LGE Aug Sept 2015 ezine

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Top gear
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L O C A L G O V E R N M E N T E X E C U T I V E
Councils weigh in on the
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Contents
Editor
Andy Jowett
Tel: 0161 236 2782
andrew.jowett@excelpublishing.co.uk
Writers
Holly Squire
Emily Hill
Production Manager
John Hope
Production
Carl Barton
Adrian North
Andy Bellis
Alex Gordon
Tracey Alexander
Jo Murphy
Senior Sales Manager
Caroline Ackroyd
0161 661 4151
caroline.ackroyd@
excelpublishing.co.uk
Circulations Manager
Patricia Salgueiro
0161 661 4172
Publisher
Patrick Rafter
LGE
6th Floor
Manchester One
53 Portland Street
Manchester M1 3LD
Tel 0161 236 2782
Fax 0161 236 2783
L O C A L G O V E R N M E N T E X E C U T I V E w w w . l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t e x e c u t i v e . c o . u k
E 04 The Beat
The stories making the headlines in local government.
E 10 Contracts
Edinburgh set for £186m IT deal, Lancashire and London pension funds agree
£10.5bn partnership, London boroughs to cooperate on social worker recruitment
and Surrey to build “pothole proof” roads.
E 12 People
Brighton & Hove chief steps down, Cambridgeshire chief moves to LGA, new role
for Lord Kerslake and Edinburgh social care director leaves after £5.3bn overspend.
E 18 Shared steps
Arvato’s John Wybrant on how councils can make genuine shared service
partnerships work to save money in the back office and protect the frontline.

E 24 Communication breakdown
Austerity has seen many councils cut back their recycling schemes but Rick Hindley
of Alupro argues that using communication to encourage residents to divert waste from
landfill is well worth the investment.
E 29 Wheel deals
LGE offers a few pointers for getting the right vehicles to meet the many demands
placed on busy council fleets.
E 31 Electric dreams
Birmingham City Council has been a pioneer in supporting the adoption of electric
vehicles, from providing essential infrastructure for the public to trialling the use of
zero emissions cars for its own fleet.
E 34 Clarkwatch: Filling big shoes
Our new(ish) man in Whitehall gets down to business.
Apr-May 2015
Printed by
Buxton Press
LGE is published by Excel Publishing
Company Ltd. Its readers are executives
and professional managers in local
government and public sector agencies
COVER STORY: THE ACADEMY AGE
The Government has put academies at the heart of efforts
to improve school performance, but is it creating a two-tier
system of education - and do they really help the most
disadvantaged children?
20PAGE
Follow LGE on Twitter:@localgovexec
LGE 3
Pic: Elizabeth Albert

THE BEAT
June
CUTS to adult social care are putting the
sustainability of services at stake, according
to Adass. Funding for adult social care fell
by 10.7% in 2015-16 and services could
face a budget gap of £4.3bn by the end
of the decade. Adass president Ray James
warns of the “folly” of increasing health
spending while cutting social care given the
“widely acknowledged significance of the
link between the two”.
PUBLIC health funding for local
authorities is to be cut by over £200m,
forming part of £3bn in departmental savings
for the current financial year. Cllr David
Sparks, chair of LGA, warns the in-year
reduction, coming after councils have set
their budgets, means it may not be possible
to protect some services and may have
knock-on effects within the public sector.
COUNCILS could face shortfalls of
millions of pounds because the Department
of Health may have underestimated demand
for carers’ assessments brought in under the
Care Act, the NAO says. It calculates that
if everyone who has applied and is eligible
for carer’s allowance seeks an assessment
under the act, it would cost £27m more
than the DoH’s assumption, which is based
on the number of people already receiving
the allowance. Cllr Izzie Seccombe of the
LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board says
that unless the Government fully funds all
new burdens under the Care Act, its “vital”
reforms could be jeopardised.
GOVERNMENT plans to extend Right
to Buy to housing association tenants are
“wrong in principle and wrong in practice”,
according to former head of the Civil Service
Lord Kerslake. More than 1.3m occupants
would get the right to purchase homes
at discounts of up to £103,900, which
would be funded by requiring councils to
sell off their highest value properties. Lord
Kerslake tells the CIH conference the policy
will do nothing to improve the supply of
affordable housing.
WHITEHALL’S system for assessing the
new burdens placed on local government
is criticised for lacking transparency.
According to the National Audit Office,
placing unfunded new burdens on councils
after an estimated 25% fall in spending
power between 2009-10 and 2015-16
increases the pressure to generate funds
from council tax rises or further cuts to
services. “New burdens should be properly
assessed and paid to councils before
incurring any new costs,” says Cllr Claire
Kober, chair of the Local Government
Association’s Resources Board.
AN INVERSION of the relationship
between central and local government is
needed so that devolution focuses on the
needs of different areas and is not imposed
by a single blueprint, a new report argues.
The LGiU calls for power to be devolved to
networks of towns and counties, as well as
cities, with a “clear invitation” for councils
and their partners to set out different
models based on local circumstances. The
think tank says Whitehall should also have
a presumption in favour of devolution.
COUNCILS should “loosen their
grip” on surplus land and follow central
government’s example by going further and
faster in freeing up sites for new housing,
local government secretary Greg Clark says.
This is despite an 11% annual increase to
125,110 in homes completed by March
2015, as well as housebuilding standing at
an eight-year high. The National Housing
Federation says there needs to be “urgent
action” to boost all types of housebuilding
in order to keep pace with demand.
COUNCIL chiefs hit back at a
TaxPayers Alliance report claiming town
halls are “pleading poverty” while sitting
on a huge amount of property. TPA chief
executive Jonathan Isaby says the time
has come for a “serious discussion” of
the role of councils and for these assets to
be returned to the private sector. But the
Local Government Association calls the
research “misleading”, outlining council
plans to sell £13.3bn in land and property
during 2015-18.
THREE South East councils call for a
meeting with local government secretary
Greg Clark over devolution of greater
powers and freedoms to the region. West
Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey county
councils want “devolution offers”
including more access to locally raised
taxes and power over skills training to
manage pressure from economic growth on
school places, housing, social care and road
and rail infrastructure.
£3.3bn
Forecast cut to local
government funding from
central government in 2016-
17, according to the LGA. The
association’s Future Funding
Outlook says councils will
have to cut budgets by 12%
next year, 11% in 2017-18 and
4% in 2018-19 before funding
increases by 7% in 2019-20. It
warns that local government
faces a funding gap of £9.5bn
by the end of the decade.
