Diana Smith

 Time to reflect ….  

There are no Council Meetings in August, and little political activity. So postings to this website will be on hold, and I hope readers will also be relaxing and not miss them.

I will check every now and then for comments and discussion; and if anything unexpected happens terms of SCC politics will write about it here.

Coming in September …

• ‘ Schools and Learning’ Committee on 2nd September. Does not now look as if it will have a full report on Youth Services following the consultation and work done over summer, but should have a report on Commercial Services (’owners’ of school meals) and also a report on School Exclusions.

• ‘Children and Families’ Committee 10th September. The long delayed full report on why Ruth House (respite care associated with Freemantles School) has remained closed or in partial use so long; plus an update on CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service). This is should be particularly closely scrutinised given the JAR report (some details in the article below)

• Tuesday 16th September - special Woking Local Committee meeting on Woking’s Bicycle-related plans, with all that extra money to spend ….

So please, look in again then!

Corporate Assessment 

The Inspectors from the Audit Commission point out in their Corporate Assessment that overall satisfaction with the Council has only fallen from 53% to 52% since 2003/4, and it’s still above ‘the country council average of 50%’. Which does not seem a great endorsement of local government as a whole.

The Corporate Assessment came to the conclusion that ‘Surrey County Council is performing well’. I don’t like having to point out that the CA and JAR do not together paint as rosy a picture as this suggests. The Surrey staff I have had contact with, in Transport, Libraries, Schools, Social Services, and so on, have been caring and as far as I could tell conscientious in the work they are doing, not just to keep the County and its services going, but in wanting to improve them.

Nevertheless I find it quite surprising that the Inspectors say Surrey gives good value for money, given what in a common-sense way I would consider inefficiencies in the use of contractors. You only have to look at our long-unfinished Road Crossings in Knaphill (written about below). Also, I have never been convinced that the ‘efficiency savings’ the Government demands year on year and the Inspectors write about are entirely genuine efficiencies, doing the same with fewer resources. They too often end up as cuts.

The ‘areas for improvement’ identified for Surrey County Council by the Inspectors are quite soft -  not at all the things many residents might think most need remedying, such as mending pot-holes in the roads, or providing more youth services for young people.

They write in terms of clarifying long-term vision; ‘maximising the potential of all councillors’; improving Surrey County Council’s ’approach to equalities and diversity’. The first and third I think actually hold the key to what has happened on the ground, the faults that have shown up in the JAR.

When it comes to scores, Surrey gets a 3 for performing well on ‘Ambition’, ‘Prioritisation’ and ‘Capacity’. It only gets a 2, ( ‘at minimum requirements - adequate performance’) for Performance Management and for ’Achievement’.

Never mind meeting ‘only minimum requirement’ on Achievement - it’s the score on the five themes that counts, and it is on that basis Surrey comes out as ‘performing well’. 

The Joint Area Review (JAR)

One of the CA comments is that ’scrutiny is highly effective’. But in Full Council on the 22nd part of the shock felt at the result of the Joint Area Review was that even the most relevant committee (Children and Families, which I am a member of) had either not identified or not managed to convey to the Executive and the rest of the Council the seriousness of the situation. 

The JAR looked at services provided by Surrey County Council and its partners for children. It looked in depth at four areas: children at risk, or requiring safeguarding; Looked After Children; children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities; what is being done to reduce teenage pregnancy in Surrey.

There have been shocking failures in these. These are direct quotations from the report’s main findings: 

• “ … safeguarding is inadequate”

• “There is an inadequate range of services for those children and young people who have a high level of need but who do not meet thresholds for child protection.”

• “There are inadequate arrangements to ensure safe staffing.”

• “The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is inadequate”

• “Services to meet health needs are inadequate.”

• “ Surrey is not on target to halve the rate of teenage pregnancy by 2010 and the overall impact of the strategy is inadequate.”

• “… targeted service delivery for vulnerable groups is inadequate.”

• “Capacity to improve is inadequate.”

The details are appalling:    “Although the council state in their self-assessment that all staff are robustly CRB checked, this information is false, with high numbers of staff identified by the human resources database as either not having had CRB checks or three yearly re-checks” 

“Poor quality and poor timeliness of initial and core assessments.” 

