Agenda item

(1)          The Leader updated the County Council on events since the previous meeting.

(2)          Mr Carter referred to the launch of the public consultation for the medium term budget proposals for the next three years.  He expressed the view that these had generally been well received.  He hoped that opposition Members were pleased with the content, which was a rigorous thrust to deliver effective and efficient services to residents and businesses making sure that best value was extracted from every council tax payer’s pound. He believed that the solutions that had been arrived at would allow the Council to pursue with rigour the continuous improvement of good quality frontline services.  He referred to what had been said by Mr Hill earlier in the meeting in relation to the community wardens.  This related to finding other ways of supplementing community wardens with community volunteer wardens.  There was also the potential for parish and town councils to precept if they wanted to retain the same or increased presence.

(3)          Mr Carter mentioned that the transformation agenda was gaining pace under the banner of Facing the Challenge and big decisions would be needed very soon. He therefore felt sure that Members would support the principle of establishing the all-party advisory board on commissioning which would be chaired by Mr Hotson, subject to the Council agreeing the recommendations later in the meeting. 

(4)          Mr Carter then referred to the need to focus on working towards the outcomes framework for the authority, which was currently scheduled to come to the December County Council meeting. That framework would start to articulate the outcomes required to achieve the component parts that made up the complex array of services and support that was delivered in Kent.   There was a need for clarity about the component parts of KCC’s business to ensure they were delivered in the most efficient and effective way.  He said that it was important to ensure that services were effective and efficient regardless of who was commissioned to provide them. Even if services were retained in house the same business rigour had to be applied to the way they were configured and delivered.  This message needed to pervade the whole organisation.  He stated that KCC needed to be much more commercial in how services were delivered.

(5)          Mr Carter mentioned the publication of “NHS Five Year Forward View” which had been produced by Simon Stevens (Chief Executive of NHS England).   The report majored on the point that there was no one size fits all solution and, therefore, there was no need for a homogenous delivery pattern across the NHS. This was very much in line with the direction of travel that KCC was taking in delivering social care and public health with clinical commissioning groups and providers such as the acute hospital trusts.  This document started to deliver the vision of good quality neighbourhood national health services and social care emphasising the role of community based preventative services.   It suggested that the Department of Health should allow different approaches rather than the one size fits all approach imposed by Whitehall, which inhibited innovation across the country.

(6)          Mr Carter then referred to devolution and the opportunity for county councils across the country to draw Westminster and Whitehall’s attention to the potential of local government.   Whitehall should be encouraged to empower good local decision making at the right local level. An example of this was the skills agenda where funding was determined by Whitehall and not by local businesses who were best placed to determine the courses that needed to be run to fit their skills requirements. In relation to skills for the public sector he referred to the need for skills training for the provision of community health services.

(7)          Mr Carter stated that he was working with the County Council Network (CCN) to draw the attention of ministers and shadow ministers to the art of the possible and to remind them of the track record county councils had established in saving significant amounts of public money.  This had been done through a rigorous efficiency drive to deliver more effective services. The “one place one budget” concept was beginning to gain traction. This was not just about a bit of devolution to city regions and thereby totally ignoring 40% of the rest of the country.  Total public expenditure in Kent was in excess of £10bn.  If the delivery of 5% efficiencies could be imposed along with the freedoms and flexibility to make good locally based decisions, it would save £500 million a year in the delivery of Kent public services.   The 5% over three years could equate to £30bn nationally if the knowledge gained was applied to other areas of significant public expenditure.

(8)          Mr Latchford, the Leader of the Opposition, congratulated Mr Wild on the award that he had been given.  On behalf of himself and Mr Birkby, Mr Latchford said that they had enjoyed representing their group at the Poppy Day Launch on 22 October and he referred to the excellent work of the Royal British Legion.

(9)          Mr Latchford responded to the Leader’s report by referring to the medium term budget proposals.  He stated that he accepted there would have to be significant cuts. In relation to the draft budget proposals and that he looked forward to the public response on what they perceived to be priority areas.  He went on to say that his group would monitor the situation and that at this stage it would be premature to make observations and recommendations.  However, he was able to say that already certain proposals did not meet with his Group’s approval.  He stated that with the national debt at an all-time high of £1.5 trillion and borrowing continuing to increase it was patently clear that there were many more challenges to come.

