Minutes:
1. Mr Watkins, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, provided an update on the following:
(a) Each year on 21st June the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association join with the wider MND community, including professionals and volunteers involved in the planning and delivery of health and social care services to honour both those living with MND and their carers. Mr Watkins attended the event which was held at the University of Kent and received a number of requests to ensure that those suffering with MND received the required care and support in a timely fashion. Mr Watkins confirmed that this work would be followed up accordingly with officers.
Alcohol Awareness Week ran from 1st to 7th July 2024. Many people in the UK drank sensibly, and a growing number did not drink at all. However, around a quarter of adults in England and Scotland, including 300,000 residents in Kent, regularly consumed more than the recommended 14 units a week. A reduction in alcohol consumption had a number of both short-term and long-term benefits, including better sleep, healthier weight, lower blood pressure and reduced the risk of some cancers developing. The Know your score quiz offered practical steps on measuring and monitoring alcohol consumption; however, for those looking for support, Kent County Council (KCC) offered the One You Kent Service which could be accessed via the initial online referral form. KCC also commissioned specialist treatment. Forward Trust ran the East Kent Community Drug and Alcohol Service while Change Grow Live delivered the West Kent Drug and Alcohol Wellbeing Service.
(b) Both KCC and Medway Council were backing calls from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and NHS for pregnant mums to get vaccinated against whooping cough to protect their babies. Cases continued to rise across England and infants who were too young to start their vaccinations were at greater risk. Parents of babies over 8 weeks old were also urged to get their young children protected against the disease that is caused by a bacterial infection of the lungs and breathing tubes, and which could cause serious problems including pneumonia and seizures. In rare cases it could be fatal. Mr Watkins urged those who were pregnant and who had not been vaccinated, along with those who had a child who had not been vaccinated to contact their GP practice.
2. Mr Love, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, provided an update on the following:
(a) Mr Love attended the MJ Awards ceremony which acknowledged the tremendous efforts of those in local government and the difference they made to the communities they served. Mr Love paid tribute to Sarah Hammond, Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education who was recognised as ‘highly commended’ for her achievements in the ‘Corporate Director of the Year’ category.
(b) Mr Charlie Guthrie, Chief Executive Officer of Endeavour Multi-Academy Trust had been appointed as Chair to the Pathways for All Post-16 Board. Collaborative working would continue to ensure that young people of all interests and abilities could access provision closer to where they lived.
(c) KCC’s statutory SEND services continued to improve. In June 32.3% of Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were completed within 20 weeks, a rise of 30 percentage points since the service reforms were put in place, and the service was on target to ensure that no child or young person would be waiting over 30 weeks for an EHCP by September 2024. Progress continued and the beneficial impacts of the reforms were now starting to come to fruition.
(d) Mr Love visited a number of schools and educational provisions across North Kent including the three schools on the Sevenoaks education campus. Mr Love paid homage to KCC for the historical work undertaken to bring two new grammar school buildings to a town previously deprived of grammar schools. The visit highlighted the impressive teaching and learning at all sites and reinforced the reason as to why Kent schools continued to outperform the national average as confirmed by Ofsted data.
(e) Mrs Hamilton (Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills) attended the new wing at Jubilee Primary School in Maidstone which marked the ten year anniversary of the Free school.
(f) Aquila, the Diocese of Canterbury Academies Trust also celebrated its tenth year anniversary with a service at All Saints Church in Maidstone to which Mr Love was invited to attend. The 16 schools within the Trust put forward a number of pupils to sing in a choir of 160 young voices which Mr Love remarked was a moment of shared joy.
3. Mr Baker, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, provided an update on the following:
(a) Kent County Council’s (KCC) Structures and Tunnels Asset Manager, Helen Rowe, was included in the Women’s Engineering Society’s Top 50 Women in Engineering (WE50) list of winners for 2024.The yearly award takes place every International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June and celebrated women who were trailblazers in the world of engineering. Mr Baker offered his congratulations and said that anyone living in or visiting Kent benefited from the Helen’s work.
(b) The £8.6m pothole blitz was progressing well. A of 21st June a total of 138,557.61 sqm had been completed and would continue into mid-October prior to entering into the winter service period.
- 4110 potholes had been filled
- 77% of works had been raised and passed to contractors
- 62% of work had been completed across the network
(c) Work was also underway to deliver the £40m road surfacing programme for both roads and footways. As of the end of June, the team had successfully delivered £15.5m of road surfacing work covering 350,000sqm and £1.5m improvement of footways covering 42,000sqm.
