Surrey County Conservatives take a positive message to the Conservative Party Conference (1st October)

When the Leader of Surrey County Council, Dr. Andrew Povey, heads off to the Conservative Party Conference he will seek to demonstrate how Surrey is improving the quality of life for Surrey residents.

“I think that we in Surrey are demonstrating that even when money is tight there are a lot of positive measures that local authorities can take;

We’ve put £1m into a joint initiative with Surrey Police that will tackle anti-social driving, which we know is the one of the areas of greatest concern to our residents. By working with the police we are able to achieve more than we would be if we worked in isolation. I believe that this is a good example of partnership working.

We are creating 50 bursaries for university students studying social care to try to attract the best and the brightest students to work for Surrey County Council. They will be offered vacation work and we are determined to make sure that Surrey is an authority where social workers will choose to work for above others. If this is realised we believe that other authorities will look to our example and seek to follow us.

It is our belief that by making this investment in the short to medium term we can save money in the long-term.

Additionally we have followed up the signing of the Federation of Small Businesses Accord by allowing local businesses to ask questions and participate in their Local Committee(s). They pay business rates and should be allowed to have a say on matters that effect their employees and customers.

We are also giving more powers to our local members and to our Local Committees in order to move powers down to a lower level closer to those who elect us to represent them. It is my belief that decisions should be taken at as local a level as is practically possible. Giving Local Committees powers over local youth plans gives them a say in how youth services will be delivered in their area. For no extra cost democracy has been enhanced”.

Dr. Povey will also be arguing that local authorities should be freed from restrictive central controls and that many of the powers exercised by Quangos should instead be exercised by locally accountable local authorities.

“Britain, and Surrey in particular, needs fewer quangos. Local decisions should be taken at a local level by locally elected and accountable representatives – not by people sitting in Whitehall considering things in abstract with no regard to local feelings”.