Surrey County Conservatives

Nick Skellett's speech to Council (28th April)

Our recent issues in children’s and adults’ services are well documented and they have been our main focus for several months. The politicians had to act quickly and decisively and we are now making sustained progress in these areas.

This is my last council meeting as Leader. After a career in engineering and business I became a Member to serve our residents and to make Surrey`s voice heard. I have always worked to these aims and I believe, in the face of many challenges, we together have played a role in ensuring Surrey continues to be a great place to live and work. I would like to reflect on our efforts.

Children & Adult Services

Our recent issues in children’s and adults’ services are well documented and they have been our main focus for several months. The politicians had to act quickly and decisively and we are now making sustained progress in these areas.

Almost all actions in the JAR action plan and Improvement Notice have been met or are on track to meet targets. This is particularly powerful given the national trend of the increasing number of children being referred to local authorities. For example, we have met government targets in the following areas:

· timescales for initial and core assessments have been met

· all reviews for looked after children are carried out on time

· all looked after children placements have been reviewed to ensure they are appropriate to the children, which includes educational achievement

· all looked after children have an allocated social worker

· all SEN statements completed on time.

We still have some way to go but I am confident that the management team we have put in place is fully able to provide our vulnerable children with the services that they need.

Alongside the work on children’s services last year I had regular sessions with teams involved in auditing of adults case files and the training of staff and I was hugely impressed by their energy. Our interim director propelled us even further forward, ensuring we were helping more to live independently with better safeguarding and quality of care. With the strong new leadership now in place I am confident that these recent improvements will continue.

Highways & Transportation

This country has chosen to allocate a decreasing portion of the national cake to highways and this is felt locally with insufficient resources to meet demand. But we are not alone and I noted recently in the Sevenoaks Chronicle an article asking why Kent`s roads could not be up to the standards of Surrey and East Sussex.

Surrey, in addition, has to deal with twice the average national traffic density. In this challenging context I am pleased to see steady progress in the service. We have better relations with the contractors and a firmer grip of the contract process, and calls to the contact centre have reduced. We introduced community gangs to fix local problems before they become big issues. And the introduction of community highways officers has improved communications locally, especially with parishes. And we are fixing more roads more quickly, with 295 completed between April and November, compared with 250 last year.

We introduced ground-breaking initiatives in transportation, such as Pegasus, the Transport Coordination Centre and Transport for Surrey. Implementation has not always been straightforward, but the objectives of changing the school run culture, and providing demand led community transport are so important environmentally and socially that they should not be given up lightly. I note that government policy now is to gradually introduce the US style school bus service following the Blunkett report, so Surrey was seven years ahead!

We have also been praised recently by Government for our Local Transport Plan. They commented - “very impressive picture of progress” and “excellent indications of future delivery”.

Education

Our record in education is one of the best anywhere in the country – all of the County Council’s 308 primary schools are rated excellent, good or satisfactory and only one of the 53 secondary schools is in special measures. We have acted quickly to turn around its fortunes. It is testament to our schools that 80% were deemed outstanding or good last year. In addition, our eight special residential schools are all outstanding or good.

Economy

Surrey’s economy is the second largest net contributor after London. However, the recession is starting to affect the county and, after consultation with business as to what they wanted, we have worked with the Economic Partnership and Businesslink, Job Centre Plus and other agencies, to ensure advice and help is available via our special website and local radio for people where their working or domestic lives are affected.

Local government in Surrey together can take credit in recent decades for ensuring its economic competitiveness and to attract investment by providing quality public services and a protected environment. We have defended local people’s interests by working with other councils to get the Government to agree a more realistic number of new houses in the south east and Surrey. We have pressed to ensure that many of these houses are affordable, and for infrastructure to ensure that these can be homes and not just houses.

We have secured funding for the Hindhead Tunnel, and new Walton Bridge, and Fastway, and are working with West Sussex and business to improve the economic prospects in the areas north and south of Gatwick.

Working with others

Our contribution to improving the quality of services and people’s lives doesn’t stop with the County Council. We have established better working relationships with the borough and district councils, the primary care trust, the police, government agencies, business, and the voluntary and community and faith sectors. Between us we have, in the Surrey Strategic Partnership, agreed a common approach and set ourselves 28 targets for improving services over the next three years. More immediately, the Joint Municipal Waste Strategy has helped us and the districts raise the level of recycling to 40%, avoiding landfill and fines.

I have involved Surrey regionally to protect our interests. I have served as Chairman of the Assembly to launch the Regional Spatial Strategy and, as Chairman of both the Regional Planning Committee and the Regional Transport Board, I have contributed to a greater realism and sustainability in the south east plan and the regional economic strategy. I was also pleased to persuade the region to take the difficult decision on Hindhead, costing the SE almost three years’ worth of its funding allocations.

