Minutes:
The Leader informed Council that budget consultation was underway, with presentations being made to all 14 Area Action Partnerships and other community meetings, as well as consultation forms being available at meetings and online. Everyone was encouraged to take part and the Council had always involved the public in its budget decisions, after experiencing £200 million of government cuts with 2,500 fewer jobs, with this figure heading towards £250 million.
The Leader had attended consultation events at the County Durham Partnership Forum meeting in Chester le Street and Stanley AAP and would attend as many other AAPs as he was able to, before the consultation period ended on 1 December 2017. Cabinet, Scrutiny and Council would consider final proposals in the New Year, by which time the Chancellor will have delivered his Autumn Statement and Budget at the end of November.
Although government plans for funding post-2020 were unknown, there was a national fair funding review underway and the Council needed to ensure that its needs were fully reflected in any new finding system as well as continued equalisation to compensate for uneven council tax bases, which had been a key part of the finance system since at least World War 2. The previous coalition government began the process of dismantling this system with huge and disproportionate levels of cuts hitting northern councils in particular.
The Leader informed the Council that following the recent Unison ballot, teaching assistants had voted to accept the Council’s final offer. All of the recognised trade unions had now agreed to the offer and the changes would be implemented through a local collective agreement.
The Council was now committed to moving ahead with the career progression board, with a planning meeting taking place yesterday. The Council would continue to work with recognised trade unions, teaching assistants and head teachers to consider options for progression. The Leader thanked all those involved for the work undertaken to resolve this issue.
The Leader informed Council that Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, had completed a visit to County Durham to recognise and celebrate the work of the Council’s children and young people’s service, presenting a Gold Award in recognition of outstanding work during the 2016 ‘Takeover Challenge’. During her time in Durham the Commissioner also visited Aycliffe Secure Centre and heard from other parts of the Children and Young People’s service.
Another set of parliamentary boundary proposals had been received. He pointed out that they may never see light of day because they would need parliamentary approval. County Durham would lose one and a half constituencies with Sedgefield merging with Billingham in Stockton and Durham City merging with Easington, although both of these constituencies were actually broken into three parts with some wards to the north and west of Durham transferred to North Durham and North West Durham respectively, Blackhalls and Wingate moving in with Hartlepool and Seaham with Houghton in Sunderland. Burnopfield and Dipton would also move into Blaydon.
Much of this was different to the last set of proposals which were consulted on, yet despite the significant level of change and disruption in the new proposals, the Boundary Commission proposed no further public hearings at this stage. This was completely unsatisfactory and would be discussed at the Constitution Working Group in two weeks’ time.
The Leader informed the Council that after a record-breaking Durham Book Festival during October which included a series of packed out sessions during the ten-day programme, the County welcomed the UK’s largest light festival, Lumiere, back to Durham from 16 to 19 November. This was understood to be the largest arts event in the whole of the UK in November and large numbers were anticipated on all nights. A presentation had been given to Members in terms of some of the logistics of this. Lumiere was immediately followed with another huge event for County Durham as Tim Peake’s space capsule would arrive at Locomotion in Shildon, thanks to the strengthening partnership with the Science Museum Group.
The Leader was proud to announce that Durham was the first local government organisation in the country to work with the UK’s largest publisher, Trinity Mirror, to live stream images from two of the county’s most stunning views to the world via Facebook.
As part of a major campaign to Celebrate Durham the Council was working with a range of partners, including Kynren, to showcase County Durham on a global stage by focussing on Durham’s vibrant cultural programme and its unique offer as a fantastic place to live, work, visit and invest in.
From 6.30 a.m. this morning people from all over the world could use Facebook to watch the sun rise over Cow Green reservoir in the Durham Dales. In the evening audiences would be invited to watch the sun set over High Force, England’s highest waterfall. The live stream from Cow Green reservoir had already had 13,000 views with comments from as far afield as Singapore.
The Leader asked all Members to support the county by sharing today’s video and using the #HelpDurhamShine.
Councillor Wilkes referred to budget savings proposals and asked that more detail be provided of what the savings proposals were.
The Leader replied that the consultation document included a full page of details for each saving proposal as well as a link to the Cabinet report. However, there was a balance between the provision of enough and too much information. Consultation had been successful in the past and there was a need to provide the right amount of information to make this a success. Each AAP meeting would have a senior council officer in attendance to answer questions. Councillor Wilkes had previously raised this issue regarding the provision of information for the scrutiny process and pointed out that officer support was provided to all political Groups.