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.

As explained in my ‘Tale of Two Inspections’ on the 27th of May, the report on Surrey of the Inspectors carrying out the Corporate Assessment and the Joint Area Review will not be published until the 22nd of July, and I would find myself in trouble if I were to leak - let alone publish - any of the information I have gathered about its content (as opposed to the process)

My fellow Councillors will also be in the position of being unable, at this point, to say what they know before then.

This was the context of an interesting discussion at the Children and Families Committee yesterday morning around the ’Year End Performance and Budget Outturn and Risk Register’.

At the start of the Committee meeting. the Chairman, Yvonna Lay, said that our meeting on the 15th of July would examine the JAR report in full as a Part 2 (confidential) item.

However yesterday was a meeting in public and entirely Part 1, so that everything said was in the public domain: at one point Jim Leivers, the new ‘Interim Head of Children’s Services’ even asked whether there were any press present - which there weren’t - to be reminded that it was a meeting in public and in ‘part 1′.

I made notes throughout and will give an account of the first part of the meeting based on them, without trying to draw further conclusions.

The item under discussion: Year End Performance and Budget Outturn and Risk Register

If you want to read the paper yourself, it is on the Surrey County Council website at http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/legcom/CouncilP.nsf/f5fb086c73d64f3000256954004aed25/6ce644c714f8e9418025745e005678f5?OpenDocument

The risk summary at the end of the paper identifies as the key risks for the Childrens Service to worry about for the immediate future:

•  Reliance on temporary staff results in uncertainty of service and potential employment issues. 
•  Dysfunctional critical system, EMS, leads to poor records, management of information and adversely impacts on capacity of staff and service delivery. 
•  Overspend on independent sector placements results in budget overspend.
•  Continued growth in population of Children with a Disability because of better medical care; insufficient resources to meet demand.

It’s also worth looking at - and quite shocking to see - the performance indicators in the Performance Report which forms the annex to the item. The ’traffic lights’ approach as to whether Surrey is on track to meet its 2007/2008 target show 41.2% red (more than 5% above/below target), equalling the green ‘on or better than’ target. For example, the percentage of 16-year-old Looked After Children (LAC) in education, employment or training fell again to 63.3% against a target of 85%. This compared with 66% achieved in 2006/7 and 75% in 2005/6.  This indicator therefore shows up as red, with a downward ‘direction of travel’ arrow.

What was said

Jim Leivers, who presented the document, started at the start with the money for 2007-8.  The Children’s Service had an overspend of £4,821,000. The planned Budget was £79,315,000; the actual spend £84,137,000.

 He said that the ‘essence of it’ was the overspending on placements, and on SEN transport. Surrey County Council is in the ‘middle order’ and ‘in this round this is an average performance data set’.

The Chairman, Yvonna Lay, was not that kind. She said ‘ … it makes very sorry reading’ and commented that ‘the biggest risk is missing … the management is the biggest risk … at present… ‘  but  ’… we will address this on the 15th of July’ (ie at the meeting which will feature discussion of the JAR in Part 2)

Jim Leivers acknowledged that ‘what you have here is a significant overspend in anybody’s terms’. He identified as a ‘further significant pressure in the system’  the ‘volume increase in Looked After Children’.

Later on, in answering questions and comments from Conservative Councillor Kay Hammond, he said there had been an ‘8% increase in children coming into the system [at a cost of] £50,000 to £60,000 per child’ and continued ‘I don’t think anyone would have anticipated … [this increase] … but it just brings Surrey into line with other authorities.’

(This did somewhat irritate me, with still-sore memories of the Business Delivery Review (BDR) when Liberal Democrats were shouting as hard as we could about the harm being doing and its likely consequences. We will return to this shortly … )

Kay Hammond had made various points , including some about the Transport Co-ordination Centre and the reliance a year ago on new software for making savings by creating more logical and efficient journeys, but which have not yet even begun to be realised. It was certainly a Councillor - and I think it was Kay - who said  ’… it makes you wonder why Councillors are here to make recommendations when nothing ever happens … ‘

The next to weigh in was Tim Oliver (Conservative) who looked back to the difficulty the Committee had in scrutinising the budget setting process and said he had ‘no confidence … that [we] won’t be facing [the] same issue … ‘ and concluded it was ‘incompetency, frankly’.

