My update to county council - 22 July 2010

I reported to the county council meeting on 22 July 2010. Here's what I said - if you want to watch my speech please watch the webcast.

When I launched, in January this year, Bold Steps for Radical Reform as a discussion document, we asked for real ‘control shift’ – devolution from central government to local government. But more importantly, we also asked for ‘control shift’ to empower communities and citizens.

I suggested that if we succeeded in getting 25% of what we asked for it would be a substantial result. In the first 76 days of the new Government we have been promised nearer to 75% of the ‘asks’:

• Regional development agencies, for us the South East England Development Agency, is going
• Regional Assemblies and the South East Plan is gone
• Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts are going
• The Comprehensive Area Assessment is gone.

Also, and I say this rather less gleefully, the demise of Local Education Authorities, to use an old fashioned term, and finally regional government offices such as GOSE are firmly on the radar.

These are massive and substantive legislative changes that will have enormous impact on Kent County Council – exacerbated by the fact that we will have to deliver our services to residents with 25 to 30% less revenue and capital. To put this into context, it is £330million of savings to be made out of the controllable budget of £1.3billion over the next three to four years – massive challenges ahead.

The government’s clear direction of travel is to have a clear-out of quangos and intermediaries – directly empowering health providers, GPs, hospitals, education providers and local government. The control shift, although welcome, will be uncomfortable for all of us in the public sector in differing ways.

For example, colleagues will know that I feel strongly that local authorities have a key role in shaping the education environment in our 600 schools and early years providers:

• supporting and challenging schools when standards fall behind
• influencing education delivery, for example our ground-breaking 14-16 vocational programme currently enjoyed by 8,000 young people
• promoting and embedding an enriched ICT learning environment, ahead of the rest of the country
• helping to transform the way teachers teach and the way young people acquire knowledge and skills.
  

There is no point fighting these changes, they are going to happen. Kent will have to continue what it has always been excellent at – seizing the opportunity that the change agenda brings, leading and innovating within new parameters set by national government, grasping the devolution agenda.

For example, local government’s increased role in the new health agenda – set out in the new White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS – particularly around prevention, community and public health.

We will, as a result of the Academies Bill, have to form different relationships with our schools and education providers, continuing to influence and change but in a different way – and making sure we hold on to the Kent community of schools working together for the collective benefit of all our young people – helping to build a bigger society and a smaller state.

As we approach the end of 2010, and think about the successful delivery of the majority of our objectives set out in Towards 2010, it is essential against the back-drop of substantive change that KCC sets out its new direction of travel over the next four to five years.

To this end, I am pleased to announce that in September we will be launching for consultation our new document ‘Bold Steps for Kent’ which will culminate in its adoption at a special meeting of the county council in mid November. We will be consulting widely with staff, residents, community groups, public sector partners and, of course, all elected members.

As my predecessor Lord Bruce-Lockhart said in the LGA document Closer to People and Places in 2006, “The time is now right not for small steps but for bold and radical reform”.

Finally, two more issues of importance. I am sure we all share the massive disappointment when Michael Gove announced the burial of the Building Schools for the Future programme and a review of the national Academy capital programme.

Some £200million will be lost to Wave 4 schools to complete the programme in Thanet and Gravesham, while six or seven new Academies in Kent, to the value of £200million, are at risk. I would like to assure this council, and all of those schools, that we are doing all we can with the coalition government to salvage what we can and an announcement is expected from Michael Gove on Monday of next week, 26 July. Wave 4 was in my view beyond the point of no return and should have been allowed to go through. I am optimistic we will salvage much from the Academy programme.

The BSF programme was wasteful and extravagant and overly bureaucratic. We played by the rules under the last Government and we will continue to do so under the new coalition government. KCC officers Grahame Ward and Rebecca Spore have helped deliver £400/500million for the school modernisation programme and should be congratulated.

A significant national capital programme is promised by George Osborne for transport infrastructure, health provision and education. Kent will do all it can under the new procurement rules and regulations to attract as much capital into Kent for essential infrastructure, which is so badly needed.

And finally, just to update on the road repair programme, Operation Find and Fix – good, steady progress is being made and I hope even the sceptics amongst us are seeing the results on the ground. Some districts are nearing completion. All districts will be completed by end of September.