A new (renewed) Environment Cabinet Member

At the County Council elections on 6 May, 80 out of 81 Divisions elected County Councillors. The exception was Elham Valley, where the election was delayed as a result of the death of one of the candidates early in the campaign. The special election for Elham Valley took place last Thursday, 17 June.

Since 2005 Elham Valley has been represented by Susan Carey (pictured with me during the campaign in Hawkinge) who has also held a number of posts in the KCC Cabinet, in the last eighteen months as Cabinet Member for Environment. However, with the delay to the Elham Valley election, she ceased to be a Member of the County Council in May and so for that period was unable to serve as a Cabinet Member either. The count for Elham Valley took place on Friday and Susan was re-elected with just over 50% of the vote - a richly deserved outcome, since she has not only made a significant contribution County-wide but has been a dedicated local Member (characteristically, after her re-election, she was out on a community litter-pick yesterday). 

I was delighted to reappoint Susan to her Environment role as soon as her re-election was confirmed. She had a strong and committed Deputy Cabinet Member in Tony Hills, and Tony did an excellent job standing in as Cabinet Member in the weeks between the County elections and Susan's return. Tony continues as Deputy Cabinet Member. He and Susan are a very strong team; I created a dedicated Environment portfolio when I became Leader to reinforce our commitment to addressing issues of climate change, biodiversity, environmental enhancement and resilience, and they have taken it forward with great energy and commitment. It is very good for Kent that they will continue to do so.

You can find KCC’s press release on the election result and Susan’s reappointment here.

A new Cabinet

As reported in my previous post, in spite of the Conservative group achieving a big victory in the County elections, we lost a number of valued colleagues, including three Cabinet Members - Richard Long (Education), Michael Payne (Highways and Transport) and Mike Whiting (Economic Development). All three had made a strong contribution to the Cabinet and to the Council and will be very much missed.

I therefore spent part of last week - in addition to, among other things, meeting almost all of the 23 new Conservative Members of the Council - assembling a new Cabinet. Shellina Prendergast, already a Cabinet Member, has moved to take on the Education portfolio, and three new Cabinet Members (David Brazier, Bryan Sweetland and Derek Murphy) have taken up posts. The full Cabinet is:

Roger Gough - Leader

Peter Oakford – Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services

Clair Bell – Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health

David Brazier – Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport

Sue Chandler – Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services

Mike Hill – Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services

Tony Hills* – Cabinet Member for Environment

Derek Murphy – Cabinet Member for Economic Development

Shellina Prendergast – Cabinet Member for Education and Skills

Bryan Sweetland – Cabinet Member for Communications, Engagement, People and Partnerships

* Tony Hills, previously Deputy Cabinet Member for Environment, is appointed until 18 June, the day after the special election in Elham Valley, the Division held by Susan Carey, Cabinet Member for Environment in the previous Cabinet. The election was postponed because of the death of one of the candidates during the campaign. A further decision will be made once the result of that election is known

You can find KCC’s press release about the new Cabinet here.

Virtual Cabinet meeting: the formal version

Last Monday, as I previewed the day before, KCC's Cabinet held its first remote (or virtual) public Member meeting (using Microsoft Teams). The meeting was something of a hybrid; a Cabinet briefing, incorporating reports from Cabinet Members and answering questions put by Members. You can see that meeting here.

I closed the meeting by looking forward to the following Monday (tomorrow, 27 April) where we would have a further public meeting, but this time a formal meeting of Cabinet. The meeting will be from 10 am, and the agenda will include: a report on the Public Health-led Suicide Prevention Programme, which can point to some progress in tackling this most painful of issues; a presentation on our Kent Together programme, launched at the start of this month to enhance and support the extraordinary community efforts to help vulnerable residents during the Covid-19 outbreak; and (necessarily, but perhaps a little self-referentially) a paper on the governance requirements for virtual meetings.

However, the most interesting item is saved for last, under the rubric of 'Covid-19 Corporate Planning'. The Council's Five Year Plan, put forward for endorsement at the March County Council meeting which never took place because of the crisis, was a good and strong vision for the county and for the council - but is now entirely overtaken by events. We must now plan for a new world, and tomorrow's presentation and debate is the start of that process. We aim to prepare a Strategic Transition Plan for the autumn, to cover a 12-18 month period as the new environment post-Covid takes shape. This alone should make for an important and engaging meeting tomorrow morning.

A new style of council meeting

Tomorrow morning (Monday 20 April) I will chair the first of KCC's public meetings to be held virtually, with a Cabinet Briefing at 10 am.

Since the Covid-19 shutdown, the council has been running at full tilt to respond to the crisis, and like many organisations we have been able to operate effectively through remote meetings. Cabinet Members and senior officers have been working in this way for weeks. However, formal public meetings - such as public Cabinet meetings, or Council committees - have yet to work in this way. Government guidance making this possible - by relaxing the rules on, for example, the need for a quorum of Members to be physically present - was only published on 3 April. We have also had to work on ensuring that the more demanding technological requirements for a public meeting are in place. As Leader, I asked the Council's officers to undertake the necessary steps to make this possible and tomorrow the first meeting takes place.

The meeting will not be a formal public Cabinet, with full papers and agenda, but something of a hybrid: a public Cabinet briefing, comprising an updates from each Cabinet Member on recent activity within their portfolio, and an update from the Director of Public Health, Andrew Scott-Clark, followed by Cabinet Members answering questions put by non-executive Members.

The following Monday (27 April) will see a formal public Cabinet, for which the agenda has been published. 

You can find the link to tomorrow's meeting, and other details in this KCC media release.

