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Rob's Weekly Round-Up - 16 December
Rob's Weekly Round-Up - 16 December
Dear colleagues,
These weekly messages often detail the many ways in which our work helps improve the lives of people in the Vale. This week, even more so than usual, I have been taken aback by some of the news that has been shared with me.
The first was a letter of thanks sent to Lance Carver, praising the work of the team at Ty Dewi Sant. Our care staff do phenomenal work and the letter talks through how the Ty Dewi team supported one of their residents and their family through a difficult time. They are described as “loving, kind, thoughtful, respectful and genuine” and the family member who wrote in goes as far as to say “I can’t possibly put into words the outstanding care and support that not only my dad received but myself also, at the hardest time of my life.”
In the context of everything that our organisation faces it is inspiring to see a whole team step up and act with such kindness. Diolch yn fawr to every member of staff at Ty Dewi. Your work does not go unnoticed.
Then yesterday I was introduced by the Leader to a lady called Pamela. Pamela takes the bus from Sully to Barry every morning to visit Barry Library. The only exception is on Sundays when she visits Barry Island. When chatting this week Pamela shared how welcoming the library staff are and how pleased she is to be able to have a cup of tea as part of our Warm Welcome campaign. She also told of how our Customer Relations team were recently so helpful in addressing an issue with her bus pass. Pamela’s story is the perfect example of how all our interactions with residents can shape their day, and their experience of living in the Vale. It also shows how residents don’t see service areas and departments, just our Council, and how all our efforts combine in giving them the support they need.
One person who will surely have helped Pamela at one time or another is Julie Dutton. Julie will be leaving our Library Service next week after 48 years of service. Having worked across Barry, Rhoose and Penarth libraries in her career Julie has seen our libraries transform many times and with every change her energy and commitment has helped bring new users to the service and keep them coming back. I know she will be greatly missed by colleagues and customers alike. Julie, on behalf of everyone at the Vale of Glamorgan Council thank you for all your years of service.
The Housing Team have this week been celebrating the success of their work to engage tenants. Over the last year Vale Homes tenants have been involved in producing the Council’s new Tenant and Leaseholder Participation Strategy, co-producing service area leaflets, and undertaking mystery shopping exercises and service reviews as part of the continuous improvement work currently being undertaken by Housing and Building Services.
The ethos of the team is to involve tenants and leaseholders in service design and delivery, invest in supporting them, showcasing how they can influence better service delivery and ensure that input is valued. The housing team now have over 25 tenants who regularly meet staff members to help develop culture of tenant and leaseholder centred services Congratulation to all involved in this great work. There is much we can all learn from this in how we engage service users in our work.
Anyone working in the Civic Offices this week will very probably have seen colleagues running up and down corridors with boxes and bags piled up in their arms. These colleagues are our very own Santa’s elves.
Thanks to the incredible generosity of our staff and a number of businesses in response to our Santa’s Cause campaign we will be able to provide more than 1000 presents to children and young people across the Vale this Christmas. The gifts have been piling up in recent weeks and our elves – Mike, Danielle, Kelly, Gwydion, Emily, Jessica, and Harriet - are now hard at work allocating these to individual children and packaging them ready for delivery next week.
Leanne passed me in the corridor at least six times yesterday and she told me the team have been overwhelmed by how kind people have been with their donations. Leanne described it as ‘really humbling’ and I couldn’t agree more.
The elves are just a small number of colleagues from across the Council who have gone above and beyond to support the scheme. There will be more updates on Santa’s Cause next week but it is already clear that together we will be making a huge difference to many many families’ Christmas this year.
As the end of the year nears it is impossible not to think ahead to what 2023 will hold for the Council. Earlier this week Tom Bowring took part in a Question Time session on the Annual Delivery Plan. Tom discussed the ADP, its relevance, critical challenges and how staff can influence the plan. For those of you who couldn’t attend the session it is now available to watch on StaffNet+.
Finally, you will hopefully have seen that this week the Council was awarded the Race Equality Matters Bronze Trailblazer Status in recognition of our work to address racial inequality within the organisation. In 2023 we are launching the 'Stories of the Windrush Generation in the Vale of Glamorgan' project and want to hear the voices of those who travelled to the UK from the Commonwealth and settled in Wales. If you know of anyone with a story of migration, please encourage them to enter their expression of interest by Friday 23 December 2022.
Thanks as always for your efforts this week. Diolch yn fawr pawb.
Rob.