Agenda and minutes

The Leader of the Council, Mr Paul Carter, welcomed Cabinet Members and guests to the meeting of Cabinet.  He reminded those present that, as was customary, the meeting would be webcast and advised that in the interest of fairness in the pre-election period a spokesperson from both of the opposition groups had been invited to sit at the table and to speak during the meeting.

Mr Dan Daley, on behalf of Trudy Dean and the Liberal Democrat Group and Mr Gordon Cowan, leader of the Labour Group were in attendance as a result.

The minutes of the meeting held on 18 March 2013 were agreed and signed by the Chairman as a true record.

(Item 6 – report by Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Performance and Health Reform and Mr David Cockburn, Corporate Director for Business Strategy and Support )

Cabinet considered a report regarding the annual business plans for each Directorate for the next financial year (2013/14).  The report detailed the process to date for information, and the final plans for approval.  

The Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Performance and Health Reform, Mr Roger Gough, introduced the report to Cabinet and in particular he referred to the following:

(i)        That the business planning process had been subject to incremental improvements over the last year and had further built on the success of 2012/13.  Of particular benefit had been the stronger links with divisional business planning and earlier engagement with Cabinet Committees.

(ii)       That the Corporate Risk process had also evolved over recent months and was now linked to business plans to encourage more effective planning and risk management activities.

Head of Policy ? Strategic Relationships, Mr Whittle attended and spoke to the item, he further confirmed the cyclical nature of the business planning process by reporting to Cabinet that the review of the process for 2013/14 would begin immediately with internal audit.  In addition feedback would be sought from senior managers in order that any lessons learnt could be incorporated into the 2014/15 process.

In response to a question from the Leader of the Council, Mr Whittle reported that Cabinet Committees received 6 monthly and annual update reports on the delivery of Business Plans and in order to further facilitate this in the 2013/14 plans the link between the performance indicators and Divisional Dashboards monitored regularly by Cabinet Committees had been strengthened.

The Leader opened the item for comments and questions and heard from the following Cabinet Members:

The Cabinet Member for Customer and Communities, Mr Mike Hill welcomed the further co-ordinated approach which had helped to deliver cross-cutting objectives.  He was reassured that the corporate approach of streamlining and cross-cutting delivery had been mirrored within his own directorate where services had been integrated to the extent that they now numbered 12 from 21.

The Cabinet Member for Education, Learning and Skills, Mr Mike Whiting also welcomed the new approach as an improvement and reported that within the Education Directorate the Business Plan and targets were directly linked to Bold Steps for Kent and Bold Steps for Education objectives.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support, Mr John Simmonds echoed the views of the previous speakers and particularly congratulated the close work between the Finance directorate and all other directorates 

It was RESOLVED:

(Item 7 – report of Mr Mike Whiting, Cabinet Member for Education, Learning and Skills and Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

Cabinet received a report detailing the outcome of the consultation on the proposed admission arrangements and scheme for transfer to Primary and Secondary schools in 2014 and the proposed process for non-co-ordinated In-Year admissions.  The report contained recommendations for acceptance and approval, dependant on the status of the schools concerned, for the In-Year admission process, the admission arrangements for the 2014/15 school year and the co-ordinated schemes for Primary and Secondary Admissions in Kent.

The Cabinet Member for Education Learning and Skills introduced the report and drew the attention of Cabinet to the following salient points:

(i)        That this report fulfilled an annual statutory requirement and aimed to co-ordinate school admissions for all state maintained schools in the County.

(ii)       That the environment within which school places were now planned had become more complex, however the Council was still responsible for the co-ordination of those places.  The scheme had been successful to date with improved results for children and parents in Kent

The Corporate Director of Education, Learning and Skills, Patrick Leeson, at the request of the Leader, focused on the changes between the document for consideration and the previous scheme.  He reported the changes below:

(i)        He confirmed that Cabinet was required to approve the admission arrangements for voluntary and controlled schools and to determine the co-ordinated scheme for the County.  All schools had agreed to be part of the scheme.

(ii)       That the document this year included for the first time the creation of a link between Thurnham Infant School and Roseacre Junior School in order that those children that had attended the infant school would have priority at Roseacre, on the same site.  A proposal to create a catchment area had been strongly opposed and therefore not progressed, however the Director recommended that it be kept under review and should it be necessary a statutory consultation be undertaken.

The Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, Mrs Whittle, spoke to the item, she made the following comments:

(i)        In relation to Thurman Infant School; the expansion of the near-by St John’s school had been welcomed by residents.  However dwellings in the area continued to be subject to expansion in order to create enlarged family homes.  This year four Bearstead families and two Thurnam families did not get in to local schools.  This was an improvement on last year, down by two thirds.