“Too limited access to physiotherapists, and occupational, speech and language therapists, disadvantages children severely at all stages …” 

“CAMHS thresholds are too high …Referral procedures for this service are complex. Very troubled teenagers wait over a year for treatment.” 

“Too many children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities are excluded from school. In 2006, nearly half (47.69%) of statemented children in mainstream secondary schools had fixed term exclusions …” 

Liberal Democrats have consistently campaigned for more services to support families and keep children from needing to be brought into care; for more effective recruitment and retention of key staff; and to ensure that schools are helped to keep children with Special Educational Needs in school. But it has taken a Government Inspection to bring out the lack of CRB checks, the failure to respond to children’s needs early enough in the care process, and the failure to keep proper records.

 The Inspectors said the Conservatives’ 2006 Business Delivery Review harmed ‘important service developments… in children’s social care’, and it left  ‘overall capacity … too limited for an adequate pace of change’.

One small, bright-ish spot was the establishment of Surrey’s Contact Centre (08456 009009) which the Inspectors said handled new enquiries and referrals efficiently.

I don’t know exactly what happened to this and other ‘My Councillor’ sites over the weekend. It seems to have come back in a slightly earlier version that the one that disappeared. The most recent posting seems to have disappeared into the electronic ether. This was about answers to Members’ Questions at Full Council. Campus Woking is not dead, according to the Executive Member, but from his reply seems to be functioning as a ’thought experiment’. There was also an explanation/ discussion of School Admissions Appeals in relation to Woking High. 

 Yes, one ought to back up, but then a blog is quite ephemeral and sometimes it’s better to get on and do the next thing …

… in the interests of which I’ll get back with a brand new post asap … 

The Joint Area Review Report made tough reading. Reading it at speed in order to debate it does not make for a balanced, temperate view.

So I will return later with comment, analysis, and also news from the rest of the meeting, for tonight restricting myself to quotations from the report itself: 

The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people at risk, or requiring safeguarding is inadequate

§                There is an inadequate range of services for those children and young people who have a high level of need but who do not meet thresholds for child protection. The quality and timeliness of completion of assessments is poor. There are inadequate arrangements to ensure safe staffing across a range of agencies.

The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is inadequate. Services to meet health needs are inadequate

. Capacity to improve is inadequate

targeted service delivery for vulnerable groups is inadequate. Capacity and performance management are inadequate to provide sustainable, consistent and effective services.  

Grades4: outstanding; 3: good; 2: adequate; 1: inadequate

The above are from the main findings. Below are three of the statements that hit home hardest for me. Some relate to the Health Service rather than being solely the SCCs responsibility:

Children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities are badly affected by key shortages in the health service. There are insufficient health visitors to complete all two-year checks, delaying possible diagnosis until children start school. Too limited access to physiotherapists, and occupational, speech and language therapists, disadvantages children severely at all stages, especially during transitions between settings. Waiting lists are long and children are sometimes removed from the list without explanation

. CAMHS thresholds are too high, with access for children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities being limited to those at the very high level of need. Referral procedures for this service are complex. Very troubled teenagers wait over a year for treatment

Too many children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities are excluded from school. In 2006, nearly half (47.69%) of statemented children in mainstream secondary schools had fixed term exclusions and, in 2005, 23.7% in special schools had fixed-term exclusions.

Can it really be the 19th July? More than a week since my last post?

There have been a number of meetings during the last couple of weeks - SACRE (Standing advisory Council on Religious Education); a visit to Sheerwater Youth Centre as part of the current consultation on Youth Services; and the Children and Families Committee. Then there have been Arts activities - visiting Woking Youth Arts Centre to see their production about teenage pregnancy; a Harp Ensemble rehearsal, and then a concert at Emsworth, on the South Coast, which took an (enjoyable) day out of last weekend. Not to mention a brief time sitting at the Woking Writers Circle stall as part of the Arts Council event on Saturday 12th.

Behind the scenes there’s been some intense politics going on. The CA / JAR (Corporate Assessment and Joint Area Review) reports will be published this Tuesday, the 22nd of July. The JAR concentrates on services for Children, and homed in on some specific areas related to social services for children.

