Rob Bailey sits down with the Leader of Kent County Council, Roger Gough, to discuss the £37 million budget gap, devolution and SEND provision.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome to this special edition of the Kent Politics Show.
00:21 In these programmes, we talk to some of Kent's
00:23 most influential decision makers.
00:25 And joining me today is Roger Gough,
00:27 the Conservative Leader of Kent County Council.
00:29 Welcome, Roger.
00:30 - Thank you for having me.
00:31 - It's been about a year, I think, now,
00:33 since you wrote a letter to the government saying
00:37 that Kent County Council was in a very serious
00:39 financial issue, and it's where I wanted to start
00:41 in this conversation, because I think it has been
00:43 the defining issue in Kent over the last 12 months.
00:45 Where would you say the council is now,
00:48 in terms of its position?
00:49 - Well, I think the first thing to say is,
00:51 of course, the letter that went a year ago
00:53 was from the leader of Hampshire and me.
00:56 And what we were talking about,
00:57 and I think it's often misunderstood,
00:59 is we were saying that for the local government sector
01:01 as a whole, there's a series of pressures there
01:04 which, over time, are just not sustainable.
01:07 And that was really the point we were making.
01:09 Now, what we've seen since then is that we put
01:11 our budget through in February,
01:14 and from the summer onwards, we've seen
01:16 very clear signs of financial pressure.
01:19 What's interesting is, when we came out with that
01:22 in July, August, I think it was seen as a bit of a shock.
01:27 What we've seen since is that this is something
01:29 quite widespread across the local government sector
01:31 as a whole, and what that reflects, I think,
01:33 is pressures in areas like adult social care,
01:37 children's social services, particularly placement costs
01:40 there, school transport, and within that,
01:42 particularly special educational needs, school transport.
01:46 And those are the things that are putting
01:48 lots of authorities under a great deal of pressure.
01:50 - I've seen the figure of 37 million,
01:52 but sometimes it's also reported as 50 million.
01:55 Is there a figure that you can kind of commit to there
01:58 of what the gap is at the moment?
02:00 - Well, it depends very much on which year
02:02 you're talking about.
02:03 So, in year, at the moment, what we say is that
02:06 there is a pressure of 37 million before management action.
02:11 It's always worth remembering our budget is,
02:13 on the tightest definition, 1.3 billion.
02:16 So, you're talking about a couple of percent, a few percent.
02:19 So, that's the position in year, and what we've said is,
02:22 we believe we are taking the measures by which
02:24 we can get it to balance through this year.
02:27 There's still a lot of work to be done,
02:29 but we are working on that flat out,
02:31 and we believe that's doable.
02:33 - I want to get into that, the measures that you're taking
02:35 to try and address that in year 37 million pounds.
02:38 One of them that's been quite controversial
02:40 is the suggestion of closing
02:43 some recycling centres around Kent.
02:45 It's relatively small bear in terms of the amount of savings,
02:48 1.5 million pounds by closing four from a list of six.
02:52 But it's turned into a bit of a political problem,
02:54 hasn't it?
02:55 A vote in a select committee where 28 conservative
02:58 councillors said that they didn't want to see this happen,
03:01 a rebellion.
03:01 Is that now a dead plan?
03:04 - Certainly, the effort to achieve those savings
03:07 is not a dead plan.
03:08 I'm not going to go into what comes up in private meetings,
03:11 but it's no secret there is a lot of disquiet about that.
03:15 I think where we have come from on that is, you're right,
03:18 1.5 million pounds is a relatively small saving
03:21 in the context of what we're seeking to do.
03:24 And it's worth saying this and many of the other things
03:26 we're looking to do are more for next year
03:28 and the years beyond when they'll really take effect.
03:31 But nonetheless, it's important that we operate
03:34 across the whole of our services to say,
03:37 where can we deliver these things most cost effectively?
03:41 Because it is true, the bulk of the pressures we've got
03:44 are in those big services I was describing.
03:47 - 28 councillors saying they don't want to see that cut.
03:49 And the suggestion is they don't want to see that cut
03:52 because there are elections coming sooner rather than later.
