Transcript

Good morning, members, albeit 10 minutes late, but please be seated. We've got the usual housekeeping, first of all, so good morning and welcome to this annual general meeting of the Kent County Council. The meeting is as always being webcast, so may be viewed by the public during and after the meeting. Please note that the meeting may also be filmed by any press or public present here today, and if anybody is not willing to be shown in the webcast or filming, please alert the clerk now. Thank you. I will now formally open the meeting of the County Council today, Agenda Item 1, Mr. Cook, apologies, please. Thank you, Chairman. We have apologies today from Mr. Beaney, Mr. Brady, Mr. Booth, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Game, Mrs. Hudson, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Webb, Mr. Ross, Mr. Baldock, and we understand Dr. Sullivan is on her way but running late. Are members aware of any other apologies that need to be added for the purposes of the minutes? I don't see any hands, in which case we'll move on to Agenda Item 2, Election of the Chairman of the Council. May I please invite nominations for the position of Chairman. Mr. Kight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise to propose that my colleague Brian Sweetland should assume the position as Chair for the ensuing year. Brian has been very rude to me over the years, he's criticised a whole number of things about me, my views on the Lower Thames Crossing, on which, frankly, he's very, very wrong, my dress sense, my standards of behaviour sometimes, my language sometimes. He's been difficult, obstreperous, quite bombastic on occasions, he's not easy to get along with sometimes. As I say, he's difficult. His parents, incidentally, were political activists for the Labour Party. Derek and Rosa Sweetland were legendary in Dartford for being firebrand socialists. They too were difficult and they have passed Gene on to Gene, there's a fantastic poem which I'm not going to read here about what your parents do for you, but this be the verse it's called. But hey, Brian is the product and here he is. He's also my friend and what I've found over the years dealing with Brian, wrong though he is about so many things, is that fundamentally he loves this county, he loves this community, he's always the first to stand up and speak or to send a text or to send a message about something he sees. And it's not always deep injustices, it's small things, potholes and things on the street that he sees. He's always out there confirming support for things that other members are doing. I've found him to be a stalwart friend over the years, his interests coincide with mine in a number of charitable areas. He puts his heart and soul into that. He's an emotional sod as well, he's got a long sort of sense of history for this county and you can tell that he cares about the community more generally and he compares about the history and the way we develop as a community. I think he's excellent county material, chairmanship material, not least because of course he now falls fair square inside the standards framework and can't criticise me quite as much as he has been. He will now be subject to direct complaints from me if he criticises the way I speak, my clothing. He accuses me of having a cheap suit on one occasion and I'm not sure that's a bad thing, this is Matalan, £184, I'm okay with that, I look great, I think, but he will be a fantastic chairman of this authority because he cares about the community. I think he has got his right head screwed on, he knows the right balance of things, he knows when to be serious and when to be sloppy stern, he knows when to be appreciative and empathetic, he has a belief not in himself but of this place and I think he will be a fantastic chairman of this authority and I commend him more highly to you. There's somebody to second the motion, Mr Kennedy. Mr Chairman, thank you very much indeed, it is indeed a great honour to be asked to second the nomination of my friend Brian Sweetland as chairman of this council. Many years ago Paul Cooper and I, look he's not here, but Paul Cooper and I were at an interminably boring dinner in Strasbourg, there were 56 of us in a restaurant that could have comfortably seated 40. The waiting staff hated us, the wine was sour, the food was bland, the room was far too hot and we were seated next to a man whose introduction was, did you know I run the third largest water softening company in Surrey? In reply to this unwanted and totally tedious piece of information, Paul Cooper with rarely seen diplomacy replied, how many water softening companies are there in Surrey? To which our new found friend replied, three. Then he added, I was originally into pond liners but I found water softening much more interesting. Now members may be wondering where this is going, allow me to explain. Being the third is clearly very important, very recently I invited the children from Valley and Victor Primary School in my division for a tour of County Hall. The outgoing chairman who I'd like to praise for some of the great events he's done such as bringing the launch of remembrance back to County Hall and the carol service both which were fantastic events but the outgoing chairman, Gary Cook, kindly offered to meet the children. At the arranged time he turned up in his finery in the old restaurant, he strutted across the room, puffed out his chest, his chairman's medallion glistening in the spring sunshine and said to the children, do you know I'm the third most important man in Kent? The children stirred wide eyed in awe and wonder and then one little kid, little cheeky boy looked at him and said, I can't wait to meet the other two. This is the same young man who when we moved into this chamber for a mock debate and Roger Gough came in and tried to explain the intricacies of County Council finance, the same little boy raised his hand and said, mister when you're old and dead will your photograph be hanging on the staircase? And today as we celebrate the passing on of that glistening medallion to a new third most important man in Kent, namely Brian Sweetland, though many of us would be, many of us would be somewhat intimidated by such a position, I suspect Brian sees being the third most important man in Kent is somewhat of a demotion. But it is also fair and right to say that for over the 20 years I have known him, Brian has not changed. He is a man of determined views and strong principles, a man who is unafraid to speak truth unto power and if he senses that power doesn't like what it is being told, he will say it twice as loud and twice as often, a man of great professional integrity and personal loyalty. These are qualities of not just a good friend but a good leader too and in the weeks and perhaps months ahead as events on the national stage play ever more loudly and we inevitably focus more on what divides us that I have no doubt that Brian will be the first to remind us that our primary duty in this chamber is not to national party politics but to the people of Kent and to the communities we have the honour to serve. It is therefore without doubt or hesitation that I second the nomination and in doing so wish Brian and Teresa every success for the year ahead. Thank you. Now I do have to ask a question and we will have a little bit of a pause if necessary. Are there any other nominations? There are no other nominations and that being the case I with huge pleasure declare Brian Sweetland elected as chairman of Kent County Council. I Brian Sweetland of Kent County Council having been elected to the office of chairman of the county council for the county of Kent declare that I take the said office upon myself and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties thereof according to the best of my judgement and ability. Thank you very much. I thought Gary was going to chain himself to this chair for a moment there. Members I must start by thanking Jeremy Kight and Andrew Kennedy both very good friends of mine. I apologise for my judgement on Jeremy's close over the years but he is looking very smart this morning. Thank you very much for proposing and seconding me to hold the office of chairman of Kent County Council. It is a huge honour and privilege for me and I very much look forward to working with you all over the next 12 months. Like my predecessor I take the responsibility of chairmanship very seriously and I look forward to serving the residents of Kent to the best of my ability. The military covenant has always been important to this county council and as the chairman of the civilian military partnership board I will do all I can to maintain the outstanding relationship that exists between this council and the military in Kent. Over the last 12 months it has been an absolute pleasure to work alongside Gary and together with the civic office staff I think we have made a really good team. We have shared officiating at the various events during the year including the many citizenship ceremonies held at Oakwood House and between us we have probably welcomed well over 1,000 maybe 2,000 new people to a British citizenship and that is always a nice thing to do. In particular I would also like to take this opportunity to thank past chairmen who have helped out in the ceremonies as well, that is David Brazier and Tom Gates and thank you very much indeed for the effort you put into all of this during the year and it is nice to see Tom here as well. I am sure Gary won't mind me saying this but he has done a truly spectacular job over the last year and I have seen it at first hand and he really has put a lot of time and effort into it and he should be incredibly proud of his time as chairman of this great authority. Gary has represented the council at dozens of events throughout the year including training for and taking part in an army assault course challenge. For the avoidance of doubt this year's chairman has no such plans. At the start of the year Gary was even talking about jumping out of an aeroplane. For some reasons I can't explain this idea gained instant support within the conservative group. I have no doubt Gary will speak about his fundraising efforts in a little bit more detail later on and of course his very successful chairman's charity dinner held at the International Hotel at Ashford in aid of Kent's young carers. It was a really enjoyable event and I could see the amount of work that Gary and others put into this evening. It really was an enjoyable evening. But the one event that stands out above all else is the freedom of Kent ordered to HMS Kent. This was a truly spectacular event. It is very difficult to do anything like that again but we will try. Now for my first and very pleasurable task as the incoming chairman is to present Gary with three things. The first from KCC, the next two things from me. Gary, I have great pleasure in first of all, if I can find it, there we are, thank you, presenting you with this past chairman's badge. Congratulations Gary. I said I had a couple of other things to present to you which might remind you of the year. This is the first of them, so you probably guessed what it might be, that's a Royal Navy bag there but inside is something which I think you may use on your Sunday morning walks which is from HMS Kent and secondly I think this might be something that will remind you of your very successful year as chairman of this authority. That's lovely, the decanter is absolutely gorgeous and it has been engraved to say Gary Cook, chairman of Kent County Council, 2023/2024. Brian thank you. Congratulations. Well, I'm going to ask Gary now if you'd like to say a few words, I'm sure he will because he always does, but Gary, over to you. Mr Chairman, congratulations Brian and thank you for all your support throughout the past 12 months. I agree with you very much that being chairman and having a good year is not ever about one person, it's about a lot of people coming together to make things happen and you've been very much a part of that team, as have all of you as well, so I am truly grateful to all of the membership for the opportunity of being chairman for the year and hopefully making a difference and bringing forward a few things that people seem to have supported and enjoyed. I remember a lot of the things that we've done between us Brian and a lot of them seem to involve raising flags one way or another, but one of the early flag raising ceremonies we did was to celebrate the Windrush 75th anniversary and I really just wanted to pay tribute to Michelle Bramble and her team for what they did on that day and those people that came along, it was a wonderful day, it was a great event and the best part of it was Michelle had cooked for everybody and the food was spectacular. When you've finished your year, Brian, you will be fully qualified in all aspects of flag raising and showing the right lights. I'm delighted to say that a number of the things I set out to achieve, I think I did, I visited every district at least once, I've spent some time with cohesion in Dartford, I've visited Swale, Margate was a great visit, not only did we go to Hornby who provided us with a spectacular raffle prize for the dinner that Brian so kindly referenced, but with the high sheriff, we were on Margate Beach on a really cold day for the Greek church ceremony of the blessing of the seas. It was anything but a blessing for those that were there. It was absolutely freezing and which reminded me of my predecessor's comments about when she went to see HMS Kent and all she could say was, It was really cold. Thank you for mentioning HMS Kent, that was a great memory and I think it was great to see so many people enjoying the day, not least of all my 97-year-old father who was in the Fleet Air Arm himself during the Second World War and the Navy guys saw his medals and they all spent a lot of time with him, he had a whale of a time, so thank you for that too. The Gurkhas have been a great source of fun, community engagement, I spent a lot of time with them both in Folkestone and in Maidstone and I remember in particular the Gurkha Memorial ceremony down in Folkestone and I hadn't appreciated, I'd seen the Gurkha Memorial there, but the Gurkha on the plinth is actually facing Nepal and that I'd never appreciated and I thought that was a really nice thing that the Gurkha who's there with the gun is pointing directly at Nepal, so that was a nice thing to know. Thank you Andrew for mentioning the carrel service, I thought that was lovely and I was so pleased to be supported both by the Lord Lieutenant on that and the High Sheriff who read lessons. The Civic Dinner at the International with Chris Cowdery as our guest speaker, he did a super job didn't he? That was a lot of fun. And what was really enjoyable for me both at the carrel service and the Civic Dinner was to see so many members actually joining in and coming along and contributing. The carrel service we made a nice amount of money for the charities, but on the evening of the dinner at the International Hotel we made just over £3500 for the charities and the place was full, it was a lovely evening. I do want to pay tribute to Lady Coldrain and Nadra who have become good friends, we've done a lot of work together through Oakwood and just generally wherever we kept bumping into each other, they have been a huge source of encouragement, help and support and I'm deeply grateful to them. Then I come on to, I think they're around somewhere, they're always around somewhere, it's the Civic team, Joe, Jenny and Jamie, we couldn't do half of what we do without their support and their guidance. They are an amazing team of ladies who I am totally and utterly indebted to and I'm a firm supporter of the J team. I was going to try and make an analogy with a girl band, could they be the Spice Girls or maybe when they talk a bit loudly, they could be Girls Aloud, but genuinely they are all saints and they do a wonderful job for us. Finally, I'd like to thank Annabelle, we've been friends for a long, long time and there were times when you get a little bit tired and Annabelle is very much a get up and go person, more so than me sometimes. I'm actually a little bit shy at times as well. Happily, she's not and we'd be at events and she'd say, I'm just going to go and talk to those people over there. Yes, Annabelle. I've got a little something just to say. My final thing I'd like to say is I said to Brian that when I set out to do this job, my objective was to be the best chairman that I can be. I think I did that and thank you all very much for the honour of being your chairman for the past year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Gary. I don't know where the shy bit comes in. I haven't actually seen that characteristic, but anyway, it was a fantastic year. It gives me pleasure now to ask if any other members would like to comment on the manner that Gary has conducted himself throughout the year. I'd like to start off with Roger and then over Swainsney. Thank you, Chairman. Congratulations on your taking on the role, a point to which I will come back in some later remarks. But can I just say it's a delight to pay tribute to what Gary has done in his year as chairman. I think there are two central features of what the chairman does. One is to put this council central in its part in the civic life and community life of the county. And the second is to keep us under control and to have this meeting to run effectively to be what it should be, the central part of the democratic process in the county. And I think in both those roles, you have discharged those with triumphant success. It really has been a great thing to watch and to be part of. I was pleased you mentioned a number of the big events of the year, and I was delighted to be part of a number of those. But I've seen a lot over the time that I've been a councillor of how chairmen discharge what is, I think, very difficult. It's a great honour to take on the role. It's a big job. It's a difficult one. And I think what we've seen over the last 12 months has been frankly utterly exemplary. And I think it is entirely right that we should at this moment say a big thank you to Gary for what I think has been a job exceptionally well done. Thank you very much indeed, Roger. Mr. Hawke, Anthony. Thank you very much, Chairman. Many congratulations to you, Chairman, on your election this morning. And Chairman, I just want to associate my group entirely with the remarks just made by the leader. We have really appreciated Gary's chairmanship. He's been fair. He's been even-handed. He's been funny. He's been kind. He's been all the things that you would want the presiding officer of a democratic chamber like this to be. So thank you very much, Gary. Thank you. Mr. Hawke. Thank you very much, Chairman. Congratulations on your election as our new chairman. I am very conscious that I have to be very careful what I'm going to say because our outgoing chairman's sister is not only one of my residents, she's also a resident in my ward, my borough ward back in Tunbridge. And I know that she's extremely proud of her brother. Apparently, apparently, Gary loves his county so much, he's chosen to live in several different parts of it over his lifetime. Gary served an impressive, I think, three terms at the council, and it would have been almost full. And he's managed to increase your majority each time you stood, which is quite incredible. It has been a very eventful year for our chairman, and you've certainly made the most of your term of office, and you've made your mark on the civic life of our council and our county. We've seen the ship's company of HMS Kent granted the freedom of the county, resulting in their parade through the streets of Maidstone, led by the band of the Royal Marines. And as I said at the time, it was a shame that we couldn't squeeze HMS Kent through Allington Lock, but the frigate having, I think, 16-metre beam wasn't quite going to manage it. We have had a few tempestuous moments, but in the main, our chairman has managed to navigate us through some treacherous waters and assured that generally we have enjoyed calmer waters within the walls of this chamber, amid forecasts of worsening conditions on the horizon. We have been treated to a Christmas get-together in the Damuth Room with the accompaniment of a choir, and I think it was from the Valley Park School, which was an incredibly nice addition. I'd just like to end by thanking you very much for your past year as our chairman. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Hood. Sue Chandler. Thank you very much, Chairman, and congratulations on your own election. Just briefly, whilst echoing all the comments that others have made, I wanted to thank Gary for his focus on the children in our county over the past year. Of course, that's not new. He's always supported the children, particularly our children in care, but he and I have met on numerous events focused on children in the last year, particularly the award ceremonies where he always takes a huge interest in the young people that he's giving awards to, but also to the more low-key events, things like Christmas parties and such things. Now, it's quite difficult sometimes to maintain the dignity of a chairman's position when you are surrounded by children wielding glue, glitter, icing, and all the rest of it. Gary has managed it with his customary aplomb, and I thank him. I hope, Gary, and I know that your interest in our children will continue even though you're not chairman. Thank you very much. Mr Kight. Jeremy. Thank you, Chairman. Congratulations on your appointment. It's funny how you only find out about people right at the end, and I didn't realise that Gary Cook and I share this incredible shyness that holds us back, and one of the things I always worry, I mean, I like the sound of my own voice, and the only thing that I like more is the silence of other people, and so when I'm looking at a potential chairman and potential leaders of things, and I have to say, I was worried with Gary that this might become an extra half an hour meeting on a small meeting, an extra hour on a big meeting, and I worry that because he was so effusive, it would cause us a lot of extra time in meetings, and that happened, didn't it? But the reason I'm rising is because I wanted to pay tribute to something in particular. We're coming up towards the anniversary of D-Day, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and I have been just knocked out by the way in which this council over the last 12 months has reconnected and strengthened those bonds with our armed services, and that's purely been led from the office downstairs of the chairman, it's purely come from the heart of this council's leadership, and it was very emotional to see those bonds being made, and it got me to thinking about the wider way we dealt with this year that's gone, and how I'd typify this year, and you know what, it's been a rather traditional year, we've made reconnections with things such as the carol service, such as the dinner, the chairman's dinner, such as the work with the charitable organisations, such as particularly the work with the armed forces, and you know what, I think at a time when our politics and our communities are slightly broken and slightly fractious and slightly at each other's throats, quite frankly, those reliance on the traditional things that bind us all together, our history and our respect for people who do things that we would only dream of doing in terms of our own courage, is actually really important, so I want to commend Gary Cook for his year as chair, and I want to hope that it represents the beginning of a return to those traditional values, a return to those traditional respects, a return to those traditional understanding that communities are not bricks and mortar, they're not just economies, they're not just places to be, they are absolute human organisms, and from time to time we depend upon those traditional structures of our government, our society, to defend us and to work with us and improve us, and Gary has thrown a light on that, so thank you very much for that sir, it's been emotional to be here, just sitting here watching how much the armed services have been revered by you and by this authority and by the county, so thank you so much for that. Thank you very much indeed Jeremy, I totally endorse what you've said there, it's been a good year, certainly working with the military. Barry Lewis Thank you chair, on behalf of the group I'd like to say well done Gary for surviving the year, especially putting up with me for the year, and now you're back in the fold, we can be political enemies again. But you've had an interesting year to say the least, but you've always come through it with a smile and with your honour intact, so on a personal level I hope I've given you a real hard time and you've appreciated it, thank you. Karen Constantine Thanks very much Mr Chairman, I'd like to apologise to you for being late obviously, and also like to move a motion of thanks to yourself Gary for the tremendous work that you've done in the past year, although I do barely recognise Mr Kite's comments slightly at each others throats, what I wanted to say though in all seriousness, when I thought about this and I thought about this past year, was the change of temper in the chamber, which is very important for politicians that we model the behaviour that we want to see in our society, and by that I mean that we are able to conduct sometimes heated, sometimes forensic discussions to get to a particular common understanding, and I think that changed actually when you became chair, I think prior to that I think sometimes the heat in this chamber was just that little bit too hot, just that little bit too uncomfortable, and I think you have changed the culture, helped change the culture in the chamber, and I think that's a brilliant thing because we only achieve democracy if we can have well tempered debates, so I would like to thank you on behalf of the group for helping to bring about that change and wish you well for the forthcoming year. Thank you very much indeed Karen. Sarah. Thank you Chairman and congratulations on your appointment. I won't remind Gary in too much detail about his first years with KCC, but we had a great time anyway, and I just wanted to say that since then I have watched you develop and watched you get less shy perhaps, and also the way that you research things before you chair a meeting is very impressive, and I just want to thank you for one thing, which is the way you chaired the budget meeting this year I thought was outstanding. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Jackie Meade. Thank you Chair and firstly apologies Operation Brock bit this morning, and I think quite a few of us got hit. Congratulations obviously on your election, I'm sorry I missed it. Gary, I just want to say a personal thanks because I've teased you shall we say a little bit and tried to get you to smile a little bit shall we say over the last year, but I'd like to thank you for all the time you did come down to Folkestone, because I know that our Nepalese community and our Gurr community really appreciated that very much, and when you hosted the Mayor of Meshinaga and his team, I know they're incredibly impressed with the warmth that you showed them when they came here, so I'd personally like to say thank you for that, and I look forward to seeing the new chair down at Folkestone. Thank you very much. I don't have any other names unless there's any note, well thank you very much indeed members, it's nice to know I've got something really to live up to over the next 12 months, but congratulations Gary. Do you want a quick 30 seconds to respond? Just please. I just thank you all so very very much, I would have mentioned the Mayor of that place if I could remember and been able to pronounce it properly. It was, and I certainly remember my early years working with Sarah and the children, young people in education. I kind of never moved on from that, I think I sort of, and the young carers that Sue referenced, I posted something on a social media site the other day, and I think I said at the end that they have my love and my support forever. They have very kindly appointed me a young carer ambassador for Kent, and I'm privileged to do that. I'm also, Jeremy thank you so much for what you said in terms of the armed forces, because bringing back, as Andrew mentioned, the launch of the Poppy Appeal back to County Hall was something that the British Legion mentioned to me, and it took me all of 30 seconds to agree that we would do that again. A lot of the things that you've very kindly noticed were things that I really set out and were things that I wanted to do in my year, and I shall continue to work with the armed forces and Brian, whatever support you need from the immediate past chairman you will receive as well. I think we have a great successor in the chair now, and I hope you'll give him the same support that you gave me. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much indeed, Gary. Let's move on with the agenda item. Item number three now is the election of Vice Chairman of the Council. Can I have any nominations please? Sir, thank you, Chairman. It's an honour to stand here today, firstly to congratulate one gracious colleague on his election as our chairman, but now secondly to stand in nominating another gracious colleague to become our vice chairman. I guess it's good for all of our sakes that we don't broadcast these meetings onto a live local television channel and that I left my camouflage at home today. Otherwise, anyone tuning in to this meeting at this exact point could well be led to believe that the Gratium coup d'etat is officially complete as we now have the two most important men in this chamber from Gratium a seat in those offices. But in all seriousness, I could not be prouder that you, Mr Chairman, are in your place today and that I now get to propose our good friend and our colleague, Mr Ridges, to be the vice chairman of the County Council for the pursuing municipal year. Alan needs no lofty introduction as his record speaks for itself. He is a committed titan of the local community. Alan has been a Rotarian for some 32 years, serving as secretary twice and as president of the Gravesend and Meppum Rotary Club. He has spent his many years tirelessly supporting the youth of our county, not only through Rotary, but through Young Enterprise, sitting on the local Duke of Edinburgh award panel and serving as a trustee to the Gravesend and District Sea Cadets for some 20 years. As a local councilor, Alan has served with distinction as a twin hatter, giving seven years of service to this council and nine years of service to Gratium Borough Council. Having dedicated years of voluntary service both to the Kent Archaeological Society and to the Gravesend Historical Society, Alan has been a committed champion for the heritage of our great county, which I know from our many, many long conversations about history in the car is why exceeding to the vice chairmanship today will mean so much to him personally. Now, one of the many qualities that sets Mr Ridges apart is his exceptional ability to bring people together. He's got a calming presence, a Churchillian wit, which has somehow managed to survive all those local government training courses that he's been forced on, and a calming presence that makes him a unifier and I believe the perfect ambassador for the values that we should hold dear at this county council. Mr Ridges, in standing to nominate you, there are many people, myself chiefly amongst them, that are super proud to see you as our friend becoming the vice chairman today. But I hope that you don't mind me saying, Alan, that if Mary was here today and I'm sure she's looking down on all of us now saying, Jordan, for God's sake, get on with this, her pride in you would supersede all of us put together. But after expressing that pride with the comforting smile for which Mary was truly known, Mary would raise you a wee dram and as Clementine would have said to Churchill, Toast you by saying, Alan, please don't bugger this up. Mr Chairman, I wish you and your vice chairman a year of success for our county and so do now move that Mr Ridges be elected as the vice chairman of this county council. Thank you very much indeed. I did wonder if anybody would notice it's a Grosian takeover but clearly you've pointed that out. I call for a seconder. Mr Paul Carter. Thank you Chairman and congratulations on your appointment. I was absolutely delighted that Jordan went in to open the batting first. Alan very sweetly gave me the opportunity to go bat first or number two but I knew that Jordan would make a much more eloquent job of it than I. So thank you for that, Jordan. Alan has all the attributes needed to be a very successful vice chairman and let's hope, subject to the election, into the position of chairman in a year's time. Alan certainly has, as I say, all those attributes. He's an absolute gentleman. He's a people person and very good at putting people at their ease exactly what is needed by a good vice chairman there to help and support you, Brian, as the new chairman. And it's great that you know each other exceedingly well, get on with each other exceedingly well and I think you'll make nothing but a force for good working closely together in the coming year. Alan, as Jordan has alluded to, has got a very dry and good sense of humour over the years, has become a very good personal friend and we enjoy each other's company and see each other frequently and I hope that will continue in your busy diary in the coming years. It is my great pleasure to propose Alan Ridges as the new vice chairman for this great authority and I wish you both an enjoyable and highly successful year. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Sir Paul. As there are no other nominations, then I declare Mr Alan Ridges duly elected vice chairman of this council. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I, Alan Ridges of Kent County Council, having been elected to the office of vice chairman of the county council for the county of Kent, declare that I take the said office upon myself and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties thereof according to the best of my judgement and ability. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Alan, it gives me great pleasure to invest you with the badge of the vice chairman of the council, if I could get it round the right way. Thank you. And I'd just like to say I've known Alan as well for many, many, many years from Grosham Council. We were both Rotarians at the Rotary Club as well, and I think we're very good friends as well. It's really nice, and of course you're from Grosham, so you must be okay. But it's very nice to invest you as the vice chairman of the council, and I hope that we both have a great year working together. Thank you very much indeed. Alan, you have the floor, just for a few minutes. Thank you very much. There have been a number of quite long and heartfelt speeches this morning, so I'm not going to do another one. It will be brief, and first of all, congratulations, Brian, and my thanks for all the kind words from Sir Paul and Jordan. It was very moving, particularly the bit about my late wife. Thank you. And I thank all of those that have voted for me or haven't at least stood against me. I will do my utmost to represent the county, its residents, and the elected members here to the best of my abilities. So I'm going to cut it there. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much indeed, Alan. That brings us to agenda item number 4, which is the declaration of disposable pecuniary interests or other significant interests on the agenda today. Do we have any decorations? That will be recorded as no. Item number 5, the minutes of the meeting or meetings held on the 28th of March, 2024. If you remember, there's two sets of minutes. One was when we had the special meeting for the alderman, and the other one was for the Ordinary Council. Do members agree with those? Any corrections? Can I take that as a correct record of the meeting? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you very much indeed. Item number 6, this is for noting the corporate parenting panel. You've all been given a copy in the pack of the minutes of the corporate parenting panel meeting held on the 12th of December. As I say, therefore noting. I think that stems back to when Anne Allen was the chairman, and she considered all of us to be corporate parents, and so it was appropriate that we all saw or had sight of the minutes as well. So that's that particular item number 6. So thank you very much indeed, and thank you for all the people that serve on that committee, and Dirk, I'm not sure if he's here, but anyway, he does a great job with chairing it. That brings us on to the item number 7, which is the chairman's announcements. I would start by just saying I would like to add to the many tributes that have been paid to one of the county's most prominent public health experts following his death. James Williams was Medway Council's Director of Public Health for seven years and worked closely with both members and officers at Kent County Council. He would be remembered for his strong role working in partnership with KCC and the NHS Kent and Medway organization in promoting public health and in leading the response to the COVID pandemic. I know that the leader, Mr Watkins, Mrs Beer, and Dr Gulch have been in close contact with our Medway colleagues to express our sympathy to them, and we send our best wishes to James's family. I would also just like to add a little something. Others would have seen the incredibly brave interview given by Craig McKinley MP on Tuesday and his return to the Commons yesterday, and I'm sure you would all join me in sending Craig and his family our very best wishes. I have a petition to receive from Karen Constantine. If you would like to just give a short introduction on it, Karen, would that be appropriate? This is from Keenan, who is the mother of Ethan, who would like to see speed calming measures on Dumpton Park Drive in Ramsgate, and her son of 19 years old was killed in a road traffic accident on a stretch of road that's 40 miles an hour, but it is frequently plagued by accidents. Residents tell me very often that they would like to see some traffic calming measures. We frequently respond that that's not possible because there aren't fatalities and it can't be afforded, but one death is a death too many, and my heart goes out to this woman, and I'm sure people would also agree with me. One death is a death too many. I think the young man, was it Ethan? Yes. Would you also send the family our belated condolences and best wishes as well? I'm very happy to take the petition from you, and as it is in accordance with our rules, I shall pass it to the cabinet member for highways. Just so that members know, and I'm sure you do, this will go on now to the cabinet member and a response will actually be sent to the owner of the petition, and it can be referred to the Joint Transportation Board, but I had one of these and I must say I was very impressed when I gave my petition in that the response I got was excellent, and it is now being teed up for the next Joint Transportation Board in my area. Is Neil here? Can I hand this over to you, Neil, and if you would take it back and acknowledge it. I think Democratic Services will acknowledge it. Thank you very much. Now, we have some guests with us today, and my charities for the coming year are two charities, both Kent-based charities. One is We Are Beams, and I know many members are aware of this organization. In fact, I went to their AGM and I think there was at least four or five KCC members there, which was good, and also the Elliott Holmes Memorial Fund, and Peter Scuts is here from that fund, also a constituent of mine as well, and a friend. Now, I invited both of the representatives here today to just share a little bit, one to introduce them to you, but share a little bit about their charity and some of the good work that they're doing. Now, I would like to introduce you to Caroline there, Caroline Brinkman from Beams, and Peter Scuts over there as well from the Elliott Holmes charity. Now, I'll ask Caroline if she could just give an outline of the charity, and then the same with Peter, and if anyone has any questions, a few questions, then we can certainly ask them. So, first of all, Caroline, and good morning. Lovely to see you. Good morning to everyone from here as well, and thank you so much for allowing me to come and speak to you today. I feel really privileged in order to tell you a little bit about the charity that I work for and that I love. It's We Are Beams. We support disabled children and their families. We have six different services, three of them right the way across Kent and Medway, and three that are very local to Dartford, Gravesham, and Sevenoaks. And we believe we're quite unique because we're parent-driven. We still have parents on the board. Many of our staff have lived experience, and the focus of everything that we do is with the disabled children at the heart of absolutely everything. And we support children and young people right through from mainstream who are struggling. They're at mainstream school, but they may have autism, and they could have mental health issues due to the autism, right through to those young people that need the highest level of care. And they will be looked after within our Dragon's Retreat respite unit, where we offer six beds for overnight care for children with very high level of complex needs, where they may have one-to-one care and personal support. Our outcomes are really clear. We want to make sure that children live a childhood, that it's about their ability, not their disability. So we want to make sure that our children have fun, make some friends, do something that they really didn't think that they could do. Most children are able to do something, so let's focus on that, rather than throughout the day they're told that they can't do this and they can't do that, and it's full of restrictions for them. And we want to reduce their social isolation. So we focus on taking them out, making sure they do something really different. Many of these children don't have summer holidays. The families can't cope with taking them out for a day trip, even something simple like the zoo. I was privy to going to a trip to the theatre, where the theatre sold us 200 tickets for disabled children, and then forgot about disabled access and forgot that some disabilities are hidden and wouldn't allow some of our children to go into the disabled toilet until I explained that some disabilities are hidden, that you can't always see everything. And they told our children to shush. And I thought, is this usual? It can't be usual, but it is. And it's such a shame. So we're hoping to educate people on how to support disabled young people. So thank you to Brian for supporting us. So thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Are there any questions for Caroline? Yes, no. Thank you. Thank you, Caroline. Yeah, I've got a disability myself. I wear a hearing aid, so I'm just sorting out my lube. And everyone knows about it in here, because I've told everyone plenty of times. But yeah, I really appreciate what you do. I've got a sister with a disability, and she's in a special housing in Rugby, actually, which is called New Directions, which is very much parent-driven. So I know how important it is to give children a break from their parents, because, you know, everybody deserves independence and to grow and grow confidence, and for the parents to have a break as well. So yeah, I just really appreciate it. And just in terms of the issue you're having with the venue, I know someone who's the CEO and founder of an organization called Attitude is Everything, which is all about access to venues for people with disabilities, those that are seen and unseen. So I really encourage you to get in touch with her. And I can give her your details. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before we come to the next question, I can just say that I attended the Santa Express. I sponsored it at Christmas, and it really was a good outing. It was great fun to be with the carers and with the children as well, so I thoroughly enjoyed that. Jeremy Kight. Thank you. Just a quick question, really. It's about, I mean, I know the charity well, and I know its work. It's absolutely tremendous. But the challenge, there's an additional challenge which is often hidden, which is what happens at the end of your tenure and involvement with young people, because those young people continue to have the disabilities. You have made an enormous difference to their life in improving their sense of independence and their quest for a journey into the latter part of their life. But my reflection was, and perhaps I'm wrong and I'd like your clarification, it's still a bit of a cliff edge when you come to the end of the care that you provide to your cohort, and that there's a big bit of work that needs doing, isn't there, to continue that bridge on into adult living, when you have done so much work on independence, and then those young people can find themselves in settings which actually, frankly, are a backward step for them. So I just wonder if you could, am I right in that thinking, and is it something that's on your agenda? Yes, it's definitely something on our agenda, and we are currently looking at, strategically, a project for the 18 to 25s to find a residential placement for young people and a day centre, because they do fall off the cliff edge, and what is out there for them, there is very little for these young people, and they must have some form of future. And we were looking in Dartford area, as you were working with us, Jeremy, and it's going to be called the Anne Allen Project, because Anne was so supportive of everything that we did, and she was so keen to get a project similar to this up and running. So yes, we are looking at that, but it is an ongoing challenge, what happens to 18-year-olds, because they are still very childlike, they are still like a child, so we are trying to get people to extend what they call a child up to the age of 25, but what happens after that, yes. All right, thank you very much indeed. Thank you for coming along, are you going to stay for a little while? Yes, so there will be an opportunity to speak to Carolyn a bit later, I think you've got some displays outside as well. I'll just pick up something on what Mel mentioned, is that I also wear hearing aids, and my hearing is not very good, and if anyone wears hearing aids, you know that you can either listen to the meeting, or you can try and switch between that. So if I speak to Joel, or Joel speaks to me, I can't hear him, so that's why he's typing little notes over there saying, Get on with it, you idiot. So that's a brief explanation, or an apology, so thank you very much indeed for that. I'd like to introduce Peter Scuts now. Peter's been a friend of mine for a long time, he's also a constituent, and he started this charity a few years ago now, but I'll let him tell you all about it. Peter, over to you. Thank you, Brian, and thank you for making us one of your causes this year, along with We Are Beams, and giving us the opportunity to talk to everyone here today and explain a little bit more about our charity. Now there's a backstory to this that the BBC covered back in February, and I'm going to use this just as an introduction, because they get through it far quicker than I can, and then I'll go on and tell you a little bit more in depth about the charity. So if we could start with the first slide, please, thank you. You're watching South East Britain, Elliott's legacy, and the family of a teenager who took his own life, and now has been on a young team. Elliott Holmes died four years ago when he was 19, he took his own life. Now his family are raising money to pay for private mental health therapy for school children, who they have been waiting too long for NHS support. Their work has already helped nearly 200 students in the Great Shem area, and they told Leanne Rooney, they're determined something positive should come from Elliott's dad. In just a few months time, Kerry and Peter would have been celebrating their son's 23rd birthday. Instead, they come here