11%
Increase in homeless
families living in temporary
accommodation in the year
to the end of March. Of the
48,240 in temporary housing in
England, around three-quarters
are in London. Mayor Sir Steve
Bullock, London Councils’
executive member for housing,
says boroughs need more
power and financial freedoms
to increase housing supply or
the situation will get worse.
Ray James Adass
Greg Clark
g
10TO1
Rate at which Right to Buy sales
are outpacing replacements,
according to figures from DCLG.
There were 12,304 council
properties sold under Right to
Buy in England during 2014-
15, up from 11,261 the previous
year. The average receipt per
sale was £78,000. Only 1,903
homes were started or acquired
using the proceeds of Right
to Buy sales, meaning 10,401
homes were not replaced.
LGE 4
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THE BEAT
LGE 5
lge@excelpublishing.co.uk
LOCAL Safeguarding Children Boards
must have a clear and “realistic” remit as
their original purpose to coordinate and
monitor safeguarding work has become
confusedbyincreasingexpectationswithout
greater power and resources, the LGA
argues. It adds that serious case reviews
are proving increasingly expensive and the
resources required are disproportionate to
their usefulness in improving practice.
A FORMER Guildford councillor who
forged legal qualifications and repeatedly
lied about being a barrister is sentenced to
14 months’ imprisonment suspended for
two years. Monika Juneja, 36, had landed
numerous council jobs as a result of her
deception and was only exposed when
residents examined her qualifications.
An internal investigation by Guildford
concluded that Juneja had not influenced
policy inappropriately or caused a
financial loss but that the council had
suffered “severe reputational damage”.
“DOUBLE DEVOLUTION” that
gives communities the power the make
decisions about long-term housebuilding
is the only way to plug the gap in
affordable housing provision, according
to ResPublica. With only 125,110 of
the 250,000 homes needed built in the
last year, the think tank calls for Local
Place Partnerships to bring together local
authorities, developers and communities
to create a single “decision point” to
dramatically increase building rates.
WELSH local government could cut
administrative costs by £151m a year
through a “radical transformation” of
administration, according to a review
by KPMG. The report, which was
commissioned by public services minister
Leighton Andrews, shows Wales’ 22
councils spend £471m on administrative
tasks but spending between areas varies
significantly. KPMG says councils could
potentially “supercharge” savings through
a three-phase plan that would standardise
practices through rationalisation, match
equivalent spending levels in England
and eventually introduce “system-wide,
strategic transformation”.
COUNCILS face a “tipping point”
unless the Government establishes a long-
term funding plan to tackle the squeeze on
school places, the LGA says. It estimates
that councils diverted at least £1bn of
their own resources to create extra school
places last year and it predicts that three
out of five areas in England will have more
primary pupils than places by 2018-19.
THE SYSTEM for complaining about
public services system is “incoherent and
dissatisfying” and needs urgent reform,
the National Audit Office warns. In 2014,
10.6m people complained about public
services but the NAO says many had to
deal with different organisations or were
unsure about where to turn. There are
also many areas, such as academy schools,
with no formal route to seek independent
redress. It calls on the Cabinet Office
to nominate an authority within the
Government to manage reforms of the
complaints system directly. NAO head
Amyas Morse says the current system
“cannot be regarded as good value for
money”.
WEST YORKSHIRE Combined
Authority opens talks with the Government
about the devolution of powers over
transport, housing and economic growth.
Cllr Judith Blake, leader of Leeds City
Council, says Chancellor George Osborne’s
offer to hand power to combined
authorities that adopt elected mayors is
“a crucial moment in the course of English
devolution and we are determined to make
the most of it for the benefit of all of
our residents and businesses”. The West
Yorkshire Combined Authority includes
Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and
Wakefield, along with the City of York.
TO LET signs are banned in part
of Liverpool because of concerns of
local residents. Kris Cargill of the Dales
Residents Association says some roads
have dozens of signs, which are often left
up long after a property has been let, giving
the impression that the area “is a place
where nobody wants to live,when in actual
fact we are a strong community”. Cllr
Frank Hont, Liverpool’s cabinet member
for housing, says the pilot scheme has
had a “broadly positive and constructive
response from agents and landlords”.
PARKS in London are “sliding towards
privatisation” as in-year cuts could leave
councils unable to support the community
and volunteer groups vital to their upkeep,
councils warn. Council spending on open
spaces has dropped by 18% in the past four
years, with a 10% decline in 2014-15 alone.
Cllr Julian Bell of London Councils says
parks are at a “crossroads” and believes
that the current climate of austerity “does
not suggest the situation will improve”.
DCLG is criticised for not collecting
data on the number of homes built through
the disposal of public land or the amount
of money raised through the sale of sites
for development under the Coalition. The
National Audit Office says the lack of
monitoring makes it impossible to judge if
the programme provided value for money.
BUSINESS RATES appeals need to be
reformed to prevent “damaging” speculative
appeals, the LGA says. It wants councils to
be named as interested parties in appeals to
give them the opportunity to defend their
income and for those bringing appeals to
have give much clearer reasons for doing so.
Cllr Claire Kober says that councils could
more easily support local businesses if they
had the freedom and finance to set rates and
discounts locally.
2OUTOF3
Public sector workers who
fear for their job because of
cuts, according to a survey
by TotalJobs. More than half
(57%) now see working in
the private sector as a more
attractive option.
60P
Amount per head that
Healthwatch receives to fund
patient engagement about of
health and social care. The
network warns that some
areas have slashed resources
for engagement by as much
as 50%, which could leave
services users “muted”.
g

THE BEAT
LGE 6
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/news @localgovexec
A NEW taskforce to drive forward
“fundamental reforms” of child protection
across social services, the police and other
agencies is announced by David Cameron.
The unit will focus on transforming social
work and children’s services, improving
inspections and tackling child sexual
exploitation. The Prime Minister says the
Government will accelerate current reforms
to children’s social work, underlining the
need to “intervene more directly to help the
most vulnerable families”.
DISRUPTION orders should be
introduced to place restrictions on individuals
suspected of child grooming before a criminal
offence has taken place, the LGA says. It
argues that the need to convince a court of
the need for an order would protect civil
liberties while providing an effective way of
addressing the warning signs of grooming.
Breaching an order would, like breaching
bail conditions, be a criminal offence.
LANCASHIRE County Council rejects two
major planning applications from oil and
gas giant Cuadrilla to carry out exploratory
fracking at sites between Blackpool and
Preston. While major expansion of fracking
has been promoted by the Government,
there has been strong local and national
opposition to the Lancashire application.