(d) Mr Baker advised that there remained no confirmed date for the implementation of the EU Entry/Exit system but KCC continued to work towards 6th October. As key partners in the Kent and Medway Resilience Forum, the Council continued to revise business continuity plans to take into account the anticipated impacts on Kent; however, a reasonable worst case scenario was awaited from Government to enable targeted planning. Eurotunnel were continuing to develop the terminal at Cheriton with kiosks for UK nationals to register before traveling to Europe. The port of Dover was developing an area of kiosks to process coaches and a buffer zone prior to French customs to enable registration for car users. However the port did not have capacity for kiosks and would therefore rely on officers using hand-held devices to register car occupants.
(e) Operation Brock continued to present challenges and would be a topic of priority to discuss with the new Secretary of State for Transport. KCC remained focused on pressing Government for a multi-year settlement plan to enable forward planning and the ability to secure appropriate resource for Kent.
4. Mr Thomas, Cabinet Member for Environment, provided an update on the following:
(a) The consultation feedback on the Change to Windmills Policy was presented to the Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee on Tuesday 9th July. The recommendation was that KCC should seek to divest itself of the windmills it currently owns by a method that ensures that the windmills have a sustainable future in which they are appropriately cared for and maintained as community assets. Mr Thomas reiterated the message presented Cabinet Committee and stated that the steps identified were the start of the process and not the end and work would continue to take place with communities to ensure that windmills were conserved for future generations.
(b) The build of the new Sevenoaks Household Waste Recycling (HWRC) Centre at Dunbrik was due to be operational by mid-September 2024. The build commenced in early July 2023 and development had been secured through new leasing arrangements that would enable sustainable waste disposal operations along with enhanced capacity whilst also accommodating government’s future legislative changes. The HWRC was designed to enable the recycling of more waste streams collected at kerbside by Sevenoaks district council and to ensure statutory requirements were met for both collection and disposal authorities .
(c) KCC continued to expand its reuse activities with eight HWRCs collecting items in reuse containers. FCC Environment who provided the management and operation for a number of Kent’s HWRCs worked in partnership with charities and local authorities to establish reuse shops. Mr Thomas confirmed that a reuse shop had been established at the Allington HWRC.
(d) Mr Thomas confirmed that Mr Simon Springate had joined KCC at the start of July in his role as the new Plan Bee officer.
5. Mr Murphy, Cabinet Member for Growth and Economic Development, provided an update on the following:
(a) KCC hosted a meeting with the Governor of West Flanders, Carl Decaluwé on 10th and 11th June. The visit commenced with a political meeting, attended by both Mr Murphy and the Leader of the Council on matters requiring a united approach, with a particular emphasis on economic development, inward investment and research. The meeting was followed by an intensive workshop on water management, the theme of which stemmed from a meeting of the Straits Committee held in Dover in 2023. Day two of the visit included a series of presentations on water management and a visit to the Lower Medway Drainage Board.
(b) Mr Murphy met with Matthew Scott, Kent Police and Crime Commissioner on 19th June to discuss the resources available to combat environmental crime in the county and principally, how improved communication and cooperation amongst partner organisations such as the Environment Agency and the HMRC could play a pivotal role. Work continued to develop in this area to optimise resource and outcome.
(c) The Kent and Medway Business Fund (KMBF) Board had received an encouraging number of applications from across a number of sectors within Kent regarding interest to sit on the Board, which was a voluntary non-paid position. The successful candidate would be announced in due course.
(d) Furthermore, due to the success of the KMBF marketing campaign, the Small Business Board was due to convene for a whole day as opposed to a half day in order to assess the volume of applications received.
6. Mrs Bell, Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services, provided an update on the following:
(a) The Food Standards agency awarded Kent Scientific Services with a grant of over £100,000 to support their work. In addition, Mrs Bell placed on record her congratulations to Ms Rebecca Flint who had excelled in her apprenticeship degree and received 1st class in chemistry and a distinction in her final assessment.
(b) Kent Community Safety Partnership hosted a webinar to share learning from domestic homicide reviews . The event included a powerful presentation in relation to coercive control. It was attended by 130 professionals and 98% rated it as excellent or very good.
(c) The consultation on Folkstone library was due to commence on Thursday 18th July.
(d) The Know your neighbourhood project, a national initiative aimed to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England received £2.5m of the £30m fund. Thanet libraries which received £85,000 of the grant aimed to use the funding to run a range of activities and events over the course of the next year including walking and gardening for wellbeing, children’s craft activities, menopause cafes, family learning support events and social prescribing.
(e) The 2024 Summer Reading Challenge , Marvelous Makers, launched on 6th July and would conclude on 7th September. The 2023 reading challenge saw 18000 children participate, 2911 of whom joined the library specifically to take part. National evidence from 2023 indicated that 80% of children read more as result of taking part, 70% improved their reading skills and 72% gained reading confidence. A number of free events were taking place across Kent libraries during the Summer Reading Challenge. Mrs Bell urged both residents and Members to visit their local library to see the positive work underway.
The Leader thanked the Cabinet Members for their updates.