now to remember him at a place where he used to sit and watch the sunset with his friends. Elliott Holmes was just 19 when he took his own life in 2020. He suffered with mental health issues as a young boy, which got worse during the pandemic. After his death, his family set up a memorial fund, which gives young people in Great Shem direct access to private mental health counselling. I tend not to ask a lot of what my children would say. I just find it to, it hurts too much and just ends everything back. I think there is too many barriers to access support for young people, and if we've helped maybe save one life, that would be absolutely incredible. But I think if we've changed one person's life significantly, then all of this, what we've done, would have been worth it. Peter and Kerry now work with local schools, hospitals and even the police to sign post young people and their families to their service. We've seen it rise in a number of students who are experiencing challenges, particularly post-pandemic. We have support mechanisms in place in school for the services that Peter offers with professional counsellors. It's really easy for students to access. It's quick to access. Yeah, really. BBC South East today, Grey's End. Okay, pop the next slide up, please. Okay, so just briefly just run through these national statistics. There was one in nine young people struggling with a probable mental health disorder in 2017. That's risen to one in five in 2022. We believe it's much higher. The schools believe it's much higher. This mental health arena that I find myself in now, I'm absolutely staggered by these figures. So the concept is pretty simple. We've got a huge number of young people on waiting lists for counselling. We've got immediate capacity in the private sector that isn't being utilised at all. So when I looked at this, I thought, okay, we just need to find some money, put the two together, ring-fence the service to Gravesham to get the engagement of community support. And that is a key part of it. You see, in Gravesham, names like Elliot, E-Cam, Tristan, Leon, Tashan, it actually means something because it's affected the community when these young people take their whole life, their life. Last month, we had another name to add to the list, Lewis. He was a football coach for young people. On Sunday, we helped family. They unveiled a bench for their young lad, 15 years old, he was last year, took his life. We don't want any more benches. I was fortunate enough to retire and actually do something about this myself when I got my head together. The first task was to determine the approximate size of the problem locally. We're not naive to think we can solve the national mental health crisis, but at a local level and in the counselling sector, we thought we could make a difference. I think the first task is to work out the size of the problem, what's actually currently being delivered, which I'm still struggling with, so if there's anyone here who can help me with those figures, it would be great, and then fill the gap between the two. There's a couple of stats on here. Three in every four young people have not accessed mental health support leading up to their death. Certainly, that mirrors the young people who've taken their life in Gravesham. It could be they just couldn't access the support and tried, maybe like we did. Others, they're just too young and don't know where to go. In 30% of these cases, the family's the problem. So where do they go? There is nowhere. I'm just going to ping up next some facts and figures for Gravesham. So if you drill down the NHS digital figures into our own town, we've got 8,000 young people aged 13 to 18. These are the ones we target for the counselling. 1,600 will have a probable mental health disorder, 1,200 will not be able to access support. We've helped 40 young people in 2022, 105 last year, and this year so far, 98, that totals 243. We had another three come in yesterday. All self-referred young people. I think two of them were 13. There's one stat here that I want you to take away. It's actually very small in the bottom corner. If you don't remember anything else, remember these stats. I've been talking to Darrant Valley Hospital and they kindly run a programme to dig these figures out for me. As I said, our focus is 13 to 18-year-olds in Gravesham. In 2017, 73 young people from Gravesham aged 13 to 18 were admitted with deliberate self-harm, overdose or mental illness. 2020 it rose to 149 and in 2022, 187. 91% of the young people who refer have tried to access support elsewhere and can't get it. I think just as a summary and something to take away from here today is this is a community-based model and by engaging the community where it matters most and getting the community to raise the money, it makes an absolutely huge difference. I just want to quickly run through some of those organisations if I can read them. We've got relationships going with all the head teachers from the Gravesham schools. They not only send pupils through or recommend them but we're starting to distribute these to all the young people. If they're struggling, they don't have to go through their doctor, they can come straight to us and refer online. Kent Police, they will carry these cards now. So all the missing young people, they give them those and hopefully they will refer. And that's a two-way engagement as well. Earlier this week, they were up the Yorkshire Three Peaks with me, raising money to help pay for the funding and they've got another team going up next week. Three leisure centres raising money but they're also starting to offer post-counselling support for when the young people come out. North Kent Mind refer to us, we are BEAMS, we work alongside as well. The Grand Emerge Advocacy, Darrant Valley Hospital and luckily enough we've had the support of Ebs Fleet United. 83% funded by the community. If it matters to the community, engage them and you can do it and this could be the solution for maybe other issues. We've made it work in Gravesham. My target for the first year was 10 young people raised seven grand. This has been carried along by the community on a wave. The support has been absolutely incredible. I haven't done this. Sure, along with a great team I've put the vehicle in place but this is driven purely by community engagement and from every angle. So thank you Brian, thank you for listening and thank you for your support. Peter, thank you very much for all the work you're doing at Gravesham. The important thing I think you said is modular. It can actually be transported to other parts of Kent if people want to start something like this which is something that we desperately need but thank you very much indeed. If anyone's got one quick question for Peter but Peter and Caroline will be here later on in the break so you can ask some questions outside. Anyone? Or are you going to save the questions until a bit later? Okay. Peter, I'm sure there'll be a flood of questions later on but thank you very much. Both of you thank you very much and thank you for coming and staying. We can just stay there for a while and then once we break you can go out to your displays and everything. I've got two very short items now to wind up on the Chairman's announcements. We seem to have gone on for quite a while but there is a cake stall outside, cake stand. Now you've probably noticed it looks really, really good. I hope there's some left by the time I get out there anyway but I really want to thank Isabella Wilson. Isabella's over there. Hi Isabella, stand up so everyone can see you. Isabella is actually part of working on a graduate. She's a graduate working in governance, law and democracy and she's done a great job and all the money that is being raised is going to the Teenage Cancer charity as well so not only are you doing a great job, you're a great graduate and an employee from KCC as well so thank you very much indeed from all of us here for what you're doing. Members, please go and buy a cake if you possibly can. If the cakes run out, just put a fiver in and I'm sure she'll be very, very pleased. One very quick note that Mrs Chardra has asked me to mention is that keep an eye out in your email boxes because there's something coming through which is important. I've been asked to draw your attention today to encouraging greater participation in corporate parenting and the corporate parenting panel so have a look at the email and please take the necessary action if you so desire. I'd like to move on now quickly. We did start the meeting a little bit late because of all the transport problems. Moving on now to questions and the first question I have for a cabinet member is from Susan Carey. Just before you do it, Joel's just reminded me, it didn't really work very well last time when some members were saying question number one and question number two so I've taken the executive decision here to say let's go back to how we always used to do it so I've asked questioners to actually read out their question and it also means that people watching on the webcast know what the question is as well. So Susan, if you'd like to read out the question, question number one. Chairman, congratulations on your election. Thank you very much. It is a very short question so I will follow your instructions. Most modern cars display the speed limit on their dashboard and also alert motorists to roadworks and fixed speed cameras. As the technology clearly exists to provide such information, it should also be possible for motorists to be alerted that they are approaching a school. Could the cabinet member, the cabinet member for highways and transport, approach the sat-nav providers to see if they would consider adding this information to their systems so that motorists are prompted to pay special attention to the special traffic risks near schools? Thank you very much. Mr Baker. Thank you Chairman and may I offer my congratulations to yourself and our new Vice Chairman. I concur with Ms Kerry's observations that in-car technologies are constantly evolving and welcome her idea as a way to inform motorists of an upcoming school when drivers are following in-vehicle sat-navs. I will therefore instruct officers to make the request to the main sat-nav providers although as commercial companies the decision is ultimately theirs as to what information their systems and service display or alerts drivers to. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you have another supplementary? No. Can I just say that supplementary question as members all know is just to seek clarification if anything you don't understand, not to raise another point so I'm sure members know that already. Number 2 question is with Mike Sol. Thank you Mr Chairman. Congratulations on your elevation. In the last year Southern Water released raw sewage into waterways for 317,285 hours, a 116% rise in the previous year. Southern Water have told this council of their plans to reduce storm overflow discharges by 80% by 2030. However, rather than moving forward towards this target their performance continues to worsen leaving our rivers and coasts polluted with filth. Would the cabinet member please explain what this council is doing in relation to the water companies that operate in Kent to tackle these problems? In answering, can the cabinet member comment whether they think Southern Water will meet their targets? Cabinet member can you answer the question please? Good morning and congratulations to our new civic team and thank you Mr Sol for your question. It's obviously an important topic that is a conversation in many bars, cafes and family conversations at home I dare say. In response to your question we have noted the raw sewage discharges from Southern Water's sewers in 2023 and the increase from 2022. 2023 was a much wetter year than 2022 which is likely to be a reason for this increase though clearly raw sewage discharges like this need to become the exception rather than the rule as they appear to be at present and we hope Southern Water will make tangible progress on reductions in the near future. The 2025 to 2030 Southern Water business plans are due to be finalised by Ofwat next month. KCC is keen to support Southern Water to reduce these discharges. Southern Water have been a regular attendee at the Kent Flood and Water Management Committee chaired by my deputy Tony Hills where they've given updates on their progress in delivering against these targets to reduce these discharges. It's also worth noting that back in November that my colleague Tony Hills actually updated the terms of reference of that committee to include water quality as well and I welcome the additional work that my colleague is doing at his committee. It goes on to say one of the root causes of these discharges is surface water runoff entering foul and combined sewers which can lead to the sewers being overwhelmed in heavy rainfall. KCC is working with Southern Water on a pilot program to reduce highway runoff from the foul and combined seal where it is practical which is funded by Southern Water. If these pilots are successful we expect they will lead to a larger Southern Water funded program of similar schemes across the county. Southern Water also investigating reducing runoff from other sources including roofs and disconnecting water sewers. We hope these measures will be successful and we will continue to work with and ask questions of Southern Water. Mike Sowell along with all of the other members here are welcome to attend the Flood and Water Management Committee where Southern Water regularly attend giving updates on the project and progress towards delivering their target. However, KCC is not in a position to comment on whether Southern Water will achieve this target. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr Sowell do you need any clarification on that answer? Just a very quick clarification please. Twice in that reply you mentioned the word hope and also if and I am very concerned that we are just relying on phrases like that. Could you confirm that we will continue to increase the amount of pressure because that 2030 date is coming very, very closely and I'm very concerned that all we're going to get is promises and no action from Southern Water. Thank you very much. Well certainly from a KCC perspective I shall be using my best endeavors along with Lida and others here at KCC to ensure that those who are responsible for delivery of these improvements are held to account and we help and offer our best support but ultimately it is down to Southern Water and others who apply pressure rightly so to ensure that their plans and the improvements do arrive in due course. Thank you. Thank you very much. Question number three from Barry Lewis. Thank you. How many school children receive subsidised transport from KCC and how many children receive their personal transport budget in Kent? Subsequently, how do these figures break down in percentage wise across Kent? Thank you. Thank you cabinet member. Rory you've been asked for some figures there. Indeed thank you Mr Chairman and with your indulgence when I get to the detailed part of the breakdown I shall refer the member and colleagues and anyone watching to the full written answer because I think a table is best understood when it's seen rather than heard. So Kent currently has 1,164 pupils enrolled within the personal transport budget scheme to fulfil its statutory duty to provide transport to their place of learning. This accounts for 15.9% of the overall cohort of 7,308 pupils with special educational needs entitled to transport assistance. As I say that will be broken down in the full answer unless of course Chairman you ask me to read the 12 line three column table for the next 60 seconds. The total cohort making use of a Kent County Council subsidised scheme is 27,500 of which 20,400 have purchased a Kent travel saver pass and 7,100 have the Kent 16 plus travel saver pass. Current recording does not enable these figures to be broken down by district. To see the full picture of transport assistance provided by this Council these figures should be taken in conjunction with the reply I gave Mr Lewis at the March Council meeting when I reported that the number of children receiving fully Council taxpayer funded transport both SEN and non-SEN including personal transport budgets is estimated at an average of 14,180 in some cases these will involve the issuing of a Kent travel saver pass. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much indeed Rory for that brief and precise answer. Mr Lewis do you have a question? The clarification of course is would you say that we're getting the full value from the personal transport budget because in my view and I presume loads of members it's been underused. I guess that calls for a yes or a no. It is a very valuable contribution to the flexibility that we offer to get those children who are entitled to that transport to and from their place of learning. I always welcome the increase in use as we've seen over the last year. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much. Question number four which is from Richard Stratfield. Thank you Mr Chairman and congratulations to you and your new Vice Chair. While walking through Seven Oaks the other day I found a resident taking a photo of a pothole that was more than ankle deep. It had punctured two of her tyres but thankfully that canyon has now been filled but there are many more that have replaced it. Are we winning the pothole blitz? Mr Boker. Thank you Mr Stratfield. Achieving a completely pothole free status is certainly a challenging goal due to various factors such as weather conditions, traffic volume and the natural wear and tear of road surfaces. KCC is putting significant investment into pothole repair. Following a nine year peak in pothole reports we received an additional £8.6 million in government funding for the current year's pothole blitz programme. This initiative is part of a long term commitment with the government confirming future funding allocations for the next nine years to support similar programmes. Let's hope that survives the next few months. The pothole blitz programme is concentrating on medium to large scale resurfacing to provide permanent first time fixes and I should stress it is in addition to our planned maintenance programme. KCC has engaged three dedicated contractors to ensure quality work with minimal disruption to the public wherever possible. The roads selected for the project categorised under individual districts are detailed on the KCC website under the pothole blitz section which will be kept updated. Understanding the inconvenience caused by untreated potholes, KCC is focusing on local sites identified for repair that have not yet been addressed through other work streams. So far, and I'm just going to have to update the figures on the fly, the project has resulted as of earlier this week in 86,154.37 square metres of total patching filling 2,992 potholes and our total spend committed is £4,592,895.16. In highways and transport we ensure budgets are accounted for absolutely. While it may not be possible to completely eliminate potholes, the measures we are taking will lead to a substantial improvement in road quality and a reduction in number of potholes over time. Thank you. Thank you very much for that very precise answer. It was just one clarification because in all of that I don't think I got to the answer where are we actually reducing the number of potholes by the end of the year than we had at the start. Because that's to indicate whether we were winning or not. I totally appreciate there's lots of work. You asked your question. Mr Baker. We are doing all we can to get on top of our pothole repair work. I wouldn't want to predict anything from one day to the next. But I think in the overall war against potholes, the battle we are currently fighting through the pothole blitz is looking good as things stand. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you all looking into it. It's question number five, which is Anthony Hawke. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Chairman, primary schools are often a beating heart of a local neighbourhood. In Faversham there is no primary school east of St Mary's in the town centre. As the town has expanded in recent years on all four sides, the absence of an eastern school has meant more families having to make longer journeys, making traffic busier for everyone and more children missing out on the great benefits of being able to walk to school. Will the cabinet member say whether KCC will join me in supporting the creation of a primary school in eastern Faversham and clarify whether this is dependent on whether or not the Duchy of Cornwall housing development goes ahead? Mr Love. Thank you, Chairman. I actually had the pleasure of visiting a school east, a primary school just east of Faversham yesterday and an outstanding school it was too at Hearn Hill. Work has been taking place to assess current and future school place demand in the Faversham area through the annual formal review of the Kent Commissioning Plan. The current provision is meeting demand but we are aware of potential housing developments in the area for the future. Proposals have been worked up for the expansion of St Mary of Charity Church of England Primary School to provide additional capacity closer to the emerging housing at Love Lane. KCC's responses to local plans and individual planning applications always seek to ensure provision of primary school infrastructure that can be accessed sustainably. Apart from Love Lane, the majority of the development planned through Swale Borough Council's local plan is located to the west of the town where provision is able to meet demand and do so sustainably. The Duchy of Cornwall application includes the provision of a three form of entry primary school based on the predicted future demand for places. KCC will certainly be working with the applicant to facilitate delivery of this infrastructure at the necessary point of need should the application receive the relevant consents. Members will be aware that any new infrastructure provision requires key decisions and such decisions would need to be supported by an appropriate business case. The Leader may have noticed that at recent Council meetings some cabinet members have given rambling answers to questions that have taken up some cases six or seven minutes to deliver, which is as long as group leaders get to reply on all topics of the Leader's report. Does the Leader agree that these answers have the appearance of filibustering to run down the clock and prevent more questions and supplementary questions being asked? Mr Gough. No. Mr Chittenden, was that brief enough for you? I'm sorry, I was listening to the clapping and laughing and I didn't hear the answer. What's that again? Chairman, I am happy to add a little supplementary material if that helps. If you could keep it short and precise. I don't accept the somewhat mischievous premise of the final part of Mr Chittenden's meeting, which is both unfair on cabinet members and does not acknowledge that questions come from members of all parties. I do, however, agree that the question of the length of answers and the balance between giving comprehensive and a concise reply has long proved difficult to get right. And that was most clearly demonstrated, as you referred to, Chairman, at our most recent County Council, when an experiment in speeding the process up by the question of simply stating the number of the question rather than reading it out was unsuccessful. After that meeting and reflecting on my own experience both as a cabinet member and leader, I decided that we needed a new approach. I've since issued a directive that no answer should be more than 300 words long. If it was considered beneficial to include additional information, that could be provided within supplementary written information. That's the approach that's been applied today. I hope Mr Chittenden agrees, as do all members, that it's been beneficial and answers have been brief, even if not quite as brief as my initial response. Thank you very much indeed. Can I just add one thing there, is that although this question session lasts for 30 minutes, it is actually down to the Chairman to determine how long it does last for. So if there is any long questions, then I would be quite happy to add a bit of time on the end. Mr Chittenden. Thank you, Chairman. This is not going to be a supplementary because I think the leader has actually read my supplementary where I suggested that, going to suggest the very thing. So thank you for reading my mind, Chairman, and I'm sorry, leader, and I'm very happy. Thank you. Thank you very much. So your supplementary wasn't really a supplementary at all then? But anyway, thank you very much indeed, Mr Chittenden. Question number seven with Chris Passmore. Congratulations, Chairman, on your appointment. Can the Cabinet member explain what work is – sorry. Sorry, the dentist is calling me. I also have hearing aids. Can the Cabinet member explain what work is being done to monitor and track how children travel to school in terms of walking, cycling, public transport or car? And can the Cabinet member comment on what steps are being taken to increase the number of children walking or cycling to school? This is in the capable hands of Mr Baker. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr Passmore. Kent County Council maintains a comprehensive system for recording applicants for the Kent Travel Saver and the 16+ Travel Card, which includes details such as home address, school attended and card type. This data is absolutely crucial for ensuring adequate capacity on the local bus network for students at the start of each school year. The Council also uses JamBusters, which is an online travel plan management system, to help schools create, store and maintain school travel plans. These plans are essential for recording travel survey data, understanding the school's environment and setting targets for improving active and sustainable travel. While participation in school travel plans is voluntary and not all schools may provide data, Kent County Council encourages schools to engage with the program and update their travel surveys annually. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Mr Passmore, do you want to come back? Thank you very much indeed. Question number eight is from Jenny Hawkins. Jenny, where are you? Thank you, Chairman and congratulations. Many youth services who provided the Duke of Edinburgh scheme in Kent are currently struggling to replace lost funding since KCC ended its contracts with them for commissioned youth work. The news that KCC will no longer be supporting the Duke of Edinburgh award in schools has come as another heavy blow to youth provision in Kent. Could the Cabinet member please explain how they expect young people to access the scheme and clarify what, if anything, KCC will be doing to support the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme in the future? Thank you very much. Cabinet member Sue. Thank you very much for the question. Kent County Council are committed to fulfilling existing obligations to support delivery of the Duke of Edinburgh award. This includes honouring charters with SEND schools until they expire on 31 August 2024 and completing expeditions under other agreements that end on 31 October 2024. Until 31 August, SEND schools have access to a KCC Duke of Edinburgh field officer to support them as detailed in the charter. This will assist those schools and their children over the summer term until the end of August to complete sectional activities, undertake expeditions, record evidence, input approvals on the E-D of E portal and to receive certificates of achievement and/or full D of E awards. Some schools and partners who operate as D of E centres have staff undertaking the Lowland Expedition Leader course which is led by KCC's Duke of Edinburgh expedition team. Until the end of October 2024, these partners will continue to be able to access their support including an opportunity to complete their assessment to achieve their leadership status at the end of September. Candidates will be contacted directly by KCC's Duke of Edinburgh team with details of that event. Some SEND schools and partners are considering becoming licensed to deliver the awards themselves. The National Duke of Edinburgh scheme have asked those interested parties to contact the operations manager and there's full details in the written answer. Centres that do not wish to license themselves and have participants who are considering continuing their programmes after 31st August should direct their participants to alternative delivery partners. The KCC field officers are proactively supporting partners including sharing those delivery options and be contacted directly or via D of E at Kent.gov.uk. The National Duke of Edinburgh website provides a national map and contact details of all licensed organisations, Duke of Edinburgh centres and licensed adventure activity providers and the full website is on the written response. Thank you very much indeed. Jenny do you want to come back on that at all? Thank you. Could you just confirm that the Help for Future Duke of Edinburgh award scheme that you've listed will be available to youth services? Sorry I was put off by a phone over there, a phone from Ashford, it's been noted. That assistance with finding alternative provision will be available to anybody through the Duke of Edinburgh website. Okay question number nine, Mark Hood. Thank you very much Chairman. One of my residents has been in touch regarding the pledge being made by many councils across the UK regarding Mission Zero Coalition and the UK 100 who are calling on them to rise above party politics and support an evidence-based conversion on the issue by resisting the urge to drag climate policies into cultural walls and use misinformation as a tool for division. My resident wants to know why Kent County Council does not seem to be included. Kent County Council doesn't seem to be a member of the UK 100 which is committed to doing everything within their power and influence to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work with our residents and businesses to bring our wider communities emissions in line with net zero as soon as possible. Is there a reason that the council is not a member of UK 100? Thank you very much. Rob Thomas. Thank you Mr Hood for your question. KCC is aware of UK 100's ambitions to enhance collaboration and knowledge exchange amongst its members to support their net zero targets and we are observing the outcomes of its initiatives considering the adoption of any best practices developed. However the council prefers a holistic approach to its own net zero journey prioritising biodiversity and adaptation targets which are not addressed in UK 100's current ambitions. Consequently KCC has decided not to pledge support to UK 100 choosing instead to allocate its resources to projects and activities that align with its own net zero goals within its existing strong partnerships. Thank you. Okay thank you very much. Mark do you want to come back on that? Yeah very very briefly. The cabinet member mentioned resources. I believe that membership of UK 100 is not a financial issue. I think it's free but I think it's better to be inside a bigger group of authorities than to be outside looking in. Thank you very much. Mr Thomas can you confirm that? Yeah I believe that may be the case but in terms of resources it's the staff time, energy and focus to say what we're trying to do is move our intentions within existing plans and as you've heard from the Kent Environment Strategy's recent cross party members group that actually we have a lot of plans in place and we are actually developing a number of new plans and strategies such as environment plan, a refresh of Kent and Medway, energy and low emissions strategy, looking at an adaptation plan and indeed we have mapped out how we get to net zero. The big challenge for us is about attracting new resources and green finance to help us with our target. So it's not a case of we don't have plans and ambitions, it's just very much that we are focusing holistically as explained about biodiversity and adaptation plans but we are mindful of the work they're doing and as I've alluded to we will consider any best practice that are developed but it's for us at this moment in time it's not something we're considering. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed and the last question, Mel Dawkins. Thank you chair, congratulations and my question sort of follows on nicely, so thank you councilor. As a climate emergency was declared in 2019 and following a recent cross party member group meeting, can the cabinet member for environment reassure the council that the cabinet and their respective deputies will be taking part in carbon literacy training as soon as possible or if needed a refresh as things change quickly and just on the point of UK 100 I have done the training as a councilor and it is free and it's very useful in that you get access to a whole wealth of resources that are very useful. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, that's with Mr Thomas again. Thank you Mr Dawkins for your question, the very short answer is that all councilors should receive adequate training and education in our decision making process but the slightly longer answer is that in response to framing Kent's future policy and the environmental commitments outlined within it KCC has reviewed and enhanced its environmental training for all staff and elected members. The induction training has been improved to ensure a higher baseline of knowledge and awareness. Selected officers have been trained by carbon literacy training and raising awareness of carbon costs and impacts of daily activities as well as fostering the motivation to reduce emissions personally, communally and organizationally. This carbon literacy training is being rolled out in stages to all staff and members of KCC with opportunities for anyone interested to participate. Thank you. Thank you, can you just, I think the answer was in there, can you just clarify that the cabinet members and their deputies will be getting this carbon literacy training like ASAP, I think it's very important, it's really important that our climate objectives are integrated into all directorates as a way of mitigating our councils needs basically, so can you clarify that? I believe the carbon literacy training is about a day but it's so important that all cabinet members do it and their deputies. Are you going to be trained? Sounds very convincing, does it? No, absolutely committed in my role to ensure my best knowledge and then pass that on to all members. Clearly need to work with the council officer team with regards to training but as I've alluded to it is for all members and on the basis that cabinets and deputies are part of the all member of this council we will certainly be rolling out the training, both of the current council and future councillors of this council, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you members and cabinet members for the questions there. We've I think managed to get through all ten in about thirty odd minutes so that was quite good so well done everybody, thank you very much indeed for that. I think we'll take a break now for fifteen minutes, it's slightly longer than a normal break because I know that you'll want to talk to our representatives from the Elliott Holmes charity and also from We Are Beams and also you'd like to buy a cake from Isabella and if you don't want a cake please put some money into her collection pot because it's a very good charity, Cancer for Young Children. So fifteen minutes will take us to about just after ten past. Thank you. To update the county council on events since the last meeting and as you know fully where Mr Gough you have ten minutes. Thank you chairman, can I start by welcoming you to your role in the chair. I think you will continue, I think we've already seen it this morning, the excellent steering of meetings that we saw under Gary Cook and I'm very proud to consider you and indeed Theresa as friends. I'm absolutely delighted to see you in this role. I think I said when I became leader I was very pleased that Anne Allen was my first chairman and I'm very pleased that you are the last chairman of this term. I'm glad you added that part on at the end anyway and it was nice to be your back man as well for a little while. Thank you chairman. Now, it was just as well I write my speeches at the last minute isn't it? There were a few points I was going to raise which in the light of yesterday have had to be discarded so for example and chairman I don't want to spoil your first meeting by mentioning the low Thames crossing but that was something which I was going to raise because the anticipation was that there would be a government decision, the Secretary of State decision on DCO which now would I presume fall away during this pre-election period. So there are a number of things which I won't address. Perhaps before moving on to some of the wider themes worth noting the local election results that we had recently expressed my congratulations and commiserations to those councillors, those who were elected and those who were not. I've always emphasised that I've looked to build constructive relationships with leaders in the districts of all parties and renew that with the fact that we have some new leaders. Also expressed my congratulations to Matthew Scott on his securing re-election as police and crime commissioner. I'll say less today than I usually do about finances because we are slightly in the gap between different statements. Nonetheless we are due to deliver our accounts by the end of the month, they're not finalised yet and we are still expecting to record an overspend but it appears likely to be smaller than was previously indicated. One advantage incidentally the fact that the election has been called now may be seen later in the year because whoever forms the next government they will not be doing so in the middle of the spending round. It'll still be a pretty pacey move from the summer through to the spending round in the autumn but nonetheless it will not actually be taking place during that time. So I think the prospects for actually a proper assessment of local governments needs among many others is boosted. Nonetheless I don't think any of us are expecting any big change. Current opposition spokesmen have used the phrase 'the envelope is the envelope' and I think we'd recognise that as being plus or minus the position in which we're likely to find ourselves. The entry/exit system is certainly an issue which is not going to go away and whilst one or two features such as a planned meeting of Kent leaders on the 12th of June may be postponed because of the election, the issue is still very much there. In recent months I visited both Eurotunnel and the Port of Dover to see the preparations that are taking place. We also sought to learn lessons from what happened generally relatively favourably over Easter and I think the point that I've sought to emphasise is that we strike a balance between being complacent which we cannot be whilst at the same time recognising that there is significant work that has gone on particularly in those points of exit since the early months of the year and indeed in some cases further back. Nonetheless there remain very significant risks and the position as I've stated it a number of times is that we need a number of things. We need data shared from government so that we all have that consistent picture as to what a reasonable worst case may be. There are funding asks that we have in there at the moment to address some of the challenges which this is likely to raise. If we can possibly achieve pre-registration in any form to ease that pressure particularly on the constrained site of the Eastern docks and finally communication, communication, communication. It is still something which is not necessarily on the radar of Kent residents or indeed those across the country and that is something on which both we and government have a shared responsibility. On unaccompanied minors, I draw members attention to a very good report on the BBC a fortnight ago which set out the position as we confront it at the moment. A 59% rise in referrals so far this year and what you've seen is that with the rapid number of arrivals it is still outpacing dispersal through the National Transfer Scheme. So some 816 arrivals so far this year, 558 dispersed through the NTS. Now to be fair that is a big step up for the NTS on its historic rate and when we see a moment of crisis things can move quickly but it needs to be a lot more systematic, it needs to be a plan that can actually deliver throughout the time to ensure that there are not those unfair burdens on this county. We still await the final judgement from our legal proceedings, that has been pending now for a couple of months but we await that still. In terms, we'll touch briefly on what was mentioned by Mr Baker in response to a question on potholes and the pothole blitz. I won't recite again the statistics that Mr Baker gave but I think to continue the analogy this may be not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. And if you look at the rate at which potholes were delivered last year with smaller resource then I believe that we can actually make a huge impact in the course of this year. I don't want to touch also on the integrated care system and the shared delivery plan. We had a very good debate on the integrated care strategy at our last county council. The work on that and if I may in pausing on that just join what the chairman said earlier in paying tribute to James Williams of Medway who was a wonderful partner to us actually and a great presence in all of our discussions on this and a dedicated public servant. And James played a vital role actually working alongside Anjan and many other colleagues in bringing this work forward. And the shared delivery plan is there to give energy and life and reality across the many many organisations that will be delivering this plan to ensure that we actually get the right outcome for people across Kent and Medway. The CQC is due to be inspecting us in terms of adult social care. We know now that that inspection will be by October. We will get eight weeks notice of that. We don't have a precise date yet but that is something on which extensive preparation is taking place. In an area which I think has been very important for the welfare of some of the most vulnerable people in the county I did mention at the last county council welcoming the decision by government to extend the household support fund for another six months and that we have already been developing our plans on household support fund five including particularly a focus on keeping homes warm sustainably in a way that can actually ensure the welfare of those of our residents for whom those can present significantly difficult choices in terms of their lives. We've always said also on the related area of the financial hardship programme that a big priority and a personal priority of mine was that something which we've taken and used what was originally one of funding COVID funding for we would actually seek to build a lasting legacy on that and programmes that could recur and could provide support to our residents looking ahead. There is more there is still some funding left in that area and we are looking towards a longer term plan and I hope to be able to share that with members very shortly. Finally I would just touch on the developments at Discovery Park I did mention in previous county councils what we saw there with Pfizer reducing its presence on that site it will remain on that site but reducing it. We've seen in the last couple of days the announcement by ASIM chem laboratories that they will be taking over the former small molecule API pilot plant which was a central part of what Pfizer is moving away from as well as some of the laboratory space on site. Now that is fair to say that is an important and very positive development but it is only part of it there is a great deal more still to be done. I have been chairing for some months now a task force seeking to address the challenges of Discovery Park. The work now goes on to lock in some major projects we believe of national significance that play very much to the strengths that we have here in Kent and in East Kent in particular. That is the next stage to build that sustainable future for Discovery Park at a time when as I say the Pfizer presence while still maintained has been significantly reduced and I think it is vital in that part of Kent and as somewhere that actually provides a real centre of dynamism growth and jobs for our county. Chairman I will leave it there. Thank you very much indeed leader and it was going well until you mentioned those first few words which will probably end up being a bit of a hospital pass coming down the road somewhere. I call on Dr Sullivan the leader of the opposition to respond to the leaders report and your speech is limited to six minutes thank you. Lovely thank you very much Mr Chairman and congratulations on your elevation. Glad to see its a great take over. I would also like to share with the leader in paying tribute to James Williams I think he played an incredibly important role alongside Anjan and the team and is incredibly well respected with his expertise in public health and it is sad and shocking so it condones his family. To the PCC elections and the local elections I think they were very interesting outcomes and I welcome and congratulate those electors and those commiserations to those that were not successful. In terms of the envelope and you were saying about the spending changes or will not happen until the autumn budget with a fair wind and they say a week is a long time in politics my goodness 24 hours has been quite a turn for the books. It's about the reprioritisation of spend isn't it and focusing on prevention and what matters to people. In terms of the pothole blitz there for many many years we have seen managed decline. The pothole blitz have been put in but essentially they are sticking plasters to the problem. I am pleased though to hear about the cabinet members focus on a pothole being filled first time only time because I know that frustrates so many residents across Kent where potholes are filled the same one multiple times. So it would be a remiss not to mention the news of yesterday with the imminent general election and the chance to change this country for the better. This conservative administration has tried to get the resources it can out of this conservative government for a long long time and some there has been successes but overall we are still in this place where we are constantly cutting services to the people that sent us here and that I know is a hardship that we all share. We want to change and there needs to be a change a different government and perhaps a change in administration next year. Particularly I am excited about the proposals of new youth hubs and we have long since tried to cling on to being proud of our youth services here. It may have just come a bit too late but I hope that we can rebuild that youth service back again to help prevent young people from entering crime and social behaviour and get them on their way to fulfilling their potential. I am concerned about the family hubs that we have here. Again referral only. Referral only. So those young mums and dads with their young ones they need to wait for a referral from a doctor health visitor. You can't just drop in and I think that is going to have a huge impact and already is having a huge impact. Concerned about the carer's allowance cliff face. We have seen that widely reported on the news. So many people have had to then pay back. But also this administration is looking to take PIP and disability living allowance in the calculations for contribution to care. So nearly 75% of those that we support as care will now have to contribute more money to that care. Is this what we mean by protecting the most vulnerable in our society? The last thing I would talk about is about our managed decline of our highways. Galley Hill over two years now and I know Peter is doing a cracking job on lorry watch. We do need government to step in here and help us foot the bill to restore the connectivity between North Fleet and Swanscombe. Kent has a lot of chalk ecology and I learnt something very interesting the other day about what grows on chalk cliffs. Is it Alexander? Look at you Mr Baker. He's not listening. Which apparently tastes very nice. But we really need to see these cliffs restored and repaired. The boats. So the only boats in Kent that has been stopped is the Tilbury ferry. Can we please, Conservatives, Labour, we must restore the Tilbury ferry. It has made a humongous impact on local businesses in Gresham and it really is the pinnacle. We are, Kent County Council is the highways authority. The transport, strategic authority, we must restore that ferry again. BSIP and buses? Wow. I mean fantastic bids that the officers have been putting in here and cabinet member here putting in. 200 million downgraded to 35 million. I know that's old news but we're again back to Hunger Games style bidding systems. What we need is a transport for Kent. A bus service that's reliable, that is not ripping people off and that means that children and youngsters can get to school and explore and have a life. Given how bad some of the administration benches may feel that government treats Kent and KCC, I look forward to seeing them campaigning for change. We've changed one mind in Dover so there's always room for more. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Dr Sullivan. Can I just ask you, the Tilbury ferry, you meant the Gravesend ferry of course. Yes. Just to make sure, get Gravesend in the name again. I call on Mr Lehman, the leader of the Greens and Independent Group to respond to the leaders report. Mr Lehman you have six minutes. Thank you Chairman and congratulations on your elevation. Congratulations Mr Ridges on your election as Vice Chair. I'd also like to echo the leaders' tributes to James Williams and send my condolences to his family. And back within the KCC sphere, thank you Mr Gough for all these steps you've taken to ensure a more streamlined questions session. It was getting to the stage where the agenda item would have been more appropriately referred to as answers rather than questions so long may that continue. As you may all be aware, global temperatures across March and April were the warmest ever recorded for their respective months, which means we've now had 11 consecutive record breaking months for global warming. Heat waves in Asia over the past few weeks have killed thousands and scientists have determined that the April heat wave in the Philippines would have been impossible without the climate crisis. In India where the heat wave is still ongoing, the temperatures being experienced have been made 45 times more likely to occur by the climate crisis. Closer to home, the weather we experienced in the UK between the months of October and March was the second wettest on record for those months from over two centuries of recorded data. This level of rainfall was previously considered a once in 50 year event, but is now a one in five year event because of the climate crisis. The implications of these weather extremes are huge for the UK and for Kent. Network Rail have earmarked an additional 2.8 billion of funding over the next five years solely for dealing with the impacts of the climate change to the rail network. A recent article highlighted the warren in Folkestone as being an area particularly at risk. These weather extremes present similar risks for our county's roads. Sinkholes are becoming more and more frequent and are particularly prevalent in chalky areas such as we have across much of North Kent. A recent study revealed that 83% of those surveyed in Britain wanted the government to do more to tackle climate change. Even the act of highlighting public support for climate initiatives can in itself increase public participation in climate friendly activities. We as a county council can do better on this and must do better. On the topic of the entry/exit system, I'm pleased to hear that works are progressing well to improve readiness at the Port of Dover. I'm also pleased to see Mr Gough highlighting the risks and making the case for the reopening of our international rail stations at Ebb's Gate in Ashford to East Russia at St Pancras and for the council's work in general to try and reduce the impact on our county. I still have a huge level of concern that we may see unprecedented levels of traffic queued on Kent's roads if the scheme continues with its planned implementation date of October. The impact of Brock is not felt just along the M20 corridor but all of Kent, with my division frequently seeing very long queues at Bradley Corner as police turn around HGVs trying to circumvent Brock and reached over via the A2. Staying on the topic of congestion at Bradley Corner but shifting the cause, the Lower Thames Crossing is another cause for concern for residents in my division and much of Swale and North Kent. In addition to the loss of many hectares of ancient woodland, the planning of this crossing has not fully taken into account the impact it will have on Kent's wider road network, particularly the M2/A2 corridor between Gravesend and Dover. Our group, with one exception, is totally opposed to this crossing going ahead. Numerous studies have shown that the idea that you can build yourself out of congestion is little more than wishful thinking and this project is no exception to that rule. Moving on to matters closer to home, I'd like to congratulate all those who were successful in the recent local elections and give commiserations to those who lost their seats. It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that I'd like to pay particular tribute to the new leader of Maidstone Borough Council who has campaigned tirelessly on green issues in Maidstone for nearly two decades and I wish him well with the rest of his team in their new roles in coalition with the Liberal Democrat Group there. Thank you. Thank you Mr Lehman. I call on Mr Hook as the leader of the Liberal Democrat Group to respond to the leader's report and Mr Hook, as you know, you have five minutes. Thank you very much Chairman and may I first of all associate my group with the tributes paid to James Williams. Chairman, the other leaders have all mentioned the general election in some way or another so I must do so too and say that we welcome the general election. I think everyone in this room, certainly all the elected members who get very involved in elections, may be somewhat relieved the idea of walking the highways and byways of Kent between May and July and how we might have felt about it in November or December as it was last time. Without making any party comments of course, I would suggest though we as county councillors will be looking to all the parties and candidates to say how will they remedy the problems caused for local government, problems by under financing which leaves our elderly, disabled and vulnerable in great difficulty and will they support more autonomy and local decision making for large counties like Kent or will they perpetuate excessive control from Whitehall. And Chairman, may I associate myself with remarks, I think it was you who made them about Craig McKinley and the bravery he's shown. I've only met Craig once. It was a few years ago when I had a different role. The BBC took Craig and I in a car to Calais to see the refugee camps. I think they wanted two people who had completely different political views of the universe to give our respected views and we were squashed in the back of a small hatchback, Craig and I, with the cameras and sound equipment in between, as much as we had different political views, he was very good company to drive with all that long journey and back again and I absolutely salute his courage that he's shown with his medical problems recently. And I think if I may say so that as another member of parliament on the east coast of Kent has been mentioned, I think Craig's bravery stands in contrast to another member of parliament whose principles are well disguised and I am surprised that anyone who uses the dog whistle language of refugees breaking into Britain is welcome in any progressive party, but there we go. Coming now to the very important issue the leader mentioned of European entry and exit system, I don't think that the community as a whole and the country as a whole fully appreciates the seriousness of this danger. We face real risks of Kent being gridlocked again even more severely than it was for some members this morning. Risk of a vast amount of people's time being wasted, vast amount of money having to be spent to mitigate it. We've already had another 70 million euros spent by Eurotunnel that could have been invested in something else and probably huge sums more spent by the government to create more lorry parks like Sevington that cost 150 million pounds, concreting over space that could be used for so many other things. The prediction is that it will increase the time for border checks from one minute to six minutes, so it's when you're passing through tens of thousands of vehicles every day through a confined space is a huge difficulty. Well, it will create long delays, but let's not remember that this is not coming out of the blue. EES is coming into effect from European legislation that was made in 2017, supported in fact by the then UK government when we still had a seat at the table, and it is taking effect on this border because the Johnson government asked for, indeed insisted upon, the UK having third country status in the Brexit agreement, a problem which Norway and Switzerland have entirely avoided. In my submission, Chairman, it's not enough to seek to delay EES. The worthwhile political objective would be to avoid it entirely. And I think sometimes in the Council, in the media, there's misunderstanding about what EES is. I've heard people say, Why can't we have something like the U.S. Esther? That's pretty much what it is. You will register in advance and then be subject to biometric checks, just as when you go to an American airport where there's much more space relative to the number of passengers, they take your fingerprints, they take a quick photo of you, and if you think the customs officer is very friendly, it's because he wants you to talk so they can record your voiceprint. But at an airport, there's a huge amount of space, and people are perhaps taking their handbag and a carry-on luggage. The Port of Dover, there's very less space, and people are bringing with them a car or a lorry. I've also heard it suggested, and let's absolutely forbid this language, the suggestion that it's some sort of vindictive anti-British act. It's not, because it's happening on all of the EU's external borders. And the problem is not that policymakers in Brussels want to be vindictive to Britain. The problem is that policymakers in Brussels no longer have any political imperative to think about Britain. Thank you very much, Mr Hook. Mr Gough, you have up to six minutes to reply to those points being made. Thank you very much, Chairman. I thank the opposition leaders for their comments. I was actually thinking I ought to be a bit restrained and not make any reference, for instance, to Comrade Elphick and her surprising translation, but it did come up elsewhere. So just to be clear, I'm a great believer in generosity of spirit in politics, and I wouldn't begrudge my colleagues opposite one moment of their unalloyed joy at this addition to their ranks. It seems to be delighting the members opposite, actually. Moving swiftly on and picking up a few of the points that were made in the opposition leaders' responses, firstly on the pothole blitz, and what Dr Sullivan's mentioned there, I think we have to be clear the pothole blitz is firstly not the sum total of our response to the situation on our roads, and it is actually not simply a sticking plaster. In one sense, it's a great term, it's a great brand. It actually in one sense is a little misleading because it's much more than simply filling in potholes. It's very much around wider surface patching designed to give some more durable solutions. Not as durable as resurfacing, but nonetheless an importantly durable solution. And I think, as Mr Baker has indicated, we are very committed and believe that we're delivering it through the current pothole blitz to ensure that those are works which are, as I say, durable and effective. On the question, or a couple of points actually, about the timing of the election and the question of resources after it, firstly picking up Dr Sullivan's point, yes, clearly there is an argument. We will always put an argument to governments of whatever party about more resources for this county and this council. However, I do think there's an important other side of the coin, which again, any government, any future government has got to take serious account of, which is that the spending side of the equation is something where you see a whole series of basically structural flaws that are driving unsustainable levels of spending. Whether you look at adult social care, whether you look at children's social services, whether you look at special educational needs, including its transport effects, and those issues have got to be tackled and tackled in a structural way. So more resources, yes. To be honest, my expectations, whatever may happen in July, are not great because I think everyone seems to recognise the overall limitations to the size of the pot. But we do need to be able to deploy those more effectively and we need those changes on the other side of the account. So actually Sullivan mentioned about B-CIP and in fact, once more clearly, we've all been emphasising, firstly, the amount of good we have been able to do with B-CIP and that has made a huge difference, particularly to school routes, and it's been something on which our public transport team has worked hard and proactively and effectively. But there is the question of what comes after it. And again, I think a government, whatever government, with a little more time to think about that than one that was coming into post election in October, November or whatever, again, is helpful because there is the scope to consider that a little bit more. And overall, what are we looking for from government to pick up the points that were made – I think it was Mr Hook – autonomy, yes, absolutely. We have always argued strongly the case for devolution. It is that and it is that reform, as I say, on the spending side, which together can make a real difference to how we operate as a Council. EES, I've said a fair amount about that already, but I would just add in comment on that that this does pose some huge challenges. There is a great deal of work that's been going on. It is another opportunity also for us to raise issues that have been around with us for a very, very long time. Going back, in many cases, many years, that the degree of vulnerability we see on the border, something happens and things in Kent fall over very, very quickly with huge impact on our residents, our businesses, our visitor economy and people just going about their day-to-day lives. That needs addressing in a structural way and that is actually one of the things that we will continue to push as we do for more immediate resolutions as well. I was grateful, actually, to Mr Leaman in mentioning our efforts in regards to, I say Eurostar, but of course it is actually very much a question of new providers potentially coming in as well and we are seeking to influence all those who may be running trains on that route to ensure that we do get Ashford and IBS Fleet back in operation. The only other point on EES is, I think, the importance of emphasising, and I think it did come out in some of the things Mr Hook was saying, the real challenge is a combination of constrained space and juxtaposed controls. That is the thing that makes those points of exit particularly challenging and, as I say, if we can achieve, and this is not within our gift at all, but we are certainly arguing the case, some degree of greater pre-registration away from that most constrained of sites, that will certainly help, but there is an enormous amount of work to be done and I do commit to keeping members engaged on it. And finally, could I just endorse, and I perhaps should have said so at the start, but both what the Chairman said and indeed Mr Hook as well in terms of Craig McKinlay. I think it was a remarkable thing that we saw yesterday in the House of Commons. I think that said a lot about him, actually I think it said a lot about people in Parliament all told and I think hopefully we find some of that spirit here sometimes as well, that we recognise each other as people who wish to make a contribution. We may differ on some things, but we all seek to be servants of our county and to work together in that spirit, even when we sometimes find points. Thank you Mr Gough. Members, is the Leader's Report noted? Agreed. Thank you very much. Moving on, item number 10, Pay Strategy. Just to remind members, the County Council is asked to agree the recommendation from the Personnel Committee to the proposed model and transitional approach for implementation to commence 1 April 2025 and I have Mr Oakwood to move and Mr Gough to second. Mr Oakwood. Thank you Mr Chairman and my congratulations to you and the Vice Chairman for a fabulous year ahead of you. We'll start with the Pay Strategy. The paper in front of you represents a proposal to improve the Council's pay structure. Whilst the current model has been in place for 34 years, in recent years it has been under pressure from the rates of increase in both the National Living Wage and the Living Wage Foundation's living wage, which is often referred to as the real living wage. I'm not going to say that anymore, you'll be pleased to know that, that's enough. Wage compression at the lower levels and a reality that it takes far too long for staff to work through their grades to reach the top. The top of the grade is the rate for the job, so that is the level that they're all trying to reach. The current structure we have has evolved over many years and now we have an opportunity to address some of the implications of this evolution and ensure that we have a clear, consistent, understood and a streamlined structure as we can achieve. We are aware that the top of the grade, as the rate for the job, has a relatively low market position and whilst this will not change as a result of the proposal, it will ensure that staff are at least able to achieve this rate in a predetermined and shorter period that is currently the case. However, it will still be subject to consistent good performance. For our staff at the lower grades of KR3 and 4, they will receive the rate for the job immediately as is currently the case for KR3s. As the grades increase, so does the time required to achieve the rate for the job, albeit with a maximum period of six years. There will for some grades be a middle salary step towards the rate for the job. In order to manage moving to this pay structure, there will be a transition that will take place over the next three years. Considering the challenges that have been experienced elsewhere in the country, notably Birmingham, I can assure members that this proposed structure and approach has been professionally scrutinised and equality impact assessed fully. There is much more detail in the paper explaining how the scheme will operate, including the fact that whilst progression will be predetermined, the annual pay award and the cost of living increase will be more transparent and explicitly agreed by this county council each year. The proposal represents an extensive piece of work by both HR and the finance function over the past 18 months. It doesn't just address some of the recent challenges, but provides the base for a modern, clear and consistent pay structure over our current and future staff. It has been discussed at length with unions and with senior and operational managers. The principle and, subsequently, the detailed scheme have been considered and unanimously agreed by personnel committee and is now recommended to this county council for approval. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr Oakford. Mr Gough, you are second in. Do you want to reserve your right? I do, I will reserve my right. The other name on the list is Dr Sullivan. Lovely, thank you. I would just very briefly rise to thank the officers for bringing this forward. I think where you ended there, Roger, on the last bit of sentiment of actually we are all here to work together, this is a fantastic example of where unions, staff, officers, members have really worked together to get the best deal. I think I just want to pay tribute and put that on record. Thank you for the increased transparency and tackling the low wage. That's all. Cheers. Thank you very much indeed. Harmony breaking out all of a sudden. I don't have any other speakers, so Mr Gough. Chairman, under the circumstances, I will be very brief and I have no intention of disrupting the harmony that has broken out. I think as mentioned, it has gone through personnel committee unanimously agreed. It has been something that has been worked through very, very systematically with wide engagement. I am very pleased to endorse it and I trust that the council will do so as a whole. I second the motion.

