Agenda item
Elected Member questions
To consider questions submitted by Elected Members
Minutes:
Question from Councillor E Fordham to Councillor B Lewis, Leader of the Council
“Over the last 3½ years or 7½ years the Leader has been an active champion for more funding for Derbyshire County Council. How successful has that advocacy and lobbying been?”
Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“County Councils Network raises the profile of local government finance and challenges faced by local authorities. This has led to a national debate on money for the County Council for example, additional money for social care in 2024 and 2025. The government is committed to the review of how local authorities are financed and we will continue to lobby government for extra money for the county council.”
Councillor Fordham asked the following supplementary question:
“I am surprised by the lack of content in the answer. I think what he is sating is that he’s agreed with the cuts made to local government. Does he agree with me that it’s a pretty lame report?
Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“I have nowhere to go with the question I was asked”
Question from Councillor E Fordham to Councillor B Lewis, Cabinet Member for Strategic Leadership, Tourism, Culture and Climate Change
“The county has a tree planting scheme across Derbyshire - would the portfolio holder consider making the scheme more devolved and asking councillors to help identify locations and opportunities for tree planting in each individual division? And to ask what proportion of the trees planted this far are fruit or nut trees?”
Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“As part of this Council’s hugely successful million trees projects, we have been successful in planting well over half a million trees at this point. We expect that we will get to our target well before 2030 and we are ambitious to continue with that as a programme and maybe try to extend to 2 million trees if we can.
England's community forests are in and around large towns and cities, providing urban, economic and social regeneration, infrastructure etc and creating high quality environments for millions of people. The Heartwood scheme covers the eastern side of the county and includes the north east of Chesterfield, Amber Valley, the Derby City area and Erewash and links up with the National Forest in the south. Just over the border in Nottinghamshire there is another community forest so that covers a considerable swathe of the East Midlands Combined Authority area.
It's called Heartwood because of its location, it will occupy central positions and will provide a missing link to join up those woodland areas to pockets of available land over geographic areas of approximately 289 square miles in communities along the eastern border and areas to the south of the county.
The Heartwood Community Forest is fully funded by revenue and capital grants from the government's Trees for Climate Programme. The initial grant period is until 2026 and included in the government's Comprehensive Spending Review that is currently underway. Work in 2024 and 2025 is concentrated on setting up the Heartwood Community Forest Team and developing woodland creation schemes on Council owned land and with private landowners. The Team expects to plant in excess of 50 hectares of new woodland and hedgerows by the 31 March 2025. Significant projects are planned at Markham Vale North Tip, Ripley Pit Top and in Greenway, as well.
The Heartwood SAF Urban Team will welcome the help and support of councillors right across Derbyshire in identifying landowners, parish councils and community groups and other land ownership interests that might be interested in planting trees on their own land right across their divisions and wards. The Heartwood Team can be contacted at this email address Heartwood@derbyshire.gov.uk.
Tree species planted are predominantly native broadleaf trees and shrub species such as oak, hornbeam, silver birch, hazel, blackthorn and holly and a number of community orchards have been planted as part of the Million Trees Project. There's a lot of other activity taking place across the county as well. Myself and Councillor Cupit did a little bit of tree planting on my village green with some donated fruit trees, commonly known as the orchard on the village green. In the appropriate location, the Heartwood community forest can also support the development of new community orchards, which can incorporate a wide variety of fruit and nut tree species.”
Councillor Fordham asked the following supplementary question:
“When it comes to the community understanding why it's so important to plant trees and what difference it can make, there should be programme of devolving amongst councillors here in this chamber and giving communities open access to want to plant trees where they see fit. I think that would enable a greater understanding of the importance of woodland and I think we've not grasped that fully which opens for councils and communities to do more.”
Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“Let’s have a conversation with officers about how we can facilitate trees, perhaps granted to councillors or individual projects on that basis. My obsession with orchards and apples is absolute so I'm very keen to support any projects like that.”
Question from Councillor E Fordham to Councillor S Spencer, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Budget
“Last year, partly in response to fiscal constraints and political concerns, the budget was taken to just one of the scrutiny committees. How useful was this process and can consideration be given to all scrutiny committees being part of the budget process this year?”
This question was withdrawn at the meeting.
Question from Councillor G Kinsella to Councillor A Dale, Cabinet Member for Education
“The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Annual Review makes damning reading, with an increase in complaints/complaints upheld, particularly within Children’s Services. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg - most parents/carers seek redress through the appeal process. Typically councils, including DCC, lose 98% of appeals. Taking over a year from appeal to decision, not only is the financial and emotional burden on families intolerable, but it also wastes vast amounts of taxpayers’ money.