You may have learned something of it in advance from the report in the Surrey Advertiser, which talks about problems with CRB checks, so a certain amount of information has been leaked to the press. Some information has also reached Councillors, but of course I can’t write about the private briefings we have received. Enough has been said in public, both in the paper and on this web site,  to give you the clue that there may be interesting things to be said on Tuesday. 

But ordinary Councillors - and opposition Councillors, as I am - have had not one direct quotation from the report itself, and absolutely no information about the inspectors’ ratings. (And not for lack of asking)

There are clues. We do know that we now have a new Interim Head of Childrens Services and a new Interim Head of Safeguarding. The draft Jar report was with the various organisations being inspected in May, and the PCT made public its initial action plan on the 9th of May. And as I’ve reported on this website remarks have been made openly in the Children and Families Committee that are interesting in this context.

It happens that there is a Full Council meeting this coming Tuesday the 22 July, the day the report is published. After that meeting we’re practically into the summer break, so the next Full Council meeting will be in October. 

The present plan is that the (Conservative) Leader will make a statement on the 22nd July. At first I was told that Surrey would not make the reports available to us until then, and anticipated a midnight stint trying to download them from the Ofsted and the Audit Office webites, assuming the IT departments concerned put them up that early - which I discovered through telephoning Ofsted was not guaranteed.  The situation now is that Councillors will be supplied with printed copies of the reports and a briefings on them - so that we know what Surrey would like us to say to residents and the press - by 9.00 am, with with meeting starting at 10.30 am.    

Please excuse me going on about this a bit, when it is the content of the reports that are what really matters, and which must be taken most seriously. But how can we do our job of opposition effectively when the Conservative Executive have had months to stock up on wallpaper and paste to cover the cracks, and we will have an hour and a half to go through the reports to find the information we need in order to make sure our residents get more than a one-sided view from their Council?     

I stood in for John Doran on the Transportation Committee again today, and got this update on finance for Surrey’s roads.

 The Transportation Committee recommended that local overspends on road schemes should be written off, and underspends carried forward. The Executive have decided against this.  This would be a great blow to Woking’s Local Transport Plan, except that the Executive have found another £5 million to spend on roads. David Munro, the Executive Member for Transport, described the suggestion of write-offs as a ‘nice try, but no chance’ because ‘all the bits and pieces [are] wrapped up in that £5M … [and] you will find that the allocation of that £5 million more than compensates for that overspend.’  

David Munro explained that £2.5 million would go into the highways Capital budget from underspends by the Council in areas other than transport, and another £2.5 million would be found for highways maintenance.

Meetings are being held with local Committee Chairmen and Vice Chairman to talk about how the money is allocated. They are ‘moving towards a formula’ in which the main factor will be the length of roads in the area, on which basis ’Guildford and Waverley will get more than Epsom and Ewell’, except that they will also recognise in the formula where there are more vehicles per kilometre.  ‘Epsom and Ewell [are] winners on that’.

Where this leaves Woking we don’t yet know, but it should be better off than before.

Mr. Munro revealed as one of his personal objectives that he wanted to ‘oversee and implement [a] ‘mid-course correction’ for highways 2008/09. ‘ 

We’re already well into that financial year. I hope in Woking our Highways Director’s foresight in putting money into design so that there are schemes ready to lift off the shelf the moment money becomes available will pay off.  Pedestrian crossings of  Westfield Road and Denton Way, and the re-shaping of the crossing point at Amstel Way and Lockfield Drive would be my personal candidates for restoration to this year’s work programme.

I certainly got the hint of a ’use it or lose it’ threat in the Executive members jocular remark that ‘here you’ve got all this money from a kind Executive - from a kind Council - jolly well make sure you spend it.’

The traffic lights at the top of Anchor Hill were switched on today. The point of the whole operation is to provide an all-green phase for pedestrians. A green phase which,  unfortunately, is not working.

