Minutes:
(1) The Leader dedicated the majority of his speech to the three substantive items on the agenda, the Dilnot Commission; the Peer Review of Children’s Services; and the motion for time limited debate.
(2) He stated he was delighted to see that when the National Apprenticeship Service published its figures for apprenticeships across the South East, Kent was far and beyond all other authorities in the South East of England with a massive and dramatic increase in the number of apprenticeships in Kent, some 39% more young people aged 16-25 in modern apprenticeships than the previous 12 months before that, showing the build up and success of Kent Jobs for Kent Young People.
(3) The Leader stated a second piece of very good news was the recent announcement of the Regional Growth Fund bid, known as the TIGER bid, for the Thames Gateway, led by the Thames Gateway Kent Partnership and Kent County Council and also involved Thurrock Council.
(4) With reference to the Peer Review of Children’s Services, the Leader stated that he had been interviewed fairly intensively by the LGA peer review team and attended the feedback session at the end of the week and he had congratulated the Member and Officer team on a job well done at the end of that week.
(5) With regard to the Dilnot Commission, the Leader stated that he hoped that the whole County Council would endorse the recommendations urging, as a united front, the government in many ways to introduce Dilnot by 2015.
(6) Finally he stated that he and his group would be voting against the motion tabled for later during the meeting.
(7) In her response Mrs Dean stated that she agreed with the Council’s stance on Dilnot in particular and agreed that the increase in the number of apprenticeships in Kent in the past twelve months was very good news. With regard to the Thames Gateway Mrs Dean stated she was delighted that KCC had won that as it seemed to her to be exactly the kind of development that should go on in Kent if it was done in the right way.
(8) She stated that Mr Carter had misconstrued the meaning and purpose of the motion for time limited debate, which may not have been drafted as concisely as it should have been. She stated that she did not oppose at all the need to renegotiate the Section 106 agreements, indeed in response to Mr Carter’s report Mrs Dean suggested a meeting between an Administration spokesman and Mr Chittenden to put together a motion that both sides could agree on as she was sure that neither she nor Mr Carter wanted to see the removal of those powers.
(9) Mr Christie spoke in response to the Leader on behalf of Mr Cowan. With regard to the Peer Review Mr Christie stated that he had not been interviewed and this had been a shame; and with reference to the Dilnot Commission he stated he would wait for the debate other than to say that he agreed entirely with the timescale. Mr Christie then turned to a couple of issues that Mr Carter had touched on in relation to children’s issues; Birmingham City Council had been found to be inadequate in the provision and safeguarding of children’s services and Mr Carter had misled the Council at its previous meeting about Looked After Children’s statistics.
(10) Mr Christie stated that he was surprised that the Leader had not mentioned in his report the prospect of the Paramount resort at Swanscombe, Northfleet.
(11) During his right of reply, the Leader welcomed the fact that all parties were in agreement at the success of the apprenticeship programme to date. He stated that he had had no intention of misleading the County Council at the previous meeting. He had been advised that the number of Looked After Children had gone down by some 25, if this was due to numbers being counted slightly differently that needed to be explained to him. The Leader suggested the motion for time limited debate on today’s agenda could be withdrawn, subject to Mrs Dean’s views and that working together a collective note to Mr Pickles could be produced stating what the Council’s thinking was around the planning flexibilities.
(12) He apologised for leaving out the Paramount announcement. He stated he was only too aware of it and had done an interview with BBC South East in the Conference Centre in Birmingham on the subject.