Many parents/carers I speak with believe that the extended, bureaucratic tribunal process is a way of rationing access to special needs education. Do you agree with this view of or is it just the case that the SEN team have a catastrophic misunderstanding of SEN law?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
We also regret that soke families feel the need to appeal decisions made by the partnership, but it is the appropriate legal mechanism for them to seek redress and change. The reason for disagreements between the partnership and parents are much more complex. I find that your patronising and antagonistic choice of language is pretty unhelpful too. We have committed members of our SEND service who work extremely hard in very challenging circumstances and do not deserve to be spoken about in such a way. I have never met a single person who works within our service who isn't passionate about trying to improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable children and I hope that you will reconsider your choice of words.
The decisions which are made, which are the subject of tribunal appeals are not made by the SEND team. They are made by multi-agency panels made up of professional officers, health colleagues, educational psychologists, school headteachers and SENCo’s, amongst others. Your accusation extends well beyond our own officers. The panel makes these decisions on the basis of relevant legislation and the SEND Code of Practice, and the professional advice and evidence before them provided by those who know the child best or spent the most time with them, such as educational psychologists. They will always seek to make a decision which, in their professional opinion, is in the best interests of the child.
With regards to tribunals, as I've said, these are the proper legal process open to parents where they disagree with the panel and we must afford them that right. We are not responsible for waiting times for tribunals and that's an H.M. Courts and Tribunals Service matter. However, we will always seek to work with parents to find a resolution before their case gets to tribunal or to reduce those waiting times where possible.
Around two thirds of the tribunals in Derbyshire are around provision and placement, and this is something we are trying to address in terms of the £11 million investment to create 300 additional special school places. In some cases there is simply a profound disagreement between the parents and the Panel about what type of placement is sufficient to meet needs which cannot easily be overcome. For example, the Panel may believe, based on the evidence before them, that a child's needs can be met in a mainstream setting with additional support whereas parents may believe that a special school place is required.
Panels are legally bound to take decisions in the best interests of the child, and they are not taken lightly. A decision to place a child in a specialist setting when it is not felt it is required with a peer group whose need is sufficiently greater than their own can have a profound impact on the rest of that child's life, affecting their educational outcomes, affecting their preparation for independent adulthood and even affecting their future employment prospects.
These are not, as your question implies, solely debates about finances but about what is in the best interests of the child in the panel's professional opinion, based on all the evidence before them. What's more is the code of practice for that asks that we make decisions that are compatible with the efficient use of resources. It's not our fault as local authorities, nor the law itself, that H.M. Courts and Tribunals Service seems to disregard this aspect in their interpretation of the law, and the government does need to step up to provide much greater clarity on this issue for all involved as part of the wider reforms that are needed which I’m pleased the new government is talking about. It's not local authorities, but the laws and the parameters set by national government that we have to operate in that requires there to be some financial context for the decisions that are made.
I hope you'll agree, though, based on what I've said and what you hopefully heard yesterday at the members briefing, is that the situation for local authorities is pretty unenviable and that we are in classic rock and a hard place situation, torn between meeting the wishes of parents, trying to decide objectively what is in the best interests of the child, and being held to account by government over the mess the financial system is in which, frankly, has never been of our making.
Councillor Kinsella asked the following supplementary question:
“I don't think anyone could fail to be impressed with the humility and the commitment of the officers to try and resolve some of these difficult issues, however, I have residents contacting me and I have evidence of tribunal rulings where Derbyshire have not complied with the Code of Practice. How will you work more effectively with carers and carers forums, not just informing them but actually co-producing some of the solutions and, linked to that how will members be involved in assessing the performance of the service around this particular area? What engagement will we have as members and what performance information will we be presented with?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
“Derbyshire Parent Carer Voice has recently been re-established and meeting regularly with senior officers. They will be present on the SEND Improvement Board, which is being set up and will be independently chaired as a result of the inspection so they're very much involved. I am very keen that we work with them to hold some focus groups with parents to work in a much more, two way communication and engagement with parents so that they feel they are being listened to. That is very clear in our inspection.
Sometimes the system can feel far too adversarial and we're very keen to break that down. We are committed to working much closer with parents, we're not going to be able to solve every single case or meet every single parent's wishes but, we do need to better engage. I am happy to give that assurance.
In terms of members engagement, I am very happy to do another session in a few month’s time and see where we go. We will have the Improvement Board first meeting next week and there will be opposition representation from the Labour group. We all need to have some oversight, and that's really what is required moving forward. If we're going to be serious about improving the services, we need to work constructively together and try and deliver that.”
