In January, in answer to a question at Full Council, Liberal Democrat Leader Hazel Watson was told that the CPA Council scores would be published today.

It was clear from the rest of the answer that, short of something close to a miracle, Surrey would lose two of its stars and go from being a three star Council with promise for improvement to a one-star ‘inadequate’ Council.

We seem to have been misinformed - the ratings won’t be published until next week, I think on the 4th of March, though it’s late in the evening I’m typing this and I haven’t checked the source of that information.

But in the meantime, according to an article on the Local Government Chronicle Plus website that you should be able to find  here , Surrey is launching legal procedings against Ofsted’s decision to give it’s Childrens Services a fail grade.

The author quotes an Audit Commission Spokesman says: 

“Any CPA scores that are subject to the outcome of a judicial review at the time of publication next week will be published as planned, but with the caveat that the relevant score or rating remains subject to the outcome of that review.”

ps

I have since learned that the scores are due to be published on Thursday 5th of March, and that the Audit Commission delayed the date of publication.

Sorry this is a week late - last Monday (16th) was Woking Local Committee, but I haven’t had time to write it up since.

All the same I think it’s worth putting some of the discussion on record here.

(The Woking Local Committee is a committee is a Committee of Surrey County Council, made up of the seven County Councillors representing Woking, and an equal number of Borough Councillors. It’s generally thought of as a local transport committee, but it can be concerned with all of Surrey’s services, so far as they affect Woking.)

If you want to skip through, these are the headings:

• Lakers Youth Centre
• Real-time lack of information
• Let there be Light in Lauriston Close
• Cycle Stuff

Laker’s Youth Centre

As you may have read in earlier postings, I’ve been asking questions in full Council about the most recent staff freeze. That way I got a marked-up list of vacancies dividing those on the ‘red list’ to be filled without artificial delay from those that have to be approved by a ‘gateway group’ before they can be filled. I was surprised and disappointed to find a large number of appointments in the Youth Development Service, in residential facilities such as Ruth House, and other ‘front line’ services were being held up.

On Monday I put in a three-part written question specifically about the effect of all this on Woking and Lakers Youth Centre: 

i. Which Youth Development Service posts are currently unfilled in Woking, and what is the effect of these posts being unfilled, particularly upon West Woking at Lakers?

There are a number of sessional youth work posts currently vacant in Woking. The largest group of vacancies directly relate to Lakers YC where we have very recently appointed a new Full Time Youth Worker. However, unless we can fill these posts, the YDS offer at Lakers will be greatly restricted . We are looking to appoint a 10hr substantive youth worker as well as four 3hr posts.

Sheerwater and WYAC have a number of 3hr sessional posts vacant that need to be filled in order to maximise the programme we can deliver to young people.

ii. Youth Worker posts were not initially on the ‘red list’ that would have allowed them to be filled in the recent recruitment freeze. Have all vacancies in Woking now been through the ‘portal process’ to allow them to be filled? If not, what are the reasons for this?

The YDS Senior Management Team submitted a list of all youth work posts, along with a rationale, to be included in the RED list. This was done on Monday 9th Feb and it is hoped that this list will be presented to the Gateway Group today.

iii. Page 7 of the annexes to the budget papers for Full Council on the 10th of February shows in the Summary of Budget movement for Children’s Schools and Families a reduction of £171,000 as ‘YDS vacancy management’ and a £36,000 ‘Reduction in Voluntary Organisation payments and other Youth Projects’. What effect is this reduction having on the planning of Youth Services in Woking for 2009/10?

The YDS Senior Management Team has taken the decision to find these ‘reductions’  from that part of our budget that is not related to staffing. Hopefully this will mean that there is no significant impact on the delivery of youth work in Woking. There may however be additional pressure on staff to draw down more external funding than they already do.  

(Answers in red from David Waine, Area Youth Manager, West)

I have heard nothing since then about whether recruiting to these posts were allowed; but even if they were, it has built in months of further delay since the long-awaited recruitment of a new Youth Worker for West Woking.  It would be funny if it weren’t also sad.

Real-time lack-of-information

I quite often find myself travelling up to County Hall on the same train as John Doran, the County Councillor for Knaphill and Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Transport. He frequently uses the 91 bus, and is even more unhappy than me about the mess that is ‘Real-time bus information’.

More than  year ago ‘Trapeze UK’ took over running the system, with a brief to improve it. Experience has been of it getting worse for a long time before it even began to get better, and still being poor. He asked a question about why it still wasn’t working properly, when it would be working, and whether any penalties would be paid by the supplier.

He was told that all the equipment was up and running and the problems were with operating the equipment, and to ‘human factors’, with drivers failing to ‘log in’ to the system properly. No performance penalties have been incurred.

We asked, and the Local Committee agreed, that this should be referred to the Exectutive to look into.

Street Lights - all change?

