Agenda item

To formally consider the Annual Report for the authority.

Declarations of interest:

None

Witnesses:

David Hodge, Leader of the Council

David McNulty, Chief Executive

Verity Royle, Senior Principal Accountant

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive introduced the report.  The Senior Principal Accountant was thanked for her work on developing the Annual Report to make it more engaging to customers.

2.    In response to a query about the comparison with Luxembourg, the Chief Executive informed the committee that it was broadly comparable and useful for indicating the size of the county.  He also clarified that local businesses were those with their head quarters in Surrey.

3.    The Leader informed the committee that the Annual report was a useful document to share with businesses.  It also available in libraries and the Tax Payers Alliance had taken a close interest.

4.    The committee asked why the secondary school bulge was only mentioned in passing in the report.  The Chief Executive explained that work on the secondary school bulge would start to increase over the next year and would be featured more strongly in next year’s Annual Report.

5.    Members queried whether the figures of families involved in the Family Support Programme add up.  The Chief Executive explained that in practice more families need to be engaged with through targeted whole family intervention to achieve the target numbers of families “turned around”.

6.    Members highlighted issues such as: children being transported long distances to schools because they haven’t got into the local school; highways concerns; and people being moved out of hospitals before they are ready.  The Chief Executive responded that: additional school places had been provided but oversubscription to certain schools affect the number of first preferences which can be met; there had been improvements in the highways service but the service was vulnerable to external factors such as poor weather; and the council was working better with health partners.  It is often in the interests of the patient to leave the hospital quickly with support from adult social care to ensure that they retain their independence.

7.    In response to a query about Blue Badges, the Leader explained that new badges may continue to take six weeks to be produced as documentation needed to be collected and reviewed.  However, replacement Blue Badges would take less time.

8.    A Member expressed the view that the Children’s Service’s Ofsted finding should have been more explicitly addressed.  This could have been used to highlight social care as a key priority with the public.  The Chief Executive responded that Children’s Service was addressed in the Annual Report. 

9.    The Chairman highlighted the discussions that had taken place on airport expansion and queried why this wasn’t included in the Annual Report.  The Leader confirmed that Council had a clear policy on airport expansion, welcoming it so long as infrastructure improvements are made.  However, the Government had only recently made its announcement on airport expansion and so next year’s Annual Report would set out what the Council had done in response.

Action/Further information to note:

An updated page on the Corporate Environment Sustainability Headlines would be circulated to the committees when the figures were finalised (Recommendation tracker ref: A29/15).

RESOLVED:

That the Committee NOTE and ENDORSE the Annual Report for the authority.

Committee next steps:

None.