(10)        Mr Latchford mentioned that like all group leaders he had been grateful to have been included in the briefings on the transformation process and that all officers involved should be congratulated on facing such a complex task so professionally.  He stated that again there were areas of unease and although the opposition party would be supporting the commissioning framework and the continuing transformation process each step would be subject to scrutiny.

(11)       Mr Latchford then referred to devolution. Following the concessions promised during the Scottish referendum there was now a ground-swell of opinion to increase devolution in England.  He expressed support for devolution to second tier local authorities but recognised that it was early days and it was important that additional responsibilities were properly funded. He expressed the view that Parliament was basically governed by the European Union and that this would be a major issue in next year’s election.  He explained that his group supported the form of devolution where there was an English Parliament making decisions for the country as a whole on such issues as defence, foreign affairs, immigration and big infrastructure projects.  He stated that he did not see any other powers exercised by Parliament that could not be carried out in Kent.  In Kent there were 1.6m people which was more than some US states that had full powers.  He believed there was too much interference from Whitehall and that Kent should have more power devolved to it; however, it this must be properly funded.

(12)       Mr Latchford then mentioned the recently published “NHS Five Year Forward View” and stated that he was clear that much needed to be done to deliver good NHS services throughout the UK.

(13)       Mr Latchford concluded by saying that, although, he was present with other group leaders at the Manston Airport briefing, he was surprised that the Leader had not included this in his report. He believed that all Members should be apprised of this major issue.

(14)       Mr Cowan, Leader of the Labour Group, referred to the Medium Term Financial Plan and that KCC was entering this budget consultation with some £93m of cuts having to be made via next year’s budget.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer was supposed to have eliminated the budget deficit by this time and for there to be some easement in budget cuts.  However, the austerity programme continued and he expressed the view that if these policies continued the deficit might not be eliminated until 2020.  He would encourage as many people as possible to give their views in the budget consultation to help assess the budget proposals.

(15)       Mr Cowan stated that his group’s budget amendments would be designed to ease the burden on those on middle and low incomes.   He noted that in the budget consultation views were being sought on a Council Tax rise of 1.99%. His group was prepared to accept this increase providing that the £10m raised was spent on maintaining frontline services and specifically helped those in previously mentioned income groups.

(16)       Mr Cowan referred to the “NHS Five Year Forward View”.  He expressed the view that this should start at the bottom and then push through to the rest of the National Health Service.  He stated that the growing crisis in recruitment and retention of GPs was gaining increased attention in the media. A large proportion of GPs were in their 50s and GPs had an average retirement age of 59. Newly qualified doctors were less keen than their predecessors to take on the additional financial worries of a partnership and were reluctant to accept the unsociable, long hours of working as a GP.  He mentioned that Concordia Health, which ran surgeries in Dover and Thanet, had restructured their business and had requested the termination of their contract to provide these less profitable surgeries.  He emphasised that 90% of GPs were private contractors and were driven by the same need of all small businesses to turn a profit.   He agreed that the drive to have more practice nurses in GP surgeries was a sensible one.  However, there were problems of recruitment as most nurses were hospital rather than community trained.

(17)       Mr Cowan mentioned the transformation agenda. He stated that phase 1, due by May 2015, was critical in terms of the savings that had to be made and in ensuring that the Council was moving into a commissioning programme in the right way. 

(18)       Mr Cowan emphasised the importance of keeping control of the management of the transformation programme.  He believed that it would be better for KCC to keep control of in-house services and to retain a minimum of 51% of whatever was commission externally. 

(19)       Mr Cowan expressed the view that it was too early to discuss devolution.

(20)       Mrs Dean, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, referred to the budget consultation and stated that her group was not happy with this as it invited the population of Kent to vote for “motherhood and apple pie”. The consultation did not refer to specific service cuts or specific developments and, therefore, was not a budget consultation. Although Mr Latchford had made reference to budget proposals she had not yet seen a draft budget proposal.