Question from Councillor G Kinsella to Councillor N Hoy, Cabinet Member for Adult Care
“Following the proposed redesign of residential care and care homes, I am shocked to see Ada Belfield in Belper is one of the threatened homes. Ada Belfield, built at a cost of £11.5 million only four years ago, offers both high quality dementia care and community support beds. The type of support offered is exactly the type of care justifying the redesign.
What on average will be the additional weekly care costs to service users and how many old and vulnerable people will be denied high quality, affordable care as a result of these cuts?”
As Councillor Hoy did not attend the meeting, Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“I have had a few exchanges about this of late so it's important that I reiterate that until after the public consultation and analysis of all of the feedback and recommendations made to Cabinet, which will occur next year. I would encourage people to get involved in the various consultation methods - questionnaires, virtual sessions, stakeholder engagement.
About Bennerley, how we work with DCHS who are often guided by them and where community support beds go. That’s why we’re relooking at this particular care home. Regarding care homes that cabinet approved for sale - this will not to any financial detriment to any existing resident in that home and their contributions will remain the same under the same arrangements as well. That's very clearly set out in the report that we had recently. As per our pledges, we will work with the residents and their families and carers to support them through the process with a dedicated review team of practitioners, but many residential care businesses within the private and voluntary and independent sector in all areas of the county, a full list of these were included in the Cabinet report which we can send you.”
Councillor Kinsella asked the following supplementary question:
I think the concern is a lack of transparency. A lot of people engaged this week over a Facebook post - you'll see the depth of feeling. A lot of questions remain outstanding from a lot of people - questions around Ada Belfield not being sustainable, not affordable, not being a home of demand. I think people are just asking for the evidence for that. It would be good to see a breakdown for these particular care homes and I think that would help the consultation process if people could see the validity of the arguments. I think without that financial information, around particular care homes that are subject to closure or privatisation, I think it’s a bit difficult for people to make a decision and there's a degree of distrust, so I would really welcome that information.”
Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“I wholeheartedly agree with you. The new finance group meeting regularly to interrogate the Council’s finances is certainly an important element of that because we need to understand what a council homes budget is, how much a council home is overspending by and why that would be. We need to dig under the skin of that as well. We know all about the issues with regard to recruitment and retention of staff. Not many people want to work in this area and that is a driver behind some of the issues because we can’t properly staff care homes which leaves us lacking in capacity in some. Understanding of what particular needs care homes have, whether it's in residential care or nursing care. We find that in some places it's more of a requirement for nursing care, less of a residential care, but looking after people in their own homes or other private sector placements are already available.
There are lots of factors that drive the cost pressures behind a lot of our care homes and our care home placements. I’ll be brutally honest I ask for information about care homes and I get the results on the tables that that mean nothing to me. I want to be able to read and understand and look at the table that tells me exactly what I need to know from a care home. I will make sure we drag those number out into the public domain as best we can”
Question from Councillor P Rose to Councillor A Dale, Cabinet Member for Education
“I note that parents and guardians were asked to sort out school places for September 2025 by the end of October 2024. How does that work for those children with specific requirements and are subject to an ‘Education, Health and Care plan?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
If parents and carers would like their child to move to a different school in year or outside the normal admission times, they should ask for an emergency review of their EHCP. Parents and carers have a legal right to request a school or college, whether that's mainstream, special or resource provision. Once a preference has been expressed, the local authority must consult with the school or college and must name it in the EHCP unless it is unsuitable for the age or ability of the child or the attendance of the child would be incompatible with the efficient education of others or the efficient use of resources. For children with an EHCP when transitioning, the SEND service must issue a final EHCP naming the school or college the child will be transferred to by the following national deadline of 15 February for younger ages groups and 31 March for older ages groups. We will look into the specific case you emailed about and come back to you soon.”
(Councillor Swann left the meeting at 4:25 pm.)
Councillor Rose asked the following supplementary question:
“Thank you very much for the briefing yesterday, yourself and staff. I think it was very useful and obviously my question refers to that issue. Things have overtaken what was going on and I appreciate your time and words on the issue brought to you.
Can I be certain that staff are going to reconsider or review where there has been some controversy which may have resulted from the issues with the Ofsted report?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
“I am very happy to review the case that you referred to me. I think the issue there was the family didn't feel they were offered any other choice and I find that very strange but absolutely we'll look at that. And in relation to the other inquiry. There's a general commitment we are seeking to improve. It's not going to be a quick process. It's going to be difficult and there are lots of challenges within the system but we are committed to working through them as we have within the past few years.”