A new role

Last Thursday I took up post as the new Leader of Kent County Council. Paul Carter - who had led KCC for fourteen years, and in whose Cabinet I served for much of that time in various different roles - announced in early September that he was standing down.

On 4 October, KCC's Conservative Group elected me as Group Leader; the subsequent County Council meeting on the 17th received Paul Carter's resignation and then elected me as the new Leader of the Council.

County Councillors rightly paid tribute to Paul Carter's accomplishments: driving major projects such as Turner Contemporary; steering Kent through an era of austerity while protecting services more festively than in most local authorities; leading transformation of council services; successfully pressing Kent's concerns, and those of County Councils, with ministers of all parties, both as KCC Leader and as Chairman of the County Councils Network - and much more.

In my remarks after being elected Leader, I spoke about the County Council's need to be much more than simply a bundle of services, but to have a vision and give a voice to the County. My major priorities are: to ensure that, when housing growth takes place in the County, it is supported with adequate infrastructure; to give priority to the visible services that the County provides and which are seen in residents' day to day lives; to close gaps in skills, wages and opportunities across the County; and to take forward major initiatives in environmental issues (including those related to climate change) under a new, dedicated Cabinet portfolio holder.

You can find the webcast of the meeting at which Paul Carter resigned, and tributes were paid, here; and the subsequent meeting at which I was elected, including my remarks to the Council, here (agenda items 4 and 5).

Subsequent to the County Council meeting, I announced a new Cabinet team. In addition to my own role as Leader, and Peter Oakford as Deputy Leader (and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services), the Cabinet Members in alphabetical order are:

• Clair Bell – Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health
• Susan Carey – Cabinet Member for Environment
• Sue Chandler – Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services
• Mike Hill – Cabinet Member for Community & Regulatory Services
• Richard Long – Cabinet Member for Education and Skills
• Michael Payne – Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport
• Shellina Prendergast – Cabinet Member for Communications, Engagement and People
• Mike Whiting – Cabinet Member for Economic Development

The new Cabinet combines experience and new perspectives: three of the ten members are new, three were elected at the last County Council elections in 2017 and we are now close to gender parity with 40% of the Cabinet being women. It's vital that our Councillors and our leadership reflect the population whom we serve.

More appointments and announcements will follow soon.

John Simmonds, public servant

My colleague John Simmonds, KCC Cabinet Member for Finance 2009-18 and Deputy Leader of the Council 2013-17, died on Sunday. He was 82.

It was quite a long life - though 82 is not exceptional these days - and a very good one, and in that sense we cannot mourn too much. But the sense of loss is still very big.

John was elected to KCC in 2001 after a successful banking career. He was community-minded and a public servant before he was a Councillor, deeply involved in the life of Whitstable (in which he had lived since 1964), chairing the Whitstable Castle Trust and serving on the council of the University of Kent.

In his long tenure of the Finance portfolio, he had to oversee huge savings, amounting to over £600 million, as local government was put in the front line of central government's austerity drive. He cared passionately about the services that the Council commissions and provides - he served two years in the post that I have held subsequently, of Cabinet Member for Education, and brought huge commitment to it - but he also knew that the books had to balance. In these toughest of times, he delivered nine consecutive balanced budgets.

In this, the Council benefited from his financial acumen, as it did when, working with some exceptionally able officers, he oversaw the full recovery of KCC's balances with Icelandic banks. But what also marked him out was the sensitivity with which he oversaw this difficult process, and slowly and steadily built consensus behind the savings. He was never a Treasury hatchet man. In this, he formed a great partnership with Andy Wood, who left as KCC's Director of Finance a couple of months ago. One of Andy's great sadnesses at his farewell to the Council was that John was by then too ill to attend.

John and I sat next to each other in Monday morning Cabinet meetings for many years. He was delightful company, thoughtful and well-informed, and with a lively and sometimes risqué sense of humour. He was, until his final illness, inspirationally vigorous in his late seventies and into his eighties. He was a family man and a public servant, a moderate and internationalist Conservative - as his Conservative Association chairman put it, "he was one of the good guys." This is farewell to a colleague and a friend.
  

New Cabinet role: some change, and some même chose

Following the County Council elections, KCC Leader Paul Carter has appointed a new Cabinet. I have taken on the role of Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education.

Previously I was the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform. The new post means some continuity - I retain the responsibility for Education that I have had for the last four years - but also change. In particular, and reflecting recent changes to KCC's Directorate structure, I will also take on responsibility for Specialist Children's Services (such as child protection, fostering and adoption), as well as youth services and KCC's role in youth justice. Almost everything that the Council delivers to children and young people will come within the portfolio; its list of responsibilities is very long indeed.

A corollary of this is that I step aside from my work on KCC's relationship with the NHS, including chairing Kent's Health and Wellbeing Board. This is something of a wrench - I have worked at this for much of the last seven years, and have developed knowledge, relationships and engagement with the fascinating and important issues of the health and care system. However, it is perhaps time to move on, and the new portfolio is a much better and more coherent fit. And it is a chance to serve the young people of Kent, including the most vulnerable - a big but exciting responsibility.

The new Cabinet in full is:

Leader of the Council - Paul Carter
Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Strategic Commissioning & Public Health - Peter Oakford
Cabinet Member for Finance - John Simmonds
Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care - Graham Gibbens
Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education - Roger Gough
Cabinet Member for Customers, Communications and Performance - Susan Carey
Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport & Waste - Matthew Balfour
Cabinet Member for Corporate and Democratic Services - Eric Hotson
Cabinet Member for Economic Development - Mark Dance
Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services - Mike Hill