Minutes:
Each Cabinet Member was invited to update Cabinet on recent events within their portfolio:
Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services:
- The revenue budget was near completion;
- Infrastructure – 2 major projects were being developed and there was a five-year plan for asset utilisation;
- Traded Services – completing restructure into HoldCo.
Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health:
- Public Health decision to extend the partnership with Kent Community Foundation Trust for five years;
- Adult Social Care – Mrs Bell had been on a number of visits around the county as well as attended training sessions, conferences and events;
- Winter pressures – latest DToC figures were below target but there was some strong teamwork with excellent communication and an ongoing recognition of community services;
- There was a three year programme to ensure sustainability in the system to continue to respond to challenges.
Cabinet Member for Education and Skills:
- Provisional school results for KS4 & KS5 showed that attainment in Kent Schools had increased for the third year running;
- Proportion of children achieving strong passes and standard passes continued to increase – the detail of this would be shared with the CYPE Committee and others at the appropriate times;
- School funding – KCC was set to receive approx. £52million for 2021;
- Provision planning - a growing school age population required school sizes to increase and a number of schools had increased in size;
- Kent Commissioning Plan for Education Provision 2020 would be discussed at the CYPE Cabinet Committee on 10 January 2020. The Leader confirmed that the Commissioning Plan would also be discussed at Cabinet in due course.
Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services:
- There was a significant emphasis on the SEND agenda with considerable progress involving parents and carers;
- An award for Resilience and Emotional Wellbeing had been presented to Ashford Oaks school following work through the Headstart programme;
- Mrs Chandler attended the Kent Association of Head Teachers Conferences which included an excellent presentation from VSK’s young people.
Cabinet Member for Communications, Engagement and People:
- The budget consultation ran between 16 October and 25 November, the communications campaign objectives were to increase public engagement in the consultation and increase public understanding in a number of areas including pressures on KCC and the services provided and what it cost to provide them. 1360 responses had been received;
- The consultation was promoted in a variety of ways and the Cabinet Member offered thanks to all those who contributed to the consultation;
- The staff survey had been shared across KCC, this covered 13 distinct areas and response rates from staff were high;
- 8 new graduates had recently been welcomed onto the graduate scheme.
Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services:
- The library strategy had been implemented following a county wide review of opening hours;
- There had been nearly 100,000 visitors to the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate since the Turner Prize exhibition had opened there, which was an excellent boost to the area;
- Trading Standards – the Ports Team at Dover had dealt with over 200 referrals involving nearly a million products, a quarter of which were prevented from entering the UK;
- In Ashford the Javelin Way development would start in the new year and finish in December 2021.
Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport:
- Following a successful trial using electric park and ride buses Kent teamed up with Renault to provide the first electric mini-bus in England, centred around Paddock Wood;
- KCC signed up to a joint declaration for the low carbon transition of the maritime industry;
- Road resurfacing project: £25million of the £29million programme had already been delivered with the remainder being delivered after winter;
- The LED conversion project was substantially complete ensuring continued energy saving and carbon reduction;
- Regarding windmills, demonstrable progress could be shown.
Cabinet Member for Environment:
- Referring to the Low Energy Strategy consultation 365 responses had been received, 1370 people had downloaded the consultation document;
- The level of engagement in this new portfolio had been very encouraging and even more good progress would be made.
Cabinet Member for Economic Development:
- The ambition was that Kent needed to be best place to live, work, learn, invest in and visit and Economic Development worked with groups internally and externally to help make those ambitions a reality;
- There were a number of excellent business support programmes in Kent and these helped business establish in Kent. The Cabinet Member passed on his congratulations to Visit Kent and others on their Silver Award for Kent as the best place for young people to visit;
- The award winning ‘no use empty’ scheme was delivering 500 new homes per year and was expanding into commercial premises delivering additional council tax and business rate revenue.
RESOLVED that Cabinet note the verbal updates from Cabinet Members.