Caerphilly County Borough Council were shortlisted for the Award for Best Service Team: Environmental Health, Trading Standards and Regulatory Services, for their Contact Tracing Service.

The Councils Test, Trace and Protect team was created in unprecedented times to deliver community based contact tracing, employing local people to support the community during the pandemic.

The aim of the service was to work collaboratively to set up a Contact Tracing service to assist the social and economic recovery of our communities, in a way that is safe and protects our NHS and social care teams. Caerphilly started its service with a team of forty redeployed staff using a remote working model.

The team now operate a high performing, sophisticated contact tracing service, which is vital to our Covid response and offering comprehensive support and advice to our citizens to assist them in complying with self-isolation requirements to help to keep our communities safe.

Caerphilly County Borough Council won the award for Best Service Team: Catering Service, for the response to delivering free school meals during the pandemic.

In March 2020, the Welsh Government announced that all schools would close with immediate effect due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Caerphilly County Borough Council was faced with the challenge of how they would provide a service to over 6,243 Free School Meals pupils.

The local authority catering team showed true entrepreneurship, creativity and strong leadership skills by implementing a FSM home delivery service that involved partnership working with local suppliers and over 20 service areas within the authority.

Caerphilly County Borough Council were shortlisted for the award for Best Service Team: Sports, Leisure and Cultural Services, for the teams incredible attitude towards redeployment during the pandemic.

During a period of unprecedented challenge, the Sport & Leisure Services Team in Caerphilly did not only continue to deliver a broad and diverse range of outstanding sport and active recreation opportunities but have flexed and mobilised its resources to support the Councils’ response to Covid-19.

Shortlisted – LGC Awards 2021

The initiative, called ‘MeUs’, was launched on Wednesday 7th July 2021 by Jane Hutt, Minister for Social Justice.

MeUs is the brainchild of Christina Harrhy (CCBC Chief Executive) and Pam Kelly (Chief Constable of Gwent Police) who share an aspiration to develop an ambitious leadership programme to ensure senior managers are equipped with the highest levels of skills and competencies.

Eight employees from across both organisations will form the first ever cohort to take part in the programme – four from Caerphilly council and four from Gwent Police. The 12 month leadership programme will be delivered by the University of South Wales and the initial consort will be instrumental in helping to shape the direction and content of the course for participants in future.

Bridgend County Borough Council is in the process of developing the Bridgend Town Heat Network  to reduce energy consumption through heating buildings. The Council has established a subsidiary company which will be 100% owned by the authority and enable them to access a £1 million grant from the UK Government to constitute part of the £3.4 million capital budget required for the first phase of the network.

Wrexham’s Community Health and Wellbeing facility  is due to open in 2022. This is a 1970s Office Block utilising a ‘fabric first’ approach to thermal efficiency and establishing photovoltaic panels on the roof.

Carmarthenshire County Council has partnered with Ameresco , an energy service company, to identify a range of measures to reduce carbon emissions across the authority’s estate. Phase 1 of the project is projected to save 675 tonnes CO2e each year.

Vale of Glamorgan Council  obtained Local Nature Partnerships Cymru  funding Projects to develop a Green Living Wall on the BSC2 building in Barry. The project will improve biodiversity and offer greater access to Green Infrastructure. The project is expected to extract approximately 41 kilos CO2e per annum.

Torfaen County Borough Council –has consulted with Natural Resources Wales to identify opportunities for better land management approaches including the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) Mapping  to identify opportunities for carbon sequestration. This has informed a Torfaen Public Service Board Green Infrastructure Strategy  for all publicly owned land in Torfaen.

Torfaen County Borough Council is working with two of the main housing associations in the area Melin Homes  and BronAfon to decarbonise their housing stock.

Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council has plans to utilise heating from Taff's Well Thermal Spring  to heat rooms in FfynnonTaf Primary School at an estimated cost of £3 million. The plan forms part of a wider project to use Wales’ only natural thermal spring as the basis for heating buildings in the local area.

Powys County Council is using a place planning approach to focus on carbon, climate adaptation and biodiversity. This new town approach is set to be replicated in 9 other towns across Powys. 

Pembrokeshire County Council is undertaking £4.5 million research and pilot into the potential for Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The project is being undertaken as part of the wider two-year Milford Haven: Energy Kingdom project.

Neath Port Talbot County Borough  Council  is leading on the £505 million Homes as Power Stations  project on behalf of the Swansea Bay City Deal. The five-year project is expected to future proof at least 10,300 properties through installation of energy efficient design and technology in both new builds and retrofits.

Gywnedd Council has commissioned a feasibility study Low carbon and affordable heat study in Tanygrisiau  including the option to retrofit a district heat network. . If successful, the scheme may be replicated in other local quarrying communities

Flintshire County Council  has commissioned four large-scale solar farms in a bid to reduce authority emissions. Two of the sites represent a £3.1 million investment in 9,000 solar panels which are project to save 800 tonnes CO2e per annum.

Denbighshire County Council is using a micro business approach to decarbonisation as part of the business case for social care grants in neighbourhood schemes.

Conwy County Borough Council is working with CLES - the national organisation for local economies, to inform its scope 3 baseline as part of the Council’s Net Zero Supply Chain project.

Conwy County Borough Council  is developing a strategy to rationalise current office space and staff commuting through the “Future of Office Working” project – a collaboration between the Council’s Human Resources, Asset Management departments and workforce.

Cardiff Council is planning to repurpose the Lamby Way Landfill site to establish a large-scale, 9MW Solar Farm. The project is projected to produce enough energy to power 2,900 homes annually and to cost £16.3 million over a 35-year period.

