•  Surrey County Council should not take Ofsted to Court 

Left to themselves, the evidence suggests the Tories would still not be explaining and discussing with ordinary members of the Council, let alone the public, why and whether they should be taking Ofsted to court. They say the ‘inadequate’ rating of Childrens Services is unfair, and that of course feeds through to the overall 1-star rating for the Council. (see previous postings for more on this)

I asked a question in Council about how and why the decision to seek judicial review was made, and why members of the Council were not informed. The answer, while full and interesting, showed a process in which the legal moves were quietly going on in closed meetings, with emerging decisions only expressed in what could be taken as ’its not fair’-type grumbles.

There has only been any full or free discussion among Councillors of this decision because Hazel Watson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the largest minority party, put a motion to Tuesday’s Council saying Surrey County Council should halt the legal action. The money saved from legal bills (and the management time and effort saved) should be applied to improving the failing services.

I’ll cut to the chase: we didn’t win the vote (we didn’t expect to) but for the first time I can remember all opposition parties were united in voting with us. It ended up with 20 votes for our motion, 45 against, and 4 abstentions. We asked for a named vote, so if you want to see how your County Councillor voted it will be on the record.

The Leader said the cost to date is £9,000 - £10,000, and he continued: ’I believe if we went the course it would be £100,000 - £150,000.’

Estimates published in the press have used figures in the region of £500,000 to £600,000; and if Surrey lost it might have to pay the other side’s costs as well.

The opportunity cost in terms of senior  managers work and attention we’re less likely to see quantified. (I suppose I ought to count the possible distraction of senior Tory Councillors as a positive, but actually we also need the Executive Member carrying quite heavy statutory responsibility for Chidrens’ Services to be focussed primarily on such things as the Improvement Notice. Even if he is a Tory.)

The Conservative Leader’s argument is that they are doing this for Surrey’s staff: ‘I think it is right to stand up for our staff … what we are doing is reasonable … ‘

I don’t know what the staff view would be. I guess it depends which staff. Some of them, in Unison, have been on the verge of industrial action over high caseloads and claims of bullying management.

I do know that the end of this month is one of the ‘milestones’ when Surrey will have to face a judgement by central government on how it is meeting the Secretary of State’s ‘Improvement Notice’. 

A Tory question on Tuesday asking for a Member update on this makes things look fairly rosy. But In my view this is an illusion. There are still two major requirements un-met, concerning staff assessment and concerning computer systems, while a number of apparent achievements conceal huge problems still unmet. For example, social worker vacancies are quoted as being at 8%, more than meeting the target 14% - but this includes  locum agency staff. I believe the staff vacancy rate is somewhere between 20% and 25%.

• School Admissions

After the major changes a couple of years ago, arrangements have largely been left as they are, with just a few tweaks.

An extra primary school, The Royal Kent,  has been added to the controversial Howard of Effingham Secondary School’s ‘feeder’ list - but as with all the feeder schools, this is applied in conjunction with a catchment area, and will involve relatively few pupils.

Oxted school arrangements remain unchanged.

A number of junior schools with infant schools very close either start or continue to give priority to pupils from that infant school, eg The Oaktree and Hermitage schools in Woking.

The PAN (Published admission number) for Knaphill Junior School, Woking, has been increased to 90, to bring it into line with Knaphill Junior, and priority will be given to Knaphill Junior pupils. 

Admission numbers: for those interested in school numbers, question 22 and the table in the appendix was fascinating. It shows where extra classes have been put in, and where there is still spare capacity in the system.

Woking Infant Schools, for example, have made offers to children that would fill nearly all places. The exception is Barnsbury Primary, but this is because a potential extra class of 30 was added to their PAN to increase capacity in the Woking area, and this has only been partially taken up. 

The credit crunch does seem to have made parents more cautious of taking on the expense of private education. It will be good for our schools after years of falling rolls if the numbers are higher - and also good if more parents who value  education trust their children to the state system and then give it their support  - but actual numbers remain to be seen.

The report on Admissions Arrangements can be found here. The members Questions to Council with the separate table of school offers should be there too, but had not yet been posted up at the time of writing.  

• Snow Lessons    

Stephen Cooksey and I both asked questions about emergency arrangements in February’s snow. In the interest of getting this posted while it still has relevance, excuse me cannibalising a piece I wrote yesterday:

Heavy snow on Monday the second of February tested Surrey County Council’s capacity to deal with emergencies, which in the recent past has been put in doubt by reduced staffing.  At a recent Full Council meeting, Liberal Democrat County Councillors asked how effective emergency planning had been, both on the roads and in making sure essential services got through to vulnerable people.

            Stephen Cooksey, representing Dorking and the Holmwoods, described ‘severe chaos around the County, with roads being blocked and schools being closed’, which was ‘exacerbated by a lack of sufficient grit to maintain ice-free roads’.           

It turns out that pre-orders of salt, arranged before Christmas, were at first diverted from Surrey. The major road network was salted on the Sunday afternoon before the snow fell, but the County switched to sand for non-A roads. In the meantime it was hoped that residents would help themselves and other people by spreading the salt or sand from the roadside bins located around the County. 

           ‘‘Most people don’t know where these bins are, and even whether they’re allowed to use them – I hope better labelling and information will be one of the lessons learned.” said Diana Smith, County Councillor for Knaphill. “But this is just a small part of what needs to be learned from what happened in February.”          

Diana asked about the effect of the snow on Social Services, and how emergency planning took account of the needs of vulnerable people, especially when care is provided by outside agencies.           

“It’s clear there have been some heroic stories, and social worker and care teams worked determinedly to cover the needs of people known to be particularly vulnerable,’ Diana said. ‘But we know from comments made by local residents some people too incapable to keep track for themselves of what was happening may have slipped through the net. The Conservative Executive member says the Emergency Welfare Planning Response Group is working on ‘joined up’ arrangements to identify people who might need help and their carers, and this is clearly needed.”           

A report on all these issues will be going to the Safer and Stronger Communities Select Committee on 15^th April. Lessons need to be learned: other emergencies needing this level of co-ordination and planning may not be so intrinsically harmless and self-limiting.

• Money in Iceland

For those who are following this story, recovering Surrey’s £20 million depends on whether councils get defined as ‘depositor creditors’ under Icelandic legislation, which would give us priority over other creditors with the broken banks. If as expected this is the case, then Surrey will get back the full amount from Glitnir, and about 90% from Landsbanki. 

• Youth Service Hours in Woking 

I was very puzzled and somewhat upset by information coming out of Cllr. Ian Beardsmore’s question about numbers of youth workers employed in the different Boroughs and Districts of Surrey and the hours of Youth Work done by them.

For example, Surrey Heath, with 6.76 FTE Youth Workers in post, produces 2,447 hours of Youth Work, while Woking, with 6.03 FTE Youth Workers in post, produces 875.

Spelthorne is the next most badly off, with 1008 hours, while Guildford gets 1646.

Surely something wrong here?

I hope there is a good explanation (the Executive member didn’t give me one that made perfect sense on the spot in answer to my supplementary) and I’ll either add to this post or put up a new one once I find out more.