Council - Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Council
Thursday, 20th March 2025 at 6:00pm 

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  1. Cllr Anita Jones
  2. Cllr Anita Jones
  3. Dr Susan Priest
  4. Cllr Anita Jones
  5. Cllr Anita Jones
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Nicola Keen
  2. Cllr Anita Jones
  3. Councillor Tony Hills
  4. Cllr Anita Jones
  5. Cllr Anita Jones
  6. Cllr Jackie Meade
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  1. Cllr Jim Martin
  2. Cllr Anita Jones
  3. Cllr Tim Prater
  4. Cllr Anita Jones
  5. Cllr Nicola Keen
  6. Cllr Anita Jones
  7. Cllr Adrian Lockwood
  8. Cllr Anita Jones
  9. Cllr Laura Davison
  10. Cllr Anita Jones
  11. Dr Susan Priest
  12. Dr Susan Priest
  13. Cllr Anita Jones
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  1. Dr Susan Priest
  2. Cllr Laura Davison
  3. Cllr Anita Jones
  4. Cllr Stephen Scoffham
  5. Cllr Anita Jones
  6. Councillor Tony Hills
  7. Cllr Anita Jones
  8. Cllr Jackie Meade
  9. Cllr Anita Jones
  10. Cllr Jennifer Hollingsbee
  11. Cllr Jim Martin
  12. Cllr Jennifer Hollingsbee
  13. Cllr Anita Jones
  14. Cllr Jeremy Speakman
  15. Cllr Anita Jones
  16. Cllr Paul Thomas
  17. Cllr Anita Jones
  18. Cllr Tony Cooper
  19. Cllr Anita Jones
  20. Cllr Nicola Keen
  21. Cllr Anita Jones
  22. Cllr Jim Martin
  23. Cllr Anita Jones
  24. Webcast Finished

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:00:00
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:00:01
will be webcast live to the internet. Those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed,
you will need to leave the chamber. Members, officers and others speaking at the meeting,
it is important that the microphones are used so viewers on the webcast and others in the
room may hear you. Would anyone with a mobile phone please switch it to silent mode as they
can be distracting. I'd like to remind members that although we all have strong opinions
on matters under consideration, it is important to treat members, officers and public safety
speakers with respect. Please feel free to sit or stand to speak. So item one on the
agenda is apologies for absence.
Dr Susan Priest - 0:00:44
Good evening, thank you chair, evening members, colleagues, members of the public. We have

1 Apologies for Absence

six apologies for absence this evening from councillors Cuthbert Kelly, Goddard, Holgate,
Alan Martin, McShane and Councillor Walker. Thank you.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:01:01
Thank you and item two on our agenda do we have any declarations of interest this evening?
Councillor Keene?

2 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:01:09
Yeah I work for Kent County Council and my day job.
Cllr Nicola Keen - 0:01:12
Thank you Councillor Hills?
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:01:14
Yeah I'm a KCC member but obviously I'm here as folks now I think.
Councillor Tony Hills - 0:01:18
And Councillor Meade?
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:01:21
Same here, member of Kent County Council but here as a District Councillor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cllr Jackie Meade - 0:01:26
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:01:26
Any others?
Okay, so members will note that on your desks there are hard copies of the report along
with an alternative password for the Wi -Fi as there is an issue with the usual Wi -Fi
this evening.
So if you need to log in, obviously you can take your time to do that.
If not, there's a hard copy available.

3 LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION (LGR) - UPDATE AND NEXT STEPS

So we're looking at item three on the agenda, local government reorganization, and this
is the update and next steps.
And I believe Councillor Jim Martin
will be opening this for us.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Good evening, everyone.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:02:05
And I will start with an apology for dragging you
again into this chamber to talk about a local government
reorganization.
But the bad news is you're likely to be dragged
several times to talk about a local government reorganization.
This is the most significant decision that we will take.
As I've said before, I want to consult with everyone
and hear everyone's views if that is possible.
So just to give you a snapshot
in terms of where we are and something of the paperwork that's in front of you.
The 14 leaders in Kent, all 12 districts, plus KCC, plus Medway, the other unitary,
have been meeting regularly, discussing it almost endlessly
and have been working together, I think, very, very well.
Particularly, I'm sure we've all picked up stories in the press
and other places where this isn't happening,
where upper tier authorities are not cooperating with districts and boroughs
and some terrible stories of people having to get information
through Freedom of Information requests.
That is not the position in Kent.
There has been full transparency
and there's been very much a cooperative theme around this.
Everyone has their own views,
but nevertheless I think that cooperative theme
led by Rodrikov and Vince Maple, the leaders of the two unitaries,
needs to be really applauded.
So we have, as far as herding cats is possible,
we have managed to keep the full team leaders together.
And the proposal that you see before you
is the agreed submission.
So this is the submission that goes in tomorrow
to Jim McMahon, the Minister,
and this is the thoughts
of the 12 districts and the two unitaries in Kent at the moment.
Now, this is an interim submission
and I was with Adrian and Dr Preezow,
I heard the minister speak at a conference last week
where he talked very much about this being a sort of staging post,
a sense check, whatever other...
So this is a kind of snapshot of where we are at the moment.
And where we are at the moment is that all of the Kent leaders
can agree that we will split into three or four unitaries.