Cuadrilla says it will appeal.
July
COUNCILS are spared further in-year
cuts in the Summer Budget as George
Osborne sets out £12bn in welfare cuts
and £5bn from “tax evasion, avoidance,
planning and imbalances”. Launching the
Spending Review later in the month, the
Treasury asks all unprotected Whitehall
departments, including DCLG, to draw up
plans for implementing cuts of 25% and
40% by 2019-20.
RENTS for social housing will be cut
by 1% a year from 2016 to 2020. George
Osborne says the move will stop housing
benefit “chasing up ever higher rents”, which
have increased by 20% since 2010. But the
LGA says the changes will cost councils
in England £2.6bn by 2019-20 and create
a further budget gap of £1bn a year from
2020-21. The District Councils Network says
the move could force its members to scrap
plans for 42,000 homes, while the National
Housing Federation warns 27,000 housing
association properties will now not be built.
PAYING the National Living Wage
announced in the Summer Budget will cost
councils more than £1bn by 2020-21, the
LGA says. Under the Government’s plans,
over-25s will be entitled to at least £7.20
per hour from April 2016, rising to £9 per
hour from 2020. The LGA says it supports
fair pay but “it is vital that these costs are
considered by the Government in the wider
debate of council funding”.
“FAR-REACHING” devolution deals
are in the pipeline for the Sheffield and
Liverpool city-regions, Leeds and West
Yorkshire and its partner authorities,
George Osborne announces in the
Summer Budget. He also confirms an
extension of the Devo Manc deal for
Greater Manchester that will see its
elected mayor take over responsibility for
the city-region’s fire service.
AN EXTRA £30m is announced in
the Budget to help councils speed up the
adoption process. The money will be used
to cover fees incurred when other councils
or voluntary sector adoption agencies find,
assess and match a parent from outside the
local authority’s area. The announcement
comes after the Government confirmed £45m
to speed up the introduction of regional
adoption networks, which will see councils
pool services and approved adopters.
THE INTRODUCTION on the
Government’s cap on care costs is to be
delayed until 2020 after councils warned
that bringing in the changes as planned could
put unbearable strain on the system. The cap,
which would limit the amount over-65s and
young adults with disabilities would pay for
care to £72,000, was due to come into force
in April 2016. The LGA warned it would be
deeply damaging to bring in costly changes
when the “very foundations of the system
we are reforming cannot be sustained”.
However, think tank the Strategic Society
Centre says the delay has probably killed
off the policy and will cost taxpayers up to
£100m in wasted preparations.
OUTCOMES for young people leaving
foster or residential care are “deteriorating”
and two-thirds of local authority support
services are rated as Inadequate or Requiring
Improvement, the National Audit Office says.
It also found “minimal correlation” between
council spending and the quantity and quality
of services. Meg Hillier MP, chair of the
£4.5m
Funding announced by
children’s minister Edward
Timpson to help “trailblazing”
councils get the Government’s
regional adoption agencies up
and running months earlier
than planned. The agencies will
see councils merge services
and pool approved adopters
to increase potential matches.
The Government says it wants
all local authorities to be part
of a regional agency by 2020.
1in5
Councils expect to be part of
a combined authority led by
an elected mayor by 2020,
according to research from
PricewaterhouseCoopers. A
third of council leaders and
chief executives believe their
area will have significant new
powers and responsibilities by
the end of this parliament.
£7bn
Cut to council funding by
2019-20 if the Government’s
40% cut to unprotected
Whitehall departments goes
ahead, the LGA says. Chair
Cllr Gary Porter says councils
have already delivered
savings of £20bn since 2010.
“For many councils, there are
few efficiencies left to be made
and these alone will not be
enough to cope with further
funding reductions,” he warns.
1IN3
Local authorities used
bankruptcy orders to recover
council tax arrears last year,
according to figures from
Moore Stephens. The chartered
accountant says many councils
scaled back debt collection at
the start of the recession to give
residents breathing room but
with the amount outstanding
approaching “unsustainable
levels”, they are acting to
protect frontline services.

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LGE 8
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/news @localgovexec
THE BEAT
Public Accounts Committee, accuses councils
of “turning their backs” on care leavers. Over
10,000 young people left care in 2013-14,
an increase of almost 50% since 2003-04. A
third left before their 18th birthday.
FIRE AND RESCUE services need to
“reinvent” themselves as health and
wellbeing services with a formal role in
helping older people to live independently
for longer and stay out of hospital, the New
Local Government Network argues. The
think tank says fire incidents have dropped
by 40% in the past decade, largely thanks to
public awareness campaigns, but firefighter
numbers have fallen by just six per cent. A
new role is therefore needed to resist calls
for further staff reductions and to avoid
becoming “a residual service of reservists”.
JOINT inspections could be launched
to scrutinise the performance of local
authorities, the police, health and probation
services in protecting vulnerable children. The
proposals would bring together inspectors
from Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission,
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and HM
Inspectorate of Probation. Ofsted chief
operating officer Matthew Coffey says
successful partnership working across agencies
is “absolutely vital” to effective safeguarding.
AUTOMATIC planning permission could
be introduced for some brownfield sites and
ministers would be able to seize derelict land
and intervene if councils fail to draw up Local
Plans under a major shake-up of the planning
system announced by George Osborne. The
Chancellor says the changes are need because
Britain has proved “incapable of building
enough homes”. However, Clive Betts MP,
chair of the CLG Committee, warns the “shift
away from localism” is unlikely to speed up
development because the biggest barrier is not
planning permission but getting the resources
to make brownfield sites suitable for building.
FUNDING cuts have hampered the
ability of some areas included in the first
wave of City Deals to effectively manage
their devolved resources, the National
Audit Office says. It calls for a long-term
commitment from both Whitehall and cities
to evaluate the effect of the deals, as well as
a consistent method for assessment.
A PARLIAMENTARY inquiry is launched
into councils’ use of so-called LOBO loans
after Channel 4’s Dispatches claims town
halls have borrowed more than £15bn at
interest rates of up to 7.6% over 40 to 70
years. Clive Betts MP, chair of the CLG
Committee, says it is “outrageous” that some
City firms paid to provide councils with
independent financial advice had received
commission from brokers if councils took out
LOBO loans. The LGA says the loans are a
“legitimate” financial instrument and their
use should be assessed in the context of a
council’s entire debt profile.