I have served Surrey through appointments to the Audit Commission, the LGA Executive, as a director of 4Ps and presently as Vice Chairmen of the Improvement and Development Agency. One of the most enjoyable appointments was as Chairman of the County Councils Network. We fought and succeeded in getting counties written back into the 2004 Planning Act, which gave us an important role in regional planning.

I helped set up the South East County Leaders group, which has been influential in lobbying Government over the funding of public services in the south east, backed up by detailed research. Two notable publications included work on the infrastructure gap in the SE and we then launched a paper with Oxford Economics on the contributions we make to the national economy and the exchequer. I won’t say we have yet increased significantly investment in the south east, although the RTB has gained recently in attracting proportionately more RFA and CIF funding. But we have at least prevented its further decline by getting publicity for this as a national issue, because the rest of the country depends on the GDP generated by Surrey and the south east.

An efficient County Council

Members will always rightly press for service improvements, but it has to be paid for. We have not benefited from this government financially. Revisions in deprivation formulae were expected from a new government. But we suffered from the introduction of Resource Equalisation, moving from an allocation based on an assessment of the need to spend for each council, to an allocation process based more on actual spend minus the council tax base. The cumulative effect of this is that Surrey has received £300m less for services since 2003/2004, which has put pressure on us and has had a significant effect, particularly in adult services and highways. But we were elected to manage challenges facing us, which we have done throughout this administration.

This was particularly the case with the BDR, which saved £41m on an ongoing basis since 2006/07. And being one who had to deal with the rigid silos we had before I would remind everyone that the BDR brought us excellent shared services, a comprehensive contact centre, valuable insights on workforce planning and most importantly far greater transparency in the use of resources and staff. Without the BDR business reforms we would not have been able to bail out the children’s service last year by some £13m without affecting key front line services. And we did that and still ended up with a balanced budget or better.

For the record, as the BDR was almost four years ago, improvements will be necessary as they were in highways. It is important, therefore, to be balanced when looking back.

The Council has exceeded its 3% target Gershon Efficiency savings by removing a further £24m pa in 08/09 and £30m from 09/10. Amongst counties which are also fire authorities at Council tax band D, we are in the lowest half, which speaks well of our financial management.

Other Initiatives

There are of course many more excellent services across the Council, including the highly successful partnership with Surrey Wildlife Trust, our nationally recognized Trading Standards, our acclaimed History Centre, the award winning contact centre, Self Reliance, and the first children’s centre in advance of the national initiative, innovation in the management of schools and their support services, outstanding childrens homes, adoption and fostering, the splendid bridge at Tilford, the Surrey Youth Orchestra and the Ebbisham Centre.

Our capital expenditure over the 12 years has amounted to £1.03bn. We have built 4 new libraries and completed major refurbishments in another 16, we have set up over 49 children’s centres, and we have commissioned over 40 major school projects including six brand new schools. And at present our capital programme for this year and the next two years stands at over £298m.

Not just innovative in services and joint working, Surrey has had Local Committees longer than any other council. Our pioneering approach was to give power to Members locally with district colleagues to decide on highway schemes in all district areas, with opportunities to scrutinise other county and agency services. I am also pleased with the creation of the Members Allocation, by which every Member of the Council can help local groups and initiatives in their area, alongside the services the Council provides. Hundreds of activities have benefited from this, and I am grateful to Members for the way they have used their allocations to benefit their communities.

Conclusion

For those of you who look at the quarterly surveys we commission with the Police, you will see that there has been rising satisfaction over the years with nearly all of our services, with the County Council, and with Surrey as a place to live. Where comparisons are available, we do better than the average for county councils and councils generally. Of course we can do better, but for me the real test of the Council is whether our residents, who rank Surrey as one of the best and safest places to live, are pleased with what we are doing.

I stand down as Leader pleased with our many achievements and proud of having worked with many fine hardworking officers, staff, members and friends. It has been a time of highs and lows. I particularly remember having to address hundreds of uncompromising striking firemen from Surrey and Essex and secondly, in the company of Callum Findlay, escaping from an ambush of Swampy and his tree dwellers when looking at widening proposals for the A320.

It is natural that we, the politicians, focus on the here and now. But in that respect I believe we have the building blocks in place, with a completely new management, and with improved processes, to overcome the specific problems of 2008 and to look to the future. That does not mean we should forget the success of the past and the legacy that we will leave for the new Council, and on which the new Council will continue to build. Surrey is a great county and we together have ensured it remains one of the best places in the country to live and work.