Now, there's been hot debate all the way through about three or four,
and you will see what's written before you.
And the work that will, shall we say, resolve that issue,
is it three, is it four, is largely yet to be done.
The final submission is on the 28th of November.
So we have the majority of this year, just about,
to try and make that submission.
Unity doesn't matter.
We don't have to act as a block.
All of the invitations to make a submission
were to us individually.
So if we wanted to,
folks in High District Council could make their own submission.
Similarly, Dover or Ashford, anyone could make their own submission.
We feel, however, that there's strength in our argument
if we can largely stand together.
So that's where we've arrived at in terms of three or four.
Some people in the leaders group have made their mind up.
They are satisfied with the evidence that they've got,
whether that is a 3 or a 4.
And others, myself included, want to do the work first.
So I will make the decision as we move forward.
Just to... There's a ton of paperwork, obviously,
but just to explain some of this,
This second document, this is the supplementary information.
Now, the supplementary information was prepared by PricewaterhouseCooper.
This was because PricewaterhouseCooper were doing some work for KCC
and KCC was able to instruct this additional work
on behalf of those districts that wanted to participate.
And they generated a whole ton of statistical information
which you can see, everything from population
to health, geography, police and crime, fire service,
etc, etc. All really useful stuff.
So there has been discussion
whether this document should be included within our submission
and there has been very much a division over that.
My own view is that we shouldn't put it in.
We should just go with our course of admission
and I'll tell you exactly why I hold that view
and I'll be very interested to hear if other people have views on this,
is I am very, very happy with all of the data.
I don't have any argument about that.
I'm interested to pursue it a bit further, find out more about it.
But when we get to section 4 and section 5,
which is the financial analysis...
Now, Price Waterhouse Cooper have done an excellent job.
You can't criticise them.
They have said financially what they think is the best solution
and have come down firmly in favour of three.
Now, I think that that sells the process short
because I think that this is a major decision
that we have to make.
And just basing it on, with huge respect to Price World, Ask Koopa,
a load of numbers being crunched, isn't the way to do it.
For me, the sense of place
has to really take priority in my mind.
We, you know,
sort of local government boundaries are one thing,
county boundaries are another thing,
But we, particularly in this district,
I feel that we have a very, very strong sense of place.
We have a long, long, deep and very varied history
to be extraordinarily proud of.
And we have a unique character, I feel.
Now, I'm not saying that that prevents us doing this or it prevents us doing that,
but it doesn't appear in this report.
So we have no sense of place, as it were, in this report.
So simply for that, I'm not keen to include it.
The very, very strong arguments that they have
around their financial analysis, in my view, are conclusive.
and it's too early to be conclusive in this process.
The Minister wants us to take until the 28th of November,
and we should take till the 28th of November.
So if we were to include this,
we would be setting ourselves on a track
that we may not be able to turn left or right on.
So that is why, and I'm very, very happy to hear what others think.
there are at least five districts, four districts,
who are, we assume, we're gonna find this out
tomorrow morning, but we think that there are four districts
that will include it, there's a couple that are still
debating it, including ourselves.
Oh, five, Dartford, Dartford is safe.
Is Dartford in or?
I can't, no, okay.
So four districts, cut that, four districts.
So there are, I use Dartford as a,
Dartford favours four, which is against the recommendation,
but so isn't including it.
Swale, Gravesham, I won't go through the list.
Tombridge and Malin, Sevenoaks, Maxton are keen to include it.
Ourselves and Canterbury have stayed on the fence all the way through
and I'm sure that's the best place to be
because there is so much information to take on board.
If we simply focus on a financial solution
then we will run ourselves into a brick wall.
I'll shut up at that.
I don't know if we could,
I'm happy to try and come back and answer any questions
that anyone's got in response.
But what I'm asking for is the views of this council.
Advice for me, cabinet will sit immediately
after this council meeting and ratify the thoughts
of this council meeting.
The intention is for myself and the Chief Executive
to have a delegated authority in order to move this forward.
But I genuinely am interested in what everybody thinks.
Thank you very much, June.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:13:55
Thank you. And we need a seconder for that.
Councillor Tim Prater, did you want to say anything when you seconded it?
Oddly, yes, thank you.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:14:04
I'll first do the Emperor's New Clothes thing because I think it's something that I want
to say, because I could rant for the next hour that local government reorganisation
is the single most destructive thing that we'd be doing at this moment, considering
a number of other government targets.
To continue to hope that Folsom High District Council can continue to play our part at full
speed in delivering, for instance, the most ambitious house -building programme in this
Folkestone and Hithe District Council seems mind -boggling,
but it does seem resistance is futile.
But every time a minister explains that they're not enforcing local government reorganisation,
and this is a bottom -up process, I'm afraid another fairy dies.
This is enforced, this is not optional, and it's not in our name.
However, if you're going to accept that there is no alternative,
then you should be working together collectively as councils in an area
to bring forward the best options that we can find.
I think that that's what is happening across Kent,
and that's what we're seeking to do,
and that's why I second Jim's signing the submission
in our packs due to go tomorrow.
Within that submission, I'm particularly endorsed
that the joint submission talks about strengthening
our town and parish councils,
that it talks about area committees
and the work that they could have within the unitary process,
and also reinforces that we should accept no less than three
ematory authorities, three or four.
