Tuesday was a really important day for Swansea Child and Family Servcies as the Welsh Assembly Government decided to withdraw its Intervention Board after inspectors identified real improvements. First and foremost this is good news for vulnerable children and a story about the hard work of many dedicated people in social services in Swansea but there is also a story here about how […]
How Effective Scrutiny Made a Difference for Vulnerable Children
October 22, 2010 by Leave a Comment
What is the Best Way to Deliver Shared Services?
October 15, 2010 by 1 Comment
If you haven’t heard of shared services before it is a phrase you might come across more and more if you have anything to do with providing public services. Essentially it means different organisations sharing different parts of their business to achieve savings. So, for example, all public service providers need legal and finance functions and, […]
Learning about Improvements in Learning
September 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment
At their meeting last week, the Children, Young People & Learning Overview & Scrutiny Board spoke to Head Teachers and Chair’s of Governors from four Swansea schools about their ESTYN inspection reports. As I’m sure you know, every school gets inspected by ESTYN and, following the inspection, a report is published and an action plan is produced […]
Getting to the bottom of what it means to be a Corporate Parent
August 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The Corporate Parenting Task & Finish Group (set up by the Child & Family Servicse Overview & Scrutiny Board) met yesterday . The group discussed the results of the corporate parenting surevy that was sent to all councillors, it looked at how other local authority scrutiny boards have delved into the subject of corporate parenting & it looked at practical examples gleaned from elsewhere of […]
Recycling more means sending less to landfill
August 4, 2010 by 1 Comment
The Environment & Communities Task & Finish group met with officers from waste management last week to discuss the scope of the review on recycling, waste minimisation and composting. This is such an important area of work for the Council as landfill taxes are increasing and the Welsh Assembly Government has increased the target for […]