- but unfortunately not  towards us Liberal Democrats. We and the Independents have slightly improved our position, with 13 and 10 seats each; Labour now only has 1. The Conservatives, with 56 out of 80 seats, constitute 70% of the Council. At first glance everything looked  much the same for yesterday’s Annual Meeting as it did in May.

Nevertheless if we could not shift the previous leadership, the prospect of accounting to residents for the failures of the last twelve years - which we did our best to point out strongly - appears to have galvanised this huge majority party to move from a sort of ‘grow-your-own’ opposition which was starting to emerge particularly in relation to Youth Services and Childrens Services into an internal revolution.

Andrew Povey was elected as the new Leader of the Conservative Group before the election. While the internal politics are not know to me, there was a notable lack of fulsome praise and good wishes from his predecessor, Nick Skellett, who did not attend yesterday’s meeting. 

Yesterday the extent of the shift of power and support within the majority group began to become clearer; and Andrew Povey put forward a number of radical proposals, many of which would have been - virtually have been - pooh-poohed by the previous administration when we backed them.

For me what looked like being a boring, routine meeting turned into an enjoyable drama with strong comedic elements.

Not everyone will be equally interested in all of this, so as usual here is a list of headings so that you can skip down as you like. (I’m sorry I can’t manage same-page hyperlinks on this system)

• Geoff Marlowe - New Chairman from the Old Guard? 
• The Not-so-retiring Chairman - Angela Speaks Her Mind
• Election of the New Leader - and a fresh voice in the wilderness
• The Report of the Leader - so what can we find not to like?
• Keeping things in proportion
• Lunch 

Geoff Marlowe - New Chairman from the Old Guard?    

The Chairman’s role is largely ceremonial, except for when he’s Chairing meetings of Full Council - and then he is by convention fair and non-partizan between political parties. Nevertheless his is chosen by and from the majority party.

Angela Fraser, the previous Chairman, was re-elected to the Council but the Conservatives put forward last year’s Vice Chairman, Geoff Marlowe, to replace her this year.  (Geoff Marlowe represent The Byfleets.)

In the customary laudatory nomination speech, Andrew Povey noted among other things that Geoff had been an RAF fighter pilot early in his career, and suggested that ‘a little bit of military discipline might be helpful … shooting members down in flames if they get too unruly.’ (Many a time Angela Fraser made the plea that we should get through the business quickly so that we could finish before lunch. We rarely did.)

Geoff’s acceptance speech, made from the solid back-to-the-wall chairman’s dais, picked up the flying ace theme: ‘ … one of the things you learn is to watch your six-o’clock … I have no problem here. You can be attacked from the rear, I can not.’

I am not sure who he though was at risk of attack from the back here. It could have been all Councillors. But it was also the case that Andrew Povey had kept his customary seat on the front bench in the middle of the chamber and straight ahead of the Chairman.

The Vice Chairman is Lavinia Sealy,  representing Bisley, Chobham and West End. I have found her fairly formidable, and I am glad her efforts are often channelled into supporting such issues as for Voluntary Services and increasing Youth Facilities - it takes energy to oppose her. 

• The Not-so-retiring Chairman - Angela Speaks Her Mind

There was then a vote of thanks to Angela Fraser as retiring Chairman, and she had her chance to respond. Mention had been made of  the Thames Young Mariners and visit to them, which in the context of explaining that she would stand on a boat or a chair or a table in order to speak out, allowed her to continue: “I don’t believe in health and safety … I don’t believe in equality and diversity … and when there is a change in Government … “ - unfortunately my jaw was dropping here to the point where my note-taking became ineffective, and I can’t give you the exact following words but it was to the effect that Things Should Change.

We got a reference to the prayers that start each meeting - attendance optional now, I’m glad to say - and a quote from the bible: ” … and if a Kingdom be divided against itself that Kingdom cannot stand, and if a house be divided against itself that house cannot stand … ”

And almost the final shot: ”I’m not going to be a silent member, I’m not giving up any of my charity and voluntary jobs … I’ll try not to be too much of a nuisance; it depends, just how hard I try.“ 

The significance/threat  of the equality and diversity cracks and not ‘being too much of a nuisance’ became clearer later.

• Election of the New Leader - and a fresh voice in the wilderness

No surprises: Andrew Povey, with the support of the entire Conservative group. It was especially significant because this is the first Council under the Strong Leader and Cabinet Model (see my 11 December posting here)

The coronation was briefly interrupted by a new voice from the RA/Independent Group, Eber Kington from Epsom and Ewell North, noting again that Surrey is the ‘worst Council in England’ (strictly the worst County Council) and railing against four more years of Conservative leadership, where they ‘move the furniture, swap around a few of the politicians, and see if anyone notices the difference’.

