- 2 days ago
The deadline has passed for Kent's councils to submit their plans to Westminster for local government re-organisation. In this special programme we speak to Kent's biggest political voices about our county's future, breaking down the proposals and assessing whether they can help solve systemic issues such as the spiralling costs of adult social care.
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00:00Hello and welcome to this Kent Tonight special on KOMTV.
00:24I'm George Walker.
00:25With a deadline passing for Kent's councils to submit their proposals for local government reorganisation,
00:30we're going to see how the electoral map could be redrawn for the county.
00:34The proposed plans would see the merging of the current two-tier councils,
00:37including county, district and borough and the Unitary Council in Medway,
00:40to create a much smaller number of larger single authorities.
00:44I've been in Medway Mainstone looking at how some of these changes could work.
00:47Recognise these? Well, by 2028 they won't exist.
00:50That's because local government reorganisation is coming to Kent,
00:53replacing the current hodgepodge of councils.
00:55It's part of a national devolution agenda,
00:57with the government funding proposals moving Kent to over three or four sets of Unitary authorities,
01:01which deliver all services.
01:03However, for Medway Council, that simply wasn't enough choice,
01:06and instead they've chosen to refund their own proposal for the boundaries of Kent.
01:10Option 4D, as it's called, is expected to cost £135.9 million to implement,
01:16and to take between 8 and 15 years to pay off for the new councils.
01:20And it's not just squiggly lines on a map.
01:22This proposal redraws the boundaries of Kent,
01:25from Folkestone and Hive in the south to Dartford in the north.
01:28I spoke to Council Leader Vince Maple about why he thinks these changes need to be made.
01:33What we need to remember is we're dealing with maps when it comes to the districts,
01:36boroughs and the Unitary, in most cases from more than 50 years ago.
01:41The government's been really clear about its desire to have devolution,
01:44and for us to get devolution powers, we've got to have local government structures
01:48which are fit for purpose for that particular reason.
01:52Our model, 4D, is absolutely that.
01:54Here in Maidstone, at Kent County Council, they've also funded their own reorganisation proposal.
01:59They're looking at what's called Option 1A,
02:01a single Unitary Council for the entirety of Kent,
02:04with three so-called Area Committees sitting underneath it, for everyone in Kent.
02:08They say this will cost the council £99.4 million to implement
02:12and will pay it off in about three years' time.
02:14I'm extremely worried by reform-run KCC's proposal for one mega-council for Kent,
02:19which will hoover up all the powers of 14 councils
02:23and make decision-making remote from people.
02:26But reform, with no support from any of the other councils in Kent,
02:30have spent £1,000 to £200,000 of public money
02:33building up a case for their one single mega-council,
02:37which everyone expects to be rejected.
02:40I mean, even reform do.
02:41There was that recorded meeting where the leader of the council called it
02:45putting a spoke in a wheel.
02:47It's not a serious proposal.
02:49George Walker, KMTV.
02:51When the process of local government reorganisation first began last year,
02:55County Hall was in different hands.
02:56Earlier, I spoke with Roger Gough, former leader of KCC,
02:59about his experience lobbying for devolution in the county.
03:02Anybody dealing with it, including Lyndon as the current leader of KCC,
03:06has got a pretty difficult hand to play because there aren't actually any good options.
03:11The government, I'm afraid, took the best option off the table.
03:15So what it means is that in the short run, at least,
03:18Kent gets local government reorganisation without getting devolution and a mayor.
03:24And in my view, and I think that's something which certainly my predecessor,
03:30Paul Carter, Sir Paul Carter, and I suspect Lyndon to a certain degree as well,
03:35would all agree is almost the worst of both worlds.
03:38If you go back to the day that decision was made,
03:41what was extraordinary about it was that every council or every area,
03:46county area, from the Wash round to the Isle of Wight, was approved, except for Kent.
03:54There are a whole number of areas.
