To receive a verbal report from the Leader

The Leader commenced by extending his congratulations to the new Mayor elect, Councillor Thomas and the Deputy Mayor for 2014/15 Councillor Young on their appointments (and that of their Consorts).  He added that he would speak more on their roles at the Mayoral Inauguration next week.

The Leader thanked Members for returning him as Leader of Bridgend County Borough Council. He had often said that he believed the role to be an honour and a privilege, and assured Members that his opinion had not changed in this respect.

The past year had certainly seen some interesting developments for local government.  Like many fellow Councillors, he did not remember a time when the scale and scope of the challenges that stood before the Authority had have been quite so imposing or numerous.

The pressing need to deliver savings of £36million over the next few years has brought with it a number of issues, but the Council squaring was its shoulders and tackling them through the likes of the Medium Term Financial Strategy, the Corporate Plan and the Bridgend Change Programme, all of which are united by their shared overall aim of ensuring that the council can continue to deliver high quality services for local people despite increasingly limited resources.

Bridgend County Borough Council did have a proven track record of prudent, pragmatic decision making and often being ahead of the curve.

For example, take the decision to go into partnership several years ago with Halo Leisure over the running of Council’s leisure centres. At the time, this was heavily criticised in some quarters, and wrongly described as ‘privatisation’.

However, now the results spoke for themselves, a multi-million pound refurbishment and hugely popular new facilities for Bridgend Recreation Centre, the relocation of Bridgend Library to an all-new purpose-built modern premises at the Rec where it attracted more than 10,000 visitors in its first month of opening, and a transformation for the old library building that is keeping it within community use as a cultural hub and base of operations for Bridgend Town Council.

Similarly, a decision to enter into a partnership with Kier for waste and recycling services was continuing to deliver major benefits, and has again provided the county borough with a 57 per cent recycling rate, one of the very best in Wales. Councils who don’t meet the statutory requirement of 52 per cent will soon face financial penalties, but this has been a major success story for Bridgend County Borough for some time now.

So has added the Leader the school modernisation programme, which is continuing to deliver first class results and has seen a number of significant successes in recent months. These range from a brand new £4.3million replacement school for Penyfai Church In Wales Primary, the £1.3million new Early Years Unit at Bryncethin Primary, and of course, the valley gateway area’s all-new £39million ‘super school’, Coleg Cymunedol Y Dderwen.

This in itself had been a massive achievement, especially when considering that it involved first finding and providing a new location and £20million building in Brackla for

Archbishop McGrath Comprehensive, and demolishing that school’s former premises as well as the old Ynysawdre Comprehensive.

There was no sign of slowing down on this front, and the Leader was currently looking forward to the imminent start of work on the all-new primary school building destined to benefit children in Coity.

The last twelve months had been marked by a number of noteworthy events, but one which he felt particularly honoured to witness and participate with was the launch of the county borough’s first ever Armed Forces Community Covenant.

As well as being designed to make it easier for veterans, service personnel and their families to receive the help, support and recognition they so richly deserve, the covenant is a mark of respect. The Council were already immensely proud of its strong relationship with serving troops and their families, veterans and cadets from the area, and this was a significant event in the history of Bridgend County Borough which further strengthened that bond.

Over the last year, the Council had also signposted its ongoing commitment towards regeneration throughout the county borough.

Whether it has been the all-new £2.5million refurbishment and creation of a new public space at Maesteg’s outdoor market area, the fresh new look given to Nolton Street and other parts of Bridgend town centre as part of a £9million makeover, or almost £6million that was recently announced as part of the Vibrant and Viable Places programme, this council has been extremely active in securing fresh investment as it sought to provide the kind of environment which supports trade and attracts visitors.

This remains especially true in Porthcawl where the Authority were reworking regeneration plans following the disappointment of the food store developer backing out at the eleventh hour. Despite this setback, the new £3.2million Porthcawl Marina is proving to be hugely popular, and were about to launch a new townscape heritage initiative that will make almost £1.1million available to help restore a number of historic old buildings in the seafront area, incidentally, a move which makes the Bridgend County Borough one of just two places in the whole of the United Kingdom to have successfully established five phased THI schemes.

As an authority, BCBC were continuing to deliver improved services. Recent performance statistics from the Welsh Government highlighted that was scoring highly across indicators for education and child social care, rising from being the lowest ranking authority for our dealings with formally looked after young people to being among the top six in Wales.

The Authority had moved from 17^th place to join the top five authorities in Wales for bringing vacant private properties back into use, and were among the top three councils in Wales for securing decisions on planning applications that have gone to appeal, and have also seen big improvements in the percentage of 15 year old pupils achieving a Level Two educational threshold.

The Leader acknowledged that there was still work to do in some areas, of course, but these statistics confirm that the Council has achieved some significant performance improvements within a relatively short period of time, and he was confident that successful delivery of services would continue.

Collaborative working would also continue to play an important role in all of this. A number of close working relationships with partner organisations were ongoing, especially through involvement with the Local Service Board.

This was delivering some very beneficial results, such as the ongoing partnership with the Vale of Glamorgan Council to deliver civil parking enforcement, or the community hub established with Health Partners which is providing adult social care, health and children’s services in a more joined-up, co-ordinated manner.

The Council also had a growing involvement in a number of collaborative projects under the ‘Western Bay’ banner, including new safeguarding arrangements for adults and children, all of which was enabling us to stand and face up to future challenges in a strong, unified manner.

As Leader, he acknowledged that he was ably backed by his Cabinet colleagues, and was grateful for their unwavering support and dedication. This year, the Cabinet portfolio posts would remain unchanged as stated previously.

The Leader then in turn, gave a résumé of the strengths and qualities of each Member of the Cabinet.

The Leader wanted to add his appreciation for elected member colleagues not only within the wider Labour Party group, but all councillors representing communities throughout the area, irrespective of their political allegiance. He believed that Bridgend County Borough Council was well-served by a well-established culture of democracy, scrutiny and debate. Despite political differences amongst Members he was certain they were committed towards working together for the benefit of the residents they served. 

He extended his thanks also to the outgoing Mayor, Councillor Clive James, Youth Mayor, Catherine Jones, and Deputy Youth Mayor, Kieran Sawdon, for their fine work acting as ambassadors for the county borough and in representing the views of young citizens.

The next year was not going to be easy and he had no doubt that some tough decisions would be required, never the less he was confident that with Members ongoing participation, the Authority would be more than able to meet any challenges head-on and forge a new way forward.