When it came to SEN transport, he said there was ‘a massive risk around this year’s budget.’

Our new Interim Head of Service said he understood that ‘this goes back to a BDR efficiency that was made.’ (Another Officer hastened to add that actually the problem went back to procurement having a new policy and therefore had to re-tender for the work. Therefore a significant delay was due to new procurement policies. Not the BDR at all, then.)

Around this time I got my chance to speak. I had a genuine question - what was the story around EMS, the ‘dyfunctional system?’ and I wanted to make a comment. This was that the rise in LAC was far from being unpredicted. This was clearly a potential consequence when, at the time of the BDR, funding had been cut to organisations such as the National Childrens Homes. NAHC was forced to close their programme to support families and to disband their team; the work was brought back ‘in house’, and then given a low priority in by comparison with ‘fire-fighting’ to keep up essential, statutory work. 

I was joined in this criticism of the BDR and its effect on the Voluntary sector by Christine Stevens, (Conservative, and until last month a member of the Executive.) She said ‘I think we are in a position where BDR did not crack the children’s problem, and our response to the JAR must … [crack it]’

Christine made a number of other points. She had ‘no faith in the financial analyses that we see in social care here’ and ‘would expect to see this committee having a much better understanding of the whole cycle of commissioning … including the voluntary sector.’

She finished by talking about the ‘prevention agenda’ and suggesting the committee should be looking at that.

In his answers, Jim Lievers said to Christine and myself about the harm done by BDR: ‘That analysis that you’ve come up with’s absolutely spot on … ‘ and the need for a ‘preventive service is absolutely right … ‘. He said that although it couldn’t be proved without a hugely expensive research program ‘it’s a good guess’ that lack of preventive services had put up the number of Looked After Children and ‘my good instinct says yes … ‘

(Then why didn’t he say so earlier, you might ask? It wasn’t a difficult theory to come up with … )

He continued: ‘What we need to look at on 15 July is an all-singing all-dancing preventive service … [but] how [we] fund it’s another question’.  He explained his ‘Fiduciary duty to balance your budget’ but it’s ‘not my job to make that easy for you … you are the people who knock on the door and say ‘will you vote for me’. But it was more ‘complex, actually … we cannot commission alone.’  One of our chief partners should be ‘the PCT, who sit on very significant sums of money.‘

The risk on EMS? - that’s a software system for educational data from schools that can have extra information dded to it. It has had some software and system problems, and is due to be replaced by a new IT system to the 23rd of September.

What IT system? - SAP.  We are of course all very reassured.

Comment from Peter Martin. the new Executive Member for Schools, Children and Youth Services: ”Some of the repercussions of the JAR report will be [a] significant challenge for us … We are making some very significant changes in the organisational structure … to put a lot of things right that should never have gone wrong.’

Item 9 on the agenda was Ruth House. ‘The whole thing’s a shambles’ said Dorothy Mitchell, Executive Member for Children and Families. (She meant it metaphorically. Surrey County Council’s not that bad.) 

But this item is long and serious enough already, so I will come back to Ruth House later. 

Since my earlier web-posting on the unlit light and unfinished Controlled Crossings at Knaphill, which you can read in my earlier posting, I have felt rather like Alice in Wonderland, trying to understand this perverse situation.

A broad view, formed after discussion with SCC Officers, and put forward in my regular monthly column for GPCA News:

‘Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite ‘em; And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum’

Trying to understand the delays and problems of road repairs and improvements under Surrey’s Highways Department reminds me of that rhyme. Surrey County Council doesn’t do the work on the ground itself, but contracts out to other companies. They sub-contract further. It’s all supposed to be more efficient. 