03:56At the moment, adult social care is the one that's putting the most visible pressure on Kent's books,
04:02and that was the case when we left office as well.
04:04But there are other areas of pressure in some aspects of children's services,
04:09in policy to do or with services to do with special educational needs.
04:13Those are areas of huge pressure.
04:17Now, I don't think local government reorganisation is going to, in and of itself, help with that.
04:23All our neighbours will have a mayor representing their voice to national government
04:28in a way that I don't think any council leader would have quite the same platform.
04:33What I always saw as an important benefit of a mayoral strategic authority
04:38was that they could focus on some of the things that we do need,
04:42like drawing in investment, both national government infrastructure spend.
04:49Very hard to do that if, meanwhile, you're spending all your time
04:53trying to balance the books in dealing with those pressures.
04:59Now, across KCC and Medway, the spiralling cost of adult social care
05:02continue to be the main driver of overspend.
05:05Here's Alex Loftus with a closer look into this issue.
05:07Thanks to the huge cost of adult social care, councils everywhere have been forced to cut public services,
05:13but not Reform UK and Kent, who back in May revealed how they were going to do things differently.
05:18And to oversee everything and to pinpoint potential savings and efficiencies throughout KCC,
05:24I am creating a cabinet post for local government efficiency.
05:28Instead of cutting public services, they were going to cut unnecessary costs.
05:31But the problem is, they didn't find enough to account for the huge cost of adult social care.
05:37We tried to speak to Diane Morton, the KCC reform counsellor for social care,
05:41but she never responded.
05:42But Labour-led Medway council have been having the same issue.
05:46Well, there are lots of options.
05:47You know, people could contribute to an insurance scheme, for example,
05:50so that they, you know, if that was voluntary, I'd be happy with that.
05:54But at least it would make the point that you need to plan for your older years, later years, future.
05:59What would the insurance scheme look like?
06:01I don't know, because I'm not an expert in that, but I don't shun from taking expert advice.
06:07Maybe it could even be part of pension plans. I don't know. I'm open to ideas.
06:12There's been a failure to look forward, and there's no shortage of data to help us look forward
06:16about the way things were going.
06:18We've got to look after older people, and we've got to keep them well for longer.
06:21People have pushed adult social care down the track because it's complicated.
06:26Here's Ashford MP Sojan Joseph, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adult Social Care.
06:31Adult social care services in my community are in disarray.
06:36So does the Prime Minister share my concern that reform chaos is a risk to public safety?
06:42My sympathy is with the people of Kent whose lives are being disrupted.
06:45So, as we know, there's a commission investigation going on.
06:51The first report is due early next year, so it will be a long-term fix.
06:56We don't want a short-term fix in the social care, and more funding need to go in,
07:01and a long-term solution to social care.
07:03A local issue, but totally reliant on this place.
07:06Alex Loftus, KMTV.
07:08Earlier, we also spoke with the current leader of Kent County Council, Lyndon Kem-Karron.
07:14We started off by asking about KCC's plans to form a singular unitary authority
07:17for all of Kent's nearly 2 million people.
07:20Well, you see, the irony with LGR is it is meant to be giving more power to people,
07:26but I think it actually does the opposite.
07:28I think by the government's plan to effectively carve up Kent into unitary authorities,
07:33I think that removes power from people in the way they have it now,
07:37where they can vote for a parish, town, district or borough councillor,
07:40and then a county councillor.
07:42I think the whole prospect of LGR worries me,
07:45because I think it removes power from there and shoves it up the chain to Westminster.
07:49So I find that profoundly undemocratic.
07:52So that's why at Kent County Council,
07:54we rejected the plans to carve up this beautiful county of ours
07:58and sort of force it, squeeze it into a preordained model
08:02that had been sent down by central government,
08:04and we came up with our own plan.
