Minutes:
(1) The Leader stated his intention to update the Council on events since the previous meeting including, operation stack, unaccompanied asylum seeking young people and local government devolution.
(2) Mr Carter referred to operation stack and the increase in unaccompanied asylum seeking children into the County. He expressed his thanks to staff in highways and children’s services who had done an extraordinary job in supporting all these pressures.
(3) In relation to operation stack, Mr Carter stated that the deliberations of the stakeholder group chaired by Mr Balfour were now being considered by the Department of Transport and Highways England. It was hoped that government investment would be able to deliver a marshalling park able to hold 3,000 to 4,000 lorries and further work on the strategic logistics of managing in excess of 7,000 HGVs at any one time. A solution needed to be achieved which, kept the Queen’s Highway in Kent open at all times to remove disruption to travellers and businesses.
(4) Mr Carter then referred to the asylum issue and set out the context of the challenge facing the County Council. Up until approximately 9 months ago the County Council had been responsible for 250 to 350 unaccompanied asylum seeking young people both below and above the age of 18. The County Council now had a duty of care for 1122 young people and this duty would continue in a number of cases for up to 4 years. This was generating an additional revenue cost to the County Council in the region of £6m to £7m. He mentioned the announcement that had been made by Mr Clark, MP, acting on behalf of the Cabinet, that all reasonable costs placed on local authorities by accommodating those asylum seeking young people arriving in Kent would be met by Central Government as part of a voluntary distribution mechanism. A Cabinet Sub-Committee chaired by Mr Clark, MP and including David Simmonds from the LGA was working closely on a national dispersal system. He had written to the Home Secretary and made it clear that it was impossible to continue to manage the ongoing responsibilities of that number of asylum seekers and that the voluntary distribution mechanism had not worked. Therefore the Cabinet Sub-Committee needed to work on a solution for a national distribution network. This was a matter of urgency for Kent as the number of unaccompanied asylum seeking young people coming into the County would start to disrupt the placement of Kent’s own vulnerable young people due to the impact upon the number of foster care placements, accommodation etc. In this time of local government austerity, Kent’s reasonable cost for asylum seeking young people needed to be met.
(5) Mr Carter referred to the 20,000 Syrian refugees that had been promised entry to the UK during the life of this Parliament. These would be vulnerable people from the camps who had been displaced from their homes due to the crisis in that area. The LGA anticipated that local authorities would take the lead in co-ordinating the settlement plans for these individuals when they arrived in the UK.
(6) Mr Carter then moved on to the Annual Spending Review and expressed concern about the sustainable medium term plan for this authority. It was essential to make sure that central government understood the implications of further draconian cuts being placed upon local authorities especially those with social care responsibilities, including the inextricable link between hospital services, hospital discharges and good quality care provision. It was important to have investment and support from a strong domiciliary care market and most importantly for local government to have the funding to support those services. He stated that in his new role as Chairman of the County Council’s Network (CCN) he was making the Treasury and Government Ministers aware of the consequences of further draconian local government cuts and what the consequences of those cuts would be over the medium term.
(7) Mr Latchford, the Leader of the Opposition, congratulated Mr Carter on his appointment as Chairman of the CCN. In relation to local government devolution, he referred to the government’s aim to devolve powers from Whitehall which was the most radical change to local government in a generation. As at 4 September 2015, 38 devolution proposals had been put forward for UK cities and counties, which illustrated that central government was serious about devolution. He referred to the Leader’s stated first priority being devolution, although Kent had not been one of the first 38 Councils who had submitted an application. He asked the Leader when Kent would be submitting an application for consideration.
(8) Mr Latchford then referred to the serious moral issue of the refugee crisis which needed to be addressed. He highlighted the major role that Kent had already played in support for unaccompanied young people and also refugees who had chosen to locate in Kent. He mentioned the sensible approach taken by government in taking refugees from the camps on the Syrian border. Local government, especially in Kent had an excellent record of supporting refugees, but this did place an additional burden on already over stretched education, health and housing services.
(9) In relation to the spending review, Mr Latchford referred to the extreme pressures that the County Council were under in trying to provide services with annual reductions in government grant. He expressed acceptance of the need to change the way that things were done including commissioning of services. He stated that his Group would be looking in detail at the draft Budget.
(10) Regarding operation stack, Mr Latchford reminded the Council that it had been 27 years since its introduction and referred to the serious effect that it had had on the national and international haulage industry and on UK imports and exports. He stated that the solution was lorry parks, not just in Kent, funded by central government who received an enormous income from the haulage industry in road tax, fuel tax and foreign vehicle tax. The Government had selected Manston as a lorry park and he referred to the facilities being placed there for lorries. He had been assured by the Leader that the facilities were being provided at no cost to the County Council. He referred to the six month Government Development Order that had been placed on Manston which would help Thanet District Council with their Compulsory Purchase Order negotiations. He referred to the proposed route via the A299 for lorries using Manston and the traffic implications and stated that the MP for Thanet and local residents did not support this plan. He concluded by stating that operation stack was not new and what was needed was a clear plan and government investment.
