Ongoing Communicating
RL: That was the people and business aspects of your People, Place and Business approach.
Terry: Yes, as far as place is concerned we have all our local plans in place now so that can hopefully carry forward. We have business plans and I have regular meetings with Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses and other people who come along. The lines of communication are there and I think they are getting better
RL: Do you think this is all about having more open government? You are going to this group and that group opening up what you do or could do?
Terry: Yes, but it’s not about us influencing them but about them influencing us. Yes, we have a story to tell and have to do things in a certain way but they might come back to us and say, why not do it this way or that, and so have a look at that and at least consider it. Communication is everything these days, isn’t it.
Open Government
RL: That’s right. Do I understand the way is open for Council Meetings to be filmed?
Terry: Well they are certainly recorded. We record our main meetings and that is the first step, if you like. To film it you need a production team and there are costs to that, so it may well come in a few years but we have taken the first step and audio recordings are available on line. We record our main meetings, our executive meetings and our development control meetings and that started this year.
(to see details of EXECUTIVE DECISION BY PORTFOLIO HOLDER FOR GOVERNANCE: FILMING, PHOTOGRAPHY AND AUDIO RECORDING AT COUNCIL MEETINGS go to Portfolio Holder decisions and ‘Governance’ documents. Also of interest is EXECUTIVE DECISION BY PORTFOLIO HOLDER FOR PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY: PHOTOGRAPHIC AND FILMING PROTOCOL)
Further developments
RL: Are there other things locally that have pleased you
Terry: Well, we have our gems in Essex – we have the Thames Gateway, and Southend Airport is going from strength to strength. Those are pleasing on the wider front. Locally one of the things we’re looking at from the tourist perspective is our own parks, particularly the Jubilee Park, and we are talking about an open cinema there, sort of on the American style where people can just drive in and watch something, purely as an experiment to see how it goes; these are the sort of things we’re looking at. We have the Wild Woods Day in Hockley Woods and I think we had over 4000 visitors to that last year, our eleventh year last year. We’ve recently bought some extra land as well for the Jubilee Country Park and we’re getting to the point where the Park is slowly approaching Hockley Woods. I don’t know whether it will happen but it would be nice to join the two together. That of course will be an area that will not be built upon or developed. I would like to see an educational reception facility on there. Some land recently came up for auction and we bid and got three parcels of land.
The Flood Forum
RL: It sounds like constant progress constant development.
Terry: Well hopefully yes. Another thing we’ve been involved with is the Flood Forum which I’ve been privileged to chair, although Keith Hudson does all the hard work. It’s been about bringing all the different agencies together who are concerned with flooding. It’s been interesting for it’s that old adage, the more you look the more you find, and although they are not actually public meetings as such, the public were invited and we asked them to tell us the problems and we’ve actually got thirty different locations and we’ve managed by cooperation of all the agencies to get things done. In that respect I think it has been a success, that we have got things done that perhaps have not been done for say fifteen to twenty years, such as clearing ditches, ensuring regular maintenance and so on. We hope the difference will be observable in the years to come.
County Council
RL: Perhaps we could move on to your County Council involvement.
Terry: County has its own problems in that if you look at their budget the amount they have to spend, its about £950M. Essex is a large county. If you are looking at the bit they control you are looking at about 1.4 million people, but the main budget is a social budget for looking after children etc. I think the social services budget is about £400M, and with the new Care Act coming forward now there’s an additional £111M for children, so over half of that budget is spent that way. Highways is always a big spend but I think they have done quite well with that. They’ve spent a lot of money on the roads and there is more money coming forward. It’s also about how the Care Act comes forward and how that affects County and its spend, but they have saved over £400M over the last five years.
RL: Are there other things you’ve picked up on?
Terry: Well, one of the things County is looking at is the devolution aspect and saying how can we go into things like that and I think they are looking at the Manchester model, not necessarily a full blown thing like they are talking about but certainly looking at the ideas and adapting that to see what might be suitable in Essex. Going forward they are looking to see how you can get more control, better control, more local control of things like say, highways spend because many of the highways are still not controlled by Essex. It is how you spend that money and how you invest in routes hopefully to accommodate some of the new-
RL: Isn’t the problem of devolution that you have so many local small groups all vying with one another to get their way, whereas if you have central control it should be more objective?
Terry: We’re very much controlled by the centre in this country aren’t we but if you go to somewhere like Germany they have something like 87% of the budget spend in local control. Nothing will happen this side of the election in any event but I think there is a debate to be had and I think that covers all the country really.
RL: How has going to County affected you as an individual?
Terry: Well some of it I knew because I had been working with people in Essex for quite some time but some of it I didn’t know, for example when you get down to looking at figures – and I now chair the Audit Committee at County Council and so I am looking at the budget from the audit side and it’s more making sure things are going right -
The Future
RL: Perhaps we should wind up. In five years time, what will be different?
Terry: I’d like to see businesses well established and the partners coming along north of Aviation Way. I’d like to see some really nice housing estates coming forward in accordance with our plans. If you visit the new ones that are already there, they are very nice with open spaces and well placed, and I believe people will enjoy living in our area. There will be improvements of the infrastructure to help traffic flow; there is infrastructure but the question is whether it is enough. I’d like to think that we can make it a better place to live, that we can actually serve our residents better, One thing we are looking at, and it is no means certain, but when people have a problem and approach ‘the Council’, they tend to phone the District because we’ve got the offices, so of course we get lots of phone calls that are not for us. We are looking at that and asking how can we help residents with that and follow through for them if they come to us. We are looking to have a situation where we can have staff on hand, almost like a one-
RL: Well Terry, thank you very much again for giving us your time and sharing so widely. I’m fairly certain we could have talk on for another hour but thank you for the spread you’ve laid before us of some of the Council’s current activities.
Editorial Note: Rochford Life has sought over the past four years to present to our readers insights into the running of the Council by interviewing a variety of Councillors and officers. We are aware of the shortcomings of the this method of learning how our local authority works and for those who wish to go further into the workings of the Council, we would recommend a visit to the Council’s own website http://www.rochford.gov.uk/ or click here to go directly to their information page and then click on any of ‘Decisions’, Key Decisions Document’ or ‘Public Documents to dig into their filing cabinets! Happy reading, if that is your sort of thing.
Talking to Leader of the District Council, Councillor Terry Cutmore -
To return to Part 1 of this Interview, please CLICK HERE
