The Cultural and Social Transformation of Cardiff Paper Example

Various environmental factors have been identified to affect the Cardiff City Council tremendously. One of the significant internal challenges that have significantly changed the ability of the council to provide for its people is the rapid population growth across all the cities and regions. Over the last decade, Cardiff grew by about 11 percent, which roughly translates to about 37,700 people. This growth is anticipated and set to continue with the Welsh Capital projected to be the fastest developing major city in Britain other than London. The council is further set to see more significant growth in population compared to other 21 authorities combined. While it is evident that the people are choosing to work and stay in Cardiff, experts are worried that such a growth trend has posed a significant challenge on the limited resources available within the city. This situation is likely to strain the company's infrastructure and put new demands on the city's public resources. It is further based on the fact that the population of the city will not be evenly spread across all the age groups. For instance, the projected increase in the number of children going to school in the next 20 years will subject schools to higher pressures. In the same way, the older people, particularly those over 85 years whose population is expected to double in the next 20 years will exert more pressures on the available health and social care services to help those lead independent lives.

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Inequality constitutes another internal environmental challenge that has affected the implementation of the solutions. The gap between the rich and the poor in the city is significant and proliferates. The factors such as the unemployment rates in Ely have been shown to be higher than those in Creigiau. The variation in the health outcomes is even more pronounced with a healthy life expectancy gap of more than 22 years between the rich and the poor. As a result, it becomes evident that poverty damages too many lives, it places pressure on public services and it breaks the bonds that help to create a stable society.

The austerity has constituted another huge factor that has for a long time challenged the implementation of the solutions to the underlying problems such as the rapid growth in demand subjected to the city's public services to severe financial pressure (Schubert, 2016). In the last one decade for examples, the council has been able to make nearly a quarter of a billion pounds in cumulative savings, as well as the reduced number of non-school staff by about 22 percent. The council is, therefore, planning to meet a further budget gap of more than 73 million dollars over the past next few years.

The inability of the council to fully integrate the consumers as a critical component of the council's mandate poses tremendous challenges when it comes to the implementation of the appropriate solutions. Notably, this situation has contributed to the transient nature of consumer vulnerability. The consumers could be vulnerable in different circumstances at different times such as during the times of natural disasters leading to the loss of their utilities (Waite, 2015). The need for companies, therefore, to communicate effectively with vulnerable consumers is therefore crucial. While it is evident that the companies might not be able to communicate proactively with vulnerable communities and consumers to understand the issues they face is essential fully.

Evaluation

Generally, the council intends to enable a shift to the outcomes for the communities and customers, based on the continued partnership of operating with both the public and the private sectors to address the issues that affect the city. Besides, the council intends to build and enhance a social inclusion through strengthening the communities, and creating opportunities and addressing the disadvantage through having the flexibility to shift the resources to social investments that are aimed at shaping the future environment (Goncalves, 2016). To evaluate the successfulness of these programs, therefore, several strategies must be implemented. The results from such as how the various customers' needs are met, how employees work or operate, how budgets are administered will contribute to the baseline for the assessment or evaluation. The city managers should use the community surveys to elicit the views of the communities and consumers about the opinions on the impacts of the implementation as well as what and how they think things ought to have been. The surveys further form an integral role in ensuring that the needs of the consumers and the community are taken into consideration concerning collaborating with them to find common solutions to the existing challenges. Additionally, the use of the Long-Range strategic plan should aid in the identification of the future capital needs and should be the link to the council's five-year plan. Finally, the e-performance measures aimed at identifying the achievements of various departments should be used to evaluate the extent to which the implemented solutions have succeeded.

References

Goncalves, A., 2016. Reinventing a Small, Worldly City: The Cultural and Social Transformation of Cardiff. Routledge.

Schubert, D., 2016. The transformation of North-western European urban waterfronts-divergence-and convergence of redevelopment strategies. Waterfronts Revisited: European ports in a historic and global perspective, pp.10-20.

Waite, D. (2015). City profile: Cardiff and the shift to city-regionalism. Cities, 48, 21-30.