(ii)       That consultation undertaken should be conducted again as in the previous exercise only parents of children at the schools had been included and not those parents with children at the preschool. She argued that a public meeting was needed regarding the creation of a priority area and its potential location. There was continued anxiety in Bearstead Park about such a plan but the data when investigated showed that those parents most concerned would still have been preferred.

(iii)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

(Item 8 – report of the Leader of the County Council)

The Cabinet received a report of the Leader of the Council seeking approval to commission a report researching the likelihood of Bulgarian and Romanian nationals settling in Kent when transitional restrictions on the free movement of labour, currently in place for these nations, was lifted on 1^st January 2014.  In addition should the report find that this was likely, it would consider the potential impacts on Kent County Council and any strategic planning that may be necessary.

Mr Carter introduced the report for Cabinet, he explained:

·    That he had requested that this issue be brought to Cabinet for consideration as, alongside other changes currently in progress, such as those affecting the benefit system and the potential impact on the affordability of homes in London or the placement of vulnerable young people in Kent by London Boroughs, there was increasing potential for the demographics of Kent to shift dramatically.

·    That the debate regarding immigration from A2 nations had largely focused on the potential impact to the South East of England and London.  Kent had featured particularly as a gateway county and the opportunity for Bulgarians or Romanians to arrive via the county and then settle here was real.  Predictions were not available but information contained within the report regarding the A8 states could provide a guide.

·    The combination of all factors mentioned must be monitored in order that the county took only its fair share of challenging families and communities, or received additional support from the government.  Kent County Council would continue to campaign for additional resources.  To this end the council had already pursued two actions; firstly written correspondence had been entered into with the Prime Minister to highlight current concerns and suggested solutions and secondly officers had been instructed to monitor the impact of the changes already in place.  This report would further the strategic planning in place by seeking to commission further research.

·    In addition to the County level approach, the Prime Minister had spoken of creating limiting access to healthcare and benefits on arrival for those immigrants arriving from the A2 nations and this may help to further manage the numbers of people who arrive. 

Mr David Whittle, Head of Policy and Strategic Relations was in attendance to speak to the report, having authored it, and brought the following points to the attention of Cabinet:

·    That the work conducted to date had been conducted against a very low evidence base. Access to information held nationally was restricted and that lack of evidence presented challenges.

·    That the reason that debate to date had focused largely on the impact of the movement of A2 nationals on the South East of England and London was owing to the expected economic nature of the migration and  the relative economic success of those areas in comparison to the rest of the country.  In addition it was predicted immigrants would seek to join established communities and these were already located  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

(Item 9 – report of Mr John Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support and Mr A Wood, Corporate Director of Finance and Procurement)

Cabinet received an exception report, which detailed the main movements in the financial position of Kent County Council since cabinet last received a full quarterly monitoring report in March 2013.

Mr Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support introduced the report to Cabinet and in particular drew attention to the following information pertaining to the Revenue budget:

·    That there had been an increase in the underspend of £750,000 and it now totalled £9.25 million excluding schools.  He reminded members that £5 million was already committed in the recently approved budget for 2013/14 and that £2 million had been rolled forward to re-phased projects.  There remained a small underspend to carry forward into difficult economic times and he thanked the Directorates for the careful way in which they had conducted spending and managed efficiency savings.

·    That there were no signs that the picture would be significantly different in the following month, not reported here and it was likely that the underspend report at the end of the year would be as predicted.

·    Education, Learning and Skills Directorate, largely owing to the popularity of the Freedom Pass, continued to see a reduction in the Home to School transport costs but this was largely negated by the increase in demand for SEN home to school transport

·    Specialist Children’s Services spending remained constant, with no indication that numbers would reduce in the future.

He continued to describe changes to the Capital programme as follows:

·    The Capital Budget over three years remained healthy at £6.68 million an achievement of which he was proud in the current economic climate.  He further reported a variation of £1.325 million.

·    That there had been significant re-phasing of projects after the 2013/14 budget had been announced.  This level of re-phasing was normal and the result of issues such as delays to being in a position to apply for planning permission for example.

·    A potential issue that cabinet members should be aware of was negotiations to determine final contract costs for the Cyclopark project and whether an overspend would be required. This would be reported once final costs were known.

The Leader reiterated the gratitude expressed by Mr Simmonds to each Directorate for their hard work and in particular Mr Wood and the Finance Directorate for helping to create a healthy budget in difficult circumstances.

Mr Daley, representing the Liberal Democrat group commented that the new session may bring a chance to debate how some of the underspend could be spent in the future.

Mr Cowan, Leader of the Labour group sought clarification of the number of children in care and Mr Wood confirmed that the numbers were relatively static.  A small increase could be identified but was not significant in financial terms. 

Mr Ireland confirmed that although the numbers fluctuated slightly from week to week but over a longer period it was static as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.