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.

I don’t know exactly what happened to this and other ‘My Councillor’ sites over the weekend. It seems to have come back in a slightly earlier version that the one that disappeared. The most recent posting seems to have disappeared into the electronic ether. This was about answers to Members’ Questions at Full Council. Campus Woking is not dead, according to the Executive Member, but from his reply seems to be functioning as a ’thought experiment’. There was also an explanation/ discussion of School Admissions Appeals in relation to Woking High. 

 Yes, one ought to back up, but then a blog is quite ephemeral and sometimes it’s better to get on and do the next thing …

… in the interests of which I’ll get back with a brand new post asap … 

The Joint Area Review Report made tough reading. Reading it at speed in order to debate it does not make for a balanced, temperate view.

So I will return later with comment, analysis, and also news from the rest of the meeting, for tonight restricting myself to quotations from the report itself: 

The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people at risk, or requiring 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. The quality and timeliness of completion of assessments is poor. There are inadequate arrangements to ensure safe staffing across a range of agencies.

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

. Capacity to improve is inadequate

targeted service delivery for vulnerable groups is inadequate. Capacity and performance management are inadequate to provide sustainable, consistent and effective services.  

Grades4: outstanding; 3: good; 2: adequate; 1: inadequate

The above are from the main findings. Below are three of the statements that hit home hardest for me. Some relate to the Health Service rather than being solely the SCCs responsibility:

Children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities are badly affected by key shortages in the health service. There are insufficient health visitors to complete all two-year checks, delaying possible diagnosis until children start school. Too limited access to physiotherapists, and occupational, speech and language therapists, disadvantages children severely at all stages, especially during transitions between settings. Waiting lists are long and children are sometimes removed from the list without explanation

. CAMHS thresholds are too high, with access for children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities being limited to those at the very high level of need. 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 and, in 2005, 23.7% in special schools had fixed-term exclusions.

Can it really be the 19th July? More than a week since my last post?

There have been a number of meetings during the last couple of weeks - SACRE (Standing advisory Council on Religious Education); a visit to Sheerwater Youth Centre as part of the current consultation on Youth Services; and the Children and Families Committee. Then there have been Arts activities - visiting Woking Youth Arts Centre to see their production about teenage pregnancy; a Harp Ensemble rehearsal, and then a concert at Emsworth, on the South Coast, which took an (enjoyable) day out of last weekend. Not to mention a brief time sitting at the Woking Writers Circle stall as part of the Arts Council event on Saturday 12th.

Behind the scenes there’s been some intense politics going on. The CA / JAR (Corporate Assessment and Joint Area Review) reports will be published this Tuesday, the 22nd of July. The JAR concentrates on services for Children, and homed in on some specific areas related to social services for children.

You may have learned something of it in advance from the report in the Surrey Advertiser, which talks about problems with CRB checks, so a certain amount of information has been leaked to the press. Some information has also reached Councillors, but of course I can’t write about the private briefings we have received. Enough has been said in public, both in the paper and on this web site,  to give you the clue that there may be interesting things to be said on Tuesday. 

But ordinary Councillors - and opposition Councillors, as I am - have had not one direct quotation from the report itself, and absolutely no information about the inspectors’ ratings. (And not for lack of asking)

There are clues. We do know that we now have a new Interim Head of Childrens Services and a new Interim Head of Safeguarding. The draft Jar report was with the various organisations being inspected in May, and the PCT made public its initial action plan on the 9th of May. And as I’ve reported on this website remarks have been made openly in the Children and Families Committee that are interesting in this context.

It happens that there is a Full Council meeting this coming Tuesday the 22 July, the day the report is published. After that meeting we’re practically into the summer break, so the next Full Council meeting will be in October. 

The present plan is that the (Conservative) Leader will make a statement on the 22nd July. At first I was told that Surrey would not make the reports available to us until then, and anticipated a midnight stint trying to download them from the Ofsted and the Audit Office webites, assuming the IT departments concerned put them up that early - which I discovered through telephoning Ofsted was not guaranteed.  The situation now is that Councillors will be supplied with printed copies of the reports and a briefings on them - so that we know what Surrey would like us to say to residents and the press - by 9.00 am, with with meeting starting at 10.30 am.    

Please excuse me going on about this a bit, when it is the content of the reports that are what really matters, and which must be taken most seriously. But how can we do our job of opposition effectively when the Conservative Executive have had months to stock up on wallpaper and paste to cover the cracks, and we will have an hour and a half to go through the reports to find the information we need in order to make sure our residents get more than a one-sided view from their Council?     

I stood in for John Doran on the Transportation Committee again today, and got this update on finance for Surrey’s roads.

 The Transportation Committee recommended that local overspends on road schemes should be written off, and underspends carried forward. The Executive have decided against this.  This would be a great blow to Woking’s Local Transport Plan, except that the Executive have found another £5 million to spend on roads. David Munro, the Executive Member for Transport, described the suggestion of write-offs as a ‘nice try, but no chance’ because ‘all the bits and pieces [are] wrapped up in that £5M … [and] you will find that the allocation of that £5 million more than compensates for that overspend.’  

David Munro explained that £2.5 million would go into the highways Capital budget from underspends by the Council in areas other than transport, and another £2.5 million would be found for highways maintenance.

Meetings are being held with local Committee Chairmen and Vice Chairman to talk about how the money is allocated. They are ‘moving towards a formula’ in which the main factor will be the length of roads in the area, on which basis ’Guildford and Waverley will get more than Epsom and Ewell’, except that they will also recognise in the formula where there are more vehicles per kilometre.  ‘Epsom and Ewell [are] winners on that’.

Where this leaves Woking we don’t yet know, but it should be better off than before.

Mr. Munro revealed as one of his personal objectives that he wanted to ‘oversee and implement [a] ‘mid-course correction’ for highways 2008/09. ‘ 

We’re already well into that financial year. I hope in Woking our Highways Director’s foresight in putting money into design so that there are schemes ready to lift off the shelf the moment money becomes available will pay off.  Pedestrian crossings of  Westfield Road and Denton Way, and the re-shaping of the crossing point at Amstel Way and Lockfield Drive would be my personal candidates for restoration to this year’s work programme.

I certainly got the hint of a ’use it or lose it’ threat in the Executive members jocular remark that ‘here you’ve got all this money from a kind Executive - from a kind Council - jolly well make sure you spend it.’

The traffic lights at the top of Anchor Hill were switched on today. The point of the whole operation is to provide an all-green phase for pedestrians. A green phase which,  unfortunately, is not working.

I’m sure it will be made to work, but probably not until next Tuesday. I do not know what the reason for this problem is, but on recent evidence I suspect many people in Knaphill will think it typical of the way Surrey manages our roads.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for Woking’s Local Transport Team, whose knowledge of local roads and concern to keep them running well seems to me all too often let down by the organisational structures they have to work with, often depending on a chain of contractors and sub-contractors.

Once the lights are working properly in terms of providing the all green phase for pedestrians, I hope we will find that the restored sensors in the roads will still allow traffic through in the most efficient way. If there are specific problems with this, it will be worth noting them, then letting me know and/or contacting Surrey County Council directly either through their website (www.surreycc.gov.uk ) or on 08456 009009, asking for the information to be given to the Local HIghways Manager at Woking. I am told it should be possible to ‘tweak’ the settings.