Surrey is now down to the last two bidders - Skanska Laing and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Services - for the Street Lighting PFI project. The contract should be finalised in June, with the work starting three months after that, in October.  

This is will be a 25-year contract to replace 80% of all Surrey streetlights and to maintain the whole stock to the ’national code of conduct on street lighting’. There is also scope for an improvement in technology leading to lower use of energy, but no guarantee.

No-one was very happy about it. ‘The Conservative Chair of the Committee’s comment was: ‘No company goes into a contract without making money … I just don’t like PFIs … I’ve been against it for a long time … ‘  

We’ve been waiting a long time for this contract to be either decided upon or thrown out and alternative approach taken. During that time I’ve said to residents more than once that nothing much can be done to improve lighting because of the intention to replace virtually all lights. Now we’re close to having a contract, it’s clear that once it’s signed, Surrey won’t have detailed control over what goes in on the ground. The Project  Manager, Paul King, explained that ‘design solutions’ will be presented to Surrey ‘for comment’ but Surrey will not be abe to instruct the Service Provider - the point of using a Contractor is to shift the responsibility for providing ’a uniform lighting level’, and we have to trust they willl realise it’s ‘in the best interest of public relations not to antagonise the public.’

I had asked about how Local Councillors would be able to feed in the concerns they knew of coming from the local communities, and was told that the PFI money was ’attracted’ by tactics for reducing crime and fear of crime, and that virtually only the ‘Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership’ (made up of Police and Local Authority Officers) would be consulted as plans were drawn up.

‘I can’t give much comfort on your concerns,’  he said, ‘I have very little elbow-room to accomodate all the concerns of all the residents in the County  … it really is a balance [of] …affordability.’

Let there be light in Lauriston Close

For reasons I don’t understand, Lauriston Close was built and adopted by Surrey without street lights. Cllr. Neville Hinks took this up before he retired, and I got it put on the list for assessment. It is the scheme with the best cost-benefit score, and funding has been agreed for installation this year.   

Sadly other schemes are still languishing, and there are difficult choices to make. But hurrah for Lauriston!

Cycle Stuff

We approved overall plans for work on ’Cycle Woking’ next year, and also agreed to plans being drawn up for a cycle crossing parallel to the pedestrian crossing of Victoria Way. Bicyclists would then be allowed to ride through Gloucester Walk to Town Square.

 This is all very much in outline. Woking BC may change Brewery Road car park in ways that affect access to Victoria Bridge (the footbridge over the canal), and more analysis has to be done of traffic flows to work out whether cyclists can get across both carriageways in one go, or whether there needs to be a central island, as there is for pedestrians. The  exact details as to how cycles would then go alongside pedestrians in the town centre also aren’t clear yet.  

Love it or loathe it, one leg of the Tour Series of professional cycle races will be held in Woking on the 2nd of June.  The route involves a loop using Victoria Way from the Peacocks, round station approach, and using the end of Goldsworth Road. Road closures will be in effect from 11.00 am but cars will still be able to get into Shoppers car parks in the town centre car parks through Lockfield Drive.

Crowds of about 10,000  are expected, and it will be on the television - which channel we haven’t been told yet. The professional race will be at 7.00pm, but there’ll be a number of opportunities for amateurs to get onto the track before that - a draft order of races includes parent-and-child; schools races; local companies and organisations; and a ‘free wheel’ event for all.

Responses to this veer between perky enthusiasm (mainly from the Officers) and mutterings of  ‘the town’s being closed down for the day … this is going to be very unpopular … and just two days before the elections! (some Councillors)

Your comments welcome!

 - yesterday, and with all the usual trimmings:

• printed versions of final papers not available until less than an hour before the meeting;
• Tory Leader’s speech circulated on the spot with some more details;
• LD Leader Hazel Watson says what we would have done differently; 
• Tories rubbish Hazel’s speech (she is good at taking this as a compliment - it would be worrying if they didn’t)
• We point out as many cuts, faults and problems as we can find hidden away in the small print.
• The Council votes and the Budget is passed.

As predicted by briefings/rumour  and the entrails of the sacrificial turkey  … sorry, getting into the blogging spirit there … the Council Tax rise attributable to Surrey for the coming year is 2.9%

This is a little under inflation, which many residents regard as a fair guide-line for increases, and we did not argue against it - only that it could have been differently distrubuted.

In fact the rise in council tax could only be that low because of a certain amount of juggling with reserves and rescheduling of debt. I and my colleagues wouldn’t argue against this - with interest rates at a historic low and the economy - including the local economy - in need of stimulus, this is not the time to hold on to capital unnecessarily.

The trouble is, the underlying rate of increase in essential expenditure is going up significantly because of increased need in both the Childrens Services and in Adult and Community Care. Even though these two areas are being given priority by comparison with eg Transport, there are still going to be cuts in some of what they do.

One of the big losses will be in bus subsidies, though what exactly this will mean in terms of cuts in bus services is unlikely to become clear until the second half of this financial year, well after the Council Elections in June.