Question from Councillor A Clarke to Councillor N Hoy, Cabinet Member for Adult Care
“Can you tell me what assessment Derbyshire County Council has made of the impact on the health services delivered from The Jubilee Centre and Queen’s Court and what steps the Council will be taking to ensure residents can still access those services which help prevent their health deteriorating.”
As Councillor Hoy did not attend the meeting, Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“DCHS have considered all health needs and confirmed that this will need to deliver through a mixture of outpatient clinics and community care, the urgent treatment centre and the love stronger for longer programme and via primary care. The council is committed to working closely with the NHS throughout the transition and beyond to ensure local community support.
Question from Councillor J Dixon to Councillor S Spencer, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Budget
“In his report to Council in September 2023, the Leader didn’t think the fact that:
- the Council was projected to overspend by £46m
- that his Cabinet was about to introduce emergency measures as part of a series of actions to mitigate that overspend avoid the issuing of a S114 notice was sufficiently important to report to Members. Members only became aware of the Council’s dire financial circumstances 20 minutes after the close of the Council Meeting.
This year’s Q2 report is not scheduled to be published until later today. Yet again, Members are being kept in the dark and cannot ask questions on the Council’s finances. In the absence of that Q2 report, could the Leader reassure Council that when that report is published at the rise of this meeting it will not contain another autumn surprise or further deterioration in the Council’s finances?”
This question was withdrawn at the meeting.
Question from Councillor K Gillott to Councillor S Spencer, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Budget
“At the last Full Council meeting, the Deputy Leader of the Council refuted the suggestion that this administration had mismanaged the Council’s finances. Does he stand by his comments?”
Councillor Spencer responded as follows:
“The answer is yes”
Councillor Gillott asked the following supplementary question:
My understanding in best practice is that you don't do major modernisation just to save money, because that often leads to mistakes and bad policy and it can be clearly unsettling for staff as well. So, if running this council for so many years, costing a good £10 million more than we actually have to pay each and every year is not financial mismanagement, what it is?”
Councillor Spencer responded as follows:
“It is unfortunate that our scheduled meeting falls the way they do - this wasn't planned. It was the circumstances that always provided the budgetary cycle and it is unfortunate that they were published on the website just after the meeting. You're quite right, there is a there a cost differential involving this council compared to other councils in the country and as a consequence we are going to have to deal with that. And we have. Let me explain how. You will be aware that we put cost control measures in place, which have been tightened considerably since the figures were presented. You will be aware if you have read the paper that we as an authority tend to procure the services of PwC very much focused on the issues you have just articulated. We're also considering setting up a fiscal commission to go into the finer details of the issues related to more expensive provision in Derbyshire and elsewhere.
Many of the functions within the authority are costing us extra money, adult social care and children’s services and those services are statutory. I think the question is our expectation of statutory and is our expectation of statutory the same as our neighbours’ expectation. The reason I say that is our services here in Derbyshire cost 14% more. There are questions to be asked why. I will give you an assurance today that we will find out why, and we will take action to address it. And I can also tell you that with regard to the 14%, which is higher than our neighbouring authorities, we need to look very closely about what is our delivery model. If, after the investigations, we find we need to make changes in our delivery model, we will make them. Hopefully with your support, we will get this budget back where it needs to be.
That does not get away from the fact that it is a huge challenge. And I just want to applaud the efforts of our staff at the Council for the efforts they have made with regard to the savings target, not just the performance monitoring and budget monitoring, but there are some considerable success stories in the performance data within that report and vast swathes of the organisation have met their savings targets and the drivers of that intensive pressure upon adult social care and children's services, in one case a 15% increase is driven by demand. How do we change that demand and how do we tackle the issue that we are more expensive than our neighbours? Work has been carried out over the last few months and years to find out. I believe that the government needs to cap the costs of children in care and we are going to lobby for action on this. I also believe that our staff are trying their best to tackle this. Our definition of “statutory” and our neighboring councils must differ and over the coming weeks, we're going to find out what that differential is, and we are going to take action”
(Councillor Clarke left the meeting at 4:47 pm.)