03:55 And this is going to be a very unpopular decision.
03:58 Can you turn those 28 around?
04:00 - Well, I think we've got to find a way that we move forward
04:02 where enough councillors across the council
04:05 are in support of achieving savings.
04:08 And I think we certainly cannot give up on the need
04:11 to deliver those savings in whatever form.
04:14 We are trying to deliver savings in the big spending areas.
04:17 And that is where the bulk of savings are going to come from
04:20 in areas like adult social care, children's, et cetera, et cetera.
04:24 Because frankly, if we don't deliver savings in those areas,
04:27 the sheer numbers mean delivering them in other areas
04:31 is not going to be enough.
04:32 And also, of course, you have the problem that in many ways,
04:35 the things that you have outside those areas
04:39 are the most visible services that we provide to residents.
04:43 And therefore, it is in some ways, the biggest challenge
04:46 that people will ask, what am I getting for my council tax?
04:49 So that is a real, real challenge.
04:51 - And that's where the recycling centres comes in.
04:53 - Yeah, absolutely.
04:53 - It's also where children's centres comes in.
04:55 It's where youth groups come in,
04:58 where there are cuts again being suggested
05:00 to all of these things.
05:01 Do you think you're going to face time and time again now,
05:04 particularly with councillors looking ahead
05:07 to electoral consequences,
05:09 that these are going to be not just tough decisions,
05:11 but impossible decisions to take?
05:12 - I don't think these decisions,
05:13 particularly across the piece, will be impossible.
05:16 And I think what all councillors realise as well is
05:19 that whilst there can be unpopularity
05:21 that goes with tough decisions,
05:23 it is as nothing to the unpopularity that you would get
05:27 if essentially the council failed financially.
05:30 - Of course, opponents of some of these schemes will say
05:32 that these cuts come with consequences.
05:35 If you cut youth groups across the county,
05:37 you might save money in hiring premises and having staff,
05:41 but you might also incur costs
05:42 of increased antisocial behaviour or other things.
05:45 I mean, how are you factoring those kinds of consequences
05:47 into these decisions?
05:48 - What we are saying is that, yes, we are looking,
05:52 the proposal is to decommission a number
05:55 of commissioned youth services.
05:57 We still have significant large-scale youth services
06:00 of our own, and we are actually unusual amongst many
06:04 of the big county councils and other large authorities
06:07 in the scale to which we have kept those.
06:09 There is also a whole network of other providers
06:11 of youth services out there with whom we seek to work,
06:14 some of which also links in to the government's proposals
06:18 for what's called family hubs,
06:20 which we believe can actually provide
06:21 in many cases better services.
06:23 - Let's take one more specific example
06:25 of where a cut's coming in.
06:26 Obviously, bus services are always something
06:28 that is looked at very carefully.
06:29 We know that there are a lot of bus routes
06:31 around the county where there's not an awful lot of users,
06:34 but people are really worried about the social isolation
06:36 and particularly among older populations.
06:39 Are bus routes too important to fail,
06:42 even if they're only used by a small number of people
06:44 who rely on them for their day-to-day life?
06:47 - Well, we did carry through a reduction
06:49 in bus subsidies last year.
06:51 Having said which, we've still kept both subsidised routes
06:55 and then indeed given a lot of support to routes,
06:57 particularly school routes,
06:59 because those are an important part
07:01 of how people have made their decisions
07:03 about where their children go to school,
07:05 and it can create enormous disruption
07:08 when you get changes there.
07:09 Many of the changes that were threatened last year
07:12 and many of the pressures we see
07:14 are actually within the commercial network.
07:16 They were not to do with us reducing subsidies,
07:19 and indeed we've succeeded in getting money from government
07:23 under what's called the Bus Service Improvement Plan, BSIP,
07:26 and whilst a lot of that money is required
07:28 to go into capital programmes to support bus priority
07:32 or areas of that, things of that kind,
07:35 there is actually a degree to which we work with operators
07:38 to seek to support routes.