I would also, though, however not support adding the supplementary paper from PwC
going as part of that submission tomorrow.
So I would ask that we do not include it.
I think it's a helpful starting point for more scrutiny,
but Jim's been much more polite than I would be about it,
because right now I don't think it's anywhere near good enough
to pretend that it gives us all of the answers that we need to actually have that discussion
and debate. It shows us a variety of geographies, it totals the number of voters in them and
gives them indicative area sizes, electorate's, incomes and indeed characteristics of each
of those areas. Great. And then from that work, PwC then draws the staggering conclusion
that if you have more councils, you'll have more councillors and you'll have more chief
executives and therefore you'll spend more money on councillor allowances and chief executive
salaries and that's where they get to. Thanks PwC, I'd guess that. But what it doesn't do
is understand the benefits and indeed the cost benefits of having more people involved
too. Let's take a different theoretical example. We could make a huge saving for all councils
tomorrow by abolishing the external audit system. Millions saved and finance offices
everywhere rejoice. The nation rejoices. But after the saving, what's the cost of that
lack of oversight and comparability and scrutiny across the piece? No one knows. They can't
tell you. They can't tell you how much money audit saves at this stage. But they would
make the point, government and auditors would make the point, that they feel that extra
process adds value and saves money in the long term. But then don't have that for having
more councillors and more scrutiny in meetings?
Because the same does apply to councils.
Of course you can have 30 councillors
attempting to represent three quarters of a million people.
But will they do that as well as smaller councils
with more councillors doing more strategy
and scrutiny and engagement involvement
with their residents?
Because all of those things might actually mean
that you do better things and you cost less money
and you save more money.
Would those 30 councillors representing three -quarters of a million people actually be able to represent
and understand their localities as well as those with smaller areas? And what are the
cost benefits of that? And this report also doesn't address the very obvious elephant
in the room, while also helpfully providing the figures that reinforce that we will end
up with an even bigger elephant. Medway council is broadly bust. It has been driven there
by the weight of adult and child social care costs.
Kent County Council is one or two years away from being bust.
It is being brought down by adult and child social care costs.
So then if we're going to build successor authorities,
on any model that PWBC present here and their numbers,
East Kent have a lower income per household than West Kent,
but a higher percentage of those over 65,
those who are economically inactive,
and those who are going to need adult and child social care support.
Although PwC decline, which is nice of them, to do any of the maths on that right now,
it's fundamental. East Kent will have a lower per capita income than the Kent -wide authority does,
and a higher per capita expenditure on adult and child social care,
and this is from a basis where Kent is going bust.
So, PwC, I offer this analysis for free, not your favourite word,
If Kent County Council is financially unsustainable today, an East Kent Authority with a lower
pro -rata income and higher pro -rata costs will be even less financially sustainable.
Now, that might be good for Kentish men, but the men of Kent will be even more bankrupt
than Kent County Council are currently.
So OK, we can take this as a starting point in terms of working through those numbers,
because somebody actually does need to sit there and work the cost of social care
and what that would mean in terms of authority.
But we need a lot of more work and analysis to do first
and some proper hard maths which this paper does not include.
We can accept, I guess grudgingly, that we are going to have to deliver a new system.
The submission, the main submission, accepts the joint principles of doing that
and builds in our work with town councils and parish councils and area committees
and making sure there is some actual localism in councils that could not
otherwise possibly be called local. But before November we've got a lot more
work to do before we should rely on the paper which is in front there yesterday.
So that's why I strongly urge that we agree that Jim signs the submission in
the 14 councils and I strongly urge that we do not include from this council the
supplementary submission written by PwC.
Thank you.
So we are now open for debate and we have Councillor
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:20:38
Keane first.
Cllr Nicola Keen - 0:20:42
I'm going to be honest, I work for Kent but I'm not in favour of
de -dilution because I know what social care costs and I know
there's no way of saving on social care.
There's no magic formula because you don't know what's around the
corner.
I think this is going to be the worst thing that can happen to
people in South and East Kent because we are not going to have the money to be able to
look after those families.
The amount of young people that come through our services is staggering and I don't see
how anybody in their right mind actually think that East and South Kent coming together is
a good idea.
I actually think the only way that this can work is if we go back to the old, when I first
started for Kent we had North, South, East and West.
South was literally Ashford down, then we had East that went round to Favisham, then
you had North which was called North West and West.
It's got to be a fair split as there are going to be children and adults in this district
that are going to suffer massively.
So I really think it's a poor idea and I think the only way you can do it is a four tier
unitary.
Three tier is not going to work.
There are going to be children and adults,
vulnerabilities left wide open for further issues.
I just think we need to think about the people
that we've got to look after
and not what we want as councils.
It's got to be four and not three.
Thank you.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:22:11
Councillor Lockwood.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Jim,
Cllr Adrian Lockwood - 0:22:18
for organising this meeting.
I know other districts and boroughs
are not having such meetings and some of them are only having cabinet meetings
I understand that though the cabinet meeting on Monday lasted 13 minutes
and that was done and dusted and this is not the meeting for me to tell you how I feel about
our cabinet existence but I'll pass on that for now. I just wanted to echo some of the things
that Jim McMahon said on Thursday,
I was lucky enough to be there
with other district council people.
The first thing he said was that devolution
and local government reorganization is not easy.