I’m sure it will be made to work, but probably not until next Tuesday. I do not know what the reason for this problem is, but on recent evidence I suspect many people in Knaphill will think it typical of the way Surrey manages our roads.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for Woking’s Local Transport Team, whose knowledge of local roads and concern to keep them running well seems to me all too often let down by the organisational structures they have to work with, often depending on a chain of contractors and sub-contractors.

Once the lights are working properly in terms of providing the all green phase for pedestrians, I hope we will find that the restored sensors in the roads will still allow traffic through in the most efficient way. If there are specific problems with this, it will be worth noting them, then letting me know and/or contacting Surrey County Council directly either through their website (www.surreycc.gov.uk ) or on 08456 009009, asking for the information to be given to the Local HIghways Manager at Woking. I am told it should be possible to ‘tweak’ the settings. 

A lot of different threads came together at the Local Committee on Monday - I’ll try to pull out some of those of particular interest to Knaphill and Goldsworth West, along with a few bits that affect everyone in Woking. I’ve missed out very local uncontroversial stuff about eg exactly where yellow lines are going, and picked out just a few phrases that struck me particularly forcefully on some of the other items.

EDF and the Knaphill Crossings

The story so far: By Monday the Broadway Crossing was open and the trees obscuring the beacon had been cut back, I understand thanks to one of Surrey’s Transport Officers literally taking the job into his own hands. The Redding Way crossing was not ready. The history of how the long delay had come about was obscure - various people at various times had attributed the problems to Surrey, Ringway, and EDF. We got three goes at the issue in this Local Committee meeting:

i) In the half hour of informal public question-and-answer a determined resident who I won’t name (unless he tells me he would prefer me to credit him) told Paul Fishwick, the Local Highways Manager, that the whole thing had been a ‘farce’, and asked for an explanation of how the delay had gone on so long. Paul acknowledged that the scheme had taken ‘considerably longer than anticipated’. He said that following monthly meetings looking at how Ringway (the Contractor) was doing he had ’alerted Ringway to where their failures were … Ringway could have placed the orders [with EDF] much, much sooner … the whole of the process was delayed way beyond what we wanted.’ There was further reassurance that EDF was now on the case, and the Redding Way crossing will be working ‘later this week or early next week’.  On costs, Paul explained that Surrey paid on a ‘cost plus’ basis, which meant he wouldn’t know how much the crossings had been until they were finished.

ii) My written question, submitted last week. In it I asked what the obstacles were to bringing the crossings into full use; about the placing of the beacons at the Broadway; and about keeping the greenery back from them.  This was the answer:

“a. Redding Way is awaiting a new electric power supply from EDF. EDF are the regional electricity board and they are the only company that is authorised to work on their apparatus. Broadway has now been completed and the crossing is in use.

 ”b. The obstruction to the beacon will be removed in the near future. The poles are set at the back of the footway to improve footway clearance and placed on an arm to improve the sight line.

“c. Once the trees have been cut back, there will be an annual maintenance system in place. “  Supplementary questions brought out that the land the trees stand on is privately-owned. Surrey is doing a land registry search to find out who it belongs to, since the owner can be required to maintain it, or be presented with the bill.

iii Later in the meeting, looking at what had remained in Woking’s very constrained Local Transport Plan road schemes, two of the items that have had to stay in place for this year are £3,000 each as ‘outstanding work from 2007/8′ for the Redding Way and Broadway crossings.

When I asked Paul Fishwick he said yes, this is for electrical work, and goes to EDF. It is not extra to the planned costs. It is a pity that this £6,000 did not get into last year’s budget, to be part of Woking’s written-off overspend.

But congratulations to Paul and his team on bringing forward a number of schemes that were ready to go, including Knaphill’s new crossings, to 2007 /8.  If they’d been left to compete with everything else on the very cut-back programme for this year, we’d almost certainly be looking at a long wait.

Community Safety Report

As John Doran (Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Horsell) pointed out, Surrey has to be one of the safest places on this planet to live, and this year’s figures reflect that. Unfortunately ‘The 2007 Community Survey found that just over one quarter of respondents stated that fear of crime affected their lifestyle in some way.’ Where there are problems, they are often fuelled by alcohol. There’s a survey at www.surreybigdrinkdebate.nhs.uk which will report back in the autumn. Some of the questions made me ponder a bit, for instance: ”Do you think that information on the number of calories contained in an alcoholic drink would influence the amount you drink?”