Question from Councillor R George to Councillor A Dale, Cabinet Member for Education
“Would the Cabinet member like to give their reflections on the recently released Ofsted report on SEND?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
Our efforts are starting to show some improvements in some areas, but there is clearly a long way to go before we will get to where we need to be and we absolutely do need to redouble our efforts to improve more quickly but, we need to be honest in acknowledging that many of the issues that have already said will not be resolved overnight. It's essential that the improvement work we are absolutely committed to doing translates into an improvement in the experiences and outcome of children and young people. It's a partnership responsibility, as you know, and we're committed to working across the partnership with health, schools, the public, private and voluntary sector colleagues and most importantly, children and families. We do have a shared commitment to continue to strive to ensure all our children have the best possible start in life, whatever their challenges and abilities.
I want to recognise clearly that all elected members have an important role to play in this work. And while I acknowledge that challenges and scrutiny are vitally important, I hope that the partnership can rely on all of us across the chamber, regardless of our different politics, to work constructively together with the partnership to deliver the improvements that we all want to see for our residents.”
Councillor George asked the following supplementary question:
“There's no denying that the SEND report is damning even in Ofsted’s measured language. They set out many failures in leadership and in management. Most of the recommendations relate to Derbyshire County Council as opposed to our health partners and the majority of what is recommended is set out at the seat of the county council, where leadership has been chaotic in recent years, as the report sets out.
The one person who has been steadily at the helm for the last almost eight years is Councillor Dale, as the cabinet member and has overseen all of these management and structural failings identified by Ofsted. I wondered if the cabinet member wanted to use today to make clear, without any equivocation, his personal responsibility for creating a system that has meant, as Ofsted said, too many children and young people with SEND, their needs have not been met for too long and whether he has considered his position?”
Councillor A Dale responded as follows:
“I take issue with the question around the majority of recommendations relating to Derbyshire County Council. Most of them relate to partnerships and a lack of joint partnership working. I think most of the recommendations are about the whole partnership. Clearly the report has been extremely sobering and it's concerning that Ofsted highlighted some of the issues that we've seen. I think most of us know that there have been problems over the past few years. Demand has really shot up. We've seen a doubling of EHCPs over the past seven years, a doubling of requests in the past three years alone so it's unsurprising that the system is under a huge amount of pressure. We have been taking a number of actions to try and improve this.
I recognise that you may very well want me to resign, but my focus is on continuing to deliver those improvements and working across the partnership, hopefully with all members here present today, to try and ensure that we do improve those services. I'm focusing on getting on with the job, Labour have got absolutely no plan for what they would do differently. The most they can do is tell us to do the things that we're already doing as part of the improvement plan, and I think the reality is the Labour Party don't actually really care about this issue. All you really care about is using our most vulnerable children as a political football to try and score points.”
Question from Councillor J Dixon to Councillor N Hoy, Cabinet Member for Adult Care
“Could the Cabinet Member inform Council how much money has been spent in renovating, refitting and improving the following council homes since 2021: Ada Belfield, Briar Close, Castle Court, The Grange, The Leys, New Bassett House, Rowthorne and Thomas College?”
As Councillor Hoy did not attend the meeting, Councillor Lewis responded as follows:
“The short answer is overall spend on the care homes is £12,076,264.18. I will send you the table with the breakdown information.”
Question from Councillor C Dale, Councillor C Cupit, Cabinet Member for Highways Assets and Transport
“The County Council’s Parking Enforcement team, under a Traffic Regulation Order, have recently being issuing parking tickets on the Rear Service Road to Patchwork Row, Shirebrook. The Rear Service Road is an unadopted road and the land is privately owned by all the properties on Patchwork Row and Victoria Street, as it originally formed part of their rear gardens. Have the parking enforcement team obtained consent from the owners to issue parking tickets on this privately owned land?”
Councillor Cupit responded as follows:
Councillor C Dale asked the following supplementary question:
“The rear service road shouldn’t be privately owned, as you know – it’s a town centre. Last year, businesses were concerned because cars were blocking them. We've got the funeral directors that park their vehicles. We've got food shops, takeaways and of course, the lorries go up and deliver. Can you give some reassurance that if they haven't got the consent, they will obtain the consent of the owner so they can carry on supporting the businesses?”
Councillor Cupit responded as follows:
“Having been out with the parking enforcement officers quite recently on a couple of occasions, I appreciate the complexities of what they deal with and particularly town centre parking issues. We'll absolutely take that back because I do understand that the enforcement took place because of requests from both businesses and residents, we just need to get to the bottom of the TRO process and then I will feedback to you and local businesses.”
With the time approaching 5:00 pm and on the motion of The Chairman,
duly seconded it was
RESOLVED:
That under rule 4.1 of the Council Procedure Rules the meeting should be extended by 1 hour to continue until 6:00 pm to enable the remaining business on the agenda to be considered.
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