If it was easy, the last government would have done it
and they didn't.
So fair play to this government for taking it on.
the other thing he said
it was questioned quite vigorously
bear in mind this is a pretty tough gig, he's in a room with 350
leaders of councils that he's standing there saying
are going to be wiped away so not the easiest
gig for him I'm sure but he was questioned quite vigorously on the 500 ,000
limit because that I think is key, it's definitely key if you live somewhere like the
of white where you've got a population of 150 ,000 and the sea all around you.
So for us we have the three and four unitary debate. Three unitaries gives you
three lots of roughly 650, 700. Councillor Prater has already given us some
examples of why a unitary of 700 ,000 might not be a good idea.
or we have 4 unitaries and then 2 or more of them are below the 500
anyway the point that was made at the conference on Thursday was that the 500 minimum is across the 21 counties
that are taking part in this exercise, the ones that aren't already unitaries or devolved
So they're looking for a 500 as a minimum average across the whole piece.
That would allow for the Isle of Wight to continue to be a unitary as it is
and join Hampshire or Surrey or whatever they decide in that part of the country
and that would allow us to have a unitary of 350 -400 if it suits.
So with that in mind and just to make the point that was made in this room on Monday night in the public meeting
with a three unit remodel, certainly model one in the PWC report, you could have a counsellor from Broadstairs
making a planning decision on a property in Lid and I don't know how long it takes to drive from Lid to Broadstairs
but it's not an easy drive and you've got to go through Westwood cross I believe
and that's pretty sticky normally. So in terms of giving those examples like we did on Monday night
if you just give that example on its own that can be quite scary for our voters
they can think wow this could be this could be a complete mess
So what I'm going to do is propose that we talk about model 2
which is four unitaries with Folkestone and Hive District Council joining Dover and Ashford
A couple of things to point out there, you've got Seddington Inland Port, the Channel Tunnel and the Dover Ferry Port
three pieces of massive national infrastructure, they would be under one council
you'd have Dungeness, Europe's only desert, the Downs and the White Cliffs of Dover
three national, natural monuments all under one council
yes it's under 500, can we have it? Yes we can, of course we can
now if my geography is correct
and this is where the example of the Broadstairs Council on the lived properties
starts to sound a bit nonsensical
is that if my geography is correct, Folkestone and HIVE is in the middle of that group
so that makes, in my mind, Folkestone the capital of an East Kent County Council
and that sounds a lot better to me than the worst case scenario which is often cited.
So I think as a responsible council we should give both pictures.
I agree we should sign, Jim should sign this on our behalf.
We shouldn't share this because it's not balanced.
So I agree with that.
and I just think there's anybody in this country that doesn't think that local government doesn't need fixing
I just think we've got folkstons, we've got councillors here elected by the people of Folkestone
who are not making decisions in this council on behalf of the people of Folkestone
We've got a county council as described brilliantly by Councillor Prater there that's broken.
If you just take issues that people are emailing and getting in contact with us constantly.
So where does my child go to school?
Where do my grandparents get their care package?
why isn't the bin at the end of my street emptied?
Why do I have to pay to park outside my own house?
Why is my library closed?
Why, you know, with this system,
with an East 10 unitary council,
you'll have one councillor, one council,
one phone number, no confusion.
We can get rid of all of this broken stuff.
We can fix this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Davison.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:29:05
Thanks chair. Yeah, it's really just an administrative point on the
Cllr Laura Davison - 0:29:09
documentation.
Can I just be clear that the document that we're talking about submitting is the printed one that we have?
And the supplementary is the digital version?
And we don't have copies of that, just wanted to be clear about that.
Can we clarify?
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:29:29
Thank you and sorry for any confusion Councillors. So there is the submission
which is the 14 page document and there's a supplementary that is the latter part of it.
So if you go to in terms of the hard copy in front of you to be helpful, the submission is
is pages one to 14 and on page 15 you should see it's a supplementary submission.
What have you got? Why have I got to think?
Dr Susan Priest - 0:30:45
Just to clarify, the hard copy that was on your desk, pages 1 to 14 is the submission.
So that is a submission that we're talking about.
The supplementary is on the website and that's the one that has the graphics.
Dr Susan Priest - 0:31:25
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:31:26
I'm going to ask that we adjourn for a moment while we sort this out.
So we'll just take a few minutes.

3 LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION (LGR) - UPDATE AND NEXT STEPS

Dr Susan Priest - 0:31:38
Okay, so welcome back and apologies for that.
I think perhaps the Wi -Fi situation has not helped,
but now everybody's got copies.
So we'll resume our debate with Councillor Stephen Scotham.
I was still on the phone.
Sorry, no, we were still on your comments, weren't we,
Councillor Davidson?
Thank you, Chair, just partway through.
It's only brief.
I just had one other question on the supplementary paper,
Cllr Laura Davison - 0:32:04
which is, is there going to be a collective decision
around submitting that,
or are individual councils going to take a view?
Individual, okay.
And just the other thing I wanted just to emphasise,
I think it's been raised,
but is the importance of town and parish councils going into this period?
Thanks.
Thank you. So moving on to Councillor Scoffram.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:32:27
Cllr Stephen Scoffham - 0:32:31
Well, what I've heard around the room is absolutely what I want to endorse,
I think. Just a very few sort of headlines, as it were.