Annual report on the Fire and Rescue Service

“It’s twenty times more likely you’ll be cut out from a car than rescued from a fire … ”

 ”I would like to raise the fear of anybody behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.”

“Our challenge for fire remains the very hard to reach.” - eg people who often combine several risk factors such as smoking, drinking, being elderly, or mentally impaired.

 LTS Lite (This Year’s Local Transport Programme ) 

We  heard formally that the Local Transport Plan budget for road schemes in the Borough has been cut from the expected budget of £450,000, which was the basis for planning at last February’s meeting, to only £160,000.

£50,000  of that is needed to put right the almost new pedestrian crossing at the junction of White Rose Lane and Heathside Crescent, following petitions to the  Committee about the dangers to pedestrians last February, which were confirmed by a ’stage 4′ safety audit’.

This means some of the top schemes that otherwise would have had the go-ahead for this year will go on hold waiting for funding once the design stage is finished. This includes the crossing of Westfield Road by the Cricketers, which had reached the top of the list for priority last year. Derek McCrum, Liberal Democrat Borough Councillor for Kingsfield and Westfield, said: ‘I do not understand why you are putting parents lives and childrens lives at risk,’ when the revisions to the White Rose Lane crossing were the result of  ‘A cock-up on the part of Surrey County Council.’

It’s not just this crossing being knocked back. Unfortunately two other schemes in Goldsworth Park, which also involve pedestrian safety, won’t go ahead this year. Instead they’ll sit as completed designs until money can be found.

One of these is some remodelling of the kerbs at the roundabout with Amstel Way and Lockfield Drive, where I’ve been hoping for the last four years to make it safer for children from Goldsworth Park to cross and walk up to the Winston Churchill School.

The second is the Denton Way Pedestrian Crossing near Waitrose. This is a particularly sore spot for me, since some good news yesterday was that Surrey County Council have managed to get Waitrose’s agreement to transfer the £10,000 ‘planning gain’ money to this, instead of using it to take away the bus lay-by on Bampton Way, near Waitrose. (This was threatened some time ago and opposed by all your local Councillors on Goldsworth Park as a costly ‘dis-improvement’)  

I’m also unhappy that the Beechwood Road Speed Reduction design, fought for so determinedly by residents last year, has been put on hold, as has the preparatory work for a lot of other much-wanted work across the Borough.

But having seen where children and parents cross Westfield Road, and the speed of traffic there, I had to agree that if any scheme could get special treatment this year it had to be that one.

‘I would love to do the Westfield Road crossing,’ Paul Fishwick said, but then put it to us that we must chose between Westfield Road and the ‘remedial’ work at Heathside Crescent.

John Doran, who described himself as ‘almost as angry as Mr. McCrum’, recommended that the committee refuse to approve the programme of work for 2008/9, and ask the Executive at County Hall to look for additional funding for the remedial work from one of Surrey County Council’s ‘contingency funds’. The Committee turned this proposal down, instead deciding to ask the Executive for extra money for the priority Westfield Road crossing.

Member Allocations

- went through very fast, the arguing over whether proposals met the criteria having been thrashed out beforehand. I was happy to sponsor a contribution towards the ‘Jigsaw’ group for parents of young children on very low income, operating from the YPOD in Woking; and a new kitchen at the Surrey Care Trust’s Alternative Education Centre at Weyside in Goldsworth Park.

Farnborough Airport Pre-Consultation  

By the time we got to this, it was a long time past supper and no-one wanted to talk more than necessary. My motion, seconded by John Doran, was passed nem. con.. It read:

‘The Woking Local Committee considers that proposals for the increas of traffic at Farnborough Airport will be harmful for the people of Knaphill, Brookwood, Goldsworth Park and Horsell living under the flight path, and that the economic advantages do not outweigh the environmental disadvantages. It asks the Surrey County Council to reflect this opinion in its response to the current pre-consultation.’

Surrey was already likely to take this stance based on existing policy. Woking Local Committee’s view will add a bit more weight to their objection to any increase in traffic beyond what is presently allowed, so I feel this was well worth saying.