(21)       Regarding the suggestions made by the Leader for the funding of the community wardens, Mrs Dean stated that if her parish council wished to pay for a community warden it would have to increase the parish precept by 300%.  She stated that parish councils did not have the facility to meet this kind of expenditure.  She mentioned that she had met with the Police and Crime Commissioner to ask whether it was possible for the parish council to pay for a police officer.  Mrs Dean had been strongly advised that such an officer would still be regarded as part of the general complement and there would be no guarantee therefore, that they would work in specific parishes.

(22)       Mrs Dean referred to devolution and welcomed the all-party support she anticipated for this during the debate later in the meeting.  She stated that devolution had been a central policy of the Liberal Democrat party for many years but that governments of all descriptions had been somewhat schizophrenic with regard to devolution. Governments could devolve and they could claw back control.  She mentioned the Localism Act was which supposed to provide control over planning decisions to the local communities.  However, the National Planning Policy Framework allowed the Secretary of State to sweep that aside.  As far as KCC was concerned Mrs Dean wondered how much of the devolution agenda could reasonably be handled when every service was part of a range of restructuring.  She stated that she preferred people in this Chamber rather than the people in Whitehall to be running services so the principle had to be right but the devil was in the detail.

(23)       In terms of commissioning and the outcomes framework Mrs Dean referred to two recent reports, which emphasised the gap between the rich and the poor in this country. A recent Cabinet Office report pointed out that the end of this decade might be the first when the attainment gap between children from poor families and those from wealthy families would have got worse rather than better.  The report suggested that a new focus was needed in national education policy to ensure that this gap was narrowed.  If there was not a new focus, it would take 20 years before the difference in the attainment gap could be halved.  She hoped that the Leader would agree that this was one of the priorities in the outcomes framework.

(24)       Mr Whybrow, Leader of the Independents’ Group, stated that he welcomed the CCN’s report on devolution.  He was concerned about the lack of publicity for the report and would like the Leader to confirm whether there had been a positive reaction to the report from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.  He believed that the report highlighted some anomalies in the allocation of monies across London, the cities and county councils.  The report also had some very good recommendations such as a five year budget settlement, fully integrated budgets and a Care Act reserve fund.

(25)       Mr Whybrow stated that he particularly liked what the CCN’s report said about Council Tax; it talked about revaluation and a review of the number of bands.  He expressed the view that at least one new Council Tax band should be introduced at the higher end.   He stated that for every £1 of additional tax raised by this government, it had made £9 of spending cuts.   The CCN had said that 87% of county councils said that their budget pressures were severe.  Finally the report said that local government finance was becoming increasingly unsustainable.  He believed that this should be given more publicity otherwise, without a major restructuring of the way in which local government was funded, the cuts that the Council had to make this year would become harder to achieve.

(26)       In replying to the other group leaders’ responses, Mr Carter stated that the CCN document was gaining real traction.  He stated that he and the chairman of the CCN had been invited to the Cabinet Office to meet Joseph Johnson MP.  Mr Johnson insisted that they spoke to Lord Heseltine and Greg Clerk MP regarding Local Enterprise Partnerships and general devolution to county councils.   Mr Johnson had also insisted that they had a high level meeting with the Treasury about the content of this document. 

(27)       Mr Carter agreed that in relation to devolution the devil was in the detail, the track record of being empowered with no money was quite a significant one.  He stated that it was not necessarily about the transfer of functions and powers to local government, it was also about having the influence to bring people together in a sensible way, to make partnerships deliver and having the necessary tools to take action if those partnerships did not come together. 

(28)       Mr Carter stated that he had been assured by Mr Gough that the educational attainment of those on free school meals had improved in last 12 months. KCC had been focusing on this for some time.

(29)       In relation to retaining services in-house, Mr Carter stated that there were many voluntary, charitable and community organisations that needed to be empowered who may then be able to provide some services better than the in-house provider. The adoption service was an example of this; the adoption statistics had been greatly improved by the transfer of that function to another body.

(30)     Mr Carter stated that all group leaders had received a briefing by David Smith, Director of Economic Development, on KCC’s position on the future of Manston Airport and the suggestion that there may or may not be a Compulsory Purchase Order.  If Members would like a briefing, David Smith would be pleased to assist.

(31)     Regarding the relationship with Europe and the future potential of that relationship, Mr Carter stated that before the referendum took place there was a need to have a sensible debate around what the strengths and positives had been and issues that may be to our detriment.