The letters from Jim McMahon struck me
that this was something that was being done to us.
And not only was it being done to us,
but it's over to you, mate, to see how you can make it work.
There's no question about it. We've got a bright idea.
You don't really know what it means, but you make it work.
So that's the... I don't need to go into the details,
but that's just my general feeling about the whole process.
And making it work is where we are.
I recognise reality as it were,
so making it work is what I'm talking about, really.
Representation, I quite agree with you, Adrian.
I'm really worried about a unitary
which has somebody in Broadstairs deciding what happens in LID,
because there's no way you could expect to have
that sort of level of synoptic understanding of a district that size.
And equally, if you're in LID,
it's very difficult to have that synoptic understanding
of a more distant part of the unitary around the North Kent coast.
So it works both ways.
And equally the numbers add up very unfavourably.
You're much less likely to have a direct contact with your councillor.
And when you do, that councillor is part of a very much larger council.
You're talking of a council of 100. I've not got that experience.
Jackie and Tony are much more familiar with what it's like
than a bigger council, but I would guess that you don't have so much say.
You're not too likely to do that.
So I recognise as well in the discussion that model two,
which puts Folkestone in the centre with Ashford on one side,
Dover on the other side, the corridor that runs through,
links us in all sorts of different ways.
That seems to make sense.
And it reflects the underlying geology as well, in fact,
because you've got the North Downs on it,
all the corridor goes.
That communication corridor is at the base of the communications corridor.
So that makes sense.
I did see the word sensible geography in the white paper or the report.
I think that's a sensible geography in many ways.
It's a sensible economic geography.
But it's also coming back to the point you were making, Jim,
about the place and the unique place that we are in.
I think that it recognises that
and being aware that we do have some very special landscapes,
we have some very special communities,
because of a very special culture and history in this part of the world,
that comes together neatly in model 2.
So I'm in favour of that.
I was very pleased to see...
Well, before I go there, the relationship with parish and town councils.
The only word I saw in the documentation from the government
was about rewiring.
What on earth does rewiring mean?
I'm on in favour of metaphors, they're very powerful,
but they do need to be supported.
It's a bit more of this game, we've had a bright idea,
you tell us what it means, you tell us what rewiring means.
Well, it's really difficult, isn't it?
And I think that the town councils may have more scope
for taking on more responsibilities,
and they're more used to doing that.
I think the parish councils will find it considerably harder
and need a lot more support.
And how does that work out and what are the implications of that?
So I just wanted to flag this up.
Councillor Davidson, I entirely agree with you about that point.
Other things, I welcome the way it crops up in the various papers
that we've got, but staff briefings
and the way in which transparency is being foregrounded
by this council and the way in which officers and employees
here have been kept abreast of what's going on,
and indeed the public consultation that has been happening
as early as this week, wasn't it?
I think we had the public consultation.
That was a really good move and I'm really pleased to see what we're doing.
We can't do very much in the time, but it's very good to see that happening.
I do wonder...
I wonder about a lot of things that are going on here,
but perhaps I should just skip towards the end
and say supplementary paper makes some good points maybe,
but it does try to sketch...
This is coming from a completely different direction.
It does try to sketch a general context.
The context that we're in is climate change.
I've not done a search on it.
I don't see any mention of the existential threat
which threatens us all and which is significant for us all.
I happened to be with a group of army officers earlier today
I was surprised, I don't know why I should be surprised,
at the end of it they said,
climate change is really important, this matters to us a lot.
I was talking with them about their estate
because the MOD have a very large estate within our district.
They were absolutely upfront, this matters to us a lot.
I just think this ought to be in the paperwork somewhere
because this is the context in which we're going to be operating
It needs to be acknowledged because it's going to become more and more prominent
and require more attention.
So those are some general sort of...
Hopefully they'll just sort of share some thoughts about where we are.
Thank you.
Oops, sorry.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:38:02
Councillor Hills.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm all set up for more comfortable.
Councillor Tony Hills - 0:38:12
First things, I don't often agree with Tim Crater,
But I think...
But I did make some very good points.
But the important point is bank is,
I think Kent is not bankrupt.
And yes, in two years time it might run out of funding
and borrowing and the rest of it,
but it all depends what the government does
between now and then.
But we have fantastic officers in Kent,
and we have fantastic officers in this council.
And I think the way Jim has actually handled this
has been superb.
Again, what am I doing? I'm green.
But he'd done a great job.
And so have our officers.
And really I should be congratulated.
I don't know any other district is doing what we're doing.
And that meeting Monday night was excellent.
It was not bad to have it, it was even, it was considered,
and there were some very good interactions.
So I think that's great.
Now, going on, this has been forced on us
from December 16th it came in.
We have no choice. We're told what to do.
There are only little worker bees.
And we basically have a difficult job in hand.
Jim has a difficult job in hand in the position.
But he's giving his best view, his honest view,
and I think the cabinet will do the same thing.
In Kent, I serve on a regional committee.
This is a Southern Regional Family Clothes Committee.
How surprising.
It goes from South London to below the Isle of Wight.
It's a massive committee.
But it functions very well, because it's well -resourced
to the good offices of the Environment Agency.
So we do know our subjects.
And I would say, be bold, be brave and be confident.
We can hack this. It's not our choice,
but we have to get it right for our residents.
Because that's what we do this for.