At first I took the Chairman’s response to be a dig at returning opposition Councillors, but It’s hard to be sure: ‘Thank you, Mr. Kington. We have needed an opposition around here for a long time.’

• The Report of the Leader - so what can we find not to like?

The official write-up is on the SCC website here ; as I write it’s getting late and this is a long posting, so I’ll just give you some of the bits from my notebook that I found especially interesting or indicative.

Dr. Povey wants to ‘bring a fresh approach’ - to show ‘that we are listening to our residents’, and to achieve the ‘value for money … members of the public want to see.’

He referred to the new arrangements that give him a term of four years and increased powers, acknowledging it ‘does mean that I get to choose my Deputy Leader and Cabinet’ .

(The term ‘cabinet’ now replaces ‘Executive’.)

He named his Deputy as David Hodge, and confirmed that Peter Martin will continue to be responsible for Children’s Services. Other names were not forthcoming - the list was supposed to have been printed, but we didn’t have it. We do know that now ‘all cabinet members must complete equality and diversity training.’ (c.f. Angela’s earlier outburst, but Surrey has been criticised on this front in the past.)

There are moves toward localism - the expectation of more ‘grassroots’ involvement of Councillors with such matters as road maintenance and HGV licenses in their area, with the Local Committees having oversight. There’s also a cautious move towards giving Local Committees more powers in relation to services for young people: ‘instead of just nothing the Youth Development Plan … [they] … will have the power to approve it’.

With the new cabinet model there will be changes in where power lies. Andrew Povey has kept some significant decisions for himself; others will be delegated to Cabinet members - but there was a positive statement that ‘all decisions will be made in public’.

Quality Assurance and Zero Based Budgeting both got a look in; in terms of policy areas we got ’I think Surrey is a wonderful place to live and that’s my starting point as Leader’, though following that came a welcoming sentence saying Dr. Povey intends to ‘also spend a little more time thinking about sustainability and climate change’ giving it a ‘higher profile’.

There were major intiatives promised on speeding and traffic; burseries to help encourage the ‘higher calibre of graduates’ in social work, favouring where possible ‘those with a home base in Surrey’ and offering them the opportunity to work for Surrey during vacations; and a commitment to ‘reduce or remove reliance on Energy from Waste plants in Surrey’ (A reversal of the thinking coming from the old leadership; moreover the additional comment that ‘we want to be world class’ in the context of waste technology suggests the possibility of the more progressive approach we have been suggesting for some years.)

Finally came undertakings about how much of this would be achieved or under way in the first 100 days. (What is the magic of 100 days? Why is it so popular?)

• Keeping things in proportion  

Next we had to get safely past the Annual review of Proportionality. To improve the quality of scrutiny, the the new Leadership has reduced the number of Members on scrutiny committees - perhaps to encourage us to concentrate our efforts more intensely. (’Durr! Read the papers!)

Allocation of places to opposition parties had been more generous than strictly required, leaving the Conservatives a couple or so seats short. (Since they fill all the Cabinet positions, removing pressure on Committee places, this shouldn’t actually leave Conservative back-benchers short of work.)

The oddity of this particular vote is that even one person voting against the proposals means all the arrangements have to be redrawn on the basis of strict proportionality.

So we in the Opposition weren’t about to vote against it; the risk came from the Conservatives own benches. Angela Fraser spoke at some length against this ‘curtailment of the majority’, concluding ’I cannot support this, but I will not vote against it.’

Tory discipline held. This time.

• Lunch.

Silver service again, in the Ashcombe room. Wine served before, two sorts of locally-produced wine from Denbies vinyard with. A three course menu of Salmon Parpadelle; Surrey rack of lamb; and Lemon Tart. All followed by coffee with mints, toast to the Queen, and a speech given by the High Sheriff.

New members I talked to were experiencing the kind of culture shock that has led me to write up these lunches - paid for with your money - regularly.

Thank you, but I don’t know how many more of them I can eat. I may have to stop. I hope you won’t be too disappointed in me.

I’m writing at 5.30am on Friday the 5th of June, having come out into the light of dawn along with all the other candidates, counting officers, agents etce involved in the elections which for many of us began at around 7.00 o’clock yesterday morning, as long ago as a flight to Australia would have taken, and with a similar (hopefully short term) effect on sleep patterns and general coherence.

