Park Lane works completed

The works and road closure in Park Lane Seal have been completed well ahead of schedule. 

The contractor had completed the works by late on Monday (the first day) and so the road was already open throughout yesterday - which is why there seemed to be no evidence of the closure by late afternoon. 

The original closure was scheduled for up to five days. Given the difficulty of alternative routes when Park Lane is closed, it is good that the contractor was able to allocate extra resource to the works and so minimise the disruption to residents and to the wider road network.

Better Children’s Services: the Education Select Committee

This is going back a few days (it’s been a busy week); on Tuesday I gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on aspects of the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I was there in my role as Children’s Services spokesperson for the County Councils Network (CCN), although I also made reference to experiences in Kent, and was alongside representatives from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers and the charity Kinship.

This was to some degree a repeat of the evidence that I gave to the same Committee (albeit with entirely different membership) in March last year. As before, this covered the problems of cost and service availability in children’s services. This was the subject of the well-regarded Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, chaired by Josh MacAlister (now a Labour MP), followed by a White Paper and a number of initiatives under the previous government. The difference this time is that there is now legislation under consideration, and that the evidence session focused on the Bill’s provisions in relation to management of the market, the development of Regional Care Cooperatives, kinship care, the expanding role of Virtual Schools and care leavers.

While I am critical of some of the education provisions of the Bill (some of which the government has had to row back on), the approach to children’s services is sensible and a welcome example of continuity between governments and across parties. In particular, the problems in the provision of children’s social care (highlighted in a report by the CMA some years ago) are best addressed through strengthening local authority commissioning and increasing the supply of places, as argued in a report (The Way We Care) commissioned by CCN last year. The bill gives the Secretary of State powers to introduce a profit cap, but it is very much a reserve power if other measures fail. That is a right and pragmatic approach; a cap now, without the introduction of other measures, could simply reduce the available provision.

At the end of the session, I highlighted “the elephant in the room”: the £2.5 billion in funding that Josh MacAlister highlighted as necessary to deliver the reforms that the Independent Review advocated. The previous government’s White Paper, Stable Homes, Built on Love was well-received but did not commit to this funding. In the autumn budget and subsequent local government financial settlement, the government established a £270 million Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant. I urged that this should be viewed as a down payment on the funding needed to deliver a comprehensive programme of reform.

You can find the evidence session on the parliamentary TV channel here.

Park Lane Seal closure from Monday

The emergency closure of Park Lane Seal next week was announced yesterday. The closure, between the junctions with Blackhall Lane and Bichet Green Road, will start on Monday for up to five days (17-21 February). This is for essential safety works to trees on unregistered land that Kent Highways is undertaking under its statutory duty of care. Because of the width of the carriageway and the height of the trees the road has to be closed in full rather than a single lane.

The closure is permitted between 8am and 5pm for each day but may on occasion be shorter. The road will reopen when the contractors leave the site each evening. In addition, while the work is scheduled for five days, it is hoped to be less; significant contingency for bad weather, break downs and other delays is built in. 

Any closure on a road like Park Lane will be disruptive, but hopefully scheduling this in half term and delivering the works promptly will minimise this.

KCC budget: Fit for tough times

At Kent County Council yesterday we passed the budget for 2025-26. 

The circumstances in which we have set the budget remain difficult. Over the last few years, pressures in adult social care, children’s services and Special Educational Needs (in particular, in relation to transport) have outpaced the growth in our resources.

While we have made a lot of progress in the first two areas in the last eighteen months (SEN transport is now coming in under budget in the later stages of 2024-25), savings in adult social care are proving harder to realise, and our expenditure outside adults’ and children’s services is still set to fall in 2025-26. This is in spite of an increase in council tax of just under 5% (the referendum limit, although unlike some other councils we did not attempt to go beyond that). 