07:40 - So you've mentioned already a couple
07:41 of the kind of headline pressures on the council,
07:43 and I'd like to get into those a little bit.
07:45 One of the ones you mentioned was
07:46 special educational needs provision around Kent,
07:49 and obviously there has been an issue with that.
07:51 There was an improvement notice served earlier this year.
07:54 Among the concerns raised about Kent County Council,
07:57 the local area not able or willing to meet children's needs
08:00 in the eyes of parents,
08:01 variable lack of provision at schools across the county,
08:04 and a poor process to check the quality of education,
08:07 health and care plans.
08:09 There's been a progress report published on that,
08:11 and among the things that are still kind of red flagged
08:15 was the quality assurance of education plans.
08:19 We spoke to parents at KMTV who had errors in their plans,
08:22 they had missing sections where important services
08:27 or things that their children needed
08:29 were just being overlooked or missing from the plan entirely.
08:31 How confident are you
08:32 that you're addressing those problems?
08:34 - There is no doubt that provision
08:36 across special educational needs has been a huge challenge,
08:40 and it's one on which we have sometimes fallen short
08:44 and need to do better.
08:45 Now, there is a national dimension to this,
08:47 so if you look across the country,
08:49 you have seen a huge increase
08:50 in education, health and care plans over the years,
08:53 and a lot of areas struggle with this.
08:56 Where we need to do better is in a couple of areas.
09:00 One is in terms of right at the start of the process,
09:05 do we have offers across our education system
09:09 that give more parents confidence
09:12 that their child's needs will be met locally?
09:16 - We have a kind of ghettoization of service delivery,
09:18 don't we, in this area,
09:19 where there are a few schools that really specialise in SEND
09:24 spread right across the county,
09:25 and what a lot of parents want
09:27 is for their local school on their doorstep
09:29 to have all of the services and provision that they need,
09:32 and they can't find it there.
09:33 - Well, and that certainly,
09:34 there is not the confidence in that,
09:36 and a major part of the initiatives we're taking,
09:38 working with schools,
09:39 and it's worth remembering schools
09:40 are of course deeply autonomous,
09:42 and we work with them, we do not direct them,
09:45 but it's clearly a lot of work that we seek to do together
09:47 to ensure that more parents are able to have that confidence
09:51 because otherwise what you end up with,
09:53 and we've seen, is this big increase
09:56 in education, health and care plans,
09:58 and a shift away from mainstream
10:00 towards specialist provision,
10:02 and also within that independent specialist provision.
10:04 In the key areas around caseworkers,
10:06 we used to have over 100 vacancies.
10:09 That is now down to about a dozen.
10:11 We have put several million pounds
10:13 into training and investment in those areas
10:16 because we recognise that both in terms of the delays
10:19 that you get through processing
10:21 and delivering of education, health and care plans,
10:24 and the service and the responsiveness
10:26 that people and parents and families get,
10:29 we've fallen short.
10:30 That is absolutely the case,
10:31 and a huge amount of effort is going into
10:33 delivering on that.
10:35 That is part of what the accelerated progress plan is about.
10:38 - That accelerated plan, it highlights, as I say,
10:40 certain specific things where progress has so far been slow.
10:43 One of them was in the quality of the plans
10:45 that have been sent to parents.
10:46 One was in the quality of support available to children
10:49 who are moving between schools
10:50 or moving between settings from primary to secondary
10:53 or elsewhere.
10:54 There's another checkpoint in next April in that process.
10:58 How confident are you that you will make progress
11:01 that would be visible to parents by that point?
11:04 - I believe we can.
11:06 It's also fair to say that we've been,
11:07 we continue to work with Department for Education,
11:10 with the health service as well,
11:13 because, and the health regulators as well,
11:15 because as I say, it's not solely the County Council,
11:19 although we have a central responsibility in this area.
11:22 We have been, and there is close monitoring and engagement,
11:26 and I think many of the signs are encouraging
11:29 as to where we've got to on that.
11:32 I think the challenge is very often that parental confidence,
11:36 and we've said this for some time,
11:37 will almost inevitably be a later thing.
