(i)            Mayor (or person presiding)

(ii)           Members of the Cabinet

(iii)          Chief Executive

The Mayor

The Mayor informed Members that he had no announcements to make as there had been no Mayoral engagements due to the current lockdown, but he hoped everyone was keeping safe and well and had a good Christmas and New Year.

Deputy Leader

The Deputy Leader announced that a wide range of grant funding support has been made available to help local businesses since the pandemic began in March last year.  To date, 4,931 grant applications have been approved to date, with more than £37 million awarded in financial support.  As well as grants for firms, £1.8 million has been provided directly to residents under the Social Care Workforce Payments scheme.  £73,500 has been provided to self-isolating residents who have been unable to work, and more than £27,550 thousand supplied using the statutory sick pay enhancement scheme for social care workers.  He congratulated staff who continue to work hard to assess applications as quickly as possible, and to also remind businesses and residents of the importance of providing full details and to apply to the correct fund when seeking financial support.  More information about the available support is featured at the council’s website.

Cabinet Member Communities

The Cabinet Member Communities informed Members that the Council was recently faced a problem in which 7,000 streetlights decided to repeatedly switch themselves on and off again.  This issue occurred all over the county borough, perhaps most notably on large estate areas such as Brackla, but did not affect all of the county borough’s 20,000 street lights.  The Streetlighting Team quickly deduced that the problem was a software glitch, and that it only concerned lights which relied on global positioning technology to calculate what time the sun rises and sets.  The manufacturers of the street lights were able to quickly reset them, and have provided assurances that this was a one-off problem which should not reoccur.

The Cabinet Member Communities placed on record an apology to the Mayor for a comment he had made at the previous meeting of Council.  He informed Members that he had great respect for the office of Mayor and the current Mayor and asked for his apology to be accepted.  The Mayor had accepted the apology and considered the matter closed.  

Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help

The Cabinet Member Social Services and Early Help announced that she had previously advised members that social care in Bridgend County Borough was facing some major challenges, and as anticipated, has proven to be the case.  There are very real concerns over whether the Council could continue to meet its statutory duties, bur was pleased to confirm it had been able to do so.

Local care homes and social care staff are, however, still facing extreme pressures in dealing with Covid-19, and the council is working closely with Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board to support their efforts in rolling out the vaccine and helping to prevent the spread of the virus.  However, significant outbreaks are being seen affecting residents and staff at care homes across the county borough, both those that are council-run and those which are independently operated, and as of last Sunday, 21 homes had staff or residents who had returned positive tests. 

A number of care homes have instigated business continuity plans to ensure they have sufficient workforce to care for and support residents. They are working alongside the council, Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board and Public Health Wales to ensure that services can continue, and that staff and residents who are self-isolating can be supported.  It is absolutely right and essential that care homes have been made the top priority for the vaccination programme, and the Council is doing all it can to support this.

Domiciliary care providers have been more resilient in the face of the coronavirus, and are continuing to provide people with essential care and support within their own homes.  However, as this also renders them vulnerable, the next priority must be to get all frontline social care workers vaccinated as a matter of urgency. The ongoing efforts of staff must not go unrecognised in all of this, and she was sure that Members will want to join her in offering thanks, gratitude and admiration to the staff.

Cabinet Member Wellbeing and Future Generations

The Cabinet Member Wellbeing and Future Generations announced that the Shared Regulatory Service is continuing to play a crucial role in keeping people safe and helping to ensure that businesses follow all necessary rules and regulations while the pandemic is in effect.  This includes making sure that the tighter requirements for shops and businesses which were announced by Welsh Government last week are being observed.  Under the new rules, premises are required to carry out a new risk assessment covering issues such as hygiene, the use of PPE and face coverings, whether adequate ventilation and physical distancing are in place, how employers can maximise the number of staff who can work from home, and more.

The team are also continuing with their inspection work, and have issued a series of enforcement notices, which take the form of premises improvement notices which specify measures that must be taken within a certain time limit, which is usually 48 hours.  If the business fails to comply, the enforcement officers can issue a premises closure notice, which can remain in place for up to fourteen days. 

The team’s most recent enforcement action has resulted in 17 businesses receiving notices.  Of these, 11 received notices because staff were not wearing face coverings, and one because staff were not maintaining social distancing or wearing face coverings.  A further five were issued with closure notices.  Enforcement officers are continuing to visit premises to carry out appropriate checks that rules are being followed, and more information is available at the Shared Regulatory Services website.

Cabinet Member Education and Regeneration

The Cabinet Member Education and Regeneration announced that following recent critical news and social media coverage of food parcel schemes in England that Members might appreciate some information on how the scheme works here in Bridgend County Borough, and the high quality of the service that is provided.

Every week, the council provides thousands of children with a food parcel featuring enough nutritious breakfast and lunch items to cover five days. The food parcels take specific dietary requirements into account, and use Welsh suppliers wherever possible.  He outlined the content of the typical food parcel, which also feature ‘life-skill’ recipe cards which encourage children and adults to use the parcels to prepare meals together, learn about nutrition and more.  Having evaluated a range of options, the Council believes that the direct delivery of food parcels containing nutritious breakfast and lunch items has been more effective and ultimately better for the children concerned.  It has prevented families from making unnecessary journeys during the pandemic, and has avoided potential problems such as food vouchers being refused at stores.

As well as building in an extra level of reassurance that children are receiving the food, the doorstop deliveries are supporting our safeguarding arrangements by enabling additional contact from school staff and the Vulnerable Groups team.  One positive aspect of the recent media coverage is that it has highlighted the Council’s efforts to ensure that children do not go hungry, which has resulted in scores of positive comments and feedback on the service.

Chief Executive

The Chief Executive provided an update about how council services are faring under the pressures of the ongoing pandemic.  While the start of the roll-out of the vaccine has offered some much-needed relief, we are continuing to experience high incidence levels of the virus throughout the county borough, and this is of course affecting our own workers as well.  It is clear that the authority has a tough few months ahead.  Pressure on many of the services that it provides remains considerable, and in response, the delivery of the more critical services is being prioritised. Where necessary, this includes the redeployment of staff, particularly into areas which have been affected by workers having to self-isolate while awaiting the results of a test or because they are ill with coronavirus.

He stated that while he remained confident that an internal resilience to these challenges is retained, it is of course impossible to implement these actions without having some kind of detrimental impact on other services.  Some activities have temporarily paused, and it may take a little longer than normal to receive an answer to some referrals, he pointed out that there had been over a thousand more member referrals to deal with during the pandemic period [March 2020 to December 2020] than in the corresponding period the year before.

At this stage, it remained unlikely that the main council buildings would be reopened any time soon, especially while the official Government advice is still to remain at home wherever possible.  On the plus side, as an organisation the Council has clearly demonstrated that it can support agile working and working from home, and these will be areas that would be looked at in closer detail to see how they might work to the Council’s advantage in the longer term.  He will bring further updates through the remaining phases of the coronavirus pandemic.

He also informed Members of sad news of fatality at a road traffic accident this morning which is being investigated by South Wales Police. It was believed that the deceased is a colleague and the Council is offering support to the family.