THE MAJORITY of councils’ cash
reserves are already earmarked for long-
term investments or future spending needs,
according to analysis from Cipfa. Of £19.8bn
being held as of April 2014, £16.1bn was
for future public health, education and other
“known or predicted” needs. “Reserves are a
vital part of prudential financial management
and councils should be congratulated that they
have sensibly been building up their reserves
to both enable them to safeguard future
services for local communities and to protect
against both known and unknown risks,”
says Cipfa chief executive Rob Whiteman.
HOMELESSNESS among young people
is three times higher than official figures,
research by Cambridge University indicates.
A study for charity Centrepoint shows 83,000
16 to 24-year-olds were accommodated by
local authority or other homeless services in
2013-14. The official figure of 26,582 counts
only those young people that local authorities
have a statutory duty to house. “Successive
governments have been making policy in the
dark as they have failed to grasp the sheer
scale of youth homelessness in the UK,” says
Centrepoint chief executive Balbir Chatrik.
COUNCILS need new powers to tackle
the “staggering and spiralling” problem of
road litter, the LGA says. Local authorities
outside London currently have to positively
identify who has thrown rubbish from a car
before they can issue a fine. The association
calls for the law to be brought into line with
London, allowing councils to fine the owner of
the vehicle, regardless of who threw the litter.
Research shows a quarter of drivers admit to
having dropped rubbish from their car.
BIRTH registrations should be offered in
more children’s centres, Barnardo’s says. The
charity argues that using local centres instead
of a central office is quicker and easier for
parents, and gives staff an early opportunity
to assess safeguarding and support needs.
However, only 20 local authorities currently
offer the option.
CORNWALL becomes the first rural
authority in England to agree a devolution
deal with the Government. The agreement
will give county greater powers over
transport, health and social care, employment
and skills, EU funding, business support,
energy, the public estate and heritage and
culture. Prime Minister David Cameron says
it “marks a major shift for the people who
live and work in Cornwall - putting power in
their hands and giving them the tools to take
charge and make the most of the fantastic
potential that Cornwall holds”.
HOUSING services are failing low
incomefamilieswithyoungchildrenbecause
of a lack of suitable accommodation,
inadequate communication from staff
and poor standards of maintenance and
repairs, the National Children’s Bureau
says. It adds that services such as housing,
mental health and family support are seen
as only intervening when a household is
already in crisis.
32%
Cut to local authority spending
over the last parliament
when adjusted for inflation,
according to analysis by Cipfa.
Housing saw the biggest
budget cut at 9.9%, followed
by planning and development,
cultural services, education,
adult social care and children’s
services. Cipfa chief executive
Rob Whiteman says the figures
“paint a worrying picture” for
councils facing rising demand
for frontline services.
£8.7m
Predicted increase in savings
from online self-service across
the public sector, according
to a Goss Interactive survey
of senior managers. The
availability of digital self-
service is set to increase by
310 per cent over the next three
years, with two-thirds of bosses
expecting to offer at least half of
services online by 2018.

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Students at an Essex specialist science and
sports college were‘blowing bubbles’when
their new artificial sports pitch and air dome
was opened recently by stars from Premiership
football team West Ham United.
Hammers then-manager Sam Allardyce,debu-
tant Reece Burke and vice captain and longest
serving current player Mark Noble opened
The Dome at Great Baddow High School in
Chelmsford.
The development was made possible by
funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities
scheme,which funds the renovation and mod-
ernisation of grassroots sports facilities.
ETC Sports Surfaces collaborated with long
term sports fencing partner Zaun and sports
pitch design consultants Surfacing Standards
Ltd to put in the new double skinned air dome,
which houses two 43m x 33m five-a-side foot-
ball pitches and is 9m high at its highest point,
surrounded by Duo Sports fencing.
West Ham development coaches led training
sessions and ran a tournament for local primary
schools at the launch event. Both Noble and
Burke,who made his Premier League debut
just four days earlier,joined the training and
a question and answer session and signed
autographs.
‘Big Sam’presented St Michael’s School with
Essex college blown away by Hammers opening new Dome
the five-a-side tournament winners’trophy
then spoke passionately about the benefits The
Dome offered students and budding sports
stars.
He said:‘It was important for me to be here to
encourage as many schools as possible to build
a facility of this quality,to give an opportunity
for youngsters of all ages to enjoy team sports.
When you’ve got a facility as good as this and
when you enjoy that facility,then the boys and
girls don’t realise the physical demands they
are putting on themselves,because they’re
enjoying it. That’s the key thing for me.’
The Dome is connected to the ground
with over 100 anchors installed at 1.5 metre
intervals. It includes a diesel fired heating
system and hanging LED floodlights,while the
translucent membrane allows daytime use
without lighting.
For more information: Call 01902 796699,
email sales@zaun.co.uk or visit
www.zaun.co.uk.
Advertorial
THE BEAT
LGE 9
AUSTERITY measures have cut local
government budgets by £18bn since 2010 -
more than twice the rate of cuts in the rest of
the public sector, according to analysis by the
Financial Times. Spending looks set to be cut
by a further £9.5bn by 2020. Professor Tony
Travers of the London School of Economics
says the UK is trying to run a welfare system
on a par with France or Germany with
US-style taxes, which means “there isn’t
much room for everything else”.
PLANNING permissions for new homes
top 200,000 for the first time since 2008 in the
12 months to April. Permission was granted
for 52,167 homes in England between January
and March, a 19% increase on the first quarter
of 2014, according to the Housing Pipeline
Report from the Home Builders Federation
and Glenigan. However, the federation says
the planning process is still a significant
constraint on delivery and it welcomes
Government plans to grant automatic
permission on some brownfield sites.
SCAMS worth £73m were uncovered by
councils in London last year, the London
Boroughs’ Fraud Investigators’ Group says. It
warns of a surge in attempted fraud involving
Right to Buy, with the number of cases more
than doubling to 300, worth a combined
£26m. It estimates that 3% of all RtB
applications in the capital are now fraudulent.
SWITCHING OFF and dimming street
lights does not have an effect on crime
levels or night-time crashes, according to
research by London School of Hygiene &
Tropical Medicine and University College
London. The study, published in the
Journal of Epidemiology & Community
Health, analysed data from 62 councils
in England and Wales spanning 14 years.
The AA says it is “extremely surprised” by
the findings as its own analysis of inquests
found six cases since 2009 where coroners
said a lack of street lighting had been a
factor in fatal collisions.
COUNCILS are paying up to 323%
more than the industry standard price for
IT products, KnowledgeBus finds. The
average mark-up across local government
is 21%, up from 12% last year. Best
practice from Socitm says mark-ups should
not be higher than 3%.