In my remarks to the council I pointed out that, with public spending under pressure, the government leaning towards methods of distributing funding that do not work in Kent’s favour and many major areas of spending unlikely to be reformed in the near future, the situation will remain tough for the foreseeable future. “There is no cavalry coming over the hill. There is only the hill. So, we have to have a budget fit for that stretching environment, setting us up for a number of years, which is what this budget does.” We share these pressures with councils up and down the country.

The budget continues our savings and transformation programmes in core services, delivers the first part of a nearly £20 million savings package in discretionary expenditure and rebuilds our general reserves in recognition of that tough operating environment. Amendments put forward by opposition groups covered just 0.4% of the budget spend, and none were agreed by County Council.

You can find our media release here.

 

Devolution - but NOT for Kent and Medway

The government announced today that a number of areas have been taken forward for the Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) set out in the English Devolution White Paper. Although all of our neighbours who applied - Greater Essex, Sussex & Brighton, Hampshire & Solent, Surrey (in the latter case, a slightly different application) - were accepted on to the programme, Kent and Medway were not.

As I have set out in a number of interviews today, this is a severe setback, leaving Kent as a devolution desert when all our neighbours will benefit from the increased powers, funding and national voice that will be denied to the 1.9 million residents of Kent and Medway. 

It is also an incomprehensible decision with no clear and logical rationale. We are told that it is because Kent and Medway are local authorities of very different size who could not operate together effectively in a mayoral authority. This argument was never made to us before and flies in the face of disparities of size of authorities in areas which have been approved - and existing models elsewhere, such as North Yorkshire and the City of York. 

We will continue to press for a fuller explanation of this decision, and to get the benefits of devolution to the residents we represent as soon as possible.

You can find our media release, and my reaction here.

Potholes in Old Chapel Road

Many thanks to Rachel Waterton for raising the issue of the potholes on Old Chapel Road, scene of yesterday’s accident. I have taken this up with Kent Highways officers. A job was raised yesterday morning for a 7 day repair, but in addition one of the highways officers will revisit today to make sure they are safe in the interim.

Devolution: What we are doing and Why

As mentioned in my previous post, here’s what I set out to the County Council in last Thursday’s debate on the proposal for us to join the Devolution Priority Programme. You can find the full webcast of the debate on KCC’s website.

KCC has also set up a devolution webpage, with some explanations, links to documents and a video that I have recorded about devolution.

This is the most momentous decision for this Council in many, many years. It is a decision for Cabinet, and Cabinet will meet later today to take it. But for a decision of this kind, it is right that County Council considers it in full and that all Members are engaged.

We have got here through a strong partnership, on a cross-party basis, with our colleagues in Medway and an inclusive approach to working with District and Borough Councils that is matched in few if any parts of the country.

The question before us is whether or not we, along with Medway Council, apply to join the Devolution Priority Programme, resulting in the creation of a Mayoral Combined Authority and a mayoral election in May 2026. Everything else flows from that choice.

I believe we should.

That is because:

Devolution is coming. The only question is how far we shape it, or let others shape it for us.

It is, or soon will be, a reality across the country. Others are moving fast.

And there are great opportunities for us, and for the residents we represent, in devolution. We need to seize them.

 Mayoral devolution is a very settled government policy. It was the policy of the last administration. Within a fortnight of the new government being formed, a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister to local government leaders made clear that this was their policy too, and in a more comprehensive and systematic way.

At the LGA conference, the minister, Jim McMahon, made it utterly clear that this was a structured policy for England as a whole – with no orphan areas. 

And in local government reorganisation, which came up fast on the rails in the weeks before the publication of the White Paper, all remaining two-tier areas are expected to submit initial unitary proposals by March. Whether you are in the Devolution Priority Programme or not, that issue is going to be on the table.

I think we know that change is coming. And who here, in their heart of hearts, believes – really believes - that in three, four, five years’ time we will be carrying on just as we are?

 So the sooner we engage with this, the more scope we have to shape it. The sooner we engage, the sooner we can give the clarity that we owe to our residents, our staff and our organisations.

 We also need to look beyond our own boundaries. Over the last decade, and steadily gathering pace, mayoral authorities have become part of the national landscape.

