County Council elections will be held on this Thursday 4 June 2009

Labour have been the main opposition Group at Norfolk County Council for the past four years. We have continued to challenge the Conservative administration on all issues but in particular the annual Budget. Labour have repeatedly offered up reduced council tax increases and improved council services for consideration but they have been thrown out without consideration.

 Now we ask the people of Norfolk to trust us with their support so that we can implement affordable quality services. We want to make life better for all Norfolk residents.

 We pledge not to increase Council Tax by more than 2% a year.*

 We have outlined our main commitments to future policy and believe that Norfolk can be stronger and offer much more opportunities for all to share, not just the few.

 Norfolk County Labour Party

For the County Elections 4^th June 2009

 * Since the last County election, under the Tories, Council Tax Band D has gone up from £1004 to £1124 – an extra £120 or 11.88 %

 Labour will provide better Children’s Services

Norfolk has received a lot of funding from the Labour Government for new or updating of local schools.

Lack of direction by the County Council has resulted in many schools being classified by OFSTED as weak or poor.

 Pupil results are a postcode lottery because of failure to adapt the structures and the impact of social and economic deprivation in particular in Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford

The aspiration and achievement levels have not improved – in some areas they have actually become worse. We do not believe that the young people in Norfolk are less able than those in surrounding areas. Nor do we believe that teachers in Norfolk are less capable than others. So the issue that must be resolved is the support, training and structures that need to be set to ensure improvement.

Our aspirations for Norfolk’s children are straightforward and ambitious:

• provide excellent universal services for all children and their families
• be able to identify potential problems early, before things go wrong
•  do something quickly to help children and their families get back on track when children are at risk

Labour will –             

-    improve standards for all pupils in    their local schools.

-         Encourage opportunities for all to learn and achieve their full potential.

-         Provide more help and support for Foster Parents

-         Will make sure that all Government funding for Education goes to local schools.

-         Provide more training and support to the 4,000 + School Governors

-         Provide sufficient number of places for children with special educational needs within easy travelling distance from home.

-         Remove and replace all temporary classrooms

-         Every school to have access to good playing fields and high quality sports equipment

-         Subsidies access to holiday play schemes and sports

-         Offer every looked after-child a job with the County Council when they leave care

-         Provide at least one additional Youth worker to each of the five areas.

 Labour will provide better Adult Social Care Services

 This is the second highest budget and in common with many other counties the weakest of all the services provided by the County. Norfolk has one of the highest percentages numbers of older people per population so that it is understandable that local services are stretched.  In recent years, the Conservatives have consistently refused to substantially increase the budget to meet increased need. They claim not to have cut front-line service but the impact has been felt elsewhere a short term policy which might be acceptable.  The main impact has been to place more responsibility on the voluntary care service providers.

Labour will –

-         Provide additional support to enable more people to live in their own homes for longer- including shopping services, telemedicare, falls service and unplanned need.

-         Increase the number of individual assessment and service packages tailored to the individual

-         Work alongside the Voluntary Sector and establish a Social Enterprise Unit to provide more personalised care

-         Increase working with local NHS to provide better  co-ordinated care and support

-     Extend dial a ride facilities to enable greater mobility

 -         Provide more options for those people going to a residential home with more houses provided directly by the County.

-          Build more ‘Very’ Sheltered Housing schemes. Increase amount run by County council such as Harriet Court in Norwich, Laburnum Grove in Thetford , The Lawns in Great Yarmouth , Lisbon Court in Kings Lynn and Benjamin Court in Cromer .

-         Improve support and training to voluntary Carers

-         Continue to provide free swimming for over 60’s at local facilities

 Labour will create a better Environment

 Reality of global warming and higher cost of resources means that in our homes, at work or the services we use there is now a real need to demonstrate that the environment is high on our collective agendas.  Positive action and planning in using the right product or service can have huge impact on both the locality and financial savings.

We need to support locally-produced foods, products and services – that’s not just good for the environment it is also good for Norfolk economy too.