STATE-FUNDED homecare services
could face “catastrophic failure” if the
GovernmentpressesaheadwithitsNational
Living Wage, care providers warn. The
UK Homecare Association estimates that
addressing the existing underfunding of
homecare and implementing the National
Living Wage would require at least £753m
from councils and the NHS in the first
year alone.
1m
Older people who struggle
with daily tasks such as getting
out of bed or washing - an
increase of nearly 100,000 in a
year, says Age UK. The charity
adds that nearly a third have
no formal or informal help after
a “downward spiral” that has
seen funding for social care
services for older people cut
by nearly a third in the past
decade from £8.1bn in 2005-06
to £5.46bn in 2014-15.

CONTRACTS
LGE 10
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/contracts @localgovexec
Edinburgh set for
£186m ICT deal
TheCityofEdinburghCouncilissetapprove
IT giant CGI as the preferred bidder for a
seven-year, £186m ICT contract.
A report that went before the council’s
Finance & Resources Committee on 3 August
said the deal will deliver savings of at least £45m.
Another £46m worth of “essential services”
will be provided at no extra costs and the
contract will create 221 jobs, along with 60
new modern apprenticeships.
In a first for Scotland, the contract could be
usedbyover50otherpublicsectororganisations.
As part of the deal, Edinburgh’s primary
schools will get up to 100 times’ greater
bandwidth, with 50 times’ improvement for
secondary schools.
The deal is also intended to support channel
shift by encouraging residents to engage with
the council and carry out transactions online.
In addition, CGI has proposed to place
business worth 25 per cent of the contract value
with SMEs.
CGI is the fifth largest independent IT
and business process services firm worldwide.
Founded in 1976, the company employs
around 68,000 people and is listed on the New
York and Toronto stock exchanges.
Cllr Alasdair Rankin, convener of the Finance
& Resources Committee, said: “As a council, we
are currently going through a sea change in the
way we do business. The council must reduce its
costs by at least £107m over the next five years.
“This level of proposed saving is very
significant and IT will be vital to help us
transform and meet our savings challenge. If
approved, this contract will make us more
efficient and effective when delivering services.”
Lancashire and London
pension funds agree
partnership to save £32m
Local government pension funds with
combined assets of £10.5bn have agreed
a partnership to merge investments, liability
management and administration.
The deal between the Lancashire
County Pension Fund and the London
Pension Fund Authority will see the pair
negotiate with asset managers for reduced
fees, establish a shared asset pool and
merge back office operations.
The changes, along with moving some
asset management in-house and engaging
in different types of direct investment, are
designed to save the Lancashire & London
Pensions Partnership £32m over five years.
Other pension funds will be able to join
the partnership.
Susan Martin, chief executive of the
London Pension Fund Authority, said: “We
are excited to have taken this unprecedented
step of pooling two of the largest pension
funds in local government.
“It is our joint aim to significantly
reduce the funds’ combined costs - we
estimate by over £32m within five years -
and with the benefit of economies of scale,
further reduce our respective deficits.”
George Graham, director of the
Lancashire County Pension Fund, added:
“The partnership will build on the existing
expertise across all locations and increase
cooperation and collaboration across all
aspects of the pension funds under a strong
governance framework.
“We aim to provide industry-leading
standards of administration and so provide
our members and employers with efficient
and cost-effective services.”
London boroughs
to cooperate on
children’s social worker
recruitment
Twenty-one London boroughs have
signed an agreement to work together
on the recruitment and retention of children’s
social workers.
Thedealisdesignedtoaddresslong-standing
issues with finding and keeping permanent staff
that force many councils to retain high numbers
of agency workers.
Itwillseecouncilscooperateonpay,training
and development, supporting new professionals
to develop their careers and working with
agencies to improve quality and reduce costs.
Work is already underway to develop a
common approach to social worker references
and a potential cap on agency pay rates.
London Councils, the body representing
the capital’s 32 boroughs, said talks will be
held with agencies over the coming months to
“bring them on board with the new approach”.
The agreement was developed by the Chief
Executives’ London Committee (CELC), which
comprises the chief executives from all of
London’s councils.
Barry Quirk, chief executive of the London
Borough of Lewisham and workforce lead for
the CELC, said: “Boroughs have recognised
that a more collaborative approach is the
best way forward to improve the number and
quality of social work professionals, while
avoiding competition between boroughs,
which drives instability in service delivery and
additional cost.”
CELC chair Will Tuckley, chief executive
of the London Borough of Bexley, added: “We
want to support social work professionals to
have long and fulfilling careers as permanent
employees, enjoying great training, support and
career progression in London. We are doing
this so that children and families in London are
safe and thrive with the assistance of dedicated
and highly skilled social work professionals.”
Surrey to build 800
“pothole proof” roads
Surrey County Council is set to build 819
“pothole proof” roads over the next three
years as part of a £100m project to resurface
more than 300 miles of highway.
Operation Horizon aims to tackle the root
cause of potholes by tearing up the county’s
worst roads and rebuilding them from scratch
using new watertight surface treatments.
Each new road comes with a 10-year
guarantee, meaning the contractor is
responsible for any repairs during that period,
not the council.
A total of 143 miles has already been
rebuilt, enough to stretch from London to
Manchester, with another 642 roads set to be
resurfaced over the next two financial years.
Jason Russell, Surrey’s assistant director
for highways, said: “We can’t go on papering
over the cracks with quick fixes to tired old
roads forever.
“Our main problem is that some of our roads
are crumbling at the base, making them very
susceptible to damage. This is why we’re planning
a £100m project to rip out our worst roads and
rebuild many of them from scratch, making these
roads resistant to potholes for a decade.”
However, the council has warned that
Department for Transport funding for Surrey
is still more than £40m short of the £125m
needed to maintain the county’s roads for the
next five years.

LGE 11
CONTRACTS
Cllr John Furey, cabinet member for
highways, said: “Good roads are vital to
Surrey’s economic growth, which is why we’re
working incredibly hard to provide better,
longer-lasting surfaces.
“The results of our efforts to provide
smoother roads can already be seen across
the county - for example, commuter routes
like the A22 and A25 - but we still have a
funding gap of more than £40m over the
next five years at a time when our budgets
are under strain from rising adult social care
and school place costs.”
Despite a 33 per cent increase in pothole
repairs across England and Wales between
2014 and 2015, it would still cost an estimated
£12.16bn to bring the local road network up
to scratch, according to research from the
Asphalt Industry Alliance.
