Minutes:
(1) The Leader announced that, despite the number of tragic and untimely deaths in recent weeks, he felt it was good to focus on some of the good things that have been going on in the county since the last meeting at the end of March, as well as identifying one or two clouds on the horizon. He felt sure that all those representing the West Kent area were delighted to hear the announcement by the Roads minister following the persistent lobbying that Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Kent County Council and the MP Greg Clark have carried out to try and bring forward the A21 dualling scheme.
(2) The Leader informed the Council of a very successful launch of the Expansion East Kent programme, giving detail around how KCC intend to go about fully utilising the £35m of Regional Growth Fund to stimulate and support economic growth in East Kent; with interest free loans to businesses of all shapes and sizes, provided they can take on more employees and they can grow the economy of East Kent, both the indigenous businesses of East Kent and encouraging new business start ups and getting inward investment to the area. He stated he was very pleased to announce that 133 bids had been for received to be recipients of the Regional Growth Fund. There would now be a series of sifting processes to ensure backing and support for the right business cases to enable KCC to recycle time and time again as much from this fund as possible.
(3) He also spoke about the additional £5m that would be utilised in addition to the £35m to secure the rail upgrade for High Speed 1 trains from Ashford and Canterbury through to East Kent.
(4) At the recent Kent 2020 business conference at Detling, the Leader launched the programme of ‘Kent Jobs for Kent Young people’ with an aim to double the number of apprenticeships for those aged 16-24 that are on offer across both public sector organisations and private businesses. It is intended to be a real marketing campaign to wake up all public sector organisations and private businesses to open their doors to give young people job opportunities and be good for young people and good for business. The Leader spoke about the pooling of government subsidies that are there to help to support employers as well as fully utilising £2m of the Big Society Fund to do exactly that. He was pleased to say there have been 80 new contacts from employers who have already pledged 90 new apprenticeships and there are already 7 new young people in modern apprenticeships that would not have otherwise had those jobs had the campaign not started. This, the Leader said, was one of a package of support mechanisms that were being introduced to make sure the Council does all it can alongside other public bodies to give young people the best training and skills for full time employment in the Kent economy.
(5) The Leader announced that, since the last County Council and the debate on the new governance arrangements, many of the new Cabinet Committees had now had their first meeting. These Cabinet Committees are there to focus on policy development, pre-scrutiny of the big decisions in the forward plan and also to make sure that there is an intelligent cycle of performance management through them. He stated that he would be working with the Chairmen of the Cabinet Committees and Cabinet Members on what was appropriate for Informal Member Groups and sub groups to those Cabinet Committees.
(6) The Leader stated that he was absolutely delighted that Kent County Council had been chosen as one of the only 16 government Troubled Familiespilot. He stated that, as had been said before, there was a need to change that name because it sounded both condescending and demeaning. The Council has signed up to the full Troubled Families programme where there will be 1082 families in need of extra support geared at improving attendance at school, reducing permanent exclusions, reducing criminality and antisocial behaviour and supporting family members into full time employment and off benefits.
(7) He stated that this was a massive task. The programme would start in the autumn of this year and the Council will have to use all its creativity and innovation to work out how it is going to help and support those families to achieve the targets set by government. He was pleased to say that there was some £3m of forward funding for the first year to facilitate this and he was absolutely convinced that a significant part of the solution in delivering that support would be through joined up, integrated support services around the community based budget concept. He said there was a need for support to families with young children under the age of 11 and 12 to be joined up with working together with GPs, the service delivery out of Children’s Centres and the new £400k investment in health visitors that are going to be brought in to help those families with young children across the county.
(8) The Leader stated that the Council needed to watch closely the talk of building an estuary airport and having more influence and control over the way train services are delivered, potentially at the detriment of Kent commuters.
(9) Finally the Leader spoke about the proposal to consult with the residents of Shepway on a significant nuclear waste dump on Romney Marsh. He stated that his Group was totally and utterly opposed to this proposition and he assured the residents of Kent that his administration would do all it could to stop this proposition as fast as possible and avoid blighting the beautiful county of Kent and inhibiting the exciting potential for the East Kent economy in future years.