Consider, for example, the construction of the controlled crossing in the Broadway at Knaphill. This was approved in principle in November 2006. It was good news for Knaphill earlier this year that other schemes falling behind meant construction was advanced, with the idea of fitting it into the 2007/8 financial year. 

As I write, the crossing is largely complete but does not work. There is no electricity to run the lights.  Part of the pavement has to be blocked off to make sure pedestrians don’t step out trustingly onto a crossing that drivers rightly ignore. Only EDF can supply the electricity. I was told the delivery time was supposed to be within 6 weeks. I asked at Full Council in early May what Surrey could do about this failure, and was told Surrey’s powers were very limited. EDF is a monopoly, set up in the Mrs. Thatcher’s privatising spree during the 80s, and

You could ask, given the known problems with EDF, why Surrey didn’t wait until the electricity supply was on site before painting the lines on the road? This is where the fleas come in, metaphorically speaking.

 Meanwhile, something like three other companies were involved in trying to improve the drainage in the Broadway to make the path to the crossing more usable in wet weather.   This is just one of four schemes in Woking that have been held up severely by EDF. A while ago a much-needed controlled crossing was approved in principle for Denton Way , near Waitrose. When eventually the money is found to construct that crossing, there’s not much we can do except hope EDF will supply power to it.

Feedback from members of the public:

A member of the public who has been keeping me on my toes in pursuing this issue said that when he contacted EDF directly, they told him that they had now arranged a date for power to be supplied to Redding Way, but in the Broadway they were waiting for a specific piece of documentation ‘from the Council’. EDF had also maintained their blamelessness through the local press, suggesting that they had not been properly informed.

Another member of the public suggested that it would be worth checking whether there was a problem with Surrey’s payments to EDF. This did not seem implausible, since a question to Council last July showed that Surrey has had problems making  payments in the past, but I have no indication this is the case.

Someone else suggested to me that Surrey needed a much better grasp of  ‘process management’, as opposed to the ‘project management’ which it has handed over to contractors.

Most people are simply incredulous at the situation.

Further developments at the Transportation Select Committee today, Tuesday 3rd June

I am not a member of this committee, but was standing in for a colleague who was unable to be there.At their meeting on the 9^th of April the Committee had met representatives from EDF. Points I found interesting from the minutes included:

• Standards to work to have only recently been put in place by Ofgem, which has given them a year to get systems in place. At the end of the second year if the standards aren’t met fines can be imposed.
• EDF hopes to meet the standards by September.
• ‘Fixing the majority of faults in the north of Surrey is sub-contracted’ and ‘the representatives of EDF were not aware of any agreement between EDF and the sub-contractor on performance standards …’ 

 EDF said it would report  back to the Committee on a number of issues.

Item 10 on today’s agenda was a letter from their Operations Account Manager, from which I picked out the following points:

• EDF energy has a strategic partnership agreement with Murphy Limited who undertake un-metered connection activities on our behalf in the South East of England  … unable to provide details of the agreement … we are currently reviewing contract scope and performance measures in the light of recent customer feedback.’
• EDF offer regular ‘workshop’ and ‘forum’ meetings as ‘an opportunity for us to work together to improve things … Details of your officers and key contacts to ensure the correct communications process would be most welcome as we have struggled in the past to engage with the appropriate staff.’

I asked Jenny Isaac, the Head of Surrey Highways, what she thought this comment could mean, but she could make no suggestion – she said the first she heard of it was in this letter … 

This suggests to me: the root of our problem in Knaphill could be a failure of communication, and that the concept of ‘process management’ is a useful one in this context.

Having said that, I would like to add that in my opinion it would be unfair to blame Jenny for this situation. In her previous post, she was the force behind significant improvement in Surrey’s Contact Centre, and has already grasped the nettle of trying to bring order to a number of rather chaotic groups of problems in Highways.

It’s planned that further report on EDF will be back on the Transportation Committee agenda in the Autumn, probably in October. I hope by then we’ll have our crossings – and maybe, if I’m very lucky, a working replacement light in the Chobham road for one that has been out since I was a new Councillor, just over four years ago!

