Friday 11 September 2009

I am absolutely delighted by the GCSE results, 5% more young people getting 5 GCSEs than the previous year and well above the national average. A great result for all our young people and our 102 secondary schools.

Just ending what seems to be a very long week. Getting stuck into how we are going to balance the books and set the budget for Kent County Council against a pretty austere outlook for public expenditure and local government funding. We are now technically in deflationary times and we have got to make sure that our council tax levels are as small as possible.

Yesterday I was invited by George Osbourne and Caroline Spelman, the Government shadow ministers, along with about ten other top ranking local authorities to talk about our successes within our organisations and how we have managed our budget effectively and intend to go about facing up to the reality of having to continue to deliver excellent services with less money.

I talked about our enormous success in transforming secondary education, giving pupils more choice and diversity and the pinoeering work we have done over the past 10 years on personalising adult social care, empowering elderly and vulnerable people to have as much control over their lives as possible.

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