Does anyone involved in Local Government wake up saying that? At least it means the budget setting process will soon be completed, though the pain of implementation is only just beginning.  

‘Cock ups’ 

Debate was enlivened this Tuesday by my fellow Liberal Democrat County Councillor, John Doran, who drew to the attention of the assembled Council the series of ‘cock ups’ from road management to the expenditure of millions of pounds on an aborted plan to bring County Hall back into Surrey.  Objection was made to the term ‘cock-up’ by a Conservative lady councillor approximately my contemporary (and you can see how middle-aged I am at the top of the page.) Another Conservative backbencher mistook the wood-panelled Council Chamber for parliament, and stood to berate the ‘honourable member for Horsell’. 

Just so we know, according to the Cassell Dictionary of Slang, cock up in the sense of blunder is military in origin, from “SE cock ‘to bend at an angle but with undertones of cock N2″ . Interestingly, even the rude meaning of  cock “remained in perfectly standard use until Queen Victoria’s coronation, shortly after which it joined the ranks of the taboo”

Disappointments and risks

Too many to write about at length! These were the two I picked out to talk about in the meeting:

Cuts are always called ‘efficiency savings’, even when there is small scope for increased productivity. There should be genuine scope for savings through smarter ‘procurement’. But when this is driven by the need to save money, procurement savings can all too easily mean reductions in the quality of service. I think this is particularly the case with buying services for the elderly and disabled - I’ve had several people contact me with their concerns about the care they or their relatives receive.

Schools based their bids for much-needed modernisation and improvement on £20 million of ’supported’ borrowing. But this borrowing will not after all take place - Nick Skellett, the Conservative leader, explained that this is because the supporting grant for this borrowing is ‘lost in this system [of Local Government Finance] that is broken … borrowing we cannot support which probably that Government Department assumes will happen’.

This may be true, but it doesn’t help schools desperately in need of repairs and improvement.

A Curate’s Egg for the Youth Service

 The bright-ish spot was a one-off £500,000 extra for the Youth Service, which goes some way towards cancelling out the £595,000 of ongoing cuts they would otherwise have been expected to make. It was the threat of this cut, and a further 3% ‘efficiency’ cut, which triggered the sudden freeze of Youth Service recruitment before Christmas. This freeze left Lakers, my local Youth Centre, with the prospect of being unable to replace the Youth Worker in charge when she left.

I had highlighted this in a motion to Council in January, calling for an end to the freeze on Youth Service recruitment. (It was defeated)

Now the 3% is not being called for after all because there was a bit more money available from the Government for Early Years services than expected. With this and the £500,000 being restored to the budget, I am disappointed that there was no decision that the Youth Service would soon be defrosted!

We’re nowhere near home and dry yet - this half a million is a one-off, and the Youth Development Service needs to look seriously at different ways to provide the activities that we all know young people in Surrey need and aren’t getting.’