If you want to read the minutes and letter from EDF quoted here, you can find them with the Transportation Committee Papers for 3.6.08 on the Surrey County Council website. 

A Silver Lining for Woking?

Item six at the meeting today was a report on the ‘financial outturn’ last financial year, 2007/8. Money is delegated to local budgets to be spent on schemes like our Controlled Crossings. In 2006/7 Highways had a serious under-spend (not good, because it means we don’t get the benefit of the money available.) So last year, efforts were made to make sure money was used. In Woking this included bringing forward road schemes that were ready for construction and scheduled for 2008 / 9, where other projects had problems.

As a result, Woking was one of the four overspending areas this year, nicely balancing three under-spending areas. The Redding Way scheme was part of this overspend. The bad news is that Surrey paid upfront for the not yet complete work. The costs are part of that overspend.

The silver lining for Woking is the recommendation of the Committee to the Executive is that 2007/8 (and only that year) overspends should be written off. So if Surrey’s Executive goes with this, you could in a cup-half-full-not-half-empty way say that we’ve gained the crossings for Woking ‘free’. And its still possible that they may be completed in 2008/9, the year initially envisaged. 

(ps - sorry about the changes of font - I got rid of most of the erratic line breaks but the font change defeated me again … )

Does noise from Farnborough Airport bother you? - The present flight path can bring aeroplanes in over parts of Knaphill. Would you be concerned if there were more flights, outside the present operating hours?

TAG Farnborough Airport are currently preparing an ‘Airport Master Plan’. For this, they have issued a preliminary consultation document and questionnaire asking, for example, how you would be affected if the airport’s operating hours, currently limited to the daytime, were extended. They make the points in the consultation document that their infrastructure is underused, and that as an important business (rather than commercial) airport they contribute to economic growth and local employment. Farnborough is also famous for its biennial airshow.

I would prefer not to see any increase in air traffic of any sort encouraged. This is on environmental grounds. I would like to see businessmen encouraged to use teleconferencing or travel by train, and rich people discouraged from owning and using private jets. OK, maybe I’m motivated partly by ideology and a pinch of jealousy.

You do not have to share my reasons get online at www.farnboroughairportconsultation.com  to complete the questionnaire and, among all the questions designed to elicit responses in favour of Farnborough airport’s expansion, tick the boxes that show you don’t think this is a good idea.

‘A bit more important than pot-holes,’               … as I heard one of my fellow Councillors say, on the way out of a seminar given by an admirably passionate member of

None of us know when we may become vulnerable to abuse either through age, illness, or disability. The Who hoped to die before they got old, but their generation look set to live long into old age. Studies suggest that as many as half a million elderly people in this country are experiencing abuse. More than a quarter of people with learning disabilities say they have been physically assaulted. Yet even a poll of nurses showed that fewer than half of them would report adult abuse. Often people are in a position where they feel they do not want to rock the boat: that the care being given in better than nothing; that there is no alternative, so what’s the point in complaining?           

Violence and harassment are obviously wrong, but bruises can at least be seen and questioned. Abuse can also include medication and catheterisation used for convenience, and carried out by professionals. Middle-aged children have been known to financially abuse their parents ruthlessly as any rogue trader. Institutional abuse can happen in residential homes with restrictions and deprivations meaning people aren’t treated as individuals. Never allowing that a resident might not want sugar in their tea before sweetening everyone’s drink is a small example of the dehumanisation, that can take far more horrific forms,           

If you suspect abuse of an older person, general advice can be got from Elder Abuse Response on 080 8808 8141. To contact Surrey County Council’s Social Care Services, phone 08456 009 009 or, out of office hours, 01483 517898. In emergency, call 999.            

 Adults have the right to make decisions about their own lives, and sometimes they choose to stay in situations that appear abusive to other people. Even so, the essential message is: report it, don’t risk saying nothing.