Council of the Future sessions this summer. I will talk in a little more detail about the Plan and how staff can get involved in the consultation process next week.

The second report is on Reshaping. As I have said before, Reshaping is the means by which we will change our Council to enable us to deliver our Corporate Plan. The report to Cabinet makes clear that this next phase of our ongoing transformation programme comes at a critical time for the Council considering the financial forecast for coming years.

Reshaping and the Corporate Plan have been developed in tandem. The Corporate Plan sets out what we want to achieve by 2030. Reshaping explains how we will change how we work in order to do this.

The report updates on all the work to-date in developing the strategy and for the first time shares publicly our prospectus for Reshaping, including details on those services we feel could have the greatest potential for change in the coming years.

Next up, I’d like to congratulate the team in Shared Regulatory Services for their success in the recent RSPCA Pawprints Awards.

The team won a platinum award for Stray Dog Services, a gold award for Kennelling, and another gold for Animal Activity Licensing.

The RSPCA use the awards to recognise ‘exceptional contributions and unwavering commitment to protecting, promoting, and enhancing animal welfare’. These are national awards and the haul of the SRS team shows that our services are amongst the very best in the county. Llongyfarchiadau tim.

One of our schools has been in the national spotlight this week as well. Lynne Neagle MS, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, was in Barry yesterday to visit Ysgol Gwaun-y-Nant and learn more about the school’s work to support Welsh language pupils.

Headteacher Rhydian Lloyd and ALN co-ordinator Sara Thomas gave the Minister a tour of the Welsh Medium Specialist Resource Base that opened at the school in January.

The resource base is an important facility for the Vale. There has been an increase in the number of pupils with additional learning needs in the Vale in recent years. Prior to the facility at Gwaun-y-Nant opening, however, there was no specialised resource base for primary age pupils educated in Welsh.

The new resource base has already provided much needed support to dozens of pupils and will play a key role in enabling more children to learn through the language of their choice in the future. It is great to see it getting the recognition it deserves.

My role gives me the chance to meet all sorts of interesting people and on Tuesday I was honoured to present an Age Friendly Vale Challenging Ageism Award to Andrew Pemberton.

Earlier this year, our Age Friendly Vale team launched their Challenging Ageism campaign and asked older residents in the Vale to share stories and tips for ageing well.

Barry resident Andrew was selected as the first local hero and campaign winner. He has a pretty impressive record of physical activity by anyone’s standards. He has completed 171 Park Runs and 13 half marathons, all despite having a visual impairment.

He is a truly inspiring figure who has also worked with our Healthy Living Officer Tom Geere to establish a new Visually Impaired Bowls Club in Sully.

The Vale has one of the fastest growing aging populations in Wales and our age friendly work is vital to ensuring that older people are able to live both longer and healthier lives. It was great to see the impact of this work first hand and meet those who benefit from it and who are inspiring our teams to do even more. Andrew is running the Cardiff Half marathon this Sunday – Good luck / Pob lwc Andrew.

It wasn’t quite a half marathon but on Thursday I was very pleased and privileged to be able to join pupils and staff from Ysgol Y Deri for the last leg of their sponsored walk from Cardiff Bay to Cosmeston Country Park, a route which took us past the new Ysgol y Deri annexe site. It was a wonderful experience to walk the last few kilometres with staff and pupils and it was obvious to me that there is a very special connection between the staff and the children.

Kudos to Kelly Williams, Natasha Burton, Lauren Wilkin and Alison Maher who joined the staff and pupils on the day and special mention to Alison who helped organise the walk with the staff from the school. But even bigger kudos to the staff and pupils – what an achievement. Well done – Llongyfarchiadau.

Finally, I’d like to congratulate two colleagues on new appointments made at our Senior Management Appointment Committee on Tuesday.

Colin Smith will be the Council’s new Head of Neighbourhood Services. Colin was previously Operational Manager for Neighbourhood Services and has overseen some very high profile programmes of work in that area in recent years, not least the roll out of the new segregated recycling collection service across the Vale and the opening of the new resource park at Atlantic Trading Estate.

Katy Williams will be our new Head of Additional Learning Needs and Wellbeing. Katy, who is currently Headteacher at Romilly Primary School and held the same role at Palmerston Primary School before that, has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in an area of critical importance to the organisation.

Both are excellent appointments that will give us even greater capacity to change our Council for the better over the coming years. I wish both Katy and Colin every success in their roles and look forward to working with them in the future.

Thanks as always to all colleagues for their efforts this week. Diolch yn fawr pawb.

Rob.