Labour will strive to achieve Norfolk becoming the most Green County in England

 Labour will –

-         Research the most environmentally-friendly alternatives for dealing with waste that can not be recycled or re-used

-         Work with the District Councils, Chambers of Commerce and private sector to significantly improve the amount of recycled commercial waste.

-         Recycling and re-use has to be given a high priority. We will radically change the amounts and type of waste that domestic users can take to the recycling centres – to ensure a maximum of materials are recycled. In addition we would establish re-use centres  for  DIY materials etc

-         Run a environment and carbon test on every proposed Norfolk County Council decision so that the most sustainable decision can be made even if this is not the cheapest financially in the shorter term.

-          Provide a free check to every house in the County to see if cavity wall or roof insulation could install and help people access grants and free entitlements.

-         Carry out a fit-for-purpose check on all County Council property including a sustainability test.

-         All new build County Council property will have to meet sustainable building criteria.

-          Ensure that all new County buildings are designed and built to high environmental standards, using sustainable   materials and underground heat sourced as well as use of grey water to minimise water usage.

-         Plan for every school to switch to the most environmentally-friendly and cost effective way to heat and provide power for the school

-         Reconsider the criteria for subsidies to local buses so that quality of service is assurured and that bus and rail connectivity is improved.

-    Promote the free bus travel card for the elderly introduced by the Labour Government and       ensure that it can be used on Norfolk’s Park and Ride services.

-         Introduce a Youth Travel Card. This ‘smart’ card would provide half fare on buses and trains within Norfolk for all 14 to 19 year olds and be linked to other local discount schemes such as sports centres and cinemas.

-         Continue to lobby for improvements to the A47 and A11 and improved rail services.

-         – Extend cycle routes in particular routes to schools

-         Have 20mph  speed limits outside each school

Continue to support the building of the Northern Distributor Route to relieve the pressure of traffic on Norwich and its northern suburbs. This will enable us to provide fast and reliable public transport in and around Norwich and improve the environment for walkers and cyclists.

 -          Oppose the growing of GM crops within the County-owned farms and encourage tenants to farm organically.

-         Maintain a modern and properly equipped Fire Protection service and Emergency Flood Warning system with specific officer training to deal with flood emergencies

 Labour will provide better Library and cultural services 

 Libraries are one of the most used County services and play an important part of local communities and individual development.

Culture can have a great commercial and educational impact on both individuals and the wider community. Norfolk has some great local museums, which are well loved and valued by all that use them.

Tourism is the largest industry with the County which means they play a big role in terms of employment and local business.

Labour will –

-         Provide free access to all County Council run museums

-         Establish a Trust to manage a new Art Gallery in Norwich to display the many fine arts that currently are in storage and not accessible to the public.

-         Extend opening times of all libraries and where space allows to integrate more local services under one roof

-         Abolish the reservation charges for ordering  library books 

-         Work more closely with Norfolk tourism organisations to attract more visitors to the county.

Labour will invest in the community 

Investment is crucial to bring about development and new job opportunities. We also need to be mindful of the social impacts.

Local communities be they Parish Councils or Community Associations need to be involved in local decision-making. Labour would ensure that in any community in any County led development or provision of services, that there was community ownership.

Labour will –

-         Provide ‘locality funding ‘ so that councillors  can develop and action very local schemes which have been agreed with local residents

-         With Government and European assistance create regeneration schemes to attract new jobs in particularly in areas of  high levels of deprivation  such as Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford

-         Give special attention to Crime prevention. Working with the Police and District councils, ensure that crime and anti social behaviour is not tolerated. Simple solutions can often be the most constructive – for example, in some areas alleygate’s have reduced house and shed burglaries by 60%. No crime is acceptable. We are fortunate in having a low level of crime in Norfolk but

Labour will be working to make Norfolk the safest county in England.

-         Strive for a planned and balanced approach to new development with a mixed approach  to establish communities not building plots

-         Ensure that all the 2^nd homes council tax is used to provide affordable housing and that suitable

     County owned land is made available for affordable housing projects.

-         Work with District councils to ensure a co-ordinated approach and quotas of affordable housing are met.

-         Lobby for firms to re-locate to Norfolk in particularly those that offer good training, and apprenticeship schemes.