Look at a map, and draw a line from the Mersey to the Wash: almost everything north of that, with Cumbria the main exception, either has or is on track for a mayoral authority.

And now we know that across the south, and among our neighbours, letters are going in to apply to the Devolution Priority Programme. That map is likely to look much more complete, and pretty soon. Every one of those areas with access to the powers, the funding and the national voice that Kent would be missing out on.

And above all, we should enter the Devolution Priority Programme because of those benefits – why should we not secure them for the nearly 2 million residents of Kent and Medway as quickly as possible?

 And if we do take that step, the final part of the recommendation today notes the implications of joining the Devolution Priority Programme for the County Council elections.

This is not something that we initiated

It is not something that we will decide

It is not something that I relish

In his letter of 16 December, the minister stated that, to deliver both devolution and reorganisation according to the exacting schedules of the Devolution Priority Programme, he was minded to lay secondary legislation to postpone local elections from May 2025 to May 2026.

That decision will be made by ministers, but they require a request from councils for this to be considered.

I recognise that this goes against the grain for all of us whose role here rests on our democratic electoral mandates. But across the country there are many precedents for postponement when you have profound structural change – we saw several at the time of the 2021 elections – and we must be clear that this is not an indefinite extension of County Councillors’ terms, running for up to three years beyond our mandate. That would be neither acceptable nor feasible, and there are different options under which we stick to a much more tightly limited deferral.

It is clear that there is a very tight link indeed between participation in the DPP and the decision that the minister is minded to take. It is also hard, if not impossible to see how supporting a government-led consultation that would run very close to, or quite probably into the pre-election period, developing reorganisation proposals and negotiating with government can be carried out according to what the minister calls ‘the most ambitious time frame’ in a pre-election and election period.

So submitting that request is a logical corollary of joining the DPP, and if we make the application to join then it is my intention to submit that request to government, which ministers will then decide.

 We don’t need to be cheerleaders for every aspect of this process, least of all the timetable. I’m also utterly realistic about how government departments will fight to hold on to their powers. We have got to establish the right relationship between a strong mayor and strong unitary authorities, complementing each other’s roles. There are huge risks and challenges in relation to reorganisation. There are some real questions as to how bigger councils can still be local, and – yes – there are losses, not least the one hundred and thirty six year history and identity of this council.

But however glorious that past, our present is unsustainable. We cannot go on as we are. Because of national policy decisions – for example, the loss of strategic planning – and the constant pressure of people services, we don’t have the funding, the capacity or even the headspace to be the strategic authority that Kent needs. The same goes for upper tier authorities up and down the land.

That is what I have seen in my years in this place. And that is why, more than two years ago, I changed my mind about mayoral devolution.

A Mayoral Strategic Authority – on the building block of an elected mayor and of strong unitary authorities – has the space to deliver that strategic role in transport, planning, economic development, public service reform - while kept separate from the people services pressures that consume councils.

The devolution offer builds on, but goes beyond what was put forward by the previous government. More powers in transport, including – critically – rail. In skills and employment, where in Kent and Medway we have a successful base to build on with the Employment Task Force and our relationship with DWP. In strategic planning, which we desperately need to ensure that, where there is development, the infrastructure comes with it. And Kent and Medway is perfectly placed to maximise the benefits of public service reform – joining up services, getting the best value for the Kent pound, building a partnership with greater democratic input with the NHS – because of our common boundaries with police, fire, health and more.

With that come dedicated investment funds, and more importantly a decisive move away from the competitive, penny piece funding pots that we have all deplored to much greater discretion and – after we achieve Established Mayoral Strategic Authority status – the integrated settlements pioneered by Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. We can catch up with those trailblazers, and fast.

The government has said that these powers – and there’s a lot there – are a floor and not a ceiling. Let’s take them at their word and put that to the test.

It is those round the national table who will shape the future development of devolution. I want Kent’s voice in that debate, and as soon as we establish a Mayoral Strategic Authority, we will have that voice through membership of the Mayoral Council and the Council of Nations and Regions.