And then, since it was only two days past the longest day, I couldn’t resist returning by bicycle along the canal in the twilight, enjoying the new width and looking forward to an even better surface than the present rather skid-provoking chips when the upgrade is completed … 

Tuesday’s Full Council seemed to me a rather low-key affair, with few decisions - the Independent Panel’s paper on Member’s Allowances was sent back to Committee for lack of coherent recommendations on what should be accepted from it, and a number of rather old-fasioned Public Library Byelaws were approved, most of them still allowing library staff to use their good sense. As often, some of the answers to questions were the most interesting.

 1. Is failure to pay at the root of Knaphill’s problem’s with EDF?

Despite suspicions voiced to me, the answer seems to be ‘no’, at least not failure to pay past invoices. The Executive Member for Transport said:

“The Shared Service Centre records show only one overdue invoice, which unfortunately didn’t reach Surrey and Highways. We are investigating further and will pay as soon as possible. There are no disputed invoices and no work on hold awaiting payment.”

2 What’s up with ‘Suretime’, Surrey’s real-time bus information centre?

Lib Dem Councillor John Doran asked about the six months since the system was turned off, when if would be on again, and how much it was costing.

The answer was that a company called ‘Trapeze’ took over supplying the system in January, planned to upgrade it, had ‘unforeseen delays of four to six weeks’ which then were exacerbated by ‘the system inherited from the previous system supplier being inherited in a worse state … than anticipated.’

It’s now expected that most of the network in Guildford and Woking will be ‘live’ by the end of June. Surrey has paid £406,000 for the upgrade with another £115,000 to come, but ‘we have not made the quarterly payments of £45,000 … for maintenance for Jan 08 -Mar 08 and April 08 - June 08 … ‘

- So we can’t quite console ourselves that the upgrade is paying for itself in saved maintenance. And I, for one, would like to see the system back again to put some assurance into waiting at the bus stop.

3. How many Surrey secondary schools are on the Government’s National Challenge Initiative hit-list?

The ex-Executive Member for Education asked this in a more formal way. The answer is four. They weren’t named in the answer, but they are Christ’s College, De Stafford, Jubilee High, and Broadwater.  A potential fifth is Bishop David Brown. I’ll quote the last paragraph of the answer from Peter Martin, new Executive Member, in full:

“There is debate as to whether Bishop David Brown School in Sheerwater should be included in the list.  As it scored 30% 5 A*-C including Maths and English last year it should not have appeared.   It also scored a very credible 1007 for contextual value added.   This school was placed in special measures in 2003.  The current Head was appointed in January 2005.  The school was removed from special measures in November 2006 and gained a good judgement from Ofsted in November 2007.   Head Teacher Stuart Shephard feels that the Secretary of State’s announcement “has probably set us back two years in our vision of regaining community confidence”.   I sincerely hope that this is not the case.   I regret that the Government has not contributed to the good work that we are doing to improve educational standards either in this school or in Surrey more generally”

This followed up discussions in the Schools and Learning Committee the week before, when it was commented that each of these schools are well supported in their own local communities. Complacency is certainly not required - the County’s ‘Asip’ programme, giving extra support from a number of ‘critical friends’ to such schools also keeps challenging them, and is not an entirely comfortable programme to be on - and I sympathised with the Head Teacher on the Committee who said: ‘I wish [inspectors] would come up with an indicator of happiness of children, enjoyment of children.’

Going Through The Motions …

  There were three this time. The Conservatives on Foot and Mouth; Libdems on local democracy; and a back-bench Conservative motion on the new ‘Member/Officer’ protocol which was taken back for more work.

Foot and Mouth - we all agreed unanimously that Trading Standards did a great job last summer, that the Government should make it practical for Surrey to prosecute the responsible organisations, and there should be tougher fines. The current figure of £5,000 and/or 6 months in prison was ‘totally inedequate’.

