Sutton Council Annual Review and Challenges Ahead - Initial Comments

These documents are likely to be discussed by Strategy Committee in the September and at the October Council Meeting:

Below are some initial comments on some of the key issues. There is lot of material here for the Parties on the Council and not on the Council to consider when looking at the policies the Council should be adopting.


1. Chief Executive's Presentation

a) The Capital Programme
The reduction of this will either require more property disposals or greater prudential borrowing. If there is to be more disposals, whilst accepting there will be a need for some commercial confidentiality there should be more public consultation over what site might be disposed, prior to us getting into the planning process when residents think they face a fait accompli. My general experience is that residents are usually quite reasonable if one involves them early. This will also empower local Councillors and avoid the situation where Lib Dem indecision forcing officers to almost bounce them into a decision.

b) Balances
I was pleased to hear the Chief Executive say we had reached our maximum limit. The £8 million indicated for the General Fund presumably includes the Contingency Fund?

c) Having a Say
The half who do not feel they can influence things is rather high. Instead of asking the same questions every 2 years, perhaps we can in future be a bit more creative with the next MORI poll?

d) Fear of Crime
A very high figure. It would be helfpul to have this broken down and a fuller report circulated to Strategy Committee, the Safer Sutton Partnership and Sutton Police Consultative Group. We need to know if this varies in different Safer Neighbourhood Team Areas so we can identify more of the specific reasons that cause it.

e) Education
The Chief Executive reported that we were third for secondary school results. What he didn't mention was that we are 31st for primary school results. This is because up to half the places in our grammar schools come from places like Purley and Epsom. That is the reality of the current system which simply improves our results through wide catchment areas for grammar schools. I think it is better to focus on improving the near enough comprehensive education system we now have for 86% of secondary pupils and nearly 100% of primary pupils, though key projects such as specialisation, the development of setting rather than streaming and through investment in new buildings such as the £20 million for Stanley Park. Because of our generally good results, there seems to be much less a case in Sutton for Academies or Foundation schools (Glenthorne only seemed to want to become one to see if they could get their hands on our land, but thankfully the Council rejected that). After a few years we can then compare our emjerging system with other boroughs who might head down the Academy/Foundation route to see which system is adding the most value.

f) Autism
I understand from informed sources that this is rising because schools are encouraging more paernts to apply for a Statement of SEN. In the longer run I hope we assess all children in much more depth and develop individual learning plans for all of them. Perhaps that is a target Sutton should aspire to?

g) Adult Social Services
In September we should receive a report on the future of day services for older people anbd people with Learning Disabilities. I hope there will be continued direct provision of older people day care provision and grant funding of voluntary day care. A sensible approach would be:
(i) accessible services, distributed across the borough.
(ii) Early intervention rather than a service led by eligibility criteria which means a resident is only dealt with when their health is already poor, rather than seeking to delay this.
(iii) A mixed economy of provision (ie we provide some of the day centres and also commission or fund the voluntary and private charged sector). This would not prevent our own current direct provision being part of the integrated health and social care and managed at "Arms Length" by any joint structure that emerges from future health and social care integration.
On Learning Disability day care I would support the modernisation and retention of new learning disability services at Hallmead and other sites at North Cheam and Fellowes Road following proper family and public consultation.

h) Recycling
Now we are at 30% are we setting a proper target to achieve 50% at some stage in the future?

i) Car ownership
I don't think the issue is the number of cars as the slide implies, it is more about car usage. The only way to reduce that is to generally improve public tranport and rather than pin all our hopes a decade into the future on Tramlink, we should be looking at ways to improve buis services especially through increased frequency on less reliable routes.

j) Sutton Town Centre
I don't think there is currently a local consensus on the future of Sutton town centre. Some Tory Councillors seem to be in favour of managed decline and they are entitled to make the case for that. My own view is that high growth in the town centre may be one for the few mechanisms we have to help reduce borough inequalities (see below).

k) Inequality
The Chief Excutive reported that Sutton is among the 2% most socially polarised local authorities in England. In other words we have very high levels of inequality. This is not good for local community cohesion and as well as directly impacting on poorer residents in terms of perceived status, does not assist well-off residents well as they are likely to have poorer perceptions of Council services and higher than average fear of crime. In other words everyone loses out from this figure. This is surely a fundamental issue which I will be returning to in much greater detail in the near future.


2. Annual Review Document

a) The closer working with Merton (page 4) is to be welcomed and may help us jointly tackle some of the inequality issues mentioned above.

b) The admission of a lower recycling rate at Kimpton Road centre (page 10) is welcome honesty. I think there should be more space created at the centre, so residents can bring their waste and it can be looked through before it thrown away. This would help maximise the percentage. Currently the site is too cramped to do this sort of thing.


3. Priorities for Change Document

a) The development of area based working (page 13) is vital to respond to the expanded Police presence locally. Hopefully this should lead to develoved budgets.

b) I welcome the member sign-off of business plans (page 17) . This used to be done, but hasn't happend in recent years, so I welcome the restoration of accountability. I also welcome the focus on the 30% of underperforming indicators. I will look at them in detail in a future posting.

c) The annual housing target of 370 (though it is 345 in the presentaion slides) and the 40% (up from 25%) affordable housing target (page 17) is important to help people to get on the housing ladder. It may also tackle some of the inequlaity issues mentioned above.

d) The joint intermediate care stategy (page 18) and care unit at Carshalton War Memorial is welcome, but there really should be a little more honesty that this will may come out of shutting 3 out of 4 Council old people's homes between 2006 and 2009 to in effect part fund it.

I will return to these report in the coming months looking at more detail at certain issues.