 Last updated: Spring 2010
Background: Alistair Neill, Chief Executive
Hello, and welcome to the Merthyr Tydfil Council web-site.
Merthyr Tydfil is widely recognized across Britain and by many around the world as a region that was a driving force of the industrial revolution. The challenge for some time now has been to look ahead, rather than backwards, and determine how to successfully build a strong, dynamic, thriving, sustainable local region, tackling big problems that have beset the County Borough for so long.
In the Council, we are therefore focused on 2 goals: firstly, to deliver the most excellent services possible to our customers, secondly, to act decisively in a pivotal role working with partners across the public sector, and with the private sector, to deliver continually improving and sustainable better prospects for all the residents of Merthyr Tydfil.
Our Vision - Delivering As a Team, in Partnership
Our Council of over 3,000 employees works as 'Team Merthyr'. We know that we achieve most when we work as a Team and through strong partnerships both locally and regionally. This is why we have some excellent partnerships and much collaboration with key partners. These collaborations include:
- The Heads of the Valleys Strategic Partnerships: 5 county borough regions working together to drive better and more sustainable regeneration.
- The Local Service Board: joining up the leaders of the local authority, health, police and the voluntary sector to work more collaboratively together.
- ESIS: the education and school improvement service collaboration of 4 local authorities to deliver support for schools within each region including Merthyr Tydfil.
- Waste Strategy: collaboration with RCT to deliver a future waste strategy.
- Administration: collaborative arrangements to deliver pensions administration and insurance.
- Educational Psychologists: joint provision with RCT of an important service within schools.
We are committed to continuously improving the quality of our Council Services, but just as significantly, improving the prospects of the region itself. The Council has set out its Vision: working with partners, including the Welsh Assembly Government, much of this Vision has been delivered – though there remains much more to do. In 2010 we will refresh that Vision for the next period ahead.
Transformational Performance
The Council has transformed its own performance in recent years - the results of this have been recognized by the Wales Audit Office, Price Waterhouse Coopers and a wide range of Inspectors and independent assessors.
Here are a few recent performance improvements that stand out:
- In January 2010, the full LEA Inspection by Estyn was formally reported on: the results were 'good' to 'outstanding' and place Merthyr Tydfil CBC in the top 2 LEA's in Wales, based upon recent inspections,
- In June 2009, Merthyr Tydfil CBC's Regeneration Department won 3 national awards for the work carried out in the regeneration of the town centre,
- In November 2008, Merthyr Tydfil CBC was identified by the Local Government Data Unit's annual assessment of all Wales Council's performance indicators, as the highest performing Council in Wales - for the first time,
- In 2008, the Joint Review of our Social Services, carried out by the Social Service Inspectorate for Wales and the Wales Audit Office - for the first time identified Merthyr Tydfil CBC in the top quartile of national performance,
- We have reduced by over 40%, the number of days lost through sickness absence within the Council - leading by example.
Those performance results are important not only to management, staff and Councillors as a measure of how we compare on a national level, but they are important for you too - our customers and our partners. They are clear, independent points of reassurance in your Council's focus on performance and improvement.
The lasting focus on performance and improvement however is on changing the prospects and the future of the region itself. Much has been done in the last few years - to name a few in a long list:
- The Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Centre
- The Multiplex Cinema
- Hotel and new restaurants on the Leisure Park
- The Cyfarthfa Retail Park
- The Orbit Business Centre
- The Welsh Assembly Office - first in Wales outside Cardiff
- Relaying Merthyr Tydfil town-centre in granite.
- The river corridor walkway
- The Taff trail improvements
- New Primary Schools
- Rail up-grade
- Dynamic new housing developments
Merthyr Tydfil has changed enormously for the better, and with it are changes in the way that many people look at Merthyr Tydfil - including the residents themselves. For the first time measured in many decades, the population of Merthyr Tydfil stopped falling and has risen for 2 successive years. Merthyr Tydfil is changing for the better and for good, and many people now see it, and see their future in it it.
Merthyr Tydfil: It’s Looking Good
Merthyr Tydfil is positioned as the regional centre for the valleys – at the centre of a population of 300,000. As the regional centre it offers people locally and regionally a range of attractions: leisure choice – new swimming pools, a wide range of new health activities – both public and private membership, a multiplex cinema, 5 family-oriented adjacent family restaurants, business and tourist hotels, a retail park with national premium store-brands, an international climbing centre, a millennium park and a bustling town-centre with its own market. All this is set in the glorious backdrop of the surrounding country-side, offering rewarding walks or cycle runs, such as through the Taff Trail.
We are focused on some of the most challenging problems that have beset Merthyr Tydfil for generations - aimed at tackling, for example:
- People of working age who are not in employment.
- Young people who leave school at 16 years of age without good qualifications and in too many cases, without the necessary basic skills of literacy and numeracy.
- Young people leaving school and not entering further education to equip themselves with qualifications for work.
- A lack of educational choice – for example inadequate vocational choice, a lack of University-level provision.
- Chronic health problems ranking among the most challenging in Wales
- A lack of adequate arts and cultural life.
We recognize this need to work in strong partnerships across the public sector to address these challenges, finding solutions and new opportunities in collaboration. That we are doing so is evident from the programme of developments planned for the next 5 years –(subject to the agreement of key stakeholders and funders) – including a new Merthyr Learning Quarter, a new University of the Heads of the Valleys, a new Arts Centre, a new Health Park, 2 new residential care homes and further town-centre improvement.
This is a very optimistic, ambitious development programme, which will firmly place Merthyr Tydfil on the map as the “regional centre for the valleys”.
I will update you on progress in the future, but in the meantime if you need to reach me, my office is at the Civic Centre, Castle Street, Merthyr Tydfil, CF47 8AN.
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