11:41 We have to actually do it and demonstrate it,
11:44 and then parents will believe it.
11:46 And I think that is, so we seek all the time
11:48 to demonstrate the improvements that we're bringing about.
11:51 We would not pretend that we are there yet,
11:53 but we believe there are a number of areas
11:55 in which we're making progress.
11:56 So, for example, if you look at education,
11:59 health and care plans,
12:00 there's been a lot of work in terms of clearing backlogs,
12:04 which I regret to say had built up.
12:06 We were, in terms of assessments,
12:08 which is the key part that we carry out,
12:10 go back a year, and I think it was 146,
12:13 and we've had a lot of success in that.
12:15 And I think that's a good thing.
12:17 And I think that's a good thing.
12:18 And I think that's a good thing.
12:20 And I think that's a good thing.
12:21 And I think that's a good thing.
12:23 And I think that's a good thing.
12:24 So, we go back a year, and I think it was 146,
12:27 or 147 that we did in the month of October a year ago,
12:31 now up to 237.
12:33 So, we are increasing the rate at which that goes through.
12:36 And that's important because it's, you know,
12:39 the sooner you get these things sorted,
12:42 the sooner you are ensuring that a child
12:44 actually has their future mapped out
12:46 and that parents, again, have a better experience of this
12:49 than they have had so far.
12:51 - The other big pressure that the council is under
12:53 is caused by unaccompanied asylum seeker children.
12:56 - Yes.
12:57 - And you've been very open about the fact
12:59 that Kent County Council doesn't get enough support.
13:02 We are on the front line of that particular problem.
13:04 They come into the country very often on the Kent shoreline.
13:07 They are reported by the Home Office here,
13:09 and they come into care with Kent.
13:11 And I know that there's quite complex details
13:13 that we need to get into with that.
13:14 But I just wanted to start by asking,
13:16 to what extent does the cost and the burden of that care,
13:21 does that obstruct your ability to care for Kent children
13:26 and to deal more quickly with some of these issues
13:30 around SEND?
13:31 Do these two things play against each other?
13:33 - I think inevitably it adds to all the pressures
13:35 on our services.
13:37 It's not, it is, as you say, complicated
13:40 because we've been through a whole number of iterations
13:43 on this.
13:44 And if you go back a couple of years,
13:46 we had two occasions in 2020 and again in 2021,
13:50 where what we did was we said very clearly to government,
13:54 we cannot continue to deliver on all our obligations.
13:59 And as part of the pretty intense negotiations
14:02 that followed through that,
14:03 there was improved financial settlement,
14:06 which helped enormously,
14:08 and a number of other provisions that were reached
14:10 and which actually bought us the best part of two years
14:14 until, and I suspect we'll come onto this in a moment,
14:16 a series of court proceedings this summer,
14:18 which have now added very, very significantly
14:21 to the pressures on us.
14:22 We have social workers with caseloads of 70.
14:25 Now that is not sustainable.
14:27 We have a situation where you have huge pressure on,
14:31 for instance, fostering, accommodation,
14:34 on the capacity for reception,
14:36 which is what we, the first bit of the service we provide.
14:39 And all of this is something where we've been,
14:41 as you say, in the frontline over many years.
14:44 But what changed this summer was a series
14:47 of court proceedings, which have made the whole thing
14:49 a lot more intense and put us into a whole new situation.
14:53 - So this was the situation where Kent County Council
14:56 negotiated a cap on the number of children
14:59 that you would essentially be prepared to take
15:02 who arrived at the shores of Kent,
15:04 and anyone over that number should go to another county
15:08 and be cared for by them.
15:09 That was ruled in the High Court as being unlawful,
15:12 that Kent has a statutory duty of care.
15:15 Was Kent putting children at risk through that cap?
15:19 And that was essentially what the ruling said.
15:21 - Well, we don't believe that we put children,
15:24 we don't believe we did put children at risk.
15:26 And I would say the challenge that we all have,
15:28 and I think the court itself is grappling with this,
15:30 is that when you have a situation as overloaded as ours is,
15:35 when you have a local authority, admittedly,
15:37 the biggest local authority by some measures in the country,
15:40 certainly one of the biggest,
15:42 but it's still a local authority dealing
15:43 with what is fundamentally a national
15:45 and in some ways international issue,
15:47 then there are actually no safe options.