-         Support the retention of local post offices , and support community enterprise ‘co-ops’

-         Create new opportunities for young people to get into farming and agriculture

-         Create a one telephone number to report all none emergencies  such as graffiti,  failed lamp lights, stray dogs , anti social behaviour etc

-         Extend opportunities for residents to invest in  Credit Unions throughout Norfolk

Thank you for reading this. 

 Anti-social behaviour halted by multi-agency work Local people in Mile Cross will see a difference in their community following the positive work of their local policing team. The Mile Cross, Catton and Fiddlewood Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) has worked with the community to address general anti-social behaviour caused by youths in Clare Close, Mile Cross, which was impacting on the resident’s quality of life and caused intimidation.

Officers from the Mile Cross SNT responded to the increased number of calls from local people with a high level of uniformed patrols in the area with the aim to target potential offenders and offer reassurance to the local residents. Homeowners in the area were asked to help and to report any incident or problems to the police. As a result and through community intelligence the policing team visited two particular addresses which were the catalyst to the problem.

Multi-agency work was carried out by police, council and letting agencies who visited the properties where the occupiers were warned about their unacceptable behaviour, one resident received a final warning and one person was asked to leave with immediate effect.

As a result of the SNT’s proactive investigation, the anti-social behaviour in the area has been resolved. Local residents have thanked the team for their assistance in resolving the problem in a quick and efficient manner and they look forward to the close being a happy and tranquil place the close has been for many years. Inspector Marie James said:

“I am pleased to say that local officers used their resourcefulness to quickly identify and deal with unnecessary behaviour which was impacting on other local residents. I hope that their prompt actions will offer reassurance to the local community that such criminal activity and anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated. This was a team effort between the community, SNT, council and local homewners/letting agencies which has dealt effectively with a problem that was causing widespread concern.

For more information or to contact the Mile Cross, Catton and Fiddlewood SNT call 0845 456 4567 or e-mail sntmilecrosscattonfiddlewood@norfolk.pnn.police.uk

Issued by Gemma Cooper on 28/05/2009 15:15:23

Dear Elector,

As your Mile Cross County Councillor I have continued to lead the Labour Group on Schools and all Children’s issues as well as helping many of you withspecific constituency problems. I work closely with my City Councillor colleagues, Ian Gibson MP and Richard Howitt MEP. This means that Mile Cross is robustly represented at all levels of government by a strong Labour team.

A successful election result on June 4th will help keep this in place. Mile Cross hits many Labour targets at all these levels for investment and action to make residents lives better.

These elections will be held with the Euro elections on 4th June. The current international financial environment needs strong leadership at all levels so I would urge you to also support our Labour MEPs who work within the most effective alliance in the European Parliament. Whatever happens next will not work well in a narrow insular nationalist arena. The other big issue for us all, as I know all too well as a grandparent, is that we have no choice but to put the environment at the very top of our list, even above the current financial difficulties. 

Don’t forget, under the European election all votes carry equal weight so not voting is not a smart option. 
Peter has championed Mile Cross as your County Councillor for the last 4 years.

Here is a lists a few of his achievements:-

A significant special grant was negotiated from Norfolk Children’s Services budgets that enabled the Phoenix to finally open.

The transformation of local schools with the opening last September of a brand new £5m primary school and the £10m re build at Sewell Park College. Both were nationally Labour funded.

Peter Works closely with Ian Gibson MP & Richard Howitt MEP so Mile Cross residents are represented on their doorstep through to the wider international arena

Peter is campaigning for County Community Action Budgets. These would be in your local councillor’s hands to directly fund your projects cutting the bureaucracy and giving you a direct say.

He is leading the campaigning to keep  the £1.5m Labour financed deprivation money targeted to our children and community but cut by the Tories in their last budget.

Peter says,

 ”Don’t be fooled we are not all the same and your vote really does count. Please help me to continue to help you”

 For me 2008 was the launch year for this blog, the year China impressed the world with its ability to match and better the West in spectacle and ability to deliver in Western terms. It was also year that the American people may finally have rejected the “American Way” and its consequences to the world’s economy, ecology, stability and future. The Obama phenomenon is mostly about a new chance to rethink some of the old ways and it will have the powerful impetus of the break down of capitalism to drive this forward. I do however have some slight deja vu moments in writing this that remind me of the Blair opportunity that has proved to be largely but not entirely wasted.

 I only have an old fashioned “O” level in economics but there does seem to be a number of fundamental flaws in the simple supply and demand market process and I recall upsetting one of my tutors by challenging this some 45 years ago. The world does not have unlimited resources: if money represents a means of exchange for goods and services then you cannot invent money by typing in zeros on a keyboard. Then, there is the motivation side of the equation. Are we really only motivated by increasing our bank balances. I do not subscribe to any particular religion but I could not accept that there is not a spiritual reason for us living and working. We have just celebrated Christmas (or should I say eXmas) but how many of us couldn’t wait to get to Woolly’s to take advantage of the loss of an icon and many jobs? The problem is we mostly do not make the links between opportunities to benefit from personal gain and the real cost to others whether the virtual slavery that has produced much of our imported goods or now more directly the impact here at home when it all goes belly up. Mrs Thatcher was famously misquoted as saying that “there is no such thing as society” well actually she was close to prophesying where we could be if there is not a proper response to the global position we now find ourselves in.  Gordon, bless him, and other world leaders feel duty bound to try to prevent an even worse scenario. The truth is that it is not a British problem or an American one but a problem for an expanding human race that is running out of space and maybe time to find another way.

A personal view of course, but maybe we should be looking after the fundamentals rather than the mechanisms of managing our joint wealth. Maybe if we looked more toward saving the planet and all its inhabitants then methods of exchange and transferring the limited real wealth that we all borrow/share during our lifetimes we might find better ways towards a more sustainable life support system that we call Earth.

Thank you for reading this.

Happy New Year (forget the “and prosperous” let’s concentrate on the Happy for once!)

Thank you to those who have contacted me privately as well as those who have posted comments. Please feel free to continue to do so. Finally may I thank all of you who have helped me in so many different ways this year, and there are many of you, some not realising just how much.

For months now Norfolk County Council’s Labour group has been urging the freeing up of the Tory war chest to provide better services and facilities to the current tax payers rather than stuffing millions in the bank. But alas their prudence did not extend to heed the warnings and excesses of an under regulated capitalist system that its National leaders had supported in the past particularly under their revered ex-leader Mrs Thatcher.

County Hall

Labour has for a number of years consistently urged the Tories to invest more on prevention services for both the young and old. This lack of investment means that many vulnerable people, often those ending up in care in expensive provision, have not been served well and neither have the tax payers who support them. Is it then ironic that the Tories, so wedded to saving cash rather than investing to save and at the same time improving the lot of Norfolk’s most vulnerable, are in the headlines as one of the worst hit by the Icelandic banking disaster.

Today a statement to Norfolk County Council’s Cabinet by the Conservative Leader seems a little unfitting in this context. A lot about money – little about people.

“I want to take the opportunity afforded by Cabinet this morning to provide further information on the current financial situation in relation to the County Councils lending to Icelandic banks.

“The County Council currently has some £300m of cash invested with banks and financial institutions which meet the Council’s required high credit rating investment criteria.

“This cash represents money received in advance of it being required to meet the cost of our services and the capital programme in 2008/09.  In total this year we expect to spend £1.7bn. It also represents the cash required to support the Council’s reserves and provisions.

“Investment of surplus cash in this way is standard practice for local authorities.  For Norfolk it has generated some £39m of interest over the past 3 years and will generate some £15m in the current year. This income has been used to hold down levels of Council Tax and to improve our services.

“£32.5m of the Council’s investments is with 3 Icelandic Banks which have now been taken into receivership by the Icelandic Government and their accounts frozen.”

Monday October 13th

For related artilcle in NEN click here

So its to be an all Norfolk plus a bit solution – or is it?
The boundary committee probably has got it right, in their terms, in that it is clearly easier and more logical to transfer the 20% services current provided by the district councils to the 80% by the County Council.

Chirman of Boundary Committee - Max Caller

They have also listened to the good folks of Gt Yarmouth and Lowestoft who have rightly convinced them that because of the many strong social and economic links in common they should be considered together. The good folks of Norwich have also demonstrated that they have a case in that they are a regional centre and feel that they are currently ignored by the Tory controlled County Council too much.Very few people take long to convince that a unitary solution is the only option if for no other reason the Government and the Boundary Committee has consistently said so. The problem is that from the residents and democracy’s point of view is an all Norfolk with Lowestoft acceptable. Many Tories at County Hall are delighted as they will see a permanently blue horizon with all other Parties increasingly marginalised. That can not be good for democracy or Norfolk. There are others who still think status quo will prevail. There are even hints that many folks in Norwich wish they hadn’t started this and would prefer a no change option. Bottom line is that we need to move forward with a strong solution that can work for Norfolk people. In my view this means that an all Norfolk is too large a greater Norwich and the rest solution may be viable but no one other than Norwich is yet convinced of this and the wedge has not yet been carefully and quietly considered. So the question I pose here is Is there case for Great Norwich Great Yarmouth and Great Lowestoft?

I think there may be for the following reasons:

There are certainly common service delivery issues particularly around Children’s services Adult Social Services and Social and Economic development. The principle conurbations of Yarmouth Lowestoft and Norwich experience many common challenges of deprivations health, housing and social issues. The numbers stack up both for the wedge and the residual areas. The viability of the residual rural areas and towns would also be enhanced because as with the wedge there are many similar common but different challenges and opportunities. The concept of the wedge has not found favour amongst many and forwarded by none other than the Boundary Committee. Ironically this may also be strength, in that it may represent a good idea from a non partisan source. There is a quiet logic that answers the too large issue of the all Norfolk plus proposal and would also answer many of the Norwich and Yarmouth lobbying issues without full acquiescing to either of them.

The Boundary Committee is listening and so am I Please leave a comment here or directly using link.

It seems to me that many have missed the point on this fiasco.

As a member of the steering group that set it up the Norwich Walk in Clinic, I am appalled at the miss information that has been allowed to go unchallenged particularly by local Conservative politicians in Thorpe St Andrew where the Clinic is situated.

Norwich Walk in Clinic

As one of the Labour Government’s new initiatives the original concept was and remains sound. That is to make the simpler but important medical services available over wider hours and to many harder to reach people. Two target groups were men who tend to generally be more reluctant to go to GPs until they really have to, and young women needing access to emergency contraception or advice.

Another misconception is that it serves only the leafy suburbs of Norwich. In fact when we set it up, Sainsbury PLC was very helpful in sharing some of their detailed data of likely clients. Without betraying any confidential information I can assure you that its and the WiC’s clients are very widely spread throughout Norfolk, not just Norwich. The most misunderstood part is, of course, that any potential closure is related to the new provision of a Doctor lead service to be located in the centre of Norwich. The new Darzi clinic is not Nurse lead and will provide a different service to that currently provided at the Norwich (Dussindale) WiC. The proposed closure in April next year is related to finance, not need or type of provision.

Another anomaly is that, yet again, GPs are against the Darzi  Clinic probably for the same reasons as they were against the WiC when it opened. We need to remember that GP practices are contracted private businesses. One final message to the unelected PCT taking these decisions is have they considered the potential impact on the hospital A&E who would otherwise take a significant proportion of current WiC patients?

Click for Evening News coverage.

If you have any views on these issues and wish to share them please leave a comment below.

Courtessy of an article by
Lauren Higgs, Children & Young People Now 23 July 2008
Government refuses call to overhaul testing in schools

Ofsted and the government will not consider reform of testing in schools, despite recommendations from a cross-party group of MPs.
 
In May, a Children, Schools and Families Select Committee report urged the government to scrap so-called “high-stakes” assessment in favour of a less target-driven approach.However, the government and Ofsted’s official response, published yesterday (21 July), does not include the report’s key proposals, said committee chairman and Labour MP Barry Sheerman.
He told CYP Now: “As usual, the government’s immediate response has been rather disappointing. The government still has its head in the sand and has refused to bite on the core bits of our report.” Sheerman said Ofsted has overwhelming evidence that the existing assessment system does encourage teachers to “teach for the test”, which is detrimental to the long-term education of children.
However, the government does not intend to change the fundamentals of the current system.

Follow link for details
www.cypnow.co.uk/doc.

School’s out so tell me what you think about this or any other related testing topic

Did you get your SATs on time?

was it proerly marked?

Do we need SATs?

Norwich Evening News – Schools’ anger at Sats debacle- 18/07/2008

An “appalling” picture emerged yesterday of how deep the Sats testing shambles is affecting Norfolk and Suffolk with more than three-quarters of schools still waiting for correct result

see also BBC commentary

The final conference for the European e-Voice conference has taken place in Norwich on May 22 and 23 at the Maid’s Head Hotel and the organisers – include Norfolk County Council.

The e-Voice project is a four year EU funded project developing best practice in e-Participation. It has been led from the Netherlands and Norfolk was the UK Partner.

The event was used to launch a promotional video which focused on myself and other councillors at Norfolk County Council called CivicSurf.

It was this project which got me into blogging. The event was well attended and succeeded in enhancing the European bond in e-governance. My summary was that Great Britain is well advanced in technology but low on trust for its elected leaders. We suffer considerable restrictions on our use of ICT as it is funded by the tax payer and currently that means no politics or reference to our blogs from our official bland County Council sites.  However, I am grateful to the government who sponsored Norfolk County Council and to the authority in agreeing to participate and support me and colleagues to do so.

Other projects it funded, such as the Young People’s voting campaign and Bus Stop 39, have won national awards. It supported the ParishCouncilnvolve project which has helped more than 50 parish and town councils develop free websites, and the Norfolk Text Pals project recently won a finalists award from the International Centre of Excellence in e-Participation.  e-Voice has been equally successful in our partner countries of Belgium, Germany and Sweden as well as Holland.

The emphasis was on how new channels of communication could run alongside and support existing ones to make sure everyone could participate in civic life in the best way for them. This has been particularly effective in engaging young people and e-Voice funded projects are part of the reason Norfolk and South Norfolk gained Beacon Status for this area of work.

The promo film of CivicSurf was produced by Napoleon Creative 

You can see their coverage of the event and link to some video interviews by clicking here.

At last Norfolk County Council’s Children’s Services Review Panel has agreed to look at how we can improve the public image of our youngsters. At the last meeting (March 19) it was agreed to look closely at how Children’s Services can help improve the image of young people by launching a scrutiny exercise to investigate the issues and report back to the Panel. It has taken me a year to persuade fellow councillors to include this item to look at how we support the image of our young people.

We spend an inordinately long time talking about them. Norfolk County Council spends most of its funds (more than £1billion each year) on young people under 18. The largest share is spent in schools who actually only have responsibility for our younger citizens for just over 14% of their lives between the ages of 5 to 16.
I am writing this post to offer you a chance to comment so that I can help represent all of my constituents not just the ones who are allowed to vote. So if you are young, and care about your views being heard, or like me closer to 95 than 15 and still wish to give your opinions, then please use the below questions as a stimulus for comments.

• Young people cannot vote until they are 18 and often don’t after that – should this be changed?
• How often do adults think of talking with the young and not just to them?
• How often do adults listen?
• Do the police and press focus on this very narrow set of its community in a fair-minded way or do they just focus on the negative issues?
• Is there any real opportunity for young people to engage in forming their own destiny?
• Does citizenship in school do it for you? (teachers and other adults are very welcomed to comment too)
• If you had control of the press what would you focus on about young people?

I am hoping to recruit a number of scrutiny “witnesses” for this project from the media and young people. I have already contacted a couple of young people, who I have previously worked with, to form part of the scrutiny group with fellow councillors. (I need not expand on what age group they will be!)

If you have views that you wish to share please leave a comment below.

If you wish to contact me directly. (email)
If you are young and wish to try another way to input to NCC then try norfolkblurb.