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.