Central Bedfordshire Council’s Budget 2011-12

Feathers flew and tempers frayed at the last Council meeting where Members adopted the budget for 2011-12. In a marathon session lasting some four hours, there were numerous challenges, prompting reference to the Constitution for points of order and a recorded vote taken on Councillor allowances. These are to be cut by 2%, in line with a cut in staff earnings over £21k, although a Lib Dem proposal for a cut in the generous Special Responsibility Allowances of 10% was not supported by the Tory majority.

Council tax rates in the former South Beds Council area still remain marginally higher than those in the former Mid-Beds area, despite promises at the inception of Central Beds to align them within three years. But a Council tax freeze was the price to be paid by tax payers in order for the Council to receive a 2.5% increase in handout from central government, which Central Beds can ill afford to pass over. The aim is to align the Council taxes in a year's time, provided nothing else gets in the way, of course.

For more details, read on.
The average (Band D) household in the north of Central Bedfordshire will pay £1308.33 and a household in the south will pay £1344.15 for Central Bedfordshire Council services, which include roads, libraries, support for schools, social care, planning and environmental services. They will pay a further £144.77 for Police and £82.44 for Fire and Rescue services bringing the total bill to £1535.54 in the north and £1571.36 in the south. Town or parish councils may make a small additional charge for their services on top of the basic rates.

More than £180 million will be spent on public services, including additional investment in both Adult Social Care and Children’s Services to meet increasing pressures.
There will also be a council tax freeze and £20M savings.
The savings come on top of the fact that the Council:
• delivered £10M budget savings and addressed transitionary issues in its first full year (2009/10)
• is on track to deliver a further £12M savings in 2010/11.
In response to comments and representations made during the budget consultation process the Council decided to adjust some of the proposals that had been made in the draft budget:
• no reduction in school crossing patrols from 1 April 2011 but that contributions be sought from communities and partners during the course of the year, with a view to securing the patrols beyond 2011/12;
• the creation of a fund to facilitate the transfer of services to partners and communities and that the costs of public conveniences be a first charge on this fund during 2011/12; and
• a reduction in the proposed increases in car parking charges.

Bedfordshire Police – Budget Cuts
The Government has announced details of police funding for the two financial years from April 2011 and indicative figures for the following two years.
In total, the reductions equate to approximately £19M over the next four years, with £6.3M of this needing to be found in 2011/12 and £5.5M in 2012/13.
For more information about the Police Authority’s reaction to the cuts and proposed actions see http://www.bedfordshirepoliceauthority.co.uk/Funding-and-Finance.html

Transparency
The Council is committed to being open and transparent about the way it delivers its services. It has a duty to ensure that residents are informed about how it is spending public money by providing financial information about the delivery of services.

The Council has now published on its website:
• what it pays the Chief Executive, Directors and Assistant Directors;
• the job role of the Chief Executive and Directors;
• the number of staff employed by the Council;
• details of spending over £500; and
• a register of all its contracts.
The details can be found at http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/Council_departments/default.aspx

Local Authorities and Public Health
As part of its fundamental reform of the national health service the Government has set out its ambition for the future of public health, including:
• the establishment of a new body – Public Health England;
• the return to local government of public health leadership and responsibility, with key roles in improving, promoting and protecting the health of their local communities; and
• a ring-fenced public health grant and a new ‘payment by results’ system to reward councils for making progress in improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities.
See below for more about the features of the health service reforms.

Let’s Talk Together
Central Bedfordshire Council and its local partners are running a series of meetings at each of the seven Safer Neighbourhood Areas in Central Bedfordshire. They are chaired by a Ward Councillor.
These Let’s Talk Together meetings will give residents and community groups the chance to:
• find out more about volunteering, community safety, health services and business support as well as a range of council services such as roads and transport;
• discuss any issues that residents are concerned about within their community; and
• engage with representatives from all key agencies and organisations, such as the police, fire, health, the council and many others who will be at the meetings.
More information about times and venues of meetings can be found at http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/news/news/january-2011-press-releases/talktogether.aspx

Local Enterprise Partnerships
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are sub-regional partnerships which bring together businesses, universities and colleges, community groups, social enterprises and local government. Together these partners work closely with government to support inward investment, innovation, economic growth, new enterprise and job creation. LEPs are eligible to make bids to the Government’s £1.4bn regional growth fund.
Central Bedfordshire is part of the South East Midlands LEP which also includes the local authority areas of Bedford Borough, Luton Borough, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury Vale, Cherwell, South Northamptonshire, Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and Dacorum. The LEP area has a population of over 1.8 million people and 75,000 businesses and accounts for 3.7% of the English economy.
More details can be found on the South East Midlands LEP website http://www.southeastmidlands.org.uk/

The Council’s new Website
The Council has been developing the Central Bedfordshire Council website as part of its overall customer management programme. The objectives of the website are to:
1. save money by switching customers to the web from telephone and face to face contact;
2. give better customer service by enabling self-service through the web; and
3. better community engagement through the use of social media.
When the website goes live in the spring of this year residents will find:
• information is easier to find;
• information that is clearer and easier to understand;
• more opportunities to request services and pay for them online (instead of needing to phone or visit the council); and
• they can get involved in council consultations and decision making through social media.