So this is the headline news:

Liberal Democrats now hold three of the seven Surrey County Council seats for Woking.

I was re-elected with 1828 Liberal Democrat votes to 1313 conservative; 557 UKIP, and 189 Labour.

Mohammed Amin (Liberal Democrat) won Woking Central with 2,457 votes to 1,797 Conservative, 641 UKIP, and 513 Labour.

William Forster (liberal Democrat) won Woking South with 2,046 votes to 1,539  Conservative, 641 UKIP, and 513 Labour.

Sadly, in the absence of a big issue for Horsell comparable to County Hall in 2005, John Doran (Liberal Democrat) was not re-elected for Horsell, falling just over 750 votes short of the Conservative.

Even more disappointingly, Ken Howard (Liberal Democrat) failed by only 63 votes to take St Johns and Brookwood from the Conservatives. 

Pyrford and The Byfleets stubbornly persisted in remaining heavily Conservative; this despite a well run campaign by the popular and energetic Borough Councillor, Anne Roberts, in The Byfleets. 

Thank you to all who helped work towards these results for the Liberal Democrats in Woking. Results for the rest of Surrey will not come in until later today (Friday), and I will put a link to them as soon as possible. Normal service on this website and in the Council will also resume as soon as possible, once we have caught up with our sleep!

PS at 12.45 pm - results can be seen coming in even as I write on the SCC website here

PPS Sunday 7th - the link above leads to a map; click on the Division you’re interested in and there is a lot of information layered underneath, giving a breakdown of this year’s result and also going back to the previous election to allow comparisons. It shows me, for example, to see that the turnout in Knaphill was much lower in this election than last time - not surprising, because last time it was combined with a general election - but my share of the vote has increased. 

There’s not much new on this website right now because there’s very little by way of Council meetings at SCC this month, with the County Council elections so close.

Generally, for Councillors,  the priority now is on political campaigning - though I’m still representing you, and will be dealing with ‘case-work’ and anything else that comes up as energetically as usual.

So what to do with this website during the campaign? 

 I could post up campaign literature, but you are probably getting enough of that through your door already - and it’s not my preferred style.

So I will leave the main part of the website as it is, hoping that if you browse through it this will help you  form your own view of the work I have been doing as County Councillor for Knaphill. Beyond this, I have added a short ‘Why Vote for Me?’ page, with a link above and to the left.

It has genuinely been a pleasure and a privilege to represent Knaphill and Goldsworth West at County Hall this last five years. Thank you for allowing me this experience.

Actually, this was relatively time-wasting meeting. Parts of this report will be telling you what we would have said - if we’d been allowed to.  Even my colleague John Doran didn’t manage to provoke any real outrage from the Tories opposite.

Nevertheless I’ve ended up writing quite a lot, so please feel free to skip down the headings, as follows:

• Questions - 20 mph zones, potential bus cuts
• Champion for this and that
• Member statements - Foxhills and Virginia Water wake up to Trumps Farm incinerator threat …
• Keeping debate down and lunch on time -two suppressed debates and one that happened with the Leader In Waiting
• Lunch

Questions 

Perhaps it’s just the imminence of the election, but there was a groundswell of questions about 20 mph speed limits in some residential areas, especially outside schools. This is something we Libdems have been concerned about for some time, and Sarah di Caprio has asked a number of questions in the past.

The Executive Member thought that 20mph zones outside all Surrey schools would be a ’draconian and centralist policy’ which would ’divert scarce resources from tackling other accident black spots’. He said there were ‘relatively few casualties involving children outside schools … In 2008, three children either walking or cycling within 50m of a school gate, in the term time, were seriously injured and none were killed’.

There are ‘emerging Government proposals for new casualty reduction targets to 2020′ and Surrey will be reviewing its road safety policies in the next year. The (Conservative) member who got this answer felt it was a ’somewhat complacent reply’.

Colin Taylor, our LD Councillor from Epsom, asked about orange ‘wig-wag’ lights and signs saying ‘max speed 20 mph’ outside some schools. The current problem with these signs is that they need special authorisation from the Department for Transport. Some combinations of signs escape this, but then they are not enforceable.

It’s a complicated situation that I may not have perfectly understood; but it is to be hoped that current Government thinking may end up in it being simplified, and the Surrey review of road safety policies be able to come up with positive proposals.

John Doran asked about a consultant’s report on possible changes to bus services, which should have been at least available to County Councillors - though not published - by the end of March. This is not just from idle curiosity - changes in the budget for bus services imply that there will be cuts to the services subsidised by SCC, such as weekend and evening services. Apparently it should now be available for all  members to see, and it will feed in to the Transport Committee later in 2009 when the service will ‘outline options for a long term strategy’ - but safely after the Election on 4th June.

