Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 April 2012 were agreed as a true record and signed by the Chairman.

 – Report by Mr J Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support and Mr A Wood the Corporate Director of Finance and Procurement)

 (1)      Mr Simmonds gave an update on the current monitoring position with regard to both the Revenue and Capital budgets and highlighted some key pressures such as Asylum. He also updated the meeting on the latest position with respect to the return of deposits in Icelandic Banks.

(2)       Mr Simmonds said despite the pressures the overall budget position was good  and he placed on record his thanks to Corporate Directors and their staff for the work they had done in achieving this. Mrs Whittle said there would shortly be a meeting with the responsible Government Minister to discuss funding pressures being caused by the County Council having to deal with unaccompanied minors. Mrs Whittle and Mr Ireland also spoke of the work being undertaken to reduce the number of children awaiting fostering placements and said there would be an update report on Children’s Services to the next Cabinet meeting.   

(3)       Cabinet resolved to:

(a)  note the latest monitoring position on both the revenue and capital budgets

(b) agree the transfer of £0.433m under spend within the Customer and Communities portfolioto the earmarked reserve to support next years budget, as assumed in the approved 2012-15 MTFP

(c) agree the transfer of £4m to the Big Society Budget re-phasing, to the rolling budget reserve to be drawn down as the spend is incurred in 2012 to 2014 t.

(d)   note the changes to the Capital Programme and agree that 36.017m of re-phasing on the capital programme is moved from 2011/12 to capital cash limits to future years.

(Item 5  report by Mr Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development , Mr David Cockburn – Corporate Director Business Strategy and Support) and Barbara Cooper, Director of Economic Development.

(1)               Following the receipt of a grant of £35m from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund, this report summarised the aims of the Expansion East Kent Programme and set out proposals for its operation and governance. Including the establishment of an Investment Advisory Board.

(2)               Both Mr Dance and Mrs Cooper spoke of the aims of this finance initiative which was to provide a source of funding to help develop the growth of businesses in East Kent and therefore increase business capacity and provide job creation. 

(3)       Following discussion Cabinet Resolved to note the report and approve the proposed governance arrangements for the Expansion East Kent Programme. Cabinet also approved the proposed membership of the Investment Advisory Board and noted there would be update reports to Cabinet Committees as appropriate.

(item 6 -  report by Mr Graham Gibbens, Cabinet Member for Adults Social Care and Public Health and Mr Andrew Ireland, Corporate Director for Families and Social Care,) 

See record of decision on page 5.

( – Report by Mr Mike Hill, Cabinet Member for Customer and Communities and Ms Amanda Honey, Corporate Director for Customer and Communities. Angela Slaven, the Director of Service Improvement, Customer and Communities was present for this item)

(As this report was not available at the time of the despatch of the main agenda the Chairman declared its consideration at this meeting to be urgent on the grounds that  that the County Council had only recently been advised by the Department of Communities and Local Government that it was required to give a formal commitment to the Troubled Families Programme and a indicative statement as to the number of families that Kent County Council and its Partner Agencies would l work with as part of the Programme. . 

 (1)        Kent was one of 16 Community Budget Pilot areas commissioned by the DCLG and this report set out the initial experience within Community Budgets and the current proposal with regard to tackling complex family issues. The adoption of the Troubled Families Framework in Kent was considered a pivotal plank of the Government’s agenda and the DCLG was keen for Kent to develop and endorse the programme bearing in mind particularly that the size of the county in terms of the number of families, placed it in the top ten authorities. 

(2)       Amanda Honey said this Programme was about looking at families where it was considered early intervention would help and be beneficial to them. The programme presented an opportunity of working with other agencies to bring about a step change in the way the issues often associated with troubled families are dealt with in future. As part of the programme there would be a focus of working with individual families and dealing with issues which can be associated with anti social behaviour, school absences and youth crime.  In all it was proposed the Programme should focus in its first year on some 1082 families.

(3)       Following further debate Cabinet resolved to endorse the proposals and as described in the report agreed the County Council should give a formal commitment to the Troubled Families Programme and a indicative statement as to the number of families that Kent County Council and its Partner Agencies would work with as part of the Programme.

 – Report by Mr Mike Whiting - Cabinet Member for Education Learning and Skills and Mr Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director Education Learning and Skills.

(1)               This report presented to Cabinet the report of the Select Committee which had looked at the experiences of young people looking to learn the skills which would prepare them for work and enable them to apply their learning in the workplace.

(2)                Mr Kit Smith, the Chairman of the Select Committee attended the meeting and presented the Committees findings and recommendations. He said the thread running through out this work was the need to address the apparent gap between the education system and what employers were looking for. There were signs of change and that had to continue with these issues being brought to the attention of central government and Ofsted).   Mr Carter spoke of the work which the County Council was already doing through its apprenticeship programme and other initiatives which looked to provide Kent jobs for Kent’s young people. Mr Whiting placed on record his thanks to the Select Committee for what he said was a very good and thorough report. He said he agreed there was a need to achieve a better matching between education provision with the requirements of business and this needed to be coordinated with Ofsted and representatives of the Business Community.

(3)               Following further discussion Cabinet placed on record it’s thanks to the Select Committee and its supporting officers for the report which would now be discussed further at the next meeting of the County Council.   

 – Report by Mr Mike Whiting, Cabinet Member for Education, Learning and Skills .and Mr Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director, Education, Learning and Skills

(1)               This report presented to Cabinet the report of the Select Committee which had been established to examine the reasons for variations in Key Stage 2 performance of all Kent Schools with a focus to those schools in areas of depravation.

(2)               Mr Chris Wells the Chairman of the Select Committee attended the meeting and presented the Committees findings and recommendations. Mr Wells said their findings showed depravation was a disadvantage, but the evidence showed there was an answerable challenge, and not an excuse for low attainment. Leadership and management in the education community had an important role to play and there were individual factors that needed to be looked at such as support to young people who were also carers. He also spoke of the importance of working with other partners who may be involved with some of those children who also needed support at school.  Mr Wells also spoke of the work of the Kent schools improvement model and the ‘Kent Challenge’’ which was a scheme designed to look at and improve outcomes in failing schools and the hope was this would provide a more strategic approach , with more effective cross school participation and Management. Mr Wells also placed on record his thanks to his fellow Committee Members and to the Research Officer who had supported them in undertaking this work

(3)               On behalf of Cabinet Mr Whiting thanked Mr Wells and his Committee for what was an important report which he wanted to see circulated around the education community. The Council was developing a policy document called Bold Steps for Education which would be looking at some of the very issues raised in the Select Committees report with the view to driving up standards.

(4)       Following further discussion Cabinet thanked Mr Wells and his Committee for their report which would now be discussed further at the July meeting of the County Council.                                                                                                                                                                               

(1)  Cabinet resolved that the Minutes of the meetings of the Children’s Services Improvement Panel held on 7March and 11 April be noted. Cabinet also noted that at the next Cabinet meeting there would be a report on the Transformation of Children’s Services.