Weekly Round-up with Miles Punter

13 May 2022

Dear colleagues,

Rob is taking a well-earned few days off to recharge after the busy local elections and so I have the honour on standing in today to provide you all with the weekly update on what’s been happening across the Council.

I should start with a massive thank you to all those who worked well into the early hours of last Saturday morning to complete the election count. The count team was drawn from colleagues across the Council. It is no small effort to count 44,547 ballot papers while under the watchful eye of dozens of observers and count agents. We are extremely grateful for the work of the team and all of those behind the scenes who ensure election day and the count run so smoothly.

I would specifically like to thank Rachel Starr-Wood our Electoral Registration Manager and the whole of the Electoral Registration Team. The team’s work extends a long way beyond election day. I know many messages of thanks have been received from those they helped in the run up to polling day. One in particular from one of our community councils described the team as “absolutely wonderful”. That sounds spot on to me.

On behalf of the whole organisation, I would like to thank the outgoing councillors for their efforts in ensuring that the Vale of Glamorgan Council remains one of the best performing local authorities in Wales and at the same time welcome those new and returning members who will be leading and scrutinising our work for the next five years.

Along with my SLT colleagues I have met many of our new councillors this week and their enthusiasm for their roles and their obvious desire to work with us as officers to take this Council to the next level was clear for all to see. Continuing our high performance and the provision of high-quality services for our residents was a common topic. I was particularly encouraged to have a number of positive conversations about the environment and how the Council can work to tackle climate change, as well as ways in which we can best support residents and staff as the cost-of-living increases. I feel the next few years, whilst challenging, will see the introduction of many innovative solutions to retain and improve our services and that these solutions will be developed hand in hand with the local communities we serve.

I know Rob likes to use these messages to shine a light on some of the great work underway across the Council. I am going to continue that fine tradition while also taking the liberty of singling out some of my fantastic colleagues in Environment and Housing.

Firstly, Kate Hollinshead and Helen Pembridge in our Housing and SRS teams who have been coordinating the huge operational effort required to allow us to start settling Ukrainian refugees with host families. The terrible situation in Ukraine continues to dominate the news and the humanitarian crisis caused by the invasion is heart-breaking. Our Council has had to set up new processes and systems in a very short period of time and I am very proud that we are now ready to help new arrivals from Ukraine settle in the UK and to support communities who wish to offer assistance to those fleeing the devastating conflict. The Vale’s response to the crisis is central in helping families settle into their communities and access public services, including schools, public health and other support, including access to trauma counselling.

Our teams have been arranging and undertaking visits to hosts for property inspections and wellbeing support, providing a welcome to Ukrainian families, often working through weekends and out of hours to get things in place as quickly as possible.

The boss did pass me one email before going away and I am delighted to be able to give a shout out on his behalf to Andrew Evans in our ICT Services team for all the work he’s done to support colleagues, in particular those in Learning and Skills who sent on their praise to the Chief Executive. They said “Andrew is always calm, friendly, and reassuring and always happy to go that step further to help.” Top work Andrew. It’s always great to hear about a star for team Vale.

I’d also like to single our Karen Davies and the Healthy Living team for all their work in planning and delivering the Winter of Wellbeing and upcoming Summer of Fun activities. The programme currently runs to 17 schemes. At a time when helping people increase their physical activity is more important than ever, and offering children and young people local schemes where they can do so for free is vital, the work of the team is making a huge difference.

The upcoming summer events will be open to everyone and we’ll be making sure all staff are aware of the great family activities on offer. In the meantime, if you are looking to get more active, our Wellbeing Champions have successfully negotiated a reduced price leisure centre membership for all staff. On top of this a wide range of small group classes, as well as supported regular exercise and check-ins with well trained staff are available via the National Exercise Referral Scheme, also run by our Healthy Living team. This is low cost too at only £2 per session and designed to help people achieve realistic goals. You can speak to one of the team for more information if you are interested.

In other service news I would like to congratulate Craig Handley who is the Council’s new Enforcement Manager covering civil parking enforcement and waste crimes.  Craig was previously a supervisor in the Enforcement team and was promoted to the service manager on 16 March 2022.  Craig has shown such dedication and commitment in his short time in his role and has made a significant impact catching fly-tippers and illegal waste carriers.  Since he started in March 2022 he has issued some 25 fixed penalty notices for waste crime offences and has a further 40 active waste crimes under investigation. Well done Craig. 

And finally, I’d like to mention to the refuse and recycling teams in Neighbourhood Services and all those who support them for their continued efforts and additional hours at what is a really difficult time. The national HGV driver shortage is having a huge impact on their work but week after week they find ways to stretch themselves further and ensure the disruption to residents is minimised wherever possible. Keep it up team.

Thanks all for your efforts this week and for taking the time to read my message. Rob will be back to take back the baton next week. He will also be hosting his next Question Time session next Wednesday and you can submit your questions via StaffNet.

Miles.