15:49 What we said at that time was that we would have
15:52 taken to our care a number of children,
15:55 both into our long-term care
15:58 and into what was called a reception and safe care service.
16:01 And it was the cap in the reception and safe care service,
16:04 which was the bit that was deemed unlawful.
16:07 It's worth saying even on that basis,
16:09 we would have been taking into our care
16:11 and did consistently many more children
16:14 than those envisaged as the sensible limit
16:17 for any local authority under the 2016 Immigration Act.
16:21 When you got to the stage where the number of arrivals
16:24 became very large,
16:26 then the so-called national transfer scheme
16:29 by which these young people are moved
16:30 to all councils across the country,
16:32 which again, we'd made some progress on a couple of years ago
16:36 was just not operating quickly enough
16:39 to move these young people through.
16:41 And that's why the Home Office was ending up using hotels,
16:45 which was the other bit of what came to be ruled as unlawful.
16:49 So the consequences of these findings is that,
16:52 yes, Kent County Council has absolute responsibility
16:56 under the Children Act to take responsibility
16:59 for each child or young person arriving in Kent.
17:03 And that is where the challenge really arises
17:06 because I used to say when I was doing radio interviews
17:10 or TV interviews about this a year or two ago,
17:13 I'd say, which local authority can take,
17:16 even a big one, can take 60, 80, 100 young people
17:21 into its care month or month or month?
17:24 And it was a rhetorical question,
17:25 and of course you can't.
17:27 Well, between the time of the judgment,
17:30 which was the end of July and the beginning of October,
17:33 sorry, the end of October,
17:35 we took in over 1,200, or just 1,200 were referred to us.
17:40 Not all came into our care.
17:41 Some were placed ultimately with other local authorities,
17:44 but that's a very, very intense pressure.
17:47 - And of course, since then,
17:48 we've seen the government trying
17:49 to offer some support to Kent.
17:51 Gilligan Keegan, I think, sent a letter out
17:54 to all county councils around the country.
17:57 And the offer was if they were to take children from Kent,
18:00 they would get a 6,000 pound payout
18:02 to help support the care of that child.
18:04 Is that enough?
18:06 - No.
18:07 I mean, we've been in intense conversations
18:09 with particularly both the Home Office
18:12 and the Department for Education,
18:13 because both of them are involved in this issue.
18:17 And we've had a degree of understanding,
18:20 but not yet, frankly, enough in the way of measures.
18:24 And that comes in two forms.
18:26 One is about money, because as I say,
18:28 we actually got a good financial settlement
18:29 a couple of years ago,
18:30 but we're now into a completely different league,
18:32 including areas of provision
18:35 that we're going to have to invest in
18:37 if we are to act on the instructions, frankly, of the court.
18:41 So that puts us under very intense pressure.
18:44 The other big ask we have is to say that, look,
18:47 the National Transfer Scheme was brought in some years ago.
18:51 It was initially voluntary, never properly delivered.
18:54 We did get agreement with government two years ago
18:56 to make it mandatory,
18:57 but it still doesn't operate at the pace that we need,
19:01 particularly at times when, as I say,
19:02 you've got very large numbers of arrivals.
19:05 And on that basis, we need government to do more
19:08 to ensure that this does operate
19:10 so that councils take across the country, share this burden.
19:14 - These are people who are arriving
19:15 in a very vulnerable state who need to be cared for,
19:17 but Kent taxpayers will feel that they are victims
19:21 of geography here, won't they?
19:23 That they are taking a burden of this,
19:25 and that the money that they're giving you
19:27 to provide services for them is going somewhere else.
19:31 - Well, yes, I think it's a slightly more subtle process
19:34 than that because the agreement we got a couple of years ago
19:37 I think did a great deal actually
19:39 to protect Kent council taxpayers.
19:41 The challenge we have now is this big increase in numbers
19:44 and in effect responsibilities.