There’s more detail on the Surrey Liberal Democrat website - link in lefthand column.

I’ll restrain myself to a comment on the Schools, Children and Families budget. For good reasons, given the amount that has to be put right in Children’s Services, there was an overspend of £14M this year. The increase in budget for the coming year is £11.3M. This has involved some fairly heroic assumptions about ‘efficiencies’ and a lot of small but significant cuts and reductions.

One example is the £171,000 to be saved from ‘YDS Youth Vacancy Management’.

As we know on the ground, for example with Lakers now having a new Youth Worker but no sessional staff, things are not happening that should be happening. No recruitment is being carried out unless either the position is on a ‘red list’ of vital posts, or has been through a ‘portal process’. Youth Development Workers are not on that list.

After the last Full Council I was allowed a copy of the list of current vacancies with the ‘red list’ marked; and Woking has ten vacancies in the Youth Development service listed and not being recruited to.

This does not make sense.

It makes even less sense that residential worker posts for all teams at Ruth House, Surrey’s not yet fully opened respite care home linked with Freemantles School for autistic children, are also listed but not being recruited to.

The third unit at Ruth House should be open by Easter, the fourth and final unit in the summer. How is this going to happen with so many vacant posts?

Ruth House continues to be one of my touchstone issues: how can Surrey be getting it right when this no-brainer of an all-round beneficial money saver is still not up and running?  

Light moments?

The Chairman’s introductory remarks about the snow: ‘It has looked lovely, but it has been a little inconvenient … ‘

… and the optimistic if inappropriate persistence of the phrase ‘An outstanding Council making Surrey a better place’ across the top of every page of the Corporate Plan 2009 - 2013, a worthy if bland document that otherwise could not spark much debate by comparison with the Ritual of the Budget.  

The ‘Schools and Learning’ committee was warned before Christmas that one of the ‘risks’ for next year in terms of planning school places is the effect of the credit crunch and recession: fewer parents may choose to send their children to fee-paying private schools, and instead opt in to the state system.

This is a particular risk for Surrey, where about 20% of all children (25% of all secondary children) have historically been educated privately.

There have been indications that demand for school places is higher this year, but the most solid information is now to be found in Annexe A to item 12 of the Executive meeting initially called for the 5th of February, here. 

(Item 12 talks about investment priorities in primary schools for the coming year - including improvements to the acoustics at Sythwood school for the sake of hearing impaired and English as an Additional Language pupils.)

Based on current applications, the annexe shows seven out of the twelve Surrey boroughs and districts needing additional infant classes, ranging from just one here in Woking to seven in Elmbridge. The total is 21.5 infant classes throughout Surrey.

This isn’t entirely out of the blue, as shown by the draft School Organisation Plan, up for consultation until the 23rd of February. (You can find it here . If you are concerned with education it gives a detailed but clear run-down area by area and is well worth looking at. You can also take part in the consultation up to the 23rd February, details here)   

The plan shows that Elmbridge was in any case predicted to need that many more classes in the next three years - but it looks as if the crunch is coming sooner than expected. In Woking, there were a ’safe number’ of schools with spare reception spaces last year, but even for the expected numbers they’re not in the right places. Places in Byfleet are already being expanded, and there is pressure to the West, including in Knaphill, Goldsworth, and Horsell.

I haven’t heard anything about secondary school places yet - if there are increasing numbers, it will in some ways make the regular pinch-points at some schools even more difficult than before, but it will also help others to keep the resources needed to keep up good and improving provision.  

Last year TAG Farnborough Airport carried out a consultation about extending its hours and flights. They’ve now published a draft ‘Master Plan’ for future development, which as I understand it is an argued, substantial ’wish list’ that will be still be subject to planning law. It’s currently only a draft because it is now again going out to public consultation.

Reporting back the result of last year’s survey, the ‘Master Plan’ says: ‘Asked how they would be affected if operating hours were to increase, 87% of respondents said they would be affected. This is clearly a matter of concern to the local community and TAG has therefore decided not to proceed with any proposals to increase the hours of operation.’

 Some good news for residents there. However the TAG proposals up to 2019 would be to ask for an increase up to approximately 50,00 Air Traffic Movements a year, nearly twice as many as the 26,507 movements for 2007. 

The Master Plan document is available online here  where you can also fill in their Questionnaire - alternatively they say for a printed copy ‘phone 01252 526 526.

As a Councillor representing Knaphill, I am concerned about the proposed expansion, even with the concessions made, in terms pollution and of the additional noise for people living in this area; personally I also don’t, on principle, think it is a good idea to expand air travel, or that private jets should be encouraged.

If it’s a matter of concern to you - for or against - check it out and respond by the consultation closing date, which is 28th of February.

 ps Rushmore Borough Council is also carrying out a consultation on the Farnborough Airport area - you can find it here