And I would say the three model,
I'm now around popular about saying this, number one on the list,
is the version I would have to give us the most financial stability.
and that's what matters first.
Now, if I tell them at Maystone on a regular basis,
I'm closer to Benoit than I am to Maystone.
And they say, you have to fight your corner.
I've got 20 ,000 people I represent from up in March.
And how's that gonna function in this sort of setup?
You might have two councillors for the whole of March.
You'll need some form of area committee.
So I was talking to my parish council
when we were eight in March.
or near some sort of area committees,
has an interface between that and the nutrient.
That's all to be decided.
I mean, it's quite exciting in a strange way,
because we have opportunities to actually shape that.
But it's not our choice.
We had to do as we were told.
But I'd like to say it's...
I think our officers have done a great job, so I really think that's good.
Stephen's spot on.
Climate change is our big threat.
and 28 is my key date.
In 2018, the forecast from that office
at my recent,
can you see, flood risk,
they say four degree temperature rise by 2080.
That is cataclysmic.
I don't think people realize,
it's not simply the rest of the sea temperature will go up,
we'll be having hurricanes.
And our coastline won't take that very happily.
And in the moment, they still have no intention
of defending the whole coastline.
The island of Fannock, it's really been an island again.
So we have, and the marsh could be underwater.
It could, I won't let it, but it could.
And what I'm saying is that we're looking at a 40 centimeter
rise in sea level by 2080, that's the forecast, or more.
And groundwater is our big threat in this county.
It's a county -wide problem, and then after four years,
it'll be a unitary -wide problem.
But these guys, we're working together.
a strategic mayor authority, I think there's clues in the word, strategic.
So they'll be given guidance on Pan -Tent things.
But I would say the maps we've got in the district as they are,
there's no guarantee those district boundaries will be kept.
The boundary commission will have a view about this.
I've dealt with them in the past. They are very focused.
And I think this could be cut up to make sure we get the right shape of people,
activities, whatever.
But that's all to be decided.
We've got the 28th of November, I believe, to get it works out.
But I think this castle's done a fantastic job.
Better than anybody else in the country.
And they're starting for a high -spy point.
So I hope the cabinet will consider this.
It's got my support on this.
And as I say, option number one is I would go for
to give us a good, sound, natural bass.
And then it's all the things we have to overlay.
services, NHS, whatever, education.
At Kent, I've got over 10 ,000 officers.
These officers will be working in the unitaries.
It's a complete step change under pressure.
Adult social care is a nightmare pressure.
It's growing, I think, by 26%.
You can't carry on like that with your finance and funding.
But it can all be done in a proper way going forward.
So I can go on for hours but I won't.
Good luck.
Thank you.
And Councillor Meade.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:43:43
Obviously listening very carefully to the various viewpoints.
Cllr Jackie Meade - 0:43:48
I'll be honest with you, probably about 30 to 40 %
of my inbox as a county councillor is spent having to signpost people to where they need
to be talking to people. Unfortunately people see the word council or councillor and they
think that everyone deals with everything which is why quite often our town hall are
getting emails and visitors from people who are worried about social care. So the very
fact that we will, as we go into the unitary, actually have one number for the majority
of services will actually make things an awful lot easier for our residents. When it comes
to planning, you know, oh but we won't know this area, well guess what, I'm on KCC planning.
You know, if the reports are put together properly, you can see any issues, any breaches
in the law, any loopholes.
That's part of our job.
We talk to the residents of different areas.
It's part of our job.
It can easily be done.
And in fact, at the moment, I'm talking to the whole of Kent.
We bring it down, actually makes the job that much easier.
But it is a step change for people who haven't had to do that yet.
Be a steep learning curve, it always is.
Anyone who gets onto Kent County, the learning curve is like this.
But it's by no means impossible.
What I would say, Jim, is you may or may not be aware that Kent County passed a motion
to ensure that all of the town and parishes were fully involved.
Now I'm not seeing completely whether that's happening at the moment,
but if you need to wave a flag with that, that has been passed at KCC,
so you can use that to start talking to people.
The exciting part about all of this is that we get to shape the future.
And it's how we decide that this unitary in a whole should run, whether it be with area
committees or whether we'll be doing it through the parish councils and the town councils,
which is also a possibility.
But we get to look at that and we get to shape that.
So yes, there's an awful lot of work over the next six months to put that report together.
But I think everyone in this chamber would be happy to support putting that visualisation together on how this will work.
Personally, and it's my own view having looked at it and worked at KCC, the fore -unitary for me works.
You talk about place, well Dover through Folkestone, the Marsh, up to Ashford is a perfect.
We are so similar, but also so different, that it actually strengthens us.
So that would be my personal one.
I think we would actually make a really strong unitary if we had that as a four part.
So that would be my pennies worth, shall we, for what it's worth. Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Mrs Hollingsby.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:47:17
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Jennifer Hollingsbee - 0:47:22
Very interesting debate so far and I'd just like to reiterate my thanks to Jim for all
the engagement that he's arranged.
I think at the end of the day the government are going to tell us what we should be doing.
I think we can make all the noises that we want to make but at the end of the day we're
going to be told.
And I think also, it will depend on what other districts
decide or would like, because if Canterbury decides
that they'd rather not be with Swale and Fannett,
that's not what they want, what effect does that have on us?
So I do think it has to be agreed with all the leaders.
Can I just ask a question in terms of,
I think you said that leaders individually
will be submitting, is that right?
So some leaders will be submitting
the additional submission and others won't.
Is that, am I correct in that understanding?
Councillor Jim Martin.
Leaders are free to make whatever submission they want.
What we've got in Kent is the principal submission is all 14 of us.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:48:47
We feel that gives it great strength.
There are some councils in the west who are going to add,
we think, you know, that will happen tomorrow,
but we are talking up that they are going to submit
what we have from Crosswalk House Cooper thus far.
the county arm and the majority of us arm.
So there's various discussions about different side letters
and things like this going on,
but effectively we've stood together in terms of three or four.
There are, we understand, perhaps some side letters being prepared
by individual leaders that express their opinion
in terms of what would work best for them.
We feel that the work has to be done
before genuinely I could express an opinion one way or another.
Because we haven't started with adult social care yet.
I just do not know the impact of that.
Thank you for answering that because I think that's quite important.
Cllr Jennifer Hollingsbee - 0:50:05
But of course, if other districts do actually submit the submission, then obviously that's
out in the open, it's in the public domain in terms of government, so the government
will see that.
Although Council Lockwood says that 500 ,000 is the figure over a number of councils, I
I suspect that that in terms of what the government want is actually a minimum of 500 ,000.
I think that.
And I think we should be looking at, I totally agree with Councillor Hill's, the five unit
model.
However, I do feel that we shouldn't put in that submission this time.
We do need to look at further data.
I mean I think the Price Waterhouse Cooper
is a very good report and I certainly looked
at the financial analysis and I thought,
well that seems to me the most sensible way to go.
However, I agree with you in that we need
a bit more in terms of the statistics
and of course obviously,
Kent County Council and Bedway Council
being split up if you like
and us taking the social care, as you say,
it's going to be spread out,
but we want to know exactly what the cost is going to be.
And I think that will be the same with all districts,
not just us.
So I think it's important that we do find that information,
but I personally think that the five district councils
and boroughs is the right way to go,
but I want proof that that is.
and 5 -28th of November, hopefully we will have that.
Thank you. Councillor Speakman.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:52:00
Thank you. I'm still struggling about how a top -down directive
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:52:05
hardened a number of councils is an improvement
on the democratic process, but I guess I've just got to work on that.
But taking that forward, there does seem to me there's going to be a gap,
quite a significant gap between the unitary authority
and then the next tier. And I'm a bit confused and maybe somebody can illuminate this for me,
but it's not to talk about area committees and they seem to be another tier between unitary
authorities and because it also says, it says designing such mechanisms as area committees
with specified functions delegated under the constitution of the new unitary councils.
The future role of town and parish councils is also an important consideration. So it sounds
you've got area committees being considered and parish and town councils.
Personally, I think that's just adding another layer which I thought the whole idea was we're
going to streamline the whole thing. I would like to see actually what you call the area
committees or just much improved and much empowered town and parish councils. I think
that would be a real role for town and parish councils to have delegated powers to be looking
off to their parks, their hedgerows and have the budget to do that and that the people
who serve on the pirates' councils have some form of remuneration to make it meaningful.
But I think I'm going to have to comment on that.
Thank you.
Councillor Thomas.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:53:32
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:53:38
I think in section four financial analysis,
in the last paragraph,
as she says, in terms of a balanced review,
a three unit view model is the most efficient
based on cost.
And what that says to me is all those other factors
that affect the functioning of a unit view authority
haven't been considered yet.
And I think that fits in with the point that Jim's made,
the point that Jackie and what Nicky was saying
earlier on as well.
So for me, I think it's almost like the conclusions have been made to fit the data that's been presented to us.
And I think there's a gap there that we need to fill.
And that gap is to see far more data than we've got currently.
There's nothing in here about those things, I mean Tony sort of touched on it earlier on,
about Kent County Council and where they are with reserves.
There's nothing in here that you can hang your hat on for things like debt management,
how death is going to be serviced in the future.
The impact that that's likely to have on social care provision.
There's an awful lot of questions that have not been answered in here yet.
So I think the whole thing about not presenting this at the moment,
because it is an incomplete piece of work, there's no two ways about that.
But I think the other bit in here, which has come out very strongly
and has been mentioned by a number of speakers tonight,
is this lower level of democratic representation
and the impact that that has.
When I was talking to Conor earlier on,
we were saying all those things that we can do as councillors currently
with helping our residents,
our grant scheme that we're able to help with at this moment in time,
all of that is going to be affected.
The things that we can do to help the people in the street
to achieve the things that they want to in our communities,
it's not addressed at all in here.
So I think there's still an awful lot of things that we need to see
before we can go ahead with that.
What we also have to remember, and there's a piece in here for each of the different options
about things like housing targets and how that is going to change depending on the type of
unitary authority you have. And what we have to remember is, in parallel with all of this,
is the change to planning law that's going to go ahead, that's going to be having to run in parallel.
So there's an awful lot of other factors feeding into this which will ultimately affect the functioning
and the staffing of future unitaries.
And the other thing on staffing as well is,
the impact that it'll have on,
how do we manage the redundancies?
Because there will be lots of jobs as a consequence of this.
What's the impact on the pension funds?
And how does that affect what we do in the future?
So for me there's an awful lot of things really
that are not included in here,
but a fairly fundamental for us to understand,
before we can make a decision about how do we have
a properly functioning unitary authority going forward.
I know we've got in the programme a year of shadow working
before we jump ship and re -burn that particular platform,
but is that going to be long enough for us to shake all of this out?
And I have real concerns about being able to do that, yes.
So they're the points I just wanted to make. Thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Cooper.
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:56:55
Thank you, Chair. I think Paul made some relevant good points there.
And basically, I think we should go with four.
Cllr Tony Cooper - 0:57:00
Because with four, irrespective of the number of 500 ,000 residents,
bearing in mind, if you did join me, that's good.
We've got Otterpool to come up with some,
and Aspen is also growing all the time in its applying applications
and its residents.
So there's scope there to include future residents in that number.
I would also suggest for example, earlier on Jim you said in answer to the question
you said there for example in relation to comments made by the other tent leaders
I was already made up their minds you said you'd make that decision then.
Can I ask who were those councils and what did they decide then?
That's question number one.
Question number two, I think we should also consider once we've decided which option we're going with or whatever
that we should also find out what the other councils are doing
and maybe meet up with them.
Because it's a waste of time we've sat in this chamber.
The third of us here is saying, one, two and three,
if we don't know what the people in Nashville are saying
or the people in Dover are saying,
because they could be saying something completely different.
So I think it's important we know what they're saying
and also I think it's important that we realise
how much debt is going to be created as a result of the abolition of the UKCC,
given the amount of debt.
and how is that going to be distributed to the residents?
I also think, among other things, that it is important that people are not too far removed.
Okay, Tony might represent the Marsh, Jackie might represent Folsom East, etc.
But up in Maidstone, what do the people in Maidstone know what goes on down here?
And vice versa.
And you've just got to replicate that and see what it is.
But I think we should get over the options here with the four.
I think that would be best in everyone's interest and self.
That's me on personal demand. Thanks.
Thank you and would anybody else like to speak?
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:58:48
I've already spoken but...
Cllr Nicola Keen - 0:58:53
I just wanted to finish off what I was going to say earlier.
Okay that's fine.
But I think we've got to remember this isn't about what we want,
this is about what's best for the residents of our district and our county.
And I don't want to see any child or adult suffer because we played roulette with our social services,
with our adult, we've got children and adult services
and people seem to forget that.
Kent aren't bankrupt because they've been bad with money.
They're bankrupt because we haven't had enough money
to cover what we've got.
So I think at the end of the day,
let's remember this isn't about councils,
this is about residents in this county.
Thank you, so just before Jim sums up,
Cllr Anita Jones - 0:59:35
I'd just like to thank everybody for their contributions.
There's been a really good debate this evening
and it's really good that we've had this opportunity to do this.
So, thank you that actually we've been given the opportunity
for the whole Council to be involved in this process.
And I'll pass them to Jim for closing comments.
Thank you very much, Chair, and thanks, everyone, for your individual views.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:59:59
They're all very valuable to me, and please don't stop.
Do let me have your thoughts as they develop,
and they will definitely develop.
I'll start with Nicky's really, really good point.
In terms of the Kent leadership, we haven't even begun to address that.
The difficulty is, I think, as somebody else,
this is being done to us, this isn't us doing it.
We didn't choose this.
As I said at one of the, as we can do individual submissions,
I would happily, if we could, make a submission for the unitary authority of Folsom and Hyde.
That would suit me.
But that's not the way of the world.
Personally, I believe this is an erosion of local democracy.
There will be less councillors. There's no way around that.
But again, there's no veto.
We can't step out of this process.
That would be an application of our responsibility
as residents elected representatives.
So we'll all fight for what Nicky has been
quite rightly outlining there.
I can't tell you conclusively, Tony,
the way that the individual count.
I've got a strong indication, but so far it's all been rhetoric.
We will know tomorrow when those who choose to sign
what particular part of the submission they do.
And we think that there will be those who are in the same boat as us,
that they feel there's more work to be done, and they're not including it,
and there will be others who feel it's a strong steer
and we should include it.
As I say, the supplementary information when you read it,
it's full of really valuable statistics.
It's sections four and five, the financial analysis,
which I think, as Councillor Thomas said,
it just points us in a particular direction,
focuses wholly on that when there's a whole plethora
of other factors that we need to bring in.
So I'm very grateful to everyone for the debate.
If I have missed anybody's burning question,
I'm very, very happy to talk endlessly about it.
Afterwards.
So I'll conclude on that if I may,
Chair, just with my grateful thanks, sorry,
to the officers as well.
In particular, our Chief Executive has been not only
looking after me as I negotiate the Kent leaders,
meeting but also has been meeting separately with Kent
chief executives just to make sure that all the spellings
are correct and we get the horse in front of the cart,
et cetera, et cetera.
So you know, but the senior management team and just about,
well I won't say everyone in the council, but you know,
already the reach of local government reorganization
is deep within this organization and it's gonna get deeper.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
So the Cabinet will be taking on board all your comments this evening and we are asked
just to note the report.
Cllr Anita Jones - 1:03:35
So I think we need to disagree that we're going to note the report.
No.
Agreed.
Okay, thank you.
And that closes the meeting, so we'll close there.
Thank you very much for coming out this evening.