Champions for this and that

 … next stood up to present their statements and take their bows. I knew we had champions for older people, looked after children, the arts, the voluntary sector, but this was the first time I’d registered we had a Consumers Champion… all reporting back to show how they earn their extra £1,000 special responsibilities allowance a year …

Member statements included what seemed to me a quite outstanding one by Elise Whiteley, who represents Foxhills and Virginia Water, the site of Trumps Farm, now subject to an application for planning permission for an incinerator. Every Local Member is liable to become NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) but Elise has come to it late and from a pro incineration stance: ‘The impression we have is that Surrey County Council will only protect the area known asSurrey Hills AONB, but they will also protect Guildford a very large university town and a Cathedral City, because the residents have so strongly objected against incinerators … waste treatment should be centrally situatied near to the arisings area. I have developed a great interest in Waste Management oer the last twelve years and I would love to have an EFR to play with but I would really like it to be a state of the art plant … and to have the incinerator situated centrally nearer to the very large towns such a Guildford, Woking and Reigate … ”

Elise is now standing down. Whoever her successor is, I suspect they will find her style inimitable.

Keeping debate down and lunch on time …

The Council - or, in practical terms, the Conservative majority - can refer motions put up for debate back to a Committee or the Executive, leaving the proposer only  a three minute slot to say why their motion should be debated on the spot.

There were three motions on the agenda, and the first two got referred.

The first had been put forward by the out-going Leader, and was about Children’s Services. It re-iterated that most of Children’s Services are good; progress has been made; staff should be thanked. To  my mind - and that of my Libdem colleagues - very over-complacent at this point.

We are only six months into a two-year improvement programme; not all targets have been met and there are more difficult deadlines on the horizon, for example in relation to preventive services; and while many staff are excellent and metaphorically working their socks off, the staff assessment of Children’s Social Workers has so far brought to light 76 out of 358 social workers where there is concern about performance, the vast majority being informal cases where support and training are appropriate but a few moving to formal procedings.

Plus there is a very high proportion of locum staff, who not only cost that additional £20,000 per annum but are not going to have been given the same sort of training and assessment as our own staff. (I hesitate to say ‘are not as good’, though I have heard it said.)

I was going to say all this on behalf of the Libdem group, but didn’t get the chance. The Leader’s statement from later in the agenda was brought forward, allowing him to say everything that would have been in his motion, and add in some congratulations for everyone else and blame for the Government in the way it distributes money for services. He then referred his own motion, so that we didn’t debate it. 

Unfortunately having referred his own clearly political motion (we are, after all, now officially in the campaign period) he felt free to refer ours as well.

We had wanted the Council to note all Surrey’s failures and the waste of money entailed.

Failure of the BDR (Business Delivery Review); failure to move County Hall to Woking; failure to manage the workforce properly; failure to provide waste facilities on time …

… etce for 11 points which you can find on page four of the agenda here , along with the wording of the other motions.

Hazel Watson, our Leader, had a terrific speech ready with more ‘failed’s in than strawberries in the Eton Mess served at lunch, of which more below. But unfortunately it was not heard.

The Leader In the Wings, Andrew Povey, flanked by his own stalwarts on the front central bench, then put forward his motion supporting a Conservative Party Green Paper on Localism. Liberal Democrats are generally in favour of localism, but there are limits - among them the idea of virtually abolishing regional planning of housing. Sarah di Caprio and Ian Beardsmore very ably put our point of view, but by now some people were ready for their main event of the day -

Lunch

Lunch deserves a section of its own. When I was first elected, five years ago, there were served, sit-down lunches with wine almost every other Council meeting. Plus speeches. Then, I’m glad to say, the frequency went down, so that yesterday’s County Council Lunch seemed more of a nice gesture in honour of those who are standing down comparable to the retirement lunches a large company might hold for retirees.

Still, of course, at tax-payers expense, and I have to express my appreciation to you for a three-course meal including Beef Wellington; a delicious sweet entitled ‘Eton Mess’ which turned out to be pieces of strawberry in thick cream; and two sorts of wine from Denby’s vinyard in Surrey (which I did not taste, since I rarely drink, though others said they were good.)

Pre-lunch wine was served from 12.45, and the speeches with coffee finished about 3.00pm. The we went back for the last bit of Council business.

