It has been some while since we last had one of these now regular talks with Terry and so for newcomers we should explain that basically we report verbatim the conversation and only cut out general chitchat. Otherwise what you find here is essentially what we recorded with minor editing for clarification purposes.
As always we are grateful to Terry for giving us both the time and the breadth of his knowledge and experience. To make for easier assimilation of what it here we have provided subheadings which we hope you will find useful as we scan the subjects of boundaries & elections, restructuring the council workforce management, recycling, budget consultation, encouraging business and tourism, cross boundary talks and ongoing communication, open government, further developments, the flood forum and the key problems facing the County Council (of which Terry is also a member). From our perspective, since we last did one of these interviews with Terry, we are struck by the great emphasis, time and again, in respect of expanding communications to create a very much more ‘joined up’ approach to the running of local government here in the district of Rochford. Watch for it in many of the sections of the discussion that follows.
Talking to Leader of the District Council, Councillor Terry Cutmore
(March 2015).
New Boundaries & Elections
Rochford Life: Terry, thank you again for giving us your time. We’re about to come into election season aren’t we?
Terry: That’s right. We have thirteen seats to fight for coming up in the District in May. Usually you come up for re-
Restructuring the Workforce Management
RL: Right! Now I am sure you could speak on fifteen different things involving the Council but can I suggest we go for no more than say three main things for the District Council and then perhaps a couple for County.
Terry: Well the main one at the moment has got to be finance. About a year ago we had some warning signs come up about how the council would proceed and we managed to save £800,000 for this current year and we’re on target to do that, which is great in as much as we are still delivering those services. The second thing, and as a part answer to that is that we’ve had a reorganisation of our workforce, a rationalisation of the senior end of our workforce. We had quite a lot of managers and we’ve looked at that and we’ve slimmed it down so that now we have only nine headings (Environment, Planning etc. etc.) if you like, nine heads of service which we call Assistant Directors. We also now have two Directors who are outward looking, looking at partnerships and the way we work with others (e.g. Police, County etc. etc.) , and of course the Chief Executive. This all kicks off in this form in April. Of those nine, I think our present state is that we’ve filled six from internally, two from internally but are temporary to see how they get on, and one we have to go outside for. There has obviously been concern by some of the staff with the changes, and that is understandable, but unfortunately that is the world we live in.
(NB. To see existing management structure go to ‘Public Documents and Constitution Part 7 -
Recycling
RL: And this is for financial reasons or strategy reasons?
Terry: Both really. Because of this and because of various other things we’ve manage to do this year, we’ve managed to freeze Council Tax and although our part is not a large sum it all helps. I suppose we ought to mention recycling. I’m slightly disappointed that we only came second in the country in recycling this year even though it is less than one percent difference. One of the negative aspects of recycling is that the market for recycled products appears to be diminishing so we’ve had some problems with that, trying to find markets for our recycled products and we are getting together with three other Councils to do that, and that is working its way through
Budget Consultation
RL: You consult quite widely on things like the Budget spend don’t you?
Terry: Yes, we do. As far as I’m concerned it’s all about what the community wants and it’s about focusing on the residents out there and saying, what do you want? That’s one of the things that slightly disappoints me, that when we went out on our budget to consult people, I think it was only about 300 people replied, which may be a straw poll but that’s all it is. I would like to have more of a response. I suppose it depends on which way you look at it. Some people might say, well you got a very poor response and that’s it; other might say well because you’ve got this low response, people are generally happy. Generally if people are unhappy you hear about it, but when they are happy you hear nothing.
Encouraging Businesses
RL: I have the impression that over the last year or so there has been a big push in helping and encouraging business.
Terry: Yes, well, our three themes as we look at the actual area that we live in, are “People, Place and Business Community”, so obviously we focus on people and the services we give them and because we find ourselves in a better financial position we’ve increased a couple of services this year, for example we have a rodent service now that only takes a small fee. The other thing is the coming and going of the Sutton Road Civic Amenities site. It was Essex who originally created that site for use of people who lived to the east, but Southend stopped people from our areas using it and charged them for using it. We have now paid a fee to them so that anyone from our area, from April, can use it as long as they show identification.
RL: You were talking about encouraging business.
Terry: Yes, one thing we’ve done this year has been to take a good long look at how we can help our own local businesses. We regularly hold business breakfasts anyway, to focus on specific business topics and we get about a hundred people to those, but the other things we’ve done is to hold a number of business summits where we invited business people in and asked them, what do you want? They’ve sad that Rochford is a great place to live but difficult to do business. Most of the businesses that we have are small so establishing yourself, finding somewhere to go is not easy. We have about 14,000 out commuters every day so Rochford itself doesn’t make money from itself. One of the things that is coming forward is the Joint Action Area Plan that we have with Southend and the new business partnership we are creating north of Aviation Way, provisionally named the Saxon Park, That is looking at very high level jobs and we have Medtech in conjunction with Anglia Ruskin coming forward and to establish that, and Southend themselves have put money in. Southend own the land but we are the planning authority for it.
RL: Will the Council benefit by getting their portion of the new business rates there?
Terry: Yes, because it is in Rochford, and as far as job creation is concerned one of this ideas was that with Southend stumping up for this – and we are looking at something like 7000 new jobs possibly – that we’ll be sharing that. But the focus on businesses is how we can help them, should we be looking at creating more facilities, small business units, starter units say and these are the talks we are having.
Encouraging Tourism
RL: This also includes encouragement for tourism, I believe?
Terry: Yes, that’s right. This extends into a variety of areas, for example we have the Wallasea wetlands coming on, which may mean more bed and breakfast accommodation or hotel accommodation possibilities for visitors who come and see that; you’d be surprised at the number of people coming to look at it. Another of the things we are looking at are the links to Burnham, with the facilities it has, and how we can link across to them. One thing we’re actually running this year is a river festival along the Crouch. We have a long coastline and we don’t do much with it. Southend has tourism but it is a different sort and people may want to come along here if we market our resources well. We have the airport and who knows it might bring people in here one day rather than focusing on them going out from there. It’s about thinking through these things and seeing what people want. We’re getting out ideas on how we can improve and how we can help them and how we can liaise with others to help them as well, so that’s all part of the equation, and that’s been very well received
Cross Boundary Talks
RL: But you’ve been talking with Parishes as well haven’t you?
Terry: Yes. In any tier of government you look at others and wonder why they are doing it a particular way and so we’ve had some Parish Summits as well, so we invited all the Parishes and Town Councils to come along to a summit to discuss common issues and ask questions, so it’s about communications and how we can best help each other. Our parishes are well organised and have been there for literally hundreds of years and they know their own communities very well indeed; they can throw a spotlight on something that we wouldn’t necessarily see and so it is very useful to have those links and it is something we want to nurture to help us look outwards as well as look in.