 To end where I began, the fundamental decision before us – whether or not to apply to the Priority Programme – is as big a choice as any we have confronted in our service here.

In approaching that choice, I say to all Members:

Recognise that we cannot go on as we are

Lift our eyes to the opportunities of something different and better

And resolve that we, in this county, seize the moment and shape that future. 

Devolution: debate and decision

 

On Thursday (9 January), County Council debated Kent’s response to the English Devolution White Paper. Following this, Cabinet took the decision to apply for the Devolution Priority Programme (DPP). The next day, the Leader of Medway Council, Vince Maple and I submitted a letter to government making that application.

Given the importance of the topic, it was right that it was debated in full, and the council meeting was well over four hours. You can find the webcast of both the Council meeting and the Cabinet meeting on the KCC website.

Those parts of the country that are accepted onto the DPP will be on an accelerated track to deliver a Mayoral Strategic Authority, which brings together an elected Mayor with the councils within that area. This would mean a mayoral election in May 2026.

Alongside that will go a programme of local government reorganisation, to take effect in April 2027 or April 2028, replacing Kent County Council, Medway Council and Kent’s twelve District and Borough Councils with a number of unitary councils.

In my opening presentation to the council meeting, I argued that:

• Devolution is coming. The only question is how far we shape it, or let others shape it for us.

• It is, or soon will be, a reality across the country. Others are moving fast.

• And there are great opportunities for us, and for the residents we represent, in devolution. We need to seize them.

Those opportunities include funding streams (and, perhaps more importantly, much greater freedom and discretion over the funding that we are allocated), powers in key areas such as transport, strategic planning, skills, environment and economic development and a national level voice through membership of new bodies such as the Council of Nations and Regions (chaired by the Prime Minister) and the Mayoral Council (chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister).

There is every prospect that, if we do not take up the opportunities of the DPP, many others will and large parts of the country will have access to funding, powers and national voice that is denied to Kent.

Inevitably, and in many ways understandably, a lot of attention has focused on the other element of the motions debated at Council and Cabinet on Thursday: to request from ministers a one year delay to County Council elections scheduled for May. This was, however, something that followed from and is closely linked to the application to join DPP. The minister set out before Christmas that he was ‘minded to’ take the measures necessary to postpone the elections so that areas can deliver both devolution and reorganisation according to the very demanding schedules set out under the Devolution Priority Programme.

The conclusion reflected in the County Council motion and Cabinet decision was that, to ensure that devolution with all its benefits is delivered according to the DPP schedule, the Council would write to ministers to apply for this deferral. This is not an approach that sits easily with me, or any Councillor, but we were persuaded that it was necessary to deliver devolution. Other councils in the same position appear to have come to the same conclusion.

It's also worth noting that there have been a number of previous examples where council elections have been deferred to deliver very wide-ranging changes to council structures and organisation: the most recent examples are those of Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset in 2021.

I wouldn’t normally do this, but I will in a separate post set out the full text of the speech I gave to Council last Thursday, along with some other links: I hope it makes clear why I believe that this is so important for the Council and for the County. 

Franks Lane bridge vandalised again

For a second time, repairs to the bridge in Franks Lane have been subject to vandalism. Following the severe damage done before Christmas, this week’s works were found to be vandalised last night (thanks again to Cllr Alan White for this picture). 

There is a significant history of vandalism on this site, but this is especially sickening. I have spoken to the KCC Structures team who have been working on this, and KCC, SDC, Police and other relevant bodies will need to come together to find a lasting resolution to this.

Franks Lane repairs

Kent Highways have notified an urgent road closure on Franks Lane, starting tomorrow for 2 days. The road will be closed at the bridge between 9:30 AM and 3 PM each day. 

This is to enable the brick parapet, damaged by vandalism shortly before Christmas, to be rebuilt and matches the timetable I was told at the time. At present, I have not heard that the works will be affected by the current severe weather, but will of course post again if that changes.