I am very grateful that this is now such a rare experience. Especially since it contrasted severely with the rather meagre sandwich lunch eaten in half an hour that was provided for the young trainers, among them some ‘Looked After’ young people, who offered a ’Total Respect’ course on children in care to a handfull of attending Councillors on Monday.  

And that was about it. We did go back after 3.00 for a final tidying-up of business in the Council Chamber, but it was a lacklustre business where we noted reports and accepted changes to the constitution mainly made necessary by Government legislation.

The next meeting will be in June, the other side of the elections. I don’t know if there will be another formal lunch - but if there is, and if I’m there, I will report back in full, glorious detail … 

Yesterday was the last ‘Children and Families’ Committee meeting before the election and a New Council.

Several members will (voluntarily) not be coming back; none of the rest of us are guaranteed to return, though some are safer than others - including Andrew Povey, the newly elected successor to Nick Skellett as Leader of the Conservative Group. Assuming the revolution does not come, he will be the Leader of the Council in June - but for the moment he is just an ordinary ‘back-bencher’ and member of this Committee.  

This was also the first meeting after the first Improvement Notice ‘milestone’ on the 31st of March. There was a long report on progress made, and Andy Roberts, the Strategic Director for Children, Schools and Families was present along with Jim Leivers, the Acting head of Children’s Services. (I’d like to say at this point that everything I’ve seen of Andy Roberts work has been impressive, and the mess of the JAR was not of his making; he was transferred across to this post only last August)

Overall it was a long meeting with a thick stack of papers, so this report will have to cherry-pick a few of the most notable bits.

SEN Transport Task Group Report - authored by the aforementioned Andrew Povey, who also Chaired the Task group.  Chris Butler, the Transport Co-ordination Centre Manager, observing the meeting, was brought forward by the Chairman to take part and field the question, where are we now on improving the transport for children wioth Special Educational Needs? The answer was that ‘the planning software is with us, installed’ and ‘phase 1 implemented in 8 schools’.

In 2007/8 failure to achieve savings through new route planning software put the SEN transport budget £2.3M in the red. After severe initial problems, reported last year, savings are now starting to come through.

It’s still a bumpy ride:  ’we are driving now some extremely hard bargains’, and we ‘need contractors of sufficient size to handle them’ , but there may not be enough such contractors around. 

Then there are issues around the sort of service needed, and the ’dramatic increase in the complexity of the children [who] are required to travel.’

The report threw some interesting straws into the wind: not least that the Council should  ‘consider the possibility of purchasing a fleet of vehicles for all transportation needs.’ 

The full report is here.

The Youth Offending Task group has not yet issued its report - but the brief update led to questions from Members about the ‘embryonic prevention service which we have not yet seen.’

Andy Roberts did a quick totting up of the money spent by all agencies concerned, and said ‘if collectively with that £1-2 billion we have jointly [we] can’t meet the needs of these young people we’re not doing our jobs properly’. He further commented that ‘Some of this mirrors what we’re looking at in response to the JAR anyway.’  To which the Chair responded: ‘It’s not how much money we’ve got, it’s how well we spend that money.’

Progress report on the Improvement Notice

This was a solid report outlining a lot of progress. But at first the Committee seemed to me unusually reticent in scrutinising it. The positive tone of the Introduction and Summary, and the knowledge that next week in Full Council the present Leader has put forward a motion congratulating managers and staff and expressing confidence in their ability to ‘continue building on these achievements’ led me to pull out a number of negative points to question.

Vacancies for permanent staff social workers remain high, and I wanted to know about inconsistent figures (this was to do with times of collection and reporting); reducing ‘unallocated cases open to duty’ to zero has happened through change I wanted to be shown was not cosmetic; and I rehearsed other weaknesses.

You may sympathise with Andy Roberts response, which was to ‘express some frustration’ at these negative questions: ‘there is still a long way to go … we are very aware of that … [but] this is a superb performance … ‘

More interesting than this reaction was that of the (Conservative) Chair of the Committee to what Andy said:

‘Nobody but nobody is saying you haven’t done a good job … [but] I wouldn’t be doing my job if I just accepted everything you said … ‘

And Andrew Povey, probable Leader from next June:

‘Our job is to drill down in detail and to clarify … I think we have to be more challenging, not less … ‘

Which brings us back to the sore spot still strongly felt by Councillors, and perhaps especially those in the majority party who until then had felt most most confident, following the unexpected failure of Childrens Services last year:  how do we make sure we know what we ought to know, and aren’t being lied to?

Childrens Trust Arrangements

Scrutiny, governance, and the difficulty of ensuring accountability to elected representatives was also at the heart of the discussion around proposed new Chidren’s Trust arrangements.

Councillors: ‘What are we but the people who are the eyes and ears on the ground? … there’s a huge gap in any member accountability, any member involvement …’  ’Who’s going the scrutinise it? How will it be monitored?’

Interim Head of Children’s Services: ‘Ofsted will inspect you and we can see how powerful those inspections are …[but] we need to take back from a Council point of view the governance arrangements, so that there is accountability.’

Member: ‘One of the criticisms of Strategic Partnerships [is] we as Members didn’t feel engaged with it … [we] have Local Committees, they could be involved’

Executive Member: ‘I agree entirely that we need to inject a member involvement.’

Memorable Money Fact

Counting locums, the vacancy rate for Social Workers is down to rates in the region of 11%. Overall, permanent staff vacancies are around 27%.

According to the paper on Social Worler recruitment, ‘Each locum costs approximately £20,000 more than a permanent member of staff’.

(This is per annum; some of it is higher take-home pay for the locum, the rest agency fees.)

TAG Aviation have published their final ‘master plan’ showing how they would like to expand the use of Farnborough Airport. This is a ‘voluntary’ plan to ‘better inform the local community about the Airport and its operation and to assist Rushmoor Borough Council in the preparation of it Local Development Framework’.

I don’t think everyone was happy that local views, though sought, had been taken into consideration enough - but you can see the plan for yourself here

Good News! There has been real progress in road adoptions at the Brookwood Hospital Estate - virtually the whole of Lorne Gardens has been adopted by Surrey County Council and will now be maintained by them and Woking Borough Council contractors. The top half of Strathcona has also been adopted. A few more details are on my Brookwood Hospital Estate - Road Adoption page - see the link in the top left hand corner of this page.

         The SCC Officer concerned has kept on working at/on/prodding/chasing the developers, and in my opinion deserves a large cheer for getting this far …  not to mention a restful holiday over the Easter break.

        Next, the rest of Strathcona, and Alexandra Gardens?

I’ve now heard the Surrey will be saved the cost and time of taking Ofsted through a Judicial Review because it has failed at the first step, getting the High Court Judge to agree that the review should go ahead. He did not think that Ofsted had been wrong in its conclusions.

So the ‘inadequate’ judgment on Childrens Services and the ‘one star’ rating for the whole Council will stand.

I find it ironic that the e-mail bearing this news has had the line below automatically set to run across it:

“Making Surrey a better place - forward thinking - responsive and reliable - working with others - value for money”

 As I wrote in the posting earlier about the Full Council meeting on the 24th of March, the answer to Ian Beardsmore’s question about the Youth Worker posts and Vacancy rates by Borough and district turned up a table showing Woking right at the bottom of the heap for Youth Work hours in the first three quarters of 2008/9 at 875 hours, with Reigate and Banstead top at 2450.

This surprised and shocked me, and the comparison that hit home hardest was with Surrey Heath at 2447 hours compared to Woking’s 875. My division borders Surrey Heath, and I have only too often heard it said (I don’t know with what accuracy) that significant number of the bored young people who tend to congregate in the sociable open spaces of the Hospital Estate come from the villages in that direction, though I haven’t heard of Surrey Heath Youth Workers moving with them.

To make the picture even more confusing, in February Surrey Heath had 6.76 FTE staff in place and 1.77 FTE vacancies, while Woking had 6.03 FTE Youth Workers in post and 2.43 FTE vacancies. A quick sum yields .73 of a FTE Youth Worker difference in the number of staff in post. The only explanation for this difference in productivity offered in the meeting was that some part-timers are more willing to do overtime than others. This did not really explain such a discrepancy.

Since then, I have had a long talk with one of the local Youth Service managers, who was quite happy for me to try to explain to you more fully what has been going on.

Making comparisons with Surrey Heath is fair insofar as Woking has 7,328 young people in the 13 - 19 age range, while Surrey Heath has 6,595.

The snapshot of staffing in February was misleading, because through the three quarters being reported as hours there had been a lot more staff missing.

Two full-time youth workers positions, for East and West Woking, had vacant for considerable periods of time, what with the difficulty of recruiting Youth Staff and the effect of bars on recruitment. One full timer had been away on long-term sick-leave, and a second on maternity leave.

There is a knock-on effect when full-time qualified youth workers are absent in that the sessional and unqualified staff may be able to keep some activities running, but not all; and they cannot develop new work in the same way.

Thus although the vacancy rate between Woking and Surrey Heath looked comparable, in actual fact Woking was effectively at least 50% down, while the Surrey Heath team was either full or nearer full, with a higher proportion of full timers which enabled more hours to be delivered than just their own.

So don’t blame the Woking Youth Workers. Most of them hadn’t yet been appointed or away for good reasons or not senior enought to do anything.

But I do blame the lack of innovation and clear thinking and direction of the Youth Service, behind which are political failures and short-sightedness:

• It’s hard to recruit to Youth Worker and other essential posts such as social workers because of the high cost of living and especially housing in the South East. Key worker housing schemes should have been developed years ago. In Youth Work the churches have relatively little difficulty in recruiting - but my guess is this probably has as much to do with the provision of housing as the faith of Youth Workers.
• Two recruitment freezes and a quiet acceptance that the easiest way to meet ‘efficiency’ savings is not to recruit too actively to empty posts.
• No organised capacity and limited ad hoc capacity for cover when staff are absent - as will happen in every organisation, as with the example of maternity leave.  This means projects are started and then dropped, wasting everybody’s time and creating disillusionment among young people, especially when an expectation had been created. And the harder people are to reach, the less likely you are going to be to be able to pick up with them again when you’ve dropped them.
• Why was Woking left to struggle alone? If Youth Workers want to do outreach work, couldn’t some Surrey Heath Youth Workers have reached out to youngsters in Knaphill?
• The continuing waste of resource in the form of buildings like Lakers, intended for young people to use. It would be better to have them filled with the ‘generic’ activities for ordinary young people even if this meant dance schools, drama groups, sports groups run by outside teachers than see them left empty.  And alongside this, Surrey has other organisations offering advice and guidance to young people that need space and could be offered a base to work from.

The ‘Youth Project’ at County Hall has currently stalled, waiting for the arrival of the new head of services for young people. In the meantime, my informant is optimistic that in the current quarter - April to June 2009 - Woking will do better.

•  Surrey County Council should not take Ofsted to Court 

Left to themselves, the evidence suggests the Tories would still not be explaining and discussing with ordinary members of the Council, let alone the public, why and whether they should be taking Ofsted to court. They say the ‘inadequate’ rating of Childrens Services is unfair, and that of course feeds through to the overall 1-star rating for the Council. (see previous postings for more on this)

I asked a question in Council about how and why the decision to seek judicial review was made, and why members of the Council were not informed. The answer, while full and interesting, showed a process in which the legal moves were quietly going on in closed meetings, with emerging decisions only expressed in what could be taken as ’its not fair’-type grumbles.

There has only been any full or free discussion among Councillors of this decision because Hazel Watson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the largest minority party, put a motion to Tuesday’s Council saying Surrey County Council should halt the legal action. The money saved from legal bills (and the management time and effort saved) should be applied to improving the failing services.

I’ll cut to the chase: we didn’t win the vote (we didn’t expect to) but for the first time I can remember all opposition parties were united in voting with us. It ended up with 20 votes for our motion, 45 against, and 4 abstentions. We asked for a named vote, so if you want to see how your County Councillor voted it will be on the record.

The Leader said the cost to date is £9,000 - £10,000, and he continued: ’I believe if we went the course it would be £100,000 - £150,000.’

Estimates published in the press have used figures in the region of £500,000 to £600,000; and if Surrey lost it might have to pay the other side’s costs as well.

The opportunity cost in terms of senior  managers work and attention we’re less likely to see quantified. (I suppose I ought to count the possible distraction of senior Tory Councillors as a positive, but actually we also need the Executive Member carrying quite heavy statutory responsibility for Chidrens’ Services to be focussed primarily on such things as the Improvement Notice. Even if he is a Tory.)

The Conservative Leader’s argument is that they are doing this for Surrey’s staff: ‘I think it is right to stand up for our staff … what we are doing is reasonable … ‘

I don’t know what the staff view would be. I guess it depends which staff. Some of them, in Unison, have been on the verge of industrial action over high caseloads and claims of bullying management.

I do know that the end of this month is one of the ‘milestones’ when Surrey will have to face a judgement by central government on how it is meeting the Secretary of State’s ‘Improvement Notice’. 

A Tory question on Tuesday asking for a Member update on this makes things look fairly rosy. But In my view this is an illusion. There are still two major requirements un-met, concerning staff assessment and concerning computer systems, while a number of apparent achievements conceal huge problems still unmet. For example, social worker vacancies are quoted as being at 8%, more than meeting the target 14% - but this includes  locum agency staff. I believe the staff vacancy rate is somewhere between 20% and 25%.

• School Admissions

After the major changes a couple of years ago, arrangements have largely been left as they are, with just a few tweaks.

An extra primary school, The Royal Kent,  has been added to the controversial Howard of Effingham Secondary School’s ‘feeder’ list - but as with all the feeder schools, this is applied in conjunction with a catchment area, and will involve relatively few pupils.

Oxted school arrangements remain unchanged.

A number of junior schools with infant schools very close either start or continue to give priority to pupils from that infant school, eg The Oaktree and Hermitage schools in Woking.

The PAN (Published admission number) for Knaphill Junior School, Woking, has been increased to 90, to bring it into line with Knaphill Junior, and priority will be given to Knaphill Junior pupils. 

Admission numbers: for those interested in school numbers, question 22 and the table in the appendix was fascinating. It shows where extra classes have been put in, and where there is still spare capacity in the system.

Woking Infant Schools, for example, have made offers to children that would fill nearly all places. The exception is Barnsbury Primary, but this is because a potential extra class of 30 was added to their PAN to increase capacity in the Woking area, and this has only been partially taken up. 

The credit crunch does seem to have made parents more cautious of taking on the expense of private education. It will be good for our schools after years of falling rolls if the numbers are higher - and also good if more parents who value  education trust their children to the state system and then give it their support  - but actual numbers remain to be seen.

The report on Admissions Arrangements can be found here. The members Questions to Council with the separate table of school offers should be there too, but had not yet been posted up at the time of writing.  

• Snow Lessons    

Stephen Cooksey and I both asked questions about emergency arrangements in February’s snow. In the interest of getting this posted while it still has relevance, excuse me cannibalising a piece I wrote yesterday:

Heavy snow on Monday the second of February tested Surrey County Council’s capacity to deal with emergencies, which in the recent past has been put in doubt by reduced staffing.  At a recent Full Council meeting, Liberal Democrat County Councillors asked how effective emergency planning had been, both on the roads and in making sure essential services got through to vulnerable people.

            Stephen Cooksey, representing Dorking and the Holmwoods, described ‘severe chaos around the County, with roads being blocked and schools being closed’, which was ‘exacerbated by a lack of sufficient grit to maintain ice-free roads’.           

It turns out that pre-orders of salt, arranged before Christmas, were at first diverted from Surrey. The major road network was salted on the Sunday afternoon before the snow fell, but the County switched to sand for non-A roads. In the meantime it was hoped that residents would help themselves and other people by spreading the salt or sand from the roadside bins located around the County. 

           ‘‘Most people don’t know where these bins are, and even whether they’re allowed to use them – I hope better labelling and information will be one of the lessons learned.” said Diana Smith, County Councillor for Knaphill. “But this is just a small part of what needs to be learned from what happened in February.”          

Diana asked about the effect of the snow on Social Services, and how emergency planning took account of the needs of vulnerable people, especially when care is provided by outside agencies.           

“It’s clear there have been some heroic stories, and social worker and care teams worked determinedly to cover the needs of people known to be particularly vulnerable,’ Diana said. ‘But we know from comments made by local residents some people too incapable to keep track for themselves of what was happening may have slipped through the net. The Conservative Executive member says the Emergency Welfare Planning Response Group is working on ‘joined up’ arrangements to identify people who might need help and their carers, and this is clearly needed.”           

A report on all these issues will be going to the Safer and Stronger Communities Select Committee on 15^th April. Lessons need to be learned: other emergencies needing this level of co-ordination and planning may not be so intrinsically harmless and self-limiting.

• Money in Iceland

For those who are following this story, recovering Surrey’s £20 million depends on whether councils get defined as ‘depositor creditors’ under Icelandic legislation, which would give us priority over other creditors with the broken banks. If as expected this is the case, then Surrey will get back the full amount from Glitnir, and about 90% from Landsbanki. 

• Youth Service Hours in Woking 

I was very puzzled and somewhat upset by information coming out of Cllr. Ian Beardsmore’s question about numbers of youth workers employed in the different Boroughs and Districts of Surrey and the hours of Youth Work done by them.

For example, Surrey Heath, with 6.76 FTE Youth Workers in post, produces 2,447 hours of Youth Work, while Woking, with 6.03 FTE Youth Workers in post, produces 875.

Spelthorne is the next most badly off, with 1008 hours, while Guildford gets 1646.

Surely something wrong here?

I hope there is a good explanation (the Executive member didn’t give me one that made perfect sense on the spot in answer to my supplementary) and I’ll either add to this post or put up a new one once I find out more.