Liberal Democrat Colin Taylor put forward a motion pointing out that the Community Survey showed only 30% of respondents thought they could have any influence, and only 16% had ever heard of Surrey’s Local Committees. That was fine. The second part of the motion asked for change, including the right for Surrey residents to petition Full Council. We’ve asked for this before without success, so it was no surprise when our motion was amended to exclude it, and then passed while we felt compelled to oppose it. 

The Conservatives argued that the public are better off as they are, bringing their petitions, for example on School Admissions, to the Exectutive where the decisions are made. If this is the case, that petitions should go to the decision making body, then what are we doing in Full Council at all? OK, much is delegated, and the massive Conservative majority means that what isn’t delegated is actually decided behind closed doors by the ruling party … but using this as an argument seemed very dismissive!

I didn’t get a chance to say so because the Chairman (Angela Fraser, Conservative) decided that after the Conservative changes to our motion had been passed, she would not allow any more debate on the motion as it then stood. John Doran, seconder of the original motion, was allowed the chance to stand up and say why he now urged everyone not  to vote for the motion. Then that was that.

Angela had said we would break for lunch at 12.45, and we did, though when we came back at 2.00 we took about a quarter of an hour to get through the remaining business. Pre-lunch drinks in the Chairman’s Office were a choice of a nice white wine (I don’t think it was champagne, but something like) or a very pleasant elderflower drink. This is the first time I have been in these rooms (I think we get invited in turn). The dark panelling, silky Indian carpet, old furniture, portrait of the Queen, and massive arrangement of flowers made it like one of the richer family rooms in a National Trust stately home.  Lunch, you may be pleased to hear, was the normal buffet in the ‘mess’.

One possibly interesting note on Campus Woking -  Surrey’s response to the Government White Paper on ‘Raising Expectations’ and the future of the work done by the Learning and Skills Council was featured in the Executive Report for information. I stood to ask Peter Martin, the Executive Member who took over from Andrew Crisp this May, how Campus Woking fitted in, since it surely had to be an important plank in the County’s strategy with regard to the 14 - 19 agenda. Weren’t they supposed to be coming back with proposals more or less right now … ?

Reader, I got no answer. He did not appear to have more than the politest, nodding acquaintance with the ‘Campus Woking’ concept. He said he would let me know. After the meeting I assured him that people in Woking would really like to hear how plans were going, and he said he would get something to me in writing about it when he had found out himself.

There were a few quiet few days a week or two ago, and if I look back in my diary there are gaps, so that I could almost wonder how I filled my time - but I know I have not been sitting around doing nothing! Some of the more serious business has got written up already, but less strictly political highlights included:

• The Beaufort School Fete, with our new Head Teacher showing her Australian roots by taking personal control of the Barbecue.
• The Surrey County Harp ensemble concert at St. Mary’s in Saunderstead, when we had our first go at playing the theme tune from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ in concert. A world first for this arrangement: not a piece of music you’d associate with a group of 30-ish harps, but we all enjoyed it, and the audience didn’t walk out! (At least not before the end of the concert.)
• The Knaphill / Brookwood ‘In Tune’ community engagement event held at The Vyne. A good number of people there, with three discussion groups set up from topics chosen by those attending, as well as the exhibitions in the hall. But whether anything will come from it I wouldn’t like to say - there was a similar meeting at Goldsworth Park last year. Opinions got written up, and I guess it’s all part of keeping the pressure up to get the facilities people in the community want.
• Ian Wakeford, the local historian, gave a talk at Knaphill Library about Knaphill’s history, with pictures of the village from the past. The idea was to draw in people who could perhaps be involved in setting up a history group at the library - all the seats were full, so it looks as if the interest is there. For anyone interested in helping, the next ‘Friends of Knaphill Library’ meeting should be on 26th of June at 7.30 - but details will be in the library.

Last week had a ‘Schools and Learning’ Committee meeting as well as the ‘Children and Families’ reported on at some length below - but there is more to be picked out from both of them, which I’ll try to do before long.

Next week is Full Council, and the following week (Monday 23rd) Woking Local Committee. If you live in Woking, the deadline for written public questions is mid-day this coming Tuesday. Any Woking resident can just turn up at the Council Chamber from 6.00pm to 6.30pm for Public Question Time, when you’ll have the opportunity to raise issues, though the session is informal and not minuted.