Caerphilly Council leader’s cabinet speech in full

News | Richard Gurner | Published: 21:00, Wednesday June 16th, 2010.

Council leader Lindsay Whittle

On Tuesday June 15, Councillor Lindsay Whittle, leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council, made his annual Cabinet Work Programme speech – which outlines his vision for the forthcoming year.

Below is the full speech.

“We are facing challenging times and indeed, the council is going to be making many changes over the next few years. Already one significant change is the position of chief executive who will be leaving us by the end of 2010.

“This is obviously not the appropriate time to make personal tributes to him suffice to say he has helped position this organisation as a sound financial council, with his directors he has delivered last year’s budget in line with our spending plans and therefore allowed the authority to approach this most difficult period with our head above the water.

“Last year we brought forward our three-year plan for improving services and our priorities for building better communities for all has not altered despite the financial climate. Our key projects and actions remain in place.

“Our strength we believe lies in concentrating on delivering the services the public need and want. However, I fear we must recognise the Chancellor’s budget statement next week will probably bring further constraints to our plans. Our measures for dealing with this were clearly laid out in our budget plans and the key components include: –

  • Rationalisation of our Assets – this links to the work already started by consolidating our administration sites, entering into partnership with communities to take on sports and community sites and finally ensuring the premises we occupy run efficiently minimising our overheads and reducing our carbon footprint.
  • Stock Transfer – probably the hardest decision any councillor in this chamber as ever had to make but we are determined to ask the people what they want to do. The result will have significant impact on the staff working in this area and the tenants themselves whether the vote is stay or transfer, ultimately this will affect our budget as well.
  • 21st Century Schools – We all know we have to change the way schools work and operate – what this will look like and how it delivers education in the county borough and it is for us to decide and by that I mean councillors, education staff and local people.
  • Collaboration – it’s a word used frequently by our colleagues in WAG as the only way forward. This council has always led the way in Wales showing how well we can work with, for example, the Voluntary Sector, Health, Police. These relationships have taken any years to build the trust and co-operation needed to be able to work in collaboration, we are confident we can keep these links working for the benefit of the people in this county borough. A new Regeneration Strategy for the county borough will be launched next week. This Strategy will be a key focus for the work of this council and its partners.“In the last twelve months two enormous partnership projects for waste, – Prosiect Gwyrdd and Heads of the Valleys Waste, have seen us working extremely closely with neighbouring councils to make sure we get the best deal for the people of Caerphilly County Borough and the region.

    “We have, in just over a year, a brand new hospital opening in the heart of the area and with it new jobs for local people. We have to make sure we maximise the opportunities Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr will bring to the county borough.

    “We have to be bold and recognise that some of the things we are doing now we will not be doing in two years time.

    “We also need to be brave and recognise externalising services may not always be a bad thing to do. Sometimes it will be about making sure jobs stay in this county borough rather than getting into debate about who should run the service.

    “I think we are ready for challenges that lie ahead of us; we have the best assets working with us – our employees. On behalf of the cabinet you can see we have met the majority of last year’s key issues in the plan and we will continue to strive for successes in this year despite, the gloom of financial difficulties that are continuing.”

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