In addition to any announcements made at the meeting, please see Paper BC/22/18 attached, detailing events attended by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.
Minutes:
3.1 The Chair referred Councillors to report BC/22/18 for noting.
3.2 The Chair made reference to the recent sad death of Queen Elisabeth II and paid tribute to her for her long and loyal service.
3.3 The Chair invited Councillor Simon Barrett to take the opportunity to give an apology to Council as requested in a recent code of conduct complaint outcome from the Monitoring Officer.
3.4 Councillor Barrett apologised to Council for a lapse of behaviour, as requested.
3.5 The Chair invited the Leader of the Council to make his announcements.
3.6 Councillor Ward’s announcements were as follows:
LGA Conference
The Leader reported that at the end of June, the LGA Conference was finally able to be held in person rather than the less than ideal virtual conferences of the past two years. It was particularly gratifying as this year the LGA was celebrating 25 years of supporting local government. The venue was the excellent Harrogate Conference Centre and the agenda was full of interesting and useful sessions. The only drawback was that it was, a super-spreader event and many from Suffolk returned with Covid.
The Leader highlighted a small part of the conference.
Chairman
The conference began with an address from the LGA chairman, who spoke about the impact that local government has had over the last two years - from responding to COVID to rapidly providing support for the newest and most vulnerable members of our society who have arrived from Ukraine.
His speech focused on the immediate cost pressures facing councils and the issue of abuse faced by councillors - and echoed newly re-elected LGA President Baroness Grey-Thompson saying that we cannot allow this behaviour to be normalised. He also called for local government to start a conversation about our long-term vision which addresses the challenges that our communities will be facing in the next five to ten years.
Michael Gove
In his keynote speech, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove outlined the principles underpinning the Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to deliver an irreversible commitment towards strengthening local leadership. He committed to greater devolution by offering every part of England a new devolution deal by 2030. He also highlighted the need to improve the use of data to improve service delivery. He expressed his desire to strengthen innovation and the use of data by introducing a new Office for Local Government which would “shine a light” on performance and delivery.
He announced that, from next year, Government would introduce a two-year financial settlement to provide councils with certainty and confidence in planning budgets, whilst also promising to keep the financial situation facing councils under review. He also said he was “looking closely” at what the department could do to reduce the number of funding streams and associated burdens on councils.
However, as we all know, events can happen – have happened – and they do have a habit of derailing plans. We don’t yet know the new SoS’s views – since the Summer we are on the second new one now – but the Leader hoped that Suffolk would still be able to negotiate a County Deal.
Other Sessions
There were many sessions addressing topical themes such as levelling up, cost pressures on local government finances, the future of high streets, sustainable homes, the visitor economy, achieving net zero, cyber security, adult social care reform, support for care leavers, improving SEND, resilient communities and staff and community wellbeing.
And there were plenary sessions from Nadhim Zahawi, Lisa Nandy, Ed Davey and Baroness Lola Young.
Debate Not Hate - new LGA campaign
According to new research, seven in 10 councillors reported experiencing abuse and intimidation over the last 12 months. As a result of this statistic, the LGA launched its ‘Debate Not Hate’ campaign at the conference. This will work to challenge the toxicity of public debate and push for change. Kemi Badenoch and Jackie Weaver were on the panel at a plenary session that shared ideas on what can be done to tackle this. Hopefully, we will be hearing a lot more of this campaign and it can be followed via #debatenothate.
CoC Events
In July the Chairman and the Leader attended the annual Suffolk Chamber of Commerce garden party held on the rooftop garden of the Willis building. This was the first time it was held since 2019 and it was bigger and better than ever. And last month, along with the Deputy Leader, he attended the annual CoC Prestige Dinner at Wherstead Park. Again, it was great that this event was back in the calendar.
The Suffolk Chamber is vibrant and achieves a lot for the county. It was really good to talk to many people and hear how Suffolk businesses are recovering and looking forward to the future.
Supporting documents: