Robs Weekly Round Up

08 December 2023

Dear colleagues,

In my message last week I mentioned that the Council would be supporting Wales Climate week from 04 – 08 December. I’d like to begin this week by pointing you all towards the first part of Our new Project Zero learning collection which launched yesterday.

We can all learn more about climate change and doing so can help us all make more informed choices both inside and outside of work. The first module introduces climate change as a concept and the evidence behind it as well as information on sustainable transport and food. You can access it now on iDev and sign up for the Learning Café if you want to be the first to know when the next modules launch in the New Year. Thanks go to our Policy and OD and Learning teams for putting this together.

Monday’s Christmas Swap Shop was a great success, with more than 150 items of clothing, toys and other gifts changing hands. This is a great example of a simple idea that makes a practical difference. If you have an idea for a climate change project that could help cut our emissions or costs then applications are still open for the next round of the Project Zero reserve. Guidance on what could be considered and how to apply can be found on StaffNet.

Responding to the climate emergency will be a key aspect of the Council’s Replacement Local Development Plan which has been published for public consultation this week. The RLDP has been developed by our planning policy team. The plan will help shape the Vale of Glamorgan for the next 15 years and it is important that as many people as possible respond. The consultation that has launched this week is the latest stage of an extensive engagement process that began last year and will run through 2024.

Speaking directly to people on important and emotive issues can be challenging and so I was delighted to see some feedback earlier this week from one of our town and community councillors praising the session our planning team ran with them last Wednesday. Cllr Malcolm Wilson, from the Cowbridge with Llanblethian Town Council, wrote to thank Victoria Morgan, our Principal Planner and the rest of the Planning Policy team “for a professional and informative presentation” and more generally for the opportunity to get involved. Diolch yn fawr to Victoria and the rest of the team for all the work to date on producing the RLDP and for developing a delivery strategy that has so many opportunities for stakeholders to engage. The consultation is open until 14 February.

Finding more ways to enable residents to participate in decision making and the way in which local services are delivered is one of the ways by which we can improve our ways of working.  Enabling our residents to participate in shaping their own communities is increasingly important at a time when budgets are tight but also at a time when we want to transform the way services are delivered and put our citizens at the heart of our work.

Giving more opportunities to young people to shape what we do is central to the work of the Vale Youth Service. The team do excellent work and so it came as no surprise to hear that they have been shortlisted for another Youth Work Excellence Award.

The nomination is for the Her Voice Wales project through which the team helped girls aged 13 to 17 raise awareness of catcalling and sexual harassment among young people. Together they started the #wedontfeelsafecampaign. It went from strength to strength and the girls involved presented their work at the Senedd earlier this year and in January will be featured in a television documentary. While it is the young people who were deservedly in front of the camera, none of this would have been possible without the support and guidance of our youth workers. I’d like to than Alexandra Thomas and Michaela O’Neill in particular who both played vital roles in the Her Voice Wales success, and most importantly in helping young women feel safe.

Throughout this week I have been getting updates on the fundraising and gift donations coming in for Santa’s Cause ahead of today’s closing date. Some of the achievements and ingenuity shown by our teams in finding ways to help make sure vulnerable children in the Vale have something to open on Christmas Day have been extraordinary. I want to ensure everyone involved gets the credit they deserve so will be sharing all of these next week once the campaign has closed. For now I’ll just say that thanks to the generosity of Team Vale we currently have a growing stock of presents and more than £2000 in cash donations. Gwaith da pawb! And while the deadline is officially today if anyone is still looking to make a contribution, one of Santa’s elves has told me the online donations page will remain live until Monday.

Looking beyond Christmas and into the New Year the Electoral Registration team will launch their staffing campaign in January. The team are looking for eager and capable people to join our staffing lists so that we are ready to respond should there be a 2024 general election.

We are looking for people to work at our polling stations as a presiding officers or poll clerks, tally ballots at the count, or get involved ahead of the day with postal vote opening and other duties. Council staff receive additional pay and special leave on poll day and full training is required.

There is also still time to register for the special Learning Café budget Q&A session that Tom Bowring, Matt Bowmer and I will be hosting On Wednesday. We will answer any questions that staff have ahead of the announcement of the Welsh Government’s provisional settlement for local government on 19 December. You can submit questions in advance or ask them on the day and I’d encourage anyone who’d like to know more about how we are preparing to set our budget for 2024/25, or who has ideas to share, to join us on the day.

Finally I’d like to share news of the award-winning animation getting young children moving in school that has been piloted in the Vale as part our partnership work with the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. QuickChange aims to engage four to six-year-olds in daily physical activity and has been trialed in five schools across the Vale and Cardiff. Colourful cartoon characters got children at Pendoylan Primary School moving every day and the feedback from staff and pupils has been very positive. You can see some of the exercises in the short video made to showcase the project and if you’re reading this after a long day of sitting in the same spot even try some of the moves out for yourself!

Thanks as always to you all for your efforts this week. I hope you have a great weekend. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi i gyd.

Rob.