Thank you very much indeed. Do we need to go to the vote? Do we agree? We agree. Any against? No, so any abstain? Well, we are in agreement there, so thank you very much indeed. Thank you, gentlemen. Moving on, item 11, it's the local transport plan update. So this is an update. This will come back to county council later on in the year, I believe. So Neil Baker to move, David Robey to second. Mr Baker. Thank you, Chairman. I'm pleased to be able to say a few words today on the progress of the local transport plan. Local transport plans are the only transport policy document that require the approval of full council. They of course carry weight in the planning process, planning system. And at the outset, in the spirit of the harmony we've been enjoying today, I would like to offer my thanks to the current cross-party working group, as well as all of those members and officers who have taken us so far along the plan's journey to date. We've had some very interesting discussions in the working group, I know that previous members did as well. While we all have slightly different views on the future of transport, it's been quite rewarding and illuminating about how we can see the big issues across Kent and how actually some of our views can start dovetailing together, hopefully to land us with a plan that outlines a structure to benefit as many residents across all parts of Kent as possible. Now as mentioned in the report, the plan is being developed to set out a balanced approach to improving transport infrastructure that will deliver on its ambition within the council's overarching strategies for both securing Kent's future and the longer term framing Kent's future. The proposals in the plan will go on to form the long-term capital transport program, providing a focus for future external funding the council works to secure. And I think I should stress throughout all of this the word transport as this is about much more than just highways. And one aspect that particularly features prominently is rail and the future of rail in Kent and connectivity to other parts of the country, internal connectivity in Kent and that potential for getting more freight onto the railways, which perhaps will have the added benefit of removing it from the roads and all of the pressure that may take off. I personally believe that our railways could once again become the kings of transport but will remain to be seen. Consultation previously undertaken resulted in 80% of respondents, as is noted, partly or fully supporting the ambitions. And I would just point out in the appendix the policy outcomes and objectives, which does really cover what this is all about, be it some things we've mentioned about bringing back international rail travel, bringing our road network to a satisfactory condition which we all want to see, creating a future-proof infrastructure-first network, delivering walking and cycling improvements and making the most of innovations in an industry which is changing and adapting and evolving throughout. As the Chairman has noted, this will be going out and coming back. We will have full public consultation, I would say over the summer, but who knows with general elections being called, at which point it will come back to this very chamber for us to discuss and vote on the adopting and making LTP5 a formal document. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr Baker. Mr Robey, are you going to speak now or do you want to reserve your rights? I'll reserve my right, okay. The first speaker I have on the list then is Mel Dawkins. Thank you very much and thank you, Councillor Baker. I was on this group and it has been a journey, so just a few of my comments. The report clearly states that we are clear about the government funding needed for the fundamental foundations of maintaining our highways and transport infrastructure. So I'm just going to say how's that going then. We've heard quite a lot of comments today from Councillors that we are not getting the funds we need from the national government, so there's a huge chunk there. So we have a really good, highly ambitious paper, but I do worry about that gap between the objectives and the actual reality. It's kind of quite huge. For example, I just want to pick up on objective 8A, page 41, the bus network and services. We will aim to obtain further funding to deliver the outcomes of our bus service improvement plan, or is it replacement beyond its current horizon? So to me, this isn't really a plan. It's a wish. It's hoping that some money will turn up. And as you know, the Labour group have been saying for years that this model of running our bus service doesn't work. Currently, money gets poured in from KCC to prop up and subsidise the bus services. Residents have to carry the burden, which cuts to services and the rise in the Kent travel saver that we saw at E&T this week. And the bus services carry on often, you know, some of them are good, but often they're a bit shabby. I've been waiting at a bus stop for over an hour on many occasions, waiting for one that just doesn't turn up. So all the money that they make in profit goes to the shareholder. So it's like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it. The only way around it is to stop the leak by taking back control of our bus service. We can use the excess money to fund the bus service and hopefully get our buses back on the road. With improved services, low fares and the Kent travel saver passes are slashed, giving our young people more independence. So I've run out of time, sadly, because there's more I wanted to say, but, you know, this is all right. By the time I've got that together. But, yeah, I really would like to see a change in the actual model of how we want our bus services and not continuing this model that just obviously is not working. And with a change of administration, perhaps that might happen. I hope so. We give it a good review. On the whole, looking forward to the consultation. Really encourage the officers and the cabinet member to make sure we really extend that engagement. As far as we can, not just the normal kind of put it on the website, go to the library. Let's really get some really good input from residents we might not normally speak to. And we'd like to see that. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. You had three seconds left there, you know, you could have thought that up. Mr Bartlett. Thank you very much, Chairman. And my apologies for missing your elevation at the beginning of the meeting. It was due to Brock and that's why I've stood up in order to speak. One of the biggest problems that we have, two problems with Brock, and I hope that this local transport plan through the consultation will address them. There are, of course, issues in putting it in and taking it out. We're familiar with that. But also the way in which lorries still seem to find ways of avoiding the holding area on the M20. We regularly see them coming off the M2 using the A251 to come down to Ashford. And there seems to be very little opportunity to stop lorries from doing that. What I'm hoping to hear is that the trial that we had at KCC must be at least two or three years ago now of enforcement cameras where HGVs were using the rural road network. Whether we can use that information as part of this consultation process to inform how KCC could take on enforcement powers that some of the London councils use to avoid lorries using inappropriate routes. I think that would be the great benefit to road users, not just the road service, but also the road users in Kent to hopefully put an end to this inappropriate use of rural roads to access the ports. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr Hook. Thank you very much, Chairman. I'm very grateful for the document, and broadly speaking we well commit having a fifth local transport plan is a very good idea. And we recognize, of course, it's a work in progress that is for further development over the next few months. Chairman, in my remarks, I'd like to particularly address policy outcome seven in the annex, which is about air quality. And to suggest that what's set out here in that outcome actually could be developed to be more ambitious. Policy objective 7A speaks of reducing the volume of carbon dioxide emissions and quite right, too. But we should also be very mindful that vehicle traffic also releases NOx gas emissions and particulates, which are as dangerous to our health and well-being as CO2. NOx gases have been associated with all sorts of physical and mental ailments and particulates, which are very small particles, over time build up, get into people's lungs and cause all sorts of health problems. So our aim should be not only to reduce the CO2, but to reduce those as well. It might well be that that's what the drafters of the plan have in mind, but I think we should explicitly add those sources of pollution as well. I think that – and again, this may be a difference between what's written and what's intended. It does come across to me that 7A particularly is written in a slightly passive way. It has a tone of suggesting that we will appreciate the benefit of less emissions as more people choose to turn to electric vehicles. But I think we mustn't just sit back and look forward to that happening, as it is happening to a certain extent. There's also a lot of levers within KCC's control, questions about where we build roads and how we adapt roads, where we change speed limits, where we restrict directions people can go, the types of vehicles, the volumes of vehicles. There are changes we can make that will reduce emissions and also, most importantly, supporting active travel so that people can walk or cycle more often than taking their car or some other kind of vehicle. And that should be a thread through everything that KCC does. I mean, in County Council Questions, I touched upon the placement of a school in a particularly local example, but across the whole of the county, the placement of every school that we build or rebuild should have regard to travel. Are we putting it in a place that people will walk to rather than create emissions by choosing to drive? When we do school admissions, can we give people a gentle nudge to prefer the school they can walk to rather than one that's further afield? In all the services we provide, reducing emissions and thereby saving lives needs to be a priority. Thank you very much. Mr Steptoe, you're next. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and congratulations to you and the Vice Chairman. I applaud the fact that we've been pressing Eurostar to resume stopping services at Ashford and Ebb's Fleet. But I understand that they're not going to consider implementing this until after the EES has been up and running. But I think we've got to continue exerting pressure on them. Mr Gough mentioned that a number of companies are looking to compete with Eurostar between the UK and mainland Europe via the Channel Tunnel. And I'd urge Mr Baker to continue his efforts to persuade them to include Ashford and Ebb's Fleet as stops in their timetables. Secondly, policy objective 4B relates to a fall in time to reach international travel hubs by public transport. During the 1980s, British Rail introduced two direct services between Kent and Surrey that call the Gatwick Airport. However, in 2003, Conect South Easton withdrew the Maidstone to Three Bridges service. And in 2008, Southern cancelled trains between Tunbridge, Wales and Horsham. Now all we have is an hourly shuttle train between Tunbridge and Redhill, which means that Kent residents who wish to take the train to Gatwick either have to travel into London and out again, or they have to change at Tunbridge and Redhill, which is not convenient if you're carrying luggage. And neither is it fast. Network Rail have produced a paper with a number of options to replace direct services to Gatwick from Kent. And I think that we need to become actively involved with them and liaise with them to push this forward. Lastly, policy objective 5B relating to reducing the amount of forecast future congestion on our highways. One way of reducing lorry congestion on the county's roads will be to introduce so-called rolling motorway rail services. This is where lorry trailers are loaded onto trains, transported to some other part of the country, and offloaded and then continue their journey by road. There are rolling motorway terminals at Calais and Cherbourg from which trailers can be taken by rail all over Europe. The issue in this country is that the loading gauge, the height of tunnels and bridges, is lower than Europe. But British Rail did develop special trucks which would resolve that issue. Neurotunnel have also expressed an interest in building a terminal in Kent. So I think that's another thing that Mr. Baker should add to his workload and try to introduce rolling motorways to our county. Thank you. Just before I come to Mr. Hood, we've got eight speakers left, so I think we'll probably draw a line unless anyone really, really wants to speak to that. Mr. Hood, next. Thank you very much, Chair. Local transport plans have indeed become a mechanism built into government devolution agreements such as county deals, and those devolution outcomes are critical if we are to get anywhere close to fulfilling the aims of this plan. I thank the officers for their fantastic work in bringing this together in consultation with the member task and finish group of which I am a member, and the experience of being a member of that group has been fantastic. There's all kinds of wonderful ideas coming through. It's been illuminating. There has been a significant level of skepticism, however, from some members as we have been challenged, that we've challenged the assumption that we can make the changes we need to deliver a transport system which is underfunded by central government and the devastating cuts which restrict the bus network of the arteries which keep rural and satellite communities connected to our urban centres. This plan is essential in coordinating improvements to roads, active travel and rail across district boundaries to enable the motor shift away from single occupancy cars by more attractive alternatives to travelling alone. We do things better when we do them together, and the more people who choose alternatives will result in the fewer cars in front of those who still choose to travel by car. That way everybody wins. Earlier this week, Dr Sullivan spoke about the necessity to recognise that having extremely impressive flagship projects which have limited connectivity to the much wider community is not conducive to the comprehensive transport system which we desire. Our plan has to work for everybody, and despite the sterling efforts of the public transport team, the web of services across our county is contracting, and many communities are now more isolated than they were, and they are not consoled by green roofs on the bus stops in Dartford and Dover. We need to identify the schemes which will be successful when funding opportunities nationally arise, and make sure that they are shovel-ready. It is every district's responsibility to work in partnership with this council, and there is a significant lack of appetite in some areas in which things like the country-wide kent cycling and walking infrastructure plan is supposed to overcome. Some horses are still not being brought to water. The lack of active travel alternatives are a huge barrier to more residents and pupils commuting to work and school, and we all know how much home-to-school transport costs this council, so there is a financial as well as an environmental benefit. Getting this right will reap benefits in terms of better health outcomes, arising from better air quality and improved active travel habits becoming lifestyle choices. As the report states, the plan will not commit the council to new investment from its own budget. We need to make sure that in terms of making competitive bids, we are ready as soon as the process starts. In the absence of a devolution deal, we are actually incapable of delivering any of these ideas on our own. Some ideas, such as car clubs, might be better delivered across the entire county in partnership with districts, rather than in the piecemeal way they are at the moment. Thank you very much, Mr. Hood. Mr. Chittenden. Thank you, Chairman. I have sat on the task and finished group for quite a few years now. I think the trouble with this interim report is that it does not contain a lot of the details that most of you will be concerned with. Many of the items that the members have raised here already, whether it is walking, whether it is trains, whether it is buses, whether it is lorries, actually have been part of the various discussions we have had within these documents over probably the last couple of years. Some of them I no doubt will be picked up and some of them will be disappointing. I think the biggest problem is that the documents being developed around a set of priorities have been set by government, particularly around the environment and carbon reduction. With the lack of finance and the problems on finance, we have had to very much take into account what we can recommend, what we can do, and make sure where we are going to get grants from the government, because if we do not stick to their priorities or at least recognise the priorities, then probably a lot of this stuff we will not get the money for. So that has had certain influences. We have had good runs with working with the officers and the officers working with the boroughs. So if any of you are on the boroughs or involved with the boroughs, I have no doubt that you will or some of you may have had at some time been involved in this. I mean this is an interim. It does not contain a lot of details, only principles. There will be a briefing to all councillors, I am told will be the next step. The public consultation, I forgot, down here will come during the summer, but I think somebody made the comment, well, it may be how the general election goes. And then, of course, it will be going to the full council before the end of the year. So everybody has further time in several places to actually still comment and raise somebody's comments if they are not in there. By that time we see it, it should be pretty much the final deal. Future government grants will depend on showing that we are working within their guidelines. So that is the restriction, that is what we have tried to do, but certainly many of the points you raised here today definitely have been raised. I just looked back on this and I see big comments on things and you cannot see here. But I have got my scribble all over it saying, no, I do not like this, no, that cannot happen. I wish I do more on this. And that is the sort of discussion that we have been having. So, Chairman, I will support the interim report and thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mike Soll, the next. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you for the report. There is a lot of good things in this report and I would particularly like to thank Mr Baker for the attitude that he brings to his work and his willingness to come out and meet with residents, get involved and understand issues. I know that is very much appreciated. In Canterbury, the emerging local plan is very much a bus-ledge strategy. And again, Mr Baker was very supportive of this when he attended JTB and made some very helpful comments on that. But I am very concerned that by the time we get the infrastructure in place to have more buses on the roads, the bus network that we have will be even a shadow of where it is at the moment. To give one specific example, the 89 bus that runs through my division, runs from Alesham to Canterbury, just this month it stopped serving Bridge. The reason it no longer goes through the village of Bridge is that there is too much congestion in Canterbury for it to get to Canterbury in time to make its next connection. But you take a bus out of the network, of course you add to congestion. And so it gets worse and worse and we provide more and more reasons for Stagecoach to cut routes. So what I would urge really is that as part of this document we need an enhanced and an improved relationship with the bus operators so that they are thinking long term. They are not just thinking about what the situation is today, this week, this year, but are looking at all the District's local plans, seeing what is in place and thinking we need to keep this bus route going because if we don't people change their habits. People move into villages and think I need to buy a car now to get around. Once you've got a car you're going to keep using it. We need people to know there's a reliable bus network that they can use so that the more we can do to talk to those bus operators now and make them understand the situation rather than just making short term cuts that have long term impacts on people's lives. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Sowell. Mr Shonk, you're next. Thank you, Chairman. Congratulations to you both. Let me just clarify my position here. We're going to get back to the highways, but I'm an independent group member at Ramsgate so that's where I stand. My commitment to KCC Chamber and here is still 100 per cent. Anyway, get back to highways, page 33. I can't come from Ramsgate and not talk about the issues. I'm the quiet man, so the issues that we have in Thanet is delivering growth without gridlock. Well, we've got the growth and we've got the gridlock, but I'm not going to go on about too much because I've had a quiet word with Neil Baker yesterday. We talked about boats, trains and planes. Well, wasn't that great news for all of us that Manson Airport took off? Jobs, jobs and jobs. Employment, employment. Great news for all of us, not just for Thanet, Ramsgate. So we've got an airport taking off, so I can't come here and not say, well done, everybody that supported Manson Airport, all of us, whether you did or not, and other MPs as well. It's great news for Ramsgate. I got elected the other week, but that's another story. People before politics. Thank you, everybody. I'm here for KCC, as always. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Shonk. Was Ramsgate? He was from Ramsgate. Karen Constantine, thank you. I'm from Ramsgate. Look, I can't follow that, really. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I think probably cry, actually. I wanted to also make the point about the plan and ask Councillor Baker whether or not the road traffic, there's going to be many more trucks on the road when we get this airport, which is now scheduled to open in 2027, we are told. I don't know whether that's wishful thinking or not. But I don't see how there's the capacity on the Thanet Way to accommodate more freight. And as it stands at the moment, there isn't a fuel farm on Manston. So that also means not only does the freight have to be trucked into Manston air freight hub and trucked away from Manston air freight hub, but also the fuel. So I just wondered, have you looked at that? Because I cannot see that that's going to help us reduce emissions generally. I cannot see that that is going to actually help to avoid gridlock because for certain there are going to be pinch points all the way up to the M25. And indeed, the M25 is just now a giant pinch point. So I just wondered how you looked at that. And really, just to sort of clarify the scale of the operation, it is anticipated that there will be an air freight flight every 15 minutes during more or less all daylight hours. So it could be a tremendous amount of freight trucks on the road. And as you know, not many of those are going to be electric. None of them are going to be environmentally friendly. I don't know how many of them will create local jobs, which would at least be something if it generated some kind of employment. But I can't see that either. So I'd just be interested to know how is it being factored in, what were the considerations, and how are we going to mitigate the carbon emissions? Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Karen. Barry Lewis. I'm Councillor from Margate, which is near Ramsgate. Anyway, getting back to the report, it goes a certain way, and it's good in theory. But in reality, it doesn't do anything. What we need, and I've been saying this for years, is transport for Kent. It started off as a Labour Party proposal, but I'm glad to say now that both other opposition parties support it. So watch this space in May. It comes down to one principle that I believe in. A bit like the water companies, you can't control what you don't own. And I'll give you an example. Only this week Stagecoach received a million pounds, roughly, from BSIP to improve the loop from 10 minutes to 8 minutes service, providing more buses. That's fantastic for the people that live on the loop. But outside the loop, in Birchington, Broadstairs, parts of Broadstairs, what did they do? They cut the bus services, and so those buses that were running then are now transferred to the loop, and they've got a million pound subsidy for doing it. They're taking us for fools. There's no logic to giving private companies more and more money at the same time as they're cutting bus services. Where's the sense? There is a real alternative, not this paper that papers over the cracks. The real alternative is for a government and us to take proper control of the buses. That is the way forward. Then we can have reliable bus services, more buses, cheaper fares, and connected up thinking, so that buses run in conjunction with the last trains. So people don't come back from London stranded and have to get cars or taxis to get them home. We need joined-up writing in this council, and unfortunately this doesn't go far enough. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. Now someone who's neither from Ramsgate or Margate, Sean Holden. I'm from Cranbrook, thank you very much. In the plan, there's not enough emphasis, I feel, on the problems that people face because of the mode of transport of lorries going through villages. I've been running a campaign for years now, which I call Get Lorries Out of Lives, where we remove the heavy vehicles from our small roads and our small villages, which are causing immense damage and disrupting people's lives and reducing the quality of their lives. I'm not even going to quote something from my own division, because I know we've all got that in all our divisions. And I think I made a contribution towards getting what are called Part 6 powers of enforcement. So the County Council now has powers of enforcement over moving traffic offences. They're very weak and they need to be strengthened, and fines need to be strengthened, and we need to be more businesslike about it. And I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on that in this report. I mean, the paragraph 2.1.2 talks about maintaining or having a sufficient funding for the maintenance of local roads. One of the things that would help that would be to get lorries off the local roads. There's a longstanding American study in 1976 which demonstrates the physics of the fact that a 40-tonne lorry has the impact on the roads of 9,600 cars. That means if 100 lorries go down your little country road, that's equivalent to a million cars going down there. And we need to stop that, and we need to see a sort of Kent version of the London lorry scheme to bring an end to that. I said I wouldn't talk about a local area, but I will talk about a local area in Galthurst, where a community is split by the traffic that goes down the A262, and it constantly causes traffic jams because the lorries are too big and they can't get around S-bends. And everybody has that story. They have a story of bridges inappropriately used by this. And I would like to see much more emphasis on getting lorries out of lives and enforcement and keeping them on the strategic roads. And that's what I hope we would move towards. Part 6 cars is a step in that direction. They need to be beefed up. We need to have higher fines. We need to get tougher with them. The first time I reported the general election was in 1983, and there was one party there which would have had my vote. I was in the Southampton reporting for that, and it was called the Get Death Off the Roads, Put Freight on Rail. Mr Steptoe talked about that, and there is something to be said about that, but we need to address this problem. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much indeed. We go back to the seconder now, David Robey. Thank you, Chairman. Responding to some of the points that have been raised, I mean, as Neil said to start with, this is a statutory document that we need to keep up to date. And it will form the basis of having a sensible transport structure in Kent in the future in the widest sense, and also be a good basis for getting government funding to do various things. Mr Robey, could you speak a bit nearer to the microphone, please? You won't be able to see my handsome face if I do that. Right. [Laughter] I'll start again if you can hear me. As Neil said, this is a statutory document. We need to keep it up to date. And it will form the basis for providing a good transport system in Kent going forward, and also gives the ability to bid for money from government when government changes its mind at the last minute and says you've got to bid tomorrow for this lump of money to do something. At least we've got the something written down, and we will have. I think responding to some of the points that have been made specifically, I think solving the bus problem is a difficult one, and I'm sure that nationalization isn't it. And it could easily result in simply putting more taxpayer money into it in a completely unaccountable way that's not transparent. And I don't think that would work. But I don't think it's an easy problem to crack. But we're on the case and doing our best. But I think that saying there's a magic bullet solution to it, and you can have a magic whirl with a pink fair at the bottom of the garden and a bus turns up when you want it, I just don't think that's going to happen. And I think it's disingenuous to say that it could do. I think the use of inappropriate roads by HDVs is a difficult problem. I agree with what's been said by all parties on that. It will require, however, to have powers that we don't have at the moment, enforcement powers, fining powers and the rest of it. And I think that the London model is interesting, but we don't have those powers and we don't have them yet. But I certainly agree that it's something that we need to look at and we should do. Am I time limited? Oh, Christ, I am, yeah. Right. I'll miss out some of the others. The emissions thing, the answer isn't electric vehicles, it's hydrogen. In any case, I'll bet you that 95% of the emissions in noxious gases are accounted for by 5% of the cars. So maybe you want a scrappage scheme. And what's the one? Manston axis, I agree with that. And we need to look at that and we will do. But in summary, Neil and I have tried to remove ideology from this plan. It's not four wheels bad, two wheels good. It's not car bad, bus good. People want to drive cars and we're not anti-car and we shouldn't be. But we need a scheme that's got a plan that's got a sensible balance between cars, buses, cycling, walking and all the rest of it. I think there's huge opportunities with the rail freight thing and I agree with what's been said there. It requires physical modifications to track and tunnels but I think we can do that. So in summary, I think that this is a sensible plan. There's been a lot of cross-party involvement in it and I commend it to the Chamber. Perfect timing. Thank you very much indeed. That's all the speakers. Members are being asked to note the progress. Oh, I beg your pardon. Sorry, Neil, you have your right to reply. Yeah, thank you. I won't go through all of the comments. They were detailed but very helpful, I would suggest. I think Mr Chittenden perhaps covered it very well in that once people do see the draft that goes out for consultation, it would almost preempt some of the conversations we've had today, particularly on rail, particularly on some of the options. And we talk about non-car usage, absolutely. The intent is as part of this LTP, there will be within it, underneath it, call it what you will, an active travel framework for Kent. So we can actually start bringing in the walking and wheeling into the rest of the approach. Because I think David, Mr Obe has touched upon, it's not about one-size-fits-all everywhere. We're not going to tomorrow suddenly move away from people using cars. At the same time, we're not going to be in a position where there are suddenly buses and everything for everybody. We're in a transitionary period. Different journeys are more suitable for different modes of transport. Mr Hood perhaps touched on it well when he pointed out it's about allowing the residents of Kent and those using Kent to have a genuine choice. Because in many places at the moment, you don't actually have a choice. Your car isn't just your first option, it's your only option. That will factor into a lot of that. But at the end of the day, this plan is absolutely key when it comes to securing infrastructure funding to help address lots of these issues that have been raised. Without having the plan, we'd have no chance. Without having it, we will have some. And that is all we can try and do. We're in massively a state of flux at the moment. There are different political parties out there with slightly different plans and I'm sure plans that will evolve and adapt not only over the next few years but over the next few days and weeks. And we have to place ourselves so that we don't miss out on anything that does change. At the same time, we have to be ambitious, not overly raise expectation, but ensure that whatever way the winds blow politically on a national level, we are best placed as the custodians of our network in this county to deliver what the residents want, which is giving that choice, unclogging our roads and being innovative into the future. So thank you everybody. I look forward to coming back here after the consultation. Thank you very much indeed, Neil. Members are asked to note the report. Are you happy to note? Agreed? Thank you very much indeed. We're going to draw a line there and have some lunch now. If we could be back at 2.30, I think that would probably be about right. Thank you very much, members. See you at 2.30. Right. Good afternoon, members. I've given members an extra five minutes to work their way back from wherever they've been for lunch. We'll carry on with the agenda. Agenda item number 12. Jeremy Kight to move. Dylan Jeffery will second. And this is the standards. It's an update, a bit of tidying up. Jeremy. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, I'm very proud of the standards work here, actually. The aim really is to ensure that we project a good and true view to the residents of Kent. Standards is not about providing a playground for grievances amongst members. Clearly, it is possible to trigger a grievance amongst members. But frankly, the aim of standards is to try to ensure that the residents of Kent can rely upon us and have a sense of reliability that we're doing the right thing here and can trust our probity and judgement. Now, in terms of the changes we make, because the core part of the code frankly has stood as well, we as a group and I have to say it's a very, very good, calm, cross-party group. I'm grateful to all the members of the committee for the way in which they work together. Because of the core nature of the standards code being fit for purpose, we make decisions, make changes rarely and carefully. And in this case, changes arose from a new model code from the LGA and also suggestions from the Kent secretaries group who fed into some alternative propositions for us, which were considered here in this chamber on the 9th of May by the committee. And what you see now is the work ahead of you is the decision to take about revising the code. I will just reiterate again, the code is really designed to ensure that we are able to present a good and true face to the residents of Kent and that the reputation of the council is upheld. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions if I can, but I hope this is a relatively simple thing. You will notice the one substantial change really in it relates to the separation of bullying and harassment as two separate concepts. That follows really a very sensible line of rationale that bullying has a definition, but harassment has a specific equalities definition. And it makes sense for us to separate that out and to be clear about the definitions of what constitutes one. Putting it crudely, and I'm probably going to get this wrong in my simple way, but bullying can be a form of harassment. So they sit under each other rather are separate concepts, but they do need to be reflected separately in the code because they have different legal implications. Otherwise, I think it's relatively simple and straightforward and I commend it to members and I hope they'll accept it as a good way forward for all of us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr Jeffrey, your second in. Are you going to reserve your right or you want to speak now? You're going to reserve your right. We'll go straight to Rich Lehman then. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to speak very briefly in support of this and in particular the strengthening of definitions around bullying and harassment. Having been a sole trader for much of my adult life prior to politics, I was lucky enough to be blissfully ignorant of the scale and complexity of workplace bullying. It's something which can be particularly prevalent in local politics, given the numerous power imbalances that exist in our workplace. Sometimes in order to tackle a problem, you have to first define it. And I believe that this does exactly that. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Mr Jeffrey, back to you. Do you want to? No? Okay. Jeremy, write a reply? Absolutely. Let me talk you into it. If Mr Lehman is going to get all chippy about it, we'll have a big debate. No, I'm grateful because I think it's important for people who came to see us working united in this one particular area, always on standards. There are no winners from standards breaches, none at all. So we're lucky it underpins our civility in the Chamber, it underpins our confidence outside and it helps us be a better Council. Thank you very much. Members? Agreed. Did everyone agree? Okay, no need to go to a vote then. Item number 13, which is petitions. I think this is a tidying up. Who have we got? Oh, Dylan. Dylan Jeffrey. As a point of explanation, I'm so sorry. I should have commended the work done by officers. I'm so self-centered and I didn't even think about it. The truth is that officers work really hard on this and I thank the Kent secretaries as well for their work on standards. But Mr Watts overseas, a good team, Joel and others who work very, very hard to bring this about and I thank them too. Thank you very much indeed. I think probably an afterthought is appreciated to some degree anyway. I see that you're putting the effort in. Dylan, I think you're next. Thank you, Chairman. And congratulations once more from myself to your election as Chairman of the Council. I followed in your shoes originally, but I have no intention of following your shoes anymore. So you have to tell me all about it, what it's like from up there. The petition scheme before you has taken what seems like an eternity to get to this point. Several meetings of selection of member services committee, which started out nearly a year ago. It's been like a war of attrition. And I'm sometimes amused to hear from the opposition that I whip the group to vote in certain ways at meetings. Well, I'm clearly failing in that because I remember I supported a dramatic reduction in the number required for debate, initially put forward by the Greening independents and was voted down by my fellow Conservative members, including the leader and deputy leader, supported by abstentions from the Labour and Lib Dem representatives. A remarkable rainbow alliance. So either I'm not whipping well enough, not very good at my political job, or the notion that all decisions are whipped is nonsense. So I do hope it's the latter, to be honest. This is the first review of the petition scheme since 2014. And there was much debate at the selection of member services committee about who should be able to sign a petition, such as age, residency, working or studying in our county, or even proof of those criteria. We also explored how the interaction with non-KCC electronic systems should work. And that's a problem in itself in terms of how we can perhaps check who is signing the petitions. In 10 years, we've had one petition come before county council. I must admit I'm slightly guilty because I was part of the organisation for that petition on streetlights in a former role. And surely that cannot be right for engaging and listening to our residents or providing an alternative route for where those who live, work or study in Kent may feel the need to raise matters in a different way. The same applies to cabinet committees and local committees such as JTB. Now whilst there's always a capacity for a chairman of a committee to consider a petition, a discretion that I've used for my own local JTB, by allowing a petition of just 700 signatures to come forward and be debated, it's important I think to formulise realistic and appropriate expectations. Parliament in their system, as a percentage of the population, requires significantly less than what we had at KCC. And many of our districts and borough councils also have a much lower threshold. So 4.3 in the report clearly identifies the criteria and reasons for the proposed change. I say let's embrace this, see what happens, never be afraid of listening to any concerns, disquiet or demonstrable collective concerns to be raised in the appropriate place at KCC. And maybe therefore we can encourage alternative routes for coming to finding solutions that are in partnership with our local communities. I would therefore ask colleagues to please support this, it's been through the mill and it's come out as you see before you. Thank you very much. Seconded by Nigel Collar. Where's Nigel? Are you going to reserve your rights or speak now? I reserve my rights, Chairman, thank you. I didn't hear that, sorry. Yes, reserve. Reserve is right, okay fine. The first speaker I have is Rich Lehman. Rich. Thank you Chairman. It probably won't surprise anyone to hear that I'm in favour of this proposal. Our group was originally planning to bring this forward to full council as a motion in March of last year, but were advised it would first have to be reviewed by the Selection and Member Services Committee, so we withdrew the motion at that point. I'm pleased to say, as has been noted in this report, that this has indeed been reviewed by the Selection and Member Services Committee not just once but four times. It's almost been a standing item on the Selection and Member Services agenda. I think it's fair to say that the committee has given this topic due diligence before making its recommendation which is before us today, and I hope that council can support this recommendation which aims to increase democratic engagement with the people of Kent. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Hook. Thank you very much, Chair. My group also will be supporting this. It will enable people more easily to bring petitions to the council at very different levels according to the size of the number of signatures made. And the time it took in the Selection and Member Services, because we considered very carefully issues like those touched on by Mr. Jeffrey, whether there should be a residence requirement and so on, something we were very mindful of was the burden on officer time. And at each meeting, the officers reported back on the investigations they'd made and the considerations they'd had about how different approaches would take different amounts of office time. And the Section and Member Services committee was satisfied that what's said out in the paper is the right approach that gets the balance right. And we'll hopefully see more petitions coming for interesting and effective debates at the county council. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry. Jenny, sorry. Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, I support this, but I just wanted to say that I recently signed a KCC petition. And it was quite tricky. It took quite a lot of perseverance on my part to sign it. So I don't know whether that was just that specific one that we could make sure that it works properly. Thank you very much. There's no more speakers. I don't think so. We go back to Mr. Collar again. Thank you, Chairman. I don't think I can add anything to what Mr. Jeffrey said. Have you got anything you want to add? No. Mr. Jeffrey, your right to reply. In relation to the point raised about the petition, I think that's why it's important that the chairmen of committees have that discretion to take a petition where perhaps there have been problems. And that has been raised previously. But in order that we have a system that works, we need one that's in the control of KCC rather than using all the other petition platforms that are out there. And it also avoids multiple signing of different platforms for a petition, which would then be very onerous upon officers to check. So it is something that will continue to be under review. And I do take on board the point that was made. And hopefully we will continue to improve the system that we have. Thank you, Mr. Jeffrey. Members happy to approve this? Agreed. Thank you very much indeed. We'll move on to item 14, which is the motion for a time limited debate, agenda item 14. And proposed by Richard Stretfield and seconded by Chris Passmore. So over to Mr. Stretfield. Chair, thank you. Members, I come in peace on this one. Recently, the SEND subcommittee of scrutiny was brought back into scrutiny, and the chair of scrutiny is rightly taking some time to consider what to do next. We have proposed this motion because we think that this is a matter important enough for the whole council to consider and make proposals to him about how best to proceed. We cannot and should not forget we have had two requires improvement inspections. We are under an improvement notice from the DFE. Much has been done, but much more needs to be done. New levels of partnership are being achieved. I anticipate that the DFE will tell us in a few days that the impact of that work is yet to be really felt by children and by parents. It is a matter of record that individual members of the scrutiny committee expressed views that undermined the credibility and leadership of us all in this matter. If we are to be a member led organization, then we all need to show leadership. The county council is still to publicly investigate and scrutinize the impact of the changes brought about in the special educational needs and disability accelerated progress plan. When the scrutiny committee met, members felt the send scrutiny subcommittee had not fulfilled its obligations and therefore simply reforming it would be a mistake. There is a democratic deficit in the public scrutiny and assurance that the service is making the necessary progress. This motion seeks to directly address that deficit. As a board member of the send assurance and improvement board, I know how much work has been done. One of the failures of the send subcommittee is that it has failed to show the scale and complexity of that work to Kent residents. Involve them in it and report back to the council at pace. No evidence of confidence in the system of both children and parents who are the users of this system has been taken. The process needs not only to be open to them, but to actively encourage and support their participation. I hope it is blindingly obvious why some other structure than the current scrutiny committee is required and that is no reflection on Mr. Bood or Mr. Barrington King. But they cannot unsay what has been said by members of their committee. We have not got too many other ways of doing this. The short focused public inquiry, as set out in the motion, we believe has the best chance of securing the confidence of children with send and their parents and all the other stakeholders including the DFE in this most important area for the whole council. I propose the motion to the chamber. Thank you very much indeed. Chris Pasquale, are you going to serve your right? I reserve my right. Okay, thank you very much. Just to go through the list of speakers so far, we've got Mike Sowell, Paul Barrington King, Rory Love and Sir Paul Carter. So next will be Mike Sowell. Oh, thank you Trudy. Thank you Mr. Chairman. As mentioned in the background report, the demand for EHC plans has increased by 33% since 2014. Yet funding for high need education has only increased by 7%. Is it any surprise that with this failure to match funding with demand, less than half of EHCPs were delivered within statutory time scales. Thousands of children and young people in Kent are missing the vital care and support that they need in a timely manner. And this council has been found to have significant areas of weakness in its SEND provision by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. We will have a shared interest in creating a sustainable system that delivers results within an affordable framework. I'm very concerned that the safety valve funding model may improve the immediate position, but at the detriment of later years. Senior officers have said that it's typical to spend more money when transforming a service, yet with the funding per pupil reducing over the next five years, it's very difficult to see how the system will become both more effective and efficient, especially when taking into account the position that it starts from. This motion seeks to put in place procedures to assess and scrutinize the inherent risks with the EHCP process. Because, as we all know, early intervention and support will not only improve lives, but it will improve educational outcomes, boost the local economy in time and result in longer term savings. Thank you very much indeed, Mike. Paul Barrington King. Thank you Chairman, and chapeau to yourself and Mr. Richards on your ascension, I won't say elevation, nobody else has said that. And a big thank you to the previous past Chair for his endeavors over the year. I would like to thank members for the opportunity to discuss this motion for a time limited debate. Due to Mr. Booth, Chairman of Scrutiny, offering apologies for today's meeting, I will be speaking in my capacity as Scrutiny Vice Chair. But I think members would appreciate some useful background on this very subject. The Scrutiny Committee on the 24th of April received the same subcommittees one year on review report. When the subcommittee was established in January 2023 with operations commencing in March 2023, the Scrutiny Committee planned a one year on review of the arrangement. The role of the Scrutiny Committee on 24th of April was to determine whether to retain the dedicated subcommittee, or if the subcommittee should be discontinued and the delegated powers returned to the main committee. Following a debate with the Scrutiny Committee, members resolved by majority vote that the SEND subcommittee be disbanded, and the Scrutiny Committee undertake scrutiny and review in relation to KCC's SEND provision. As requested, an informed meeting has already been held with officers to further discuss the administrative detail of the proposal, with a further discussion planned between the Chairman and the spokespeople of the Scrutiny Committee, leading to a report being presented to the Scrutiny Committee. Now, that democratic decision has been taken and should be respected. I believe it is unprecedented, I might be wrong, but I stand corrected if I am, for a scrutiny short-focused inquiry request to come to full council. Many members might be asking the same question, and putting the Socrates hat on how am I learned if I don't ask, might be thinking, well, why is this here? And we had a rationale from the introduction there, so maybe that you will take that on board. But the route for this, of course, should have been via Scrutiny Committee, and where this could have been raised at an appropriate time. I don't believe full council is the right place for this, otherwise we said a President. The content contained within the motion will no doubt be considered by the Scrutiny Committee during its review of the KCC SEND provision. Ergo, as a consequence, I will not be supporting this motion. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much indeed. Mr Love. Thank you very much, Chairman. Well, I have to say that from the first two paragraphs of this motion, you would imagine that there has been no progress since September 2022. And I am very pleased to see that at the start of paragraph three there is an acknowledgement that much work has been done, and that has been acknowledged here today as well by Mr Stratfield. And that work has been done right across the Kent area. This is not about Kent County Council. This is about the Kent SEND local area, which includes our partners in NHS Kent and Medway. It includes the education sector from primary right through to further education. And of course, it includes us. But the suggestion that there's been no progress, I mean, maybe it's that I'm rather like Mr Kite, I'm too shy and averse to self-promotion to explain some of the progress that's been made. But 63 per cent more EHC plans have been issued within 20 weeks when we focus on those which have been processed since the changes that this Council has approved in our management structure, compared with those that were outstanding before that. And, I might add, it's wrong to suggest that the only way for children to get SEND support is if they have an EHC plan. That is simply not the case. Those with an EHC plan are the minority. Most children get special educational needs support without the need for a plan because they're not within the category of the more complex needs. The number of annual review completions has hit a high in January this year, and just last month it's still the second highest figure in the last 12 months. And the number of annual review process completions hit a 12-month high last month. Those completed within eight weeks is currently running at 93 per cent. This time last year it was 73 per cent. So I think that's a picture of progress. The question is how we sustain that progress and whether simply having a short-focused inquiry at this stage of the route is the way to achieve it. And I would suggest it is absolutely not the way to achieve it. In fact, it's completely the wrong way. What it will do is divert more resource from officers who actually need to get on with the job of doing the work, putting our customers first, putting the children first, and instead simply setting up more reporting arrangements. I thank the subcommittee for the work that they did under the chairmanship of Mr Cole. I think it's the right move forward that Mr Booth has outlined at the scrutiny committee that they take this on. But this is premature because until we know what the result is from the latest DFE and NHS England assessment, I think it's premature to put in steps new reporting structures at this stage. It will be a diversion. And, Mr Chairman, I would urge colleagues to reject the motion. Thank you, Mr Love. Sir Paul Carter. Thank you, Chairman. I, too, cannot support this motion, and I'll give you the reasons as to why. The changes that are being proposed in the SEND review and the special school review are enormously profound and have massive implications, not just for those with special needs, but all young people educated in Kent schools, because the impact of what was being proposed, in my view, at the recent education committee, is going to be absolutely massive in its impact on both mainstream schools and special schools. And I was totally aligned with everything that Mrs Dean said at that committee meeting. This is highly complex. We must listen to all head teachers, particularly the head teachers of special schools and mainstream schools, because what is being suggested in those papers is so radical, and the timelines that are being set are so radical, and in my view totally undeliverable, that we all need to focus on this. And I'm hoping that rather than have a small select group of people doing this, that the education committee, which is a scrutiny committee in its own right, should go through this with a fine tooth comb, invite head teachers in to come and talk to the committee about the consequences of what is being proposed and suggested in the timelines that are being agreed. I agree that doing nothing is not an option, but we did, five years ago, have the balance between mainstream inclusion and special schools and units attached to mainstream schools absolutely on the money, and it's gone awry. And now it's in a desperate situation which is doing nobody any favours and costing significant additional resource. But let's get it right. We're only going to get one cut at this, and if it is taking a longer period than the safety valve, it will have to take a longer period than the safety valve, in my view, a safety valve agreement, because it is so fundamentally important to the education of all children in Kent over the next generation of primary school kids and secondary school kids. So that's why I'm not going to support it, but I would like the chairman of the education committee, with the agreement of the leader, to go through this with a fine tooth comb and have additional meetings if possible. I shall register my opportunity to speak at those meetings because I'm desperate to make sure we get this right, because, as I say, what was proposed alarms me, it alarms Mrs Dean. We've been working in the world of education for a very, very long period of time. There's only one chance now to get it right. Let's get it right. Thank you, Sir Paul. Trudy Dean. Thank you, Chairman. I'm very grateful for Sir Paul's support on this issue. I think that Mr Love doth protest too much, if I may say so. Mr Strepfield did not suggest that no progress was being made. Indeed, he has spoken to Education Committee and to S.E.N.D. Committee, paying tribute to the work that the assurance board have undertaken. However, they meet without a webcast. Yes, there is a packed representative on the committee, but for the vast majority of parents, they are reaching behind closed doors. That was one of the purposes of the S.E.N.D. subcommittee. Now that that has been stood down, there is nowhere else, Chairman, for the debate, which has the enormity of the debate that we need to have on this particular subject to happen. And just again to repeat that Ofsted and CQC had nine improvement points for us. Almost the first, I think, in the list was that we need to speak to and with and listen to parents much better than we have done in the past. They have now nowhere to listen. There is nothing on the screen for them to be listening to. And just to underline what Sir Paul is talking about, the County Council is proposing to completely reorganize the officer infrastructure and specialist support for special schools and special needs everywhere into a completely new categorization. It's a categorization nobody else uses, and there's no obvious reason why it's needed except that we do need consistency across schools. But the rationale for actually completely cleaning slate and starting with a new set of designations and admission criteria for every special school in Kent is just not obvious. And the second thing that we're doing at the same time is to suggest that the officer support should be organized into locality groups. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad idea, Chairman. The trouble is that we're proposing to do both of these things at the same time, and we have already taken these subjects through consultation of a sort. There was a consultation on the officer support, which had the result of 59 percent of parents and practitioners opposing what we are proposing to do. The Organization of Special Schools also went to a meeting very recently, very rapidly called, of all head teachers of all special schools, and my understanding is that every one of them opposed what we're doing. We have to open this debate up, and I'm interested in the proposal that Sir Paul has made, and I hope that Mr. Dance may respond to that. To answer Mr. Barrington King's point, he has a point about it going back to the scrutiny. There are only these two ways of doing it, either through scrutiny or through some other mechanism, which could be a special meeting of education. But we need more time, we need more space, we need more air in order to talk to parents. We need to allow parents in, not build walls. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Jenny Hawkins. Thank you, Chairman. My point follows on quite nicely from what Mrs. Dean was saying about listening to parents. I think we owe it to the families who have suffered and are still suffering for this issue to be properly scrutinized, so that the problems are fixed and not repeated. I think we can only really do this by listening to and addressing what the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities are saying. I've only been on the council for 15 months, so it's a lot to catch up on. What has really struck me is the level of trauma that parents have experienced and the level of upset while going through the EHCP process. Only yesterday a friend posted, a local parent who has two adopted children, posted on Facebook the following. Throughout the whole adoption process, the most challenging and heartbreaking battle we have had is to try and secure EHCPs for both of our children. This was followed by a stream of comments of parents who have been through the same thing, and you can just see how upsetting it is for people. So I really think people need to have their say, especially with adoptive parents. These are parents who are saving the council tens of thousands of pounds every year, and they're giving children loving homes. They should be supported every step of the way. And whilst these issues are occurring nationally, it's clear that this has been more pronounced in Kent, and suggests that something's wrong within our system here, and it's exacerbating the problem. And this needs to be looked at in depth. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anthony Hawke. Thank you very much, Chairman. I don't think anyone suggests that progress hasn't been made. But the overwhelming point, which I hope everyone agrees with, is that a lot more progress needs to be made. The inspectors said that the service we were providing children with special educational needs and their families was way below what it should be. And one of the things the motion observes is that nationally there's a postcode lottery, and what you get in terms of support in different parts of the country varies considerably. And Kent is an outlier in the negative direction in that, notwithstanding the improvements that have been made, we are still well below the England average for dealing with the HCPs and other forms of support within the statutory timetables. And we need to really thoroughly investigate and understand why that is, and why Kent is an outlier in terms of the number of children who are assessed as having severe and complex needs. Are there social factors? Are there factors in the way our schools are working? Are there factors in the way our schools are set up? Are there inherited factors? Because some forms of neurodivergence are inheritable, and people with some forms of neurodivergence work particularly in the financial services or the technology sector, and it's well understood that you can get concentrations of neurodivergence and from that special educational needs. That's not to say that any one of those factors I've listed, and many others that I could list, is predominant. The point is that we need to understand and investigate this more fully. And I think there is a concern that the approach that's being taken, the safety valve approach, risks in the long term taking away one hand and taking away even more with another hand, because it may well pass on further costs to our adult social care departments, because children with special needs will grow up. And if they don't get the support they need when they're young, they will have more needs than would otherwise be the case when they are adults. So I strongly support the motion proposed by my colleague that rather than just have the scrutiny committee, which I'm very proud to be a member of and I have some very valuable colleagues on that, instead of just having the scrutiny committee looking at it with all the other gamut of stuff it has to do across the council's decision-making process to scrutinize, it makes a lot of sense to have a short-focused inquiry set up in the terms drafted in the motion. And if I may say so also, the suggestion the education committee should look at it I think is well made. My understanding, and I will be corrected if I'm wrong, I understood that the CYP committee is a cabinet committee and doesn't currently have scrutiny powers. Perhaps that ought to change. Perhaps actually the conclusion to draw from Sir Paul's remarks is that that committee ought to have scrutiny powers, and that's something perhaps can be considered. Thank you, Mr Hook, and before we go to the proposal in a second, Mr Cough, I think you wanted to speak. Thank you, Chairman. I think this proposal is at best premature and I think at worst runs the risk of duplication. There's actually a fair amount we can all agree on. I think we all agree that there has been significant progress. We all agree that there is a lot further to go. And I don't think there is any great doubt about that. I think that where this proposal falls down is on two or three grounds. The first is it is in effect recreating, under a slightly different name, what the scrutiny committee had just concluded that it wished to move away from. Secondly, we do have vehicles for thorough analysis because I think, again, one of the things that we would all agree on is that what we do in this space needs to be transparent, needs to be subject to debate, and that covers the whole gamut from the progress being made under the APP and what is being achieved, what needs to be done better, through to some of the longer-term proposals for change as well. All of that does quite properly need appropriate debate and scrutiny. We have the scrutiny committee itself. We have CYPE cabinet committee. I think it's pretty clear from the debate that took place at CYPE cabinet committee recently on this that there was plenty of focus and debate. The scrutiny committee takes on already some of the huge activities that this council undertakes of transformational significance, such as everything to do with securing Kent's future. There is no reason why the scrutiny committee cannot, in an appropriate way, also examine this. I'm nervous, frankly, that there is always a balance between having the right scrutiny and challenge and observation. It's worth mentioning, as we've touched on, we also have multi-agency, what is currently the SIAD. Depending on how things play out in terms of the accelerated progress plan and the improvement notice, we may need at some point to look at how that structure may change, but we do actually need elements of it that are multi-agency because this is not simply about us. Of course, a lot of it is about us, but it's about schools. It's about the NHS. It's about the system as a whole. Therefore, the danger of what is a huge transformational program being subject not simply to proper scrutiny, but to multiple vehicles for this again and again and again, I think gets the balance wrong. The subject matter, it's not the bit that's on the screen, but the subject matter suggested, for instance, in section 5, a lot of that seems to be entirely sensible. Much of it is frankly what the administration, the executive would say is what we need to understand and to be across. Why Kent has 5% of children with an EHCP. What's the role of the NHS? What's the role of schools? I'm absolutely right, but I see no reason why that cannot be done within the existing vehicles, and I believe that what's proposed infringes upon the prerogatives of the scrutiny committee, and it should not be for this council, full council, to be instructing it. Thank you, Roger. I'll let you go over a little bit there. On the point of information, could we ask Mr Watts whether or not cabinet committees are indeed quasi-scrutiny committees? I've always held the belief that they were, and I'm sure I've read in the regulations that it is, and I think it would be very beneficial for the whole council to have advice on that matter. Mr Watts, I know that caught you off guard there for a moment. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Sir Paul. I run the risk of being very technocratic here and apologise, so they are not a formal scrutiny committee, so they're not a statutory scrutiny committee with the statutory powers. They're effectively a creature of the executive. They do, however, within our governance have the ability to scrutinise, so it's one of those situations where everybody is right, but the important bit is, as I have heard the debate, what is being suggested, and it's not actually linked to the actual motion that's in front of you, actually, it's probably a conversation for outside, but it's to look at whether the CYPE cabinet committee could be given statutory scrutiny powers to firm up even further those constitutional powers to scrutinise that are there. That's a conversation that has a fairly lengthy process for a number of different ways, but is a conversation if those members want to have it outside, I will have it outside, but that probably explains why different people have different views on what scrutiny does and doesn't mean for these purposes. Thank you, Mr Watts. That debate is for another day. Chris Passmore, you've reserved your rights. Thank you to my colleague, Mr Stretfield, for raising this time-limited motion. It is an incredibly important topic. Earlier in this meeting, we heard very clearly the importance we place as a council on children in a wide variety of different environments. And this is now dealing with our children across our county who need our help. We've heard from both Ms Hawkins and Ms Dean about the importance of public confidence that we do have a system that is working. We, as a council, through the very professional offices we have here, I probably think we're doing a good job. Do those people outside these walls actually believe we're delivering that? Some of you may know that my wife is a private educational psychologist. She used to work for KCC. We share the same office. Most days I'm in my office, her telephone rings, there's a parent desperate, absolutely desperate, to know something about their children. They need help. We don't do any marketing. They just ring up. I spend 20 minutes on the phone. There is a huge lack of confidence in the way this council is dealing with EHCPs. And we do need to seriously address this issue, not only within the chamber, but also externally. We know how we've taken our legal obligations to unaccompanied, asylum-seeking children very seriously. And we notified the government that we could not meet those legal obligations. What makes our failure to meet the 20-week EHCP obligation any less important? These are our children. As Sir Paul Carter has pointed out, we did have a good system, but it has fallen down badly. And we really need to do everything we can, including setting up this committee, to address these issues. So I ask the council to support this motion. Thank you. Thank you very much. And the right to reply from Richard Strofield. Thank you, Chair. I hope we have, at the very least, been able to inform the discussion that goes on in scrutiny. And I think that the resources that will be given to scrutiny, in order to be able to adequately scrutinise this area, would be given to the short-focused inquiry in any event. The purpose of the motion is to give confidence to children with SEND and their parents and all our stakeholders that we take this issue as seriously as we should. A focused inquiry is not where we debate things. It's where we can analyse things and report back to the council. It's not just about the scrutiny and debate of the matter. It's about actually understanding it better. We are seen to accept publicly the criticism and show publicly more determination to resolve the areas of weakness that have been highlighted. There are some things that we've been told to do and some things that we've agreed to do, and not always in a coherent way. The safety valve agreement and the improvement notice, as well as the independently-chaired cross-party assurance and improvement board, appear to be working at slightly odd angles to each other. This is about what we choose to do ourselves. Our first go, I think even Councillor Cole would agree, was not as successful as he had hoped. He was not given the easiest start. If our scrutiny committee and education committee was the right place for this, then the format to achieve what is required would have been so in 2019 and in 2020 and in 2021 and in 2022, but it wasn't. There are also experts by experience in this area in all parts of the chamber that we need to use. There are also those who are interested and capable of providing that assurance from around the chamber and could participate in a short focused inquiry that they can't necessarily in scrutiny, not because of their politics but because of their experience, their intelligence and their humanity. Even the most hawkish financial conservative knows that getting it right on send gives us a much better chance of being financially viable in the future. Children, as Mr Hooker said, become adults and adult social care represents the greatest threat to our finances. And therefore, this is a very significant opportunity to get our budget back into balance. The most socialist of us, I think, there were a couple left in the Labour Party, maybe, apart from Mrs Elphick, and certainly the Green Party will want to participate in the name of equality, equality of access to education, equality of opportunity. The only equality that should disbar participation is prejudice against disability. Ultimately, this is for the chair of scrutiny to decide. I agree with that. I hope the motion has made his job of deciding the way forward easier and I commend it to the chamber. Thank you, Mr Struttfield. I fear there's no other speakers, and I fear also that we're not going to agree, so we'll go to the vote on this motion. Sorry. Yes, we'll just queue up the vote. There we go. You can vote now. A couple of stragglers there, but that motion has failed, I'm afraid. So that brings us to the end of the meeting. Can I just thank everybody for coming along and contributing today? Thank you for listening to my charity speakers, and hopefully most of you have bought a cake, and all that remains to do now is close the meeting. So I formally closed the meeting. Thank you very much for coming and have a safe journey home. Thank you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]