(11) Mr Cowan, Leader of the Labour Group, agreed with Mr Carter regarding the excellent work of staff in relation to operation stack and asylum seeking young people. He referred to the increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children using figures from the Kent Children’s Safeguarding Board annual report. This had showed an increase of almost 100% from 31 March 2015 to 3 September 2015. He understood that the government had paid a contribution toward unaccompanied asylum seeking children in general. However, he considered the most important issues were making sure that these children were assessed within the stipulated time and given the care and attention that they needed at an extremely difficult time in their lives. He also mentioned the KCC buildings, such as Millbank and the Swattenden Centre, which were being used to house young asylum seekers and the part played by communities to support refugees.
(12) In relation to operation stack, he referred to the previous County Council meeting where he had made it clear that he did not support the use of Manston as a lorry park. He emphasised the local traffic disruption caused by lorries using the A256, and the A2 in addition to the impact that this would have on Jubilee Way at Dover Docks. He mentioned that the 32 days of operation stack in 2015 had cost in the region of £700k with the loss of £250m a day to the economy. He asked who would be paying for the long term solution and when it would start. He referred to the new funding stream of £200m available to the government since 1 April 2014 and expressed the view that the funding for the lorry parks should come from this source, with the lorry parks being free or the price included in the ferry etc. ticket to encourage their use.
(13) Mrs Dean, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, also congratulated Mr Carter on his position at the CCN and she had been pleased to see some of the statements that he had made on behalf of Kent in relation to asylum seekers and operation stack.
(14) Regarding operation stack, she asked Mr Carter whether KCC thought that using Manston as a lorry park was a good or bad idea, as she had not seen any statement to that effect. KCC as the Highway Authority should have a view. She congratulated Mr Balfour and Mr Carter for convincing government that operation stack was not just a Kent problem and hoped that they would be able to convince government that the cost of meeting it should come from the Dartford Crossing and the Brit Disc not KCC.
(15) In relation to asylum seekers, she referred to previous promises from government to pay for all burdens on local government and therefore she was not convinced that government would meet all reasonable costs. She asked for clarification of whether this government’s commitment took into account that before the latest asylum seekers situation, the government had cut the funding for asylum seeking children by 20%.
(16) In conclusion, she referred to devolution, she questioned the commitment of government to devolution based on its relationship with local government, for example capping of local authority budgets and enabling the setting up of free schools and academies.
(17) Mr Whybrow, Leader of the Independents Group, stated that in relation to the refugee crisis he hoped that we would start to receive refugees sooner rather than later and expressed concern at the government’s 5 year time span for receiving 20,000 refugees. He was also not convinced that the government would provide full funding for the massive increase in the number of young asylum seekers. He commended the work of Mr Oakford and officers in setting up centres at Ladesfield and Swattenden and stated that Kent could be proud of the welcome given to groups and individual refugees. He welcomed the support given to refugees by residents who had set up a welcome to Ladesfield group. He referred to the wonderful work done by the Kent Refugee Action Network, the Red Cross and local residents to support and mentor refugees.
(17) In relation to devolution he expressed the view that there was a risk that more powers would be devolved to local government but without the associated funding.
(18) In replying to the other Leaders’ comments, Mr Carter referred to devolution, he explained that there had been a deadline of 4 September 2015 for those local authorities that wanted to come together as a combined authority and supported a directly elected mayor for their area. He stated that no application for Kent had been submitted as Kent Districts and Medway Council did not have an appetite for a combined authority and he did not think that many County Councillors wanted a directly elected Mayor for Kent. At the CCN he had not found one County Council which was in favour of a directly elected mayor. The House of Lords had rejected the idea of enforcing directly elected mayors and it would be interesting to see what happened when the bill got its first reading in the House of Commons.
(19) He stated that it was his role on behalf of the CCN to convince Government Ministers of the impact that having local government, with its extraordinary track record of delivering efficiency and reform could have on public sector reform in their areas, using Health and Social integration skills money as a prime example. He hoped early in the New Year that Kent would set out its ambitious proposals as to how public sector performance could take place in Kent with the agreement of partners in order to spend the £8 billion of public money in this county to deliver better and improved outcomes for residents. His plea to Ministers was not to get caught up in the governance arrangements but to start to explore the art of the possible, with local government having greater reach and influence in how public sector services were delivered in their area. It was necessary to work on this with Kent Districts who had different ambitions for joint working and putting that together into a good proposition from Kent and Medway which would not involve a combined local authority nor a directly elected mayor.
(20) In relation to the asylum and refugee issues he hoped that local government could respond on a voluntary basis but that would depend upon government meeting all reasonable costs. Government were talking about using the foreign aid budget for the first year and he hoped that in the spending review the Chancellor would announce additional revenue to support the 20,000 refugees as they arrived in the Country. He referred to the vulnerability and age group of the people who would be arriving. It would be difficult to scope what was needed across the county of Kent, to support very young to elderly people with complex needs. He hoped that Kent would be able to respond on a voluntary basis but a re-assurance from government that costs would be met was needed. He expressed his gratitude to those local authorities who had voluntarily placed 33 young asylum seekers in their areas but expressed disappointment that other local authorities had not volunteered.
(21) Regarding operation stack, Mr Carter explained that the decision to use Manston had been made by government. Thankfully operation stack had not taken place since this decision had been taken and therefore this temporary solution had yet to be tested. He stated that he had mentioned to the Secretary of State for Transport that a whole network of lorry parks across the country was much needed but particularly in Kent. Kent was materially affected by being the main corridor route to mainland Europe through the port of Dover and Folkestone. Mr Balfour and his team were working on how to get an increased network of lorry parks, and Mr Carter expressed the opinion that if these were properly implemented they could be self-funding.