Nirah
The Nirah concept is to create a world leading research centre, science park and visitor attraction. Central Bedfordshire Council's Executive are supportive of the Nirah vision, in anticipation of its potential to support economic growth and job creation in line with our economic aspirations and will signal a clear step change in our prospects. An estimate of job creation both directly and indirectly is in the order of 5000 jobs.
Nirah Holdings Ltd. is the private company that leads the project. Nirah has secured outline planning permission and the land option for Quest Pit from Hanson’s.
The next stages for the development of this project are:
• to secure the seed capital funding of £41.5M;
• to take the project into full design and gain full planning permission; and
• to secure next stage development capital funding of approximately £500-600M.
Nirah Holdings Ltd is engaged in active negotiations with prospective investors and hopes to secure the investment agreement to proceed with the project in 2011. Those negotiations remain commercially confidential.

Local authorities and public health, contd. (see above)
As part of its fundamental reform of the national health service the Government has set out its ambition for the future of public health, including the establishment of a new body – Public Health England – and the return to local Government of public health leadership and responsibility.

In its public health white paper (Healthy Lives, Healthy People) the Government intends to give back to councils a leading role in improving, promoting and protecting the health of their local communities.

The White Paper is wide ranging and further details on a number of issues are still outstanding including details of public health funding and a further 10 consultation documents on specific aspects of health improvement and health protection. At this stage it is difficult to have a completely clear picture of the proposed new landscape for public health and the role of councils within it.

The main features of the proposals are:
A focus on outcomes - A national outcomes framework for public health will set the broad public health and health inequalities outcomes for all areas and organisations to address. The Government is currently consulting on the outcomes framework.
Transferring public health - From 2013, public health responsibilities currently undertaken by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) will be divided between Public Health England (PHE) and local councils. The Directors of Public Health (DsPH) will move to local authorities and will be jointly appointed by councils and PHE.
Funding and rewards - From 2013, upper-tier and unitary councils will receive a ring-fenced public health grant to improve the health of the population and to reduce health inequalities. A new ‘payment by results’ system will reward Councils for making progress in improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities.
Public Health England - PHE is charged with “bringing together a fragmented system, it will do nationally what needs to be done; it will have a new protected public health budget; and it will support local action through funding and the provision of evidence, data and professional leadership” It will also allocate ring-fenced funding to local government and rewarding them for progress made against elements of the proposed public health outcomes framework.
Director of Public Health and transfer of public health staff - All upper-tier and unitary authorities will be required to have a DPH, though they can be shared with other councils. DsPH will be employed by local government and jointly appointed with PHE, and will be “the strategic leader for public health in local communities, deploying the local ring-fenced budget to achieve the best possible public health outcomes across the whole local population”. A critical task for DsPH will be to promote health and wellbeing within local government and advise on health inequalities and develop local strategies to reduce them.

Council saves early morning concessionary bus travel

Twirlies can still use their passes before 9.30am after Central Bedfordshire Council reached a significant agreement with local bus companies.

At a meeting in December, members of the Council's Executive decided to make savings on the cost of the Council's concessionary fare scheme by prohibiting free travel for elderly pass holders before 9.30am between Mondays and Fridays.

This wasn't well received by users and after pressure from the Lib Dems and others, the Council went back to the drawing board. A cut of 4.5% in the sum paid to Beds bus service providers for the concessionary service was agreed, to ensure that concessionary bus travellers can continue to use their passes before 9.30 a.m. for the next year.

Are you an early bird? Which bus services do you appreciate? On what days of the week do you use the line? How would it affect you if you had to pay full whack? Do please call phone me to let me know, tel: 0300 300 8550

More regulation at EU level will bring savings

Government and regulation should be carried out at the level best fitted for the task in hand.

Let me give an example. While it is usual and right for the provision and management of waste collection and road maintenance to be at local level, the safety of medicines is of equal interest and importance to us all, regardless of nationality, so there is a European Medicines Agency to regulate the medicines market centrally, saving the need for and cost of 27 agencies at member state level, each doing their own thing.

There are yet more efficiencies to be achieved by passing other regulatory work from national to EU level. Telecommunications are such an example, now regulated by bodies in each of the 27 member states, quite cumbersome for this global, fast moving and highly innovative market. A private sector company operating with multi-national offices would long since have streamlined the structure.

UK's telecomms regulator Ofcom employs some 800 people; the proposed EU-wide telecomms regulator would start with a staff of 300. And in matters of defence, member states have 90 procurement programmes compared with just 23 in the US. Deeper co-operation in EU defence procurement could save up to 20% in national procurement budgets. It might have also saved the UK being the last to rescue stranded nationals in Libya, if we'd been co-operating on an EU basis.

EU governments are set to agree an increase in the EU budget of 2.9%. They should, at the same time, task the EU with regulation and procurement in areas of global activity, starting with telecommunications and defence procurement, to deliver even greater efficiency savings for us all.

Now is the time to invest in the EU and central regulation where it makes sense and see the investment pay dividends.

On the performance of Central Beds' Upper Schools

Central Beds Council ducked out of conceding recently that our upper schools under-perform when measured against the new English Baccalaureate standard.

At the latest six-monthly meeting of Central Beds Council with town and parish councils, delegates were encouraged to leave on the tables any questions that they were unable to raise and have answered during the conference. I can understand why this question found its way to the bottom of the pile on the night, but I'm glad it was asked and that Central Beds will be addressing the issue.

"Q: The outcomes achieved by our Upper Schools in CBC – published today – are not encouraging. Does CBC accept that there is a problem? If so, what is being done, what should be done?

A: The Local Authority is always striving to improve performance in all of our schools.
This year we carried out some focused work with some of our Upper Schools, as well as schools in other phases. We are pleased that there is evidence of real improvement this year in the results achieved by our Upper Schools.

Overall results in Central Bedfordshire were above the national average in 2010 and increased by 4.5% using the commonly used measure of the proportion achieving five or more GCSE grades at C or above, including English and mathematics. Nine out of the ten schools improved their performance. Some by as much as 10 or 11%. We feel sure that this improvement trend can continue this year, although it will be difficult for schools to increase at quite the same rate.

This year the Government has introduced a new measure of performance. This is called the English Baccalaureate. It measures the proportion of students who achieve English, maths, two sciences, a language and a humanities subject (history and geography). Schools have been evaluated using this indicator even though the measure was not planned two years ago when the students started their courses. It is therefore too early to evaluate performance against this indicator, although we will be working with our schools to continue to improve performance further against all indicators.

To see the full report from the conference, visit: http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/councillors/parish/default.aspx

End pendulum politics: vote Yes to AV on 5 May

We'll have a once in a generation chance to improve our voting system on 5 May, when I urge you to vote yes to the Alternative Vote (AV) system for national elections.

For those of us who've had enough of the years of pendulum politics that the current first past the post system (FPTP) gives us, AV is a vast improvement. Not as good as full proportional representation in my view, but it's the best that the Liberal Democrats could squeeze out of the Tories in the coalition government and certainly better than the zippo, carry-on-with-the old-ways that would have been served up had the Tories got enough votes at the last election to rule alone.

AV is simple: it just means swapping the ‘X’ on your ballot paper for numbers. You can rate the candidates how you see fit and vote for as many or as few candidates as you like. If you only want to support one candidate, you can: just mark an ‘X’ as you did before. AV gives you the freedom to vote sincerely for any number of candidates you feel are up to the job.

With First Past the Post ('FPTP'), you get just one choice. And that has meant that most MPs – 2 out of 3 of those elected in 2010 - get to parliament with less than half of voters on their side.

What will it mean for our MP? We will still have one MP in our area, but they will have to speak for the majority of our community. They will have to work harder and try to represent more of their constituents’ interests. And they won’t be able to take the people for granted any more. Too many MPs have got used to ‘jobs for life’ in the safe seats the current system has created. AV gives these complacent MPs a wake up call.

To see a video of people saying why they will vote for AV, visit: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/people-say-yes

To sign up to the petition letter urging the Advertising Standards Authority to stop the anti AV campaign's misleading advertising, visit: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/demandmore-demandbetter

Central Beds' bus service changes from 28 March

On 28 March, 28 bus routes will be changed in some way, mostly curtailed as part of the cost savings exercise.

Two of these relate to the Barton-le-Clay ward:
79 (Centrebus): Luton, Barton Le Clay, Shillington, Meppershall, Shefford, Upper Gravenhurst
Revised timetable. Service via Hexton and Pegsdon withdrawn.

223 (Red Rose): Luton, Upper Sundon, Chalton, Toddington, Harlington, Westoning
This evening service is to be withdrawn.

For the full picture, visit the Council's website at http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/advice-and-benefits/winter-weather/bus-service-changes.aspx

Will this affect you, your life, your loved ones? I'd like to hear from you, tel: 0300 300 8550 or by e-mail janet.nunn@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk

Rovers' Riders: a BMX skatepark for Barton-le-Clay?

What does Barton-le-Clay (and surrounding villages come to that) offer our teenage young people? The hills are great for picnics, walking and cycling in good weather but not for our many short, dark winter days.

The Youth Club is closed, but do young people want anything organised for them?

Would drama facilities be most in demand (think Glee Club?) or a BMX skatepark? or perhaps just an outdoor youth shelter for friends to hang out without disturbing anyone or having to spend money?

Please let me know what you think by completing the on-line survey by 28 February at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W3BSDW7

You can also offer to help out with the project, whatever your skills.
Many thanks for your time and support.