The Liberal Democrat Priorities for Kent 2013

As the official opposition to the Conservatives over the past 4 years on Kent County Council, the Liberal Democrats have tirelessly worked to hold the council to account and speak up on behalf of local residents. Time and again we have exposed examples of waste, maladministration and badly implemented ideas.

The Conservatives try to claim they are an able and sensible administraion: but so many Kent residents know that is not the case. Time and again, we open our newspapers to stories of Kent County Council waste, from huge pay-offs to senior officers, to fortunes being wasted on Kent TV, and that millions of Kent Tax payers money is STILL in Iceland over 5 years after it was first put at risk through poor investment decisions.

During the last 4 years, it is the Liberal Democrats that have spoken up against the Conservative administration. Labour have just three Councillors on Kent County Council: they have nort been able to offer an effective opposition. UKIP didn’t get one Councillor elected to Kent County Council in 2009.

Kent County Council seems to be shrouded in secrecy. The Liberal Democrats would work to open up our Council, make sure we open our books to local people and get residents actively involved in making decisions that affect them.

Record of Action

• Over the last four years, the Liberal Democrats have challenged the Conservative leadership on huge payoffs to key officers and ex-Chief Executives.
• The Liberal Democrats pushed successfully to get illegal payments made to Chief Executive’s for elections refunded.
• The Liberal Democrats have fought for secret reports into KCC businesses to be made public and the businesses operations made more transparent to local residents and businesses.
• The Liberal Democrats have fought to get more time at Council meetings to be spent discussing residents concerns through petitions by fighting for lower thresholds for petitions to be heard for debate.

Promise of More

• The Liberal Democrats would open up Kent County Council far more to local people.
• The Liberal Democrats would introduce a public right to speak or ask a question at all Council and Cabinet meetings.
• The Liberal Democrats would slash the number of signatories needed to get a petition debated at full Council, as we have argued repeatedly for years.
• The Liberal Democrats would ensure all Committee meetings are webcast (including the currently unbroadcast Personnel Commmittee and all Local Boards) and allow input from the public into meetings via Twitter and Facebook.
• The Liberal Democrats would take Freedom of Information seriously, and reduce the time to respond to all queries to half the current 20 days.

Although the Conservative Administration say they want local people to be involved in local decisions, its often more lip service than action. Locality boards are meant to offer local decision making as a mix of County and district Councillors for an ear meet and discuss local issues, but in some places they don’t exist, in others they meet in private, they have no decision making powers and no money to spend.

Record of Action

• The Liberal Democrats have pushed for local accountability with properly constituted Locality Boards across Kent meeting in public and agendas and minutes published.
• The Liberal Democrats have championed participatory budgeting in their divisions, with Trudy Dean, Tim Prater and George Koowaree already giving local people their say in how local grant money is spent in their areas.
• The Liberal Democrats have pushed for Joint Transportation Boards (specific transport “locality boards”) to have real decision making powers, for example to veto specific streetlight turn-offs.

Promise of More

• The Liberal Democrats would ensure that every area had a properly constituted Locality Board by taking our relationships with districts seriously. Properly constituted locality boards that met in public would have defined decision making and veto powers for decisions in their locality and a budget to tackle the issues they want to prioritise.
• The Liberal Democrats would encourage more Councillors to promote and use participatory budgeting in their areas, giving local people a say in which organisations in their areas should receive grants.
• The Liberal Democrats would increase the amount of money each Councillor can spend in their area on Highways projects to ensure localised problems can be tackled. We would look at ways that some of this funding could be opened up to Participatory Budgetting: giving local people a say on the Highway priorities in their area too.
• The Liberal Democrats would give Joint Transportation Boards the right of veto and decision on projects in their area. We would also give Joint Transportation Boards a budget so they could kick-start transportation projects or repairs in their area.
• The Liberal Democrats would make openness, tranparency and getting local residents input into decisions the over-arching priority of the council. We would make Council transparency a Cabinet member responsibility and form a Transparency Working Group (comprising councillors of all groups on the Council, local business leaders, community group leaders, residents, journalists and Youth Council members) would take ideas online, in public, and challenge the council to get them in place quickly and monitor the impact. Getting real-time feedback from the right people and acting on it effectively will save the Council money in the long-term and improve both services and the perception of them.

Kent’s Children have been let down over the past four years by the Conservatives.

In 2010 an Ofsted report found that Kent was failing its looked after children: children who are the most vulnerable in our society and need our help and support being let down by our County Council. It’s taken over 2 years and the investment of millions of pounds of emergency spending to turn the service around so that it is now deemed to be adequate. Our children should never be failed in this way again.

Kent’s schools have one of the worst records in the country of helping our children become the best they can be.

Kent’s Conservative adminstration have punished the brightest and best of our children by removing free to-school transport to our Grammar schools. To reward children who work hard to pass the Kent test by making them pay their own fare to school is a perverse and damaging decision.

Record of Action

• The Liberal Democrats have challenged the administration repeatedly over their failures in supporting its Looked After Children and poor record on attainment in our schools
• The Liberal Democrats have supported local schools faced with closure and amalagamation and forced the issue into the Council agenda. Local people need to have their voice heard, not just have decisions steamrolled through.
• The Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed the removal of free to-school transport to our Grammar Schools. We have consistently opposed the decision and brought forward costed proposals to Council to reinstate free to-school transport to all school children that need it.
• The Liberal Democrats have pushed for more funding for school support in Kent to do more to back-up and improve school standards.
• The Liberal Democrats pushed for more funding for school sports in Kent after the Olympics to build on and increase the lagacy left by the games. The Conservatives instead cut £200,000 sports funding for schools from this years budget.

Promise of More

• The Liberal Democrats would reinstate free to-school transport to our Grammar schools. The Liberal Democrats want to help and encourage our school children, not punish them for academic success. Our budget proposals for this year showed how this could be afforded.
• The Liberal Democrats would re-instate £200,000 this year to fund sports projects across the County to help embed the Olympic legacy, and would commit to funding through to at least the Olympics in Rio 2016.
• Making use of experienced and effective voluntary organisations to support families so they do not go into crisis
• Work to build robust local teams, with strong local managers, to deliver

A Fair Deal for Staff and Residents

The first act of the newly elected Council in 2009 was to vote through a payrise of £1,000 for every Councillor. The Conservatives pushed the rise though immediately after the last election, despite opposition from the Liberal Democrats who wanred to increase was unsustainable and unsupportable.

Two years later, the Conservatives finally backed down and slightly cut Councillor allowances (but not back to 2009 levels). The Liberal Democrats’ however took a cut – which we supported – of over 10% to the responsibility allowances the group receive to help the Council balance its books. Neither the Conservatives or Labour took a similar cut.

Despire such a big payrise for Councillors, the council has frozen staff pay twice in the last 4 years, and given a 1% increase to staff in the last two years, whilst at the same time shedding thousands of Council posts.

Record of Action

• The Liberal Democrats opposed the rise in Councillors allowances in 2009. Lib Dem Tim Prater invested his 2009-10 Allowance rise on a project in his local community funding a postage licence and equipment to allow a Sandgate shop to introduce postal services after the closure of the village’s Post Office.
• The Liberal Democrats took a cut of over 10% to the responsibility allowances they receive to help the Council balance its books. Neither the Conservatives or Labour took a similar cut.
• The Liberal Democrats have backed moves to see the lowest paid Kent staff receive a larger payrise, and have worked to ensure all Kent County Council staff are paid at least a living wage.

Promise of More

• The Liberal Democrats would ensure all Kent members of staff are paid at least the living wage, by abolishing KS2. We would ask all Kent schools to do the same thing.
• The Liberal Democrats want to restore public trust in Councillors – and a part of that is to be fair about the allowances we receive. We would commit that Councillor Allowances should never rise faster than the pay of our lowest paid staff. If staff get a zero rise in pay in a year, so should Councillors.