Cardiff Council is developing a new network piping heat from Cardiff Bay’s incinerator to reduce the energy consumption associated with heating public non-residential buildings in Cardiff. The project is expected to cost £26.5 million in total and to be completed by 2022, with a projected annual carbon saving of 5600 CO2e annually.

Caerphilly County Borough Council has sought to develop a 20MW solar farm on previously privately owned land taken on by the council. The project is projected to cost £12 million over its estimated 35-year lifespan. The farm is expected to produce enough energy to power approximately 6,000 homes annually.

Cardiff Council is planning to introduce a city-wide tree-planting scheme,  a £1 million ‘Coed Caerdydd’ urban forest project. The intention of the scheme is to plant over 800 hectares of land with trees over the next decade focused on carbon, flooding, water management and resilience.

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council–has established a depot for trucks and vehicles which has factored in the business case for Electric Vehicle charging points as well as developing skills and training for maintenance of the site.

Isle of Anglesey County Council has purchased second-hand vehicles to retain flexibility of fleet whilst buying time to explore options decisions over Electric or Hydrogen vehicles.

The research is intended to inform local governments approach to progressing towards the Net Zero Carbon 2030 for public sector and the Net Zero Carbon 2050 target  for Wales. The research has been designed to inform the work of decarbonisation practitioners, senior managers, lead members and key staff within local authorities that need to be engaged in the decarbonisation agenda. The work will also inform the national level work of the Local Government Decarbonisation Strategy Panel.

The research focuses on the following aspects of progress in Decarbonisation Planning, production, delivery, scope and ambition, governance, the nature of interventions in the plans, measurement of baseline greenhouse gas emissions, and support needs. The research used documentary evidence and the views of expert local authority practitioners to inform the findings.

All 22 authorities were engaged in the research with over 50 individuals engaged in individual, group and workshop discussions from July-September 2021.

Local authorities reconfigured teams and redeployed staff to ensure effective provision of services and also to find new ways of working with partners. The mechanism of a centralised coordination cell within each council brought together partners such as health, registered social landlords, police & probation, third sector organisations etc to collectively plan and deliver services.

These experiences have helped to shape and plan for current and future provision of homelessness and housing related support services.

Continuing to support homeless people during the coronavirus pandemic: local authority guidance | GOV.WALES

Further details are captured in New Local study (Jan 2021): Shifting the Balance: Local adaptation, innovation and collaboration during the pandemic and beyond 

Further details are captured in New Local study (Jan 2021): Shifting the Balance: Local adaptation, innovation and collaboration during the pandemic and beyond

Wrexham, Denbighshire and Flintshire councils have worked in partnership to deliver a Regional Community Cohesion Service (RCC) for North East Wales. The service supports around 40 community groups and third sector organisations that in turn actively support minority communities. 

Powys County Council libraries were unable to continue with the facility to reserve books through the Library Catalogue during the pandemic. A different system was urgently needed to allow customers to request ‘book collections’ to be picked up from selected libraries or delivered to their door, the council came up with the Library Order and Collect Service.  

The Web Team at Powys County Council developed a web-based system in response to assessing whether eligible people were in need of regular food parcel deliveries, monitoring the wellbeing of vulnerable residents on a weekly or fortnightly basis and responding to needs for support from Powys Social Care or Community Connectors volunteers. 

Ceredigion County Council have created a new online Winter Well-being Hub to support the wellbeing of Ceredigion residents over the autumn and winter months.  

A Carer Card has been launched by Ceredigion County Council, for unpaid carers who look after family members or friends who would not be able to manage on their own without the support and care of an unpaid carer. 

Neath Port Talbot Council surveyed all of their schools on their distance learning provision and a Continuity of Learning Plan was written and shared with all schools as a result.

The survey identified any shortcomings with regards to training and support required and council officers supported any school that required technical support in order to deliver distance learning.

The council has provided over 1000 devices for pupils with no appropriate IT equipment and / or internet access.

In preparation for re-opening, all NPT schools prepared recovery plans and risk assessments based on the guidance provided by the council school improvement team and Welsh Government, and the council provided guidance on Blended Learning. During reopening, the council ensured Headteachers received weekly support to update them on key developments and to discuss concerns. A dedicated FAQ portal was established.

To reach residents without access to digital platforms, the council distributed leaflets to all households in the borough highlighting support from the council during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

This included making people aware that support is available in a variety of different languages - for example, the ‘support for people in the pandemic’ page of the council website features links to multilingual Welsh Government resources.

The council issued 90 specific Covid-19 lockdown news updates to key audiences, at a rate of one a day between March and July, and have developed this into an ongoing bi-weekly media update to keep key audiences informed about latest developments during the pandemic.

The council works closely with umbrella organisations, e.g. the Bridgend Community Cohesion and Equality Forum and the Bridgend Association of Voluntary Organisations, to distribute information to specific groups.

They work alongside partners such as Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board, South Wales Police, town and community councils etc. to disseminate information, and support these partners by using their council communication channels to share information that they have produced.

The befriending service was set up to help those who feel isolated and want someone to chat too. Volunteers, including councillors, have a chat with residents to help their well-being during this uncertain and for some, lonely, time.

The be-friending service is continuing after much success during the lockdown.

The Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council are also continuing their support, linking volunteers with those who need a bit of extra help e.g. shopping and collecting prescriptions.

The Denbighshire County Council Community Resource Pack, put together to help residents with support during the lockdown period, continues to be updated and available on the website.