Thurrock terminates
15-year Serco
strategic services
partnership early
Thurrock Council and Serco have terminated
a 15-year Strategic Services Partnership
early, with the authority blaming the impact of
austerity measures and budget cuts.
Steve Cox, Thurrock’s assistant chief
executive, said the two sides had mutually
agreed to end the deal, which began in 2004,
after a series of “tough, but fair, negotiations”.
The council had warned Serco in February
to “make savings - or else” after it had failed
to deliver on promised cost-cutting over a
number of years.
At the time, council leader Cllr John Kent
said Thurrock had “pussy footed around long
enough with Serco”.
“Year in and year out we have challenged
Serco to deliver their savings and year in year
out they have failed,” he added.
In March, a cabinet meeting looking at
the future of the partnership was told by Cllr
Victoria Holloway, portfolio holder for central
services, there had been “admitted failings
which amount to a breach of the contract in
some areas”.
“The chief executive has repeatedly
requested staffing information from Serco
which has not been provided,” she added.
“One has to ask, what has Serco got to
hide? Is this the sort of behaviour we would
expect from a strategic partner, to whom you
pay almost £20m every year?”
Announcing the contract’s termination,
Thurrock said it has worked with Serco on an
exit plan to manage the transition of services
back to the council.
Sean Hanson, Serco’s managing director
for citizen services, said: “Unfortunately, this
old contract with Thurrock Council was
no longer fit for purpose and it was in the
interests of both Thurrock Council and Serco
to end our partnership early.
“Our teams have delivered services over
the last 10 years in support of local residents
and I am proud of their achievements. Our
priority now is to work with the council to
ensure that this transition is as smooth as
possible for all concerned.”
“A world dominated today by austerity and
budget cuts is very different to that envisaged
in 2004 when this contract was signed and as
we continue to shape a different way forward
for Thurrock Council,” Cox said.
“I would like to thank the commercial
services and finance teams for the magnificent
work they have done to get us here; and I would
also like to assure Serco staff that they are
welcome back into the Thurrock Council fold.
“There is a considerable amount of
transition work to now be jointly undertaken
and we look forward to this being completed
as planned by 30 November.”
Thurrock Council
faces costs hike after
collapse of recycling
firm
Thurrock Council will be hit by increased
costs after a recycling contractor went
into liquidation.
The council has been sending dry
recycling for processing at Nordic
Recycling Ltd’s base at Tilbury Docks for
the past five years. The seven-year contract
with the firm was due to run until April
2017.
The authority delivers up to eight
recycling loads at day. It was charged
£14.52 a tonne for processing, although if
contamination rose above eight per cent,
this increased to £92.68 a tonne, meaning
a normal load that would cost £116 to
process would instead cost £741.
Nordic was bought by Sita UK in
March 2014. The company has now gone
into liquidation and Sita intends to close
the Tilbury site.
Thurrock said that the company offered
it the option of using a site in Barking
at £61 a tonne. However, it has now
negotiated a cheaper rate of £55 per tonne
with Bywaters in Canning Town.
The council claimed Sita has been “looking
for excuses” to close the Tilbury site.
It noted that a change in market
conditions in 2010 meant the price of
recycled materials fell, although its costs
were only inflation-linked.
Early in contract, the contamination
rate rose above eight per cent but Thurrock
brought it back down by rejecting
contaminated bins.
Yet in early June, Nordic and Sita
requested an urgent meeting to discuss the
Tilbury site, where the council was told
a consultation was underway with the
workforce over future operations.
It was also told that the company was
directing other waste away from the facility
because Thurrock was contaminating all
material, something the council claims it
had not been notified of before.
The council undertook to drive down
contamination and said nearly all loads
are now under the eight per cent threshold.
Cllr Gerard Rice, portfolio holder for
environment, said: “We believe Sita were
looking for excuses to close their Tilbury
site but have been gradually lowering their
offer to use Barking.
“The problem is they have let us down
once, how can we trust them again - plus
the fact we are looking at what we can do
legally to recoup the difference between
the £15 we were paying and the £55 we
are paying [now].
“Part of the Bywaters deal is that
they accept the same co-mingled one-bin
recycling as Tilbury, so our residents do
not have to learn a new system.
“Unfortunately, because we now have
to take the recycling to Canning Town,
our collections will now start from 6am
so the trips into London will avoid the
major traffic problems.
“And the change also means we
have had to cancel our pilot kerbside
textile recycling scheme; not something
we would want to do, but it is not
something the new facility can cope with
at such short notice.”
In a statement, Sita UK said: “On
Friday [24 July] the directors of Nordic
Recycling Limited, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Sita UK Limited, reluctantly
took steps to put the company into
an insolvency process as a result of
poor trading conditions. They are now
working with an insolvency practitioner
to bring about an orderly shutdown of
the company and will comment further
in due course.”

PEOPLE
LGE 12
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/people-moves @localgovexec
Brighton & Hove
chief steps down
amid friction with new
administration
Brighton & Hove City Council
chief executive Penny Thompson
has stepped down, saying she feels her
work is not finished but the authority’s
new administration wants to appoint a
different CEO.
The decision follows a meeting
between Thompson and the council’s
Policy & Resources Committee.
Thompson, a former social worker,
was appointed in December 2012,
having previously worked as executive
director for social services at Sheffield
City Council and chief executive of the
London Borough of Hackney.
In a blog post, she said: “I don’t
think my work is finished; but I do
think it’s for the best. We have a new
Labour administration in the council.
The council wants to appoint a new
CEO.
“I came into the role of chief
executive clear that I would only take
up the post if I were the first choice of
all three leaders on the council.
“I have greatly relished the
opportunity to work for those leaders
and indeed for all 54 councillors. I am
a longstanding and committed public
servant who completes 40 years of
public service this summer.
“I will miss all the people I have
worked with in the council, the city
and beyond and I trust that they will
continue to do a great job for this
fantastic city. I want to pay special
tribute to my fellow senior managers
in the City Management Board and to
my own Executive Leadership team,
whose support and challenge I have
always valued.”
The council said Thompson officially
stepped down on 30 June.
Cllr Warren Morgan, leader of
Brighton & Hove City Council, said:
“I’d like to thank Penny on behalf of the
council for her significant contribution
to Brighton & Hove over the past three
years, and for steering the authority
through a difficult period.
“We will move swiftly to ensure a
new chief executive is appointed who
can help the council and the city change
in the challenging financial times ahead,
so that our resources and those of our
partner organisations can be targeted to
best effect.”
Cambridgeshire’s Mark
Lloyd named new LGA
chief exec
Cambridgeshire County Council’s
chief executive Mark Lloyd has been
appointed as the new chief executive of the
Local Government Association.
Lloyd leaves Cambridgeshire after
seven years at the helm, during which time
he secured a £500m City Deal and led the
development of LGSS, local government’s
largest shared services operation, which
spans five local authorities.
The former chief executive of Durham
County Council will replace Carolyn
Downs, who is leaving the LGA after
four years to become CEO of the London
Borough of Brent.
Lloyd will join the LGA in the autumn,
although his start date is yet to be confirmed.
LGA chairman Cllr Gary Porter said:
“Mark’s local government expertise, skills
and knowledge developed in previous high
profile roles in the East of England, the
North East and the North West will be
invaluable in continuing to work with local
authorities across the country and with
national government to ensure the LGA’s
strong, united voice helps our members
continue to meet their challenges.
“Mark proved himself to be a standout
candidate among a high calibre group.
I look forward to working with him to
continue to drive forward the key issues
for our members on further devolution,
fair funding and securing a sustainable
adult social care system.”
Lloyd said: “Councils play a vital
role in each and every community. Local
government has responded brilliantly over
the last five years to a rising demands
and reducing resources. I’m very grateful
to the LGA’s political leadership for the
opportunity to support them and councils
across the country through the next phase
of fundamental change.
“It’s clear to me that the LGA is wholly
committedtopowerfullyrepresentingcouncils
in Westminster and Whitehall, especially
in the face of huge budget pressures. Like
councillors across the country, the LGA’s
leadership is determined to ensure local areas
get substantial devolution deals and support
councils’ efforts to drive economic growth,
support job creation and tackle housing
needs. It will be my privilege to draw upon
my experience of running councils to help
the LGA achieve objectives that matter to our
member councils across the whole country.”
Lord Kerslake named
LGA president
TheLocalGovernmentAssociationhasnamed
Lord Kerslake as its new president.
The crossbench peer is a former
head of the Civil Service and permanent
secretary at the Department for
Communities & Local Government.
He was knighted in 2005 for services
to local government and elevated to
the Lords in March.
Since retiring from DCLG, Lord
Kerslake has taken up the chairmanship
of London housing association
Peabody and charity the Centre for
Public Scrutiny.
He will replace Lord Best, who is
standing down as LGA president after
10 years.
“I would like to thank Lord Best for
being such a strong advocate for local
government over the past decade. The
Best Review helped to shape the LGA to
become the strong organisation we are
today,” LGA chair Cllr David Sparks said.
“I know that Lord Kerslake is also
strong champion of local government and
will bring with him a wealth of experience
and a strong understanding of Whitehall
to the role of LGA president.”
Lord Best said: “It has been an honour
to serve as LGA president. Over the past
Mark Lloyd
Lord Bob Kerslake

PEOPLE
LGE 13
decade, the LGA has gone from strength
to strength and I am sure it will continue
to effectively represent councils on the big
issues and challenges that lie ahead for them
and their communities.”
Lord Kerslake said: “I am hugely
passionate about local government and
look forward to working with the LGA
to speak up for councils in both Houses
of Parliament, in particular to advocate
devolution as a way to promote economic
growth and improve public services.”
Lord Kerslake was officially
appointed as the LGA’s president for
2015-16 at the association’s annual
conference in Harrogate on 30 June.
Edinburgh social care
director leaves post
after £5.3m overspend
Edinburgh City Council’s director of
health and social care, who was heading up
a £500m project to integrate social services
with NHS Lothian, has quit his post after
being sent on leave.
Peter Gabbitas applied to leave under
NHS Lothian’s voluntary severance
procedure, the National reported.
It comes amid concerns that the
integration project is behind schedule and
over budget, it added.
Gabbitas’s departure also follows a
warning in January that adult social care
was facing a £5.3m overspend on its
£204.5m budget. This was mainly due to
the increased dependency levels of people
entering care homes, requiring increased
staffing, and growth in Care at Home
packages because of demographic and
“unscheduled care pressures”.
The council had to use £4.75m from its
contingency Priorities Fund to help cover
the deficit.
Gabbitas officially left his post on 31 July.
Edinburgh chief executive Dame Sue
Bruce said the council and NHS Lothian
will now create a new post of chief officer
for the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board,
the body overseeing the integration of social
and health services.
“I want to thank Peter for his hard work
over the past 10 years, both in terms of
this role here in the council and with NHS
Lothian, and wish him well with his future
career,” she added.
Gabbitas is the third senior officer to
leave Edinburgh after being suspended or
placed on leave since 2012.
Dave Anderson resigned as director
of city development in November of
that year after being suspended while
the council investigated his knowledge
and management of irregularities in
the awarding of building contracts. His
departure brought an end to the probe,
with the council noting that it had found
no evidence to doubt Anderson’s “honesty,
integrity and entrepreneurial abilities”.
In April this year, two former council
workers and two directors of an Edinburgh-
based building company were jailed after
admitting corruption and fraud relating to
the awarding of contracts.
Last July, director of services for
communities Mark Turley quit after a
damningreportconcludedthatfordecades,
staff at the Mortonhall Crematorium had
told parents of stillborn and premature
babies that no ashes had been recovered
when in fact they were being interred or
scattered on the grounds.
DameElishAngiolini,thereport’sauthor,
said there had been “a comprehensive and
long-term failure to provide an acceptable
service to some of society’s most vulnerable
next of kin”.
Turley had been suspended in May
while the council launched an investigation
into the report’s findings. His decision to
step down meant the investigation did not
go ahead.
“Whilst I do not believe I personally
contributedtoanywrongdoingatMortonhall
Crematorium, as the director with ultimate
accountability I believe it is right that I do the
honourable thing in recognition of working
practices at Mortonhall as criticised in Dame
Elish Angiolini’s recent report,” he said at
the time.
Dame Sue Bruce herself is retiring from the
council. She will be replaced by Andrew Kerr,
who quit as Cornwall Council chief executive
after just 18 months to take the role.
Herefordshire Council
names interim finance
chief as director of
resources
Herefordshire Council has appointed
Peter Robinson as its new director
of resources.
Robinson has been the authority’s
interim finance officer since September
2013. He was previously chief financial
officer at Bristol City Council.
As director of resources, he will have
responsibility for finance, HR, property
services and IT.