08:06We spoke to the leader of the opposition at KCC, Anthony Hook, earlier,
08:09and he said that it's not a serious proposal,
08:11it doesn't have backing from Kent's councils,
08:14and I've even heard some comment that it doesn't fit the government's guidelines
08:18to have 500,000 people in each sort of segment of Kent
08:21and each segment of the authority.
08:22How do you respond to those criticisms of the proposal?
08:24Well, I think the opposition feel duty-bound to object to anything I say and do,
08:29and that is quite right and proper.
08:30That is their place.
08:32They are not in charge.
08:33They don't have the say in this.
08:35I do.
08:36Look, I think the thing is,
08:38the government has tried to force Kent,
08:40which is a very unique...
08:41It is unique.
08:42We are not like any other county.
08:44So my worry with the other unitary proposals
08:47is as soon as you start trying to divide up Kent,
08:50parts of it, parts of our county,
08:52are going to be hugely disadvantaged.
08:54You mentioned before that sort of under this proposal
08:56that the unitary authority would be taking up the lion's share
08:58of big things like spending on adult social care.
09:00Now, I think it's no secret that the spiralling cost of adult social care
09:03is causing problems for KCC and Medway across the county,
09:06trying to balance the budget
09:07and deliver the services that Kent's residents need.
09:10How do you foresee this option or LGR more broadly
09:13as helping with that,
09:14or are there more structural problems, do you think?
09:16Well, I think broadly, at the moment,
09:18the government's plans for LGR do not help with coping
09:21with the huge problem that is adult social care.
09:26Adult social care, unfortunately, in Kent County Council
09:28has been allowed under the Tories
09:30to spiral wildly out of control.
09:34Your viewers should thank their lucky stars
09:36that reform got elected when we did
09:39and we gained control of that council when we did
09:41because in six months we have uncovered a horror show
09:45of budgets in adult social care
09:47that were allowed to literally run completely out of control.
09:52We are realists in reform.
09:53We know that this problem is not going away.
09:55We also know the government has kicked the can
09:58so far down the road with adult social care.
10:01It is an absolute joke.
10:02No government has addressed this.
10:04There is a lack of joined-up thinking
10:06between adult social care and the NHS.
10:08We have discovered since coming into power back in May
10:12that Kent County Council has been used
10:14as effectively a blue-light service.
10:17You mentioned there that adult social care,
10:18the cost of it is a national problem
10:19and it is something that the government has kicked the can down the road.
10:22Obviously, we are talking about LGR
10:24and reorganisation of government today.
10:26Do you think basically Kent needs a mayor
10:27with that kind of more effective lobbying power
10:29to be able to solve some of these more structural problems?
10:33Well, there are several things going on here.
10:35There is the mayoralty, the mayoral strategic authority,
10:37and there is a devolution priority pathway, and there is LGR.
10:42The government has really screwed Kent over, in a way,
10:45with asking us to submit plans for LGR
10:47without putting us on the devolution pathway
10:49and without putting us on the mayoral strategic authority pathway.
10:53So we are kind of left out in the cold.
10:55That was another one of my huge reservations about LGR,
10:58whether it is the right thing for Kent.
10:59No, it is not, because the government
11:01has not provided us with any kind of guidance
11:04as to how that overall strategic authority will be managed
11:08if we go down the LGR pathway.
11:11So that, again, is another reason why we created Option 1A,
11:14because it creates the Kent Council as the strategic authority,
11:18which will have power over things like strategic planning,
11:22the core services, without having to disaggregate them
11:25and try and remake them on smaller bases around the county.
11:28You know, it makes perfect sense, in a way,
11:30because we are in this no-man's land.
11:33And you can find that full interview on kmtv.co.uk.
11:36You've been watching Kent Tonight Live on KMTV.
11:39There's more news made just for Kent throughout the evening.
11:41Don't forget, you can always keep up to date
11:42with the latest news across your county
11:44by logging on to kmtv.co.uk.
11:46You can keep us on your social timelines
11:48by liking us on Facebook and following us.
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