19:46 And that's what we are negotiating with government about.
19:49 If the numbers continue to be large,
19:53 then that has a huge pressure on all the provision
19:56 in terms of accommodation, fostering, social work capacity.
20:00 And that's when it becomes not just a question of money,
20:03 but actually a question of risk and safeguarding
20:06 for all the young people to whom we provide services
20:10 because we've got to be covering all those waterfronts
20:13 and sometimes making the kind of choices
20:16 and decisions that you should not have to make.
20:18 - I just want to ask you before we finish
20:20 about the future of Kent politics
20:23 because there's been a lively debate
20:25 at Kent County Council about devolution.
20:29 And in particular about what that would mean
20:32 for the structure of Kent politics.
20:33 Should there be an elected mayor for Kent?
20:36 How does devolution in Kent look in your eyes in the future?
20:41 - I think it's hard to get a very clear view on it
20:43 because there was a particular programme
20:46 which the current government brought in.
20:48 It was very much set out in the leveling up white paper
20:51 best part of two years ago now
20:52 of the early part of last year.
20:54 And in that the government was very clear
20:57 that including for what were called county deals,
21:00 an elected mayor was central
21:02 to certainly the most advanced bit,
21:05 what was called level three.
21:07 And that's the area where you got the most
21:09 in the way of the money and the powers.
21:11 And that's what I was interested in
21:13 in the early part of last year.
21:14 It's worth saying actually historically,
21:15 I've not been a fan of the mayor concept.
21:18 There's even an article I wrote
21:19 for Conservative Home a couple of years ago.
21:21 You can find it out there somewhere on the internet
21:23 where I was saying why I didn't think it was essential.
21:26 But it was clear that was if you like the entry ticket
21:30 for that range of money and powers.
21:33 I also think there's an important argument
21:36 which is that if you are trying to build an authority
21:40 that's actually got real strategic heft
21:43 in terms of areas like infrastructure, skills, transport,
21:48 the challenge we've had as a county council
21:50 is that huge pressures have come in
21:52 in the areas of adults and children's social care,
21:55 all the stuff we've been talking about.
21:56 And that's meant the county councils
21:58 or other major authorities across the country
22:01 have had to sort of hack away some of their strategic capacity
22:05 over the last 10, 15 years because of those other pressures.
22:10 They haven't had the time, the money, the headspace
22:12 to be able to take those powers on.
22:14 So to my mind, some sort of what's called
22:17 a mayoral combined authority as a way of being able
22:20 to take that forward was quite attractive.
22:22 Now, our colleagues at Medway made very clear
22:25 they did not support the concept of a mayor.
22:28 And I think there's a clear expectation
22:31 that if we have a change of government next year,
22:33 there may be a somewhat different approach to devolution.
22:37 So what we're saying at the moment is we are keen
22:39 to bring forward our ideas
22:41 about what's gonna be good for Kent.
22:43 - I have to ask you, if there was ever a change,
22:46 a constitutional change in Kent
22:48 where an elected mayor became a figure that we had,
22:51 would it interest you?
22:53 - Probably not.
22:54 I mean, look, I've been asked this before
22:57 and I think in most things in politics, you never say never,
23:01 but I actually fascinated and enjoying what I do.
23:05 I'm not sure that there's certainly any interest
23:07 I've ever had in bringing forward these proposals
23:10 is nothing to do with looking for a next step
23:13 in terms of what I myself do.
23:15 And I think it's actually in some ways,
23:17 probably a role that I would not be looking towards,
23:20 but you never know,
23:21 but that's certainly what I would be thinking.
23:22 I suspect to be honest,
23:23 we're in different territory at the moment
23:25 and whatever devolution arrangements we reach,
23:28 and I hope we do,
23:29 it looks less likely perhaps than it did a year or two ago
23:33 that that would be part of it, but we'll have to see.
23:37 - Well, there we go.
23:37 A question mark for the future,
23:38 but Roger Gough, thank you so much for joining us.
23:40 - It's a pleasure.
23:41 - Thank you very much.
23:42 - Thank you.
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