Following the approval of the
council’s employment panel, Robinson
took up his new role on 1 July.
Lambeth director joins
London Councils
Lambeth Council strategic director
Guy Ware is to join lobbying group
London Councils as its director of
finance, performance and procurement.
Ware has been in his role with
Lambeth since 2013 and also serves as
the borough’s Section 151 officer.
He has previously worked for a
number of other London boroughs,
including Lewisham, Southwark and
Enfield, where he was director of finance
and IT.
Ware also spent five years working for
central government as the London regional
director of local government practice.
Mayor Jules Pipe, chair of London
Councils, said: “I am very pleased that
Guy will be joining London Councils at
this critical time for the capital and its
boroughs. His talents will be much needed
over the next 12 months as we seek to
exploit the potential of devolution and
ensure that the Comprehensive Spending
Review recognises the importance of
integrated local services in meeting the
needs of Londoners.”
“London’s boroughs have a recognised
expertise in financial leadership and
management, which has meant that they
have been able to provide members with
excellent advice and support during
the very challenging austerity of recent
years,” Ware said.
“With the potential for transforming
services through devolution becoming
more realistic, I look forward to
working with colleagues across London
to ensure that the opportunities can be
translated into sustainable benefits for
Londoners.”
Ware will join London Councils in
September.
Guy Ware

PEOPLE
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www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/people-moves @localgovexec
New Forest chief
executive to retire after
15 years
Dave Yates is to retire as chief executive
of New Forest District Council after
15 years in the post.
He will end a 40-year career in local
government on 31 October.
“It’s been a great privilege to have been
chief executive of one of the best local
authorities in the country, serving a unique
and wonderful area. I am confident that
the council is in great shape to continue
to deliver excellent services and face any
challenges that may lie ahead,” Yates said.
The council has agreed that it will seek
an internal candidate to become its new
chief executive.
A report to the authority
recommendedthat the salary for the post be
reduced from its current level of £122,370
a year to between £104,721 and £111,299
based on performance. Salary points of
£114,741 and £118,290 could be available
in “exceptional circumstances”.
Oxford names LGA’s
senior housing adviser
as assistant chief exec
Oxford City Council has appointed
Caroline Green to the newly created post
of assistant chief executive.
Green has been a senior adviser at the
Local Government Association for the past
decade, taking the lead on housing and
planning issues. She also worked with the
LGA board to deliver its long-term strategies.
In 2014, she worked on secondment
directingtheLGA’ssecretariatinsupporting
Sir Michael Lyons’s independent housing
review for the Labour party.
Her initial responsibilities at Oxford
will include contributing to devolution
initiatives with the city’s partners, promoting
partnership work on housing supply, spatial
planning, infrastructure and economic
growth. Green will also develop strategies
to reduce inequality and educational
underachievement, and to improve outcomes
for young people and vulnerable households.
She will take up the post on 1 September.
Oxford’s chief executive Peter Sloman
said: “We are delighted that Caroline is
joining us and I am confident that she will
help us build on our recent national profile
as the country’s Best Achieving Council in
2014 and achieve the potential for social and
economic development.”
Council leader Cllr Bob Price added:
“Caroline will be a tremendous asset to
the city. She has a wealth of valuable
experience in local government and in
Whitehall, and is an authority on housing
and spatial planning issues. She knows the
city well and will hit the ground running
when she takes up the role in September.”
Pembrokeshire offers
chief exec role to acting
head of paid service
Pembrokeshire County Council has
offered the job of chief executive to its
acting head of paid service, Ian Westley.
Westley has been in temporary charge
since the departure of Bryn Parry-Jones at
the end of October.
The council offered him the permanent
chief executive job after a three-hour
Extraordinary Meeting, during which the
shortlisted candidates were interviewed.
The post comes with a salary of £130,000.
The council had proposed paying the
new chief executive £145,000 a year,
which would have been the second highest
CEO salary in Wales. In December,
however, a review by the Independent
Remuneration Panel said the planned
salary “cannot be justified” given that
Pembrokeshire has only the 13th largest
population out of 22 principal councils,
the 15th largest revenue budget and an
average number of employees.
It said the chief executive should not be
paid more than £130,000.
Parry-Jones had been the highest paid
chief executive in Wales with a basic salary
of £193,136 in 2013-14.
He hit the headlines in January when the
Wales Audit Office ruled that the council
had acted unlawfully in paying over £51,000
to him and another senior officer in lieu of
employer pension contributions in order to
avoid tax. Two police investigations into
the payments concluded that no criminal
offences took place.
On 16 October, councillors agreed a
£332,000 payoff for Parry-Jones in a meeting
that was closed to the public.
However, the WAO took the
“unprecedented” step of blocking the deal
as the package included payments linked to
the pension supplements that had previously
been ruled unlawful. Going ahead with
the payoff would therefore have incurred
unlawful expenditure.
The council removed these elements and
Parry-Jones eventually left with package
reportedly worth £277,000.
After his departure, the council confirmed
that he had leased a £90,000 Porsche
Panamera sports car as his work vehicle.
Worcestershire
children’s chief quits for
Coventry role
Worcestershire County Council’s director
of children’s services has quit to take up a
role as executive director for people at Coventry
City Council.
Gail Quinton will take charge of Coventry’s
People Directorate in September when current
executive director Brian Walsh retires. She will
have responsibility for adult and children’s social
care, community safety, education and adult
education, and the libraries service.
Quinton started her career at Bradford Local
Education Authority before becoming principal
manager for social inclusion at Knowsley LEA.
In 2001, she joined Bath & North East Somerset
Council as divisional director for learning and
inclusion, and moved to Worcestershire in 2009.
In 2010, the country’s safeguarding and
looked after children services were given
Ofsted’s lowest rating of Inadequate. A follow-
up inspection in 2012 upgraded the rating to
Adequate, praising a “step-change in the priority
given to the child protection”.
Quinton’s remuneration package for 2013-
14 was worth £163,841.
Coventry chief executive Martin Reeves
said: “The cross-party member appointment
panel was very impressed with Gail’s focus
on improving children’s services, alongside her
Ian Westley
Gail Quinton

PEOPLE
LGE 15
ambitions to transform all of our people services
to help drive our kick-start programme and
ensure Coventry becomes a truly top 10 city.
“We are delighted that Gail has accepted
this role. It is exciting to have someone of
her calibre joining the strategic management
board, who can hit the ground running and
build excellent relationships both across the city
council and with external stakeholders locally
and nationally.”
Before officially taking up her new role,
Quinton will be involved in the recruