Agenda and minutes

The Minutes of the meeting held on 18 June 2007 were agreed as a true record.

(Report by Cabinet Member for Finance and Lynda McMullan, Director of Finance)

(1)     This was the first exception report for 2007/08 and it identified a number of pressures that would need to be managed during the year if the Council was to have a balanced revenue position by year end.

(2)     Cabinet discussed the position on asylum costs and Mr Carter said that KCC would continue to press for repayment of these both independently and in partnership with other authorities from within the South East and across the country.  Meetings were actively being sought with key Ministers and senior officials within government spending departments and concerted and constructive action would continue in order to achieve a level of sustainable funding which repaid the costs currently being met by the County Council.

(3)     Following further discussion, Cabinet noted the forecast revenue and capital budget monitoring position for 2007/08.

(Report by Cabinet Member for Finance and Director of Finance)

(1)     Mr Chard placed on record his thanks to his fellow Members and also to officers for the part they had played in achieving a revenue underspend for 2006/07 of £7.7m, excluding  schools.  He highlighted the key areas of the revenue roll forward proposals, and in particular, the extra £3m which would be going into Highways maintenance.

(2)     Cabinet approved the requests for roll forward from 2006/07 as detailed in Appendix 1 of the Cabinet report.

(Report by Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services, Cabinet Member for Education and School Improvement and the Director-Commissioning (Specialist Services) (Joanna Wainwright was present for this item).

(1)     This report provided the context for decisions which needed to be made by KCC about the future of the Connexions Transition which had to be made by the end of September 2007.  The report sought Cabinet’s guidance on the planning work and to consider the options for change with the purpose of generating closer alignment with the County Council’s Local Area Agreement Targets and objectives, including 2010 targets, 14-24 work and its developing Integrated Youth Support services.

(2)     Joanna Wainwright said that the Connexions Service was achieving well against its targets but there was no room for complacency and the service was committed to ensuring and achieving innovative and improved outcomes.  In terms of the recommendations set out in paragraph 5 of the report, she commended to Cabinet that the relationship with Connexions should become that of preferred supplier as detailed in paragraph 5(c)(i).

(3)     Cabinet discussed the detail of the report and in accepting the recommendations, decided that the preferred way forward for the future relationship between the County Council and Connexions should be that of a preferred supplier with an offer made of a 2 year contract from April 2008.

(4)     Cabinet therefore agreed:

(a)     that the transition processes undertaken by the Strategic Group should focus on sustaining existing provision in the short term in the interest of achieving key objectives and targets;

(b)     plans for market testing of services in the medium and longer term should be pursued to ensure close alignment with KCC’s priorities, the integrated Youth Support Services Strategy and the Children and Young People’s Plan; and

(c)      the relationship within Connexions should become that of a preferred supplier with an offer made of a two year contract from April 2008.  This offer to allow change in the first year within existing staffing as may be agreed and with further planned graduated change in line with KCC’s overall policy objectives during the second year.

(Report by Cabinet Member for Education and School Improvement, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Supporting Independence, the Managing Director for Children, Families and Education and the Acting Managing Director for Environment and Regeneration)

(1)     The Bridge Development is a partnership between Dartford Borough Council, (the landowners) together with developers Pro Logis Developments (Ltd).  The project would transform a 264 acre brownfield site (formerly the site of Dartford’s Joyce Green Hospital and Little Brook Lakes) into an advanced sustainable community.  The project would see the development of a new primary school, together with facilities for health; adult education; a multi-agency social care facility; an adult social care community resources centre; community meeting room; youth centre; library and archives access point; facilities for the police, and a café.  The County Council had secured a developers contribution, which, with index linking, equated to approximately £8.5m to meet the capital costs of this innovative development.

(2)     Cabinet:-

(a)     approved the continuing development of the Bridge Development;

(b)     agreed the scheme, valued at £8.5m, at this point in time, being formally added to the Education and School Improvement Capital Programme and to be shown as being fully funded by Developer Contributions.  In the event that the contribution was at a different level, the programme would be amended accordingly;

(c)      granted approval to spend and gave authority to negotiate and enter into such agreements as are necessary to give effect to the scheme to the Director, Resources (Children, Families and Education) and the Head of Corporate Property.  This to be in consultation with the other Managing Directors and Cabinet Members and subject to the Director of Finance and Cabinet Member for Finance being satisfied with all the financial arrangements, both revenue and capital; and

(d)     noted that the new Bridge Primary School would open in September 2009.

(Presentation by Mr Kevin Newman (External Assessor))

(1)     Mr Newman gave Cabinet feedback on the Investors in People Standard Internal Review which had been undertaken within the Council at the end of 2006 and into the early part of 2007.

(2)     The presentation highlighted the key strengths of the Council and this included it achieving a four star rating for services in 2005 and top marks for direction of travel.  The Assessor found that there was a culture of collaboration and trust and learning and development was strong with a considerable array of options available.  However, there was work which remained to be done and in particular there was a need to make sure that learning and development programmes had been effective and had met the perceived needs.  Also work place induction whilst strong was being applied inconsistently in some areas.  The Council was already addressing some of these issues and had decided to train its internal reviewers to use Profile for its next review.  Mr Newman said that this decision was to be commended as he believed that such an action would deliver considerable added value.

(3)     Mr Carter said that he welcomed the feedback on the Investors in People Standard Internal Review and whilst greatly encouraged by the strengths which Mr Newman had highlighted, he said the Council was not complacent and a report would be put to a future meeting of the Personnel Committee looking at areas where the Council can learn and improve further.

(Report by Chief Executive)

This report provided a summary of the outcomes and progress on matters arising from the meeting of the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee held on 27 June 2007.  The report also set out the work programme for Select Committee Topic Reviews as agreed by the Policy Overview Co-ordinating Committee and provided an update on the current status of each Topic Review.

(Report by Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Policy and Performance and Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Supporting Independence)

(The Chairman declared consideration of the item to be urgent so that Members could be made aware in particular of the outcomes of a meeting which had taken place at the European Commission in Brussels on 4 July 2007 involving the County Council and other key parties.  Members also needed to the briefed on the actions the Council was taking and these were set out in the report for consideration and approval).

(Mrs Edith Robson, a local resident and campaigner, was present for this item. Mr Ian Nunn (Finance Director) and Mr Seth Williams were present on behalf of Eurostar)).

(1)     Eurostar’s plan to end direct train services from Ashford International Station to Brussels in November 2007 was first debated by Cabinet on 16 October 2006.  Since knowing of Eurostar’s intentions, the County Council had played a major role in campaigning to retain the Ashford-Brussels service and had worked with passengers, the business sector, public sector bodies, MP’s and MEP’s to question Eurostar and Government on the decision.  On 6 July 2007 a petition was presented to Downing Street by local campaigner, Mrs Edith Robson, accompanied by Damien Green MP, Euro MP’s Peter Skinner and Sharon Bowles, and other passengers and rail lobby groups.  The petition numbered over 15,000 signatures. 

(2)  Kent County Council, Ashford Borough Council and the South East England Development Agency attended a meeting at the European Commission in Brussels on 4 July 2007.  This meeting brought together Eurostar, London and Continental Railways, Mrs Edith Robson, Passenger Groups, local authorities from Northern France and rail operators and infrastructure managers from the UK, France and Belgium.  The aim of the meeting was to allow all parties to state to the Commission their position and explore possibilities to bring these positions together.  As an outcome of this meeting, a commitment was given by all organisations present to hold further talks and there was a proposal by the Commission to host a follow up meeting in Brussels at the end of 2008 where progress could be monitored.

(3)  Mrs Robson said that with Ashford being a growth area, a number of businesses had located to the area because they could readily gain access to three European Cities within two hours.  Mrs Robson believed the loss of services to Brussels would have a detrimental affect on Ashford’s growth potential and lead to an increase in air travel.  She said that Eurostar was strongly marketing St Pancras and Ebbsfleet but if Ashford was similarly marketed, then what she asked could it not achieve if given the same level of exposure.  Mrs Robson said Ashford was being described by Eurostar as an intermediate stop, but she said on that basis, Ebbsfleet was also an intermediate stop.  It was said by Eurostar that the decisions about services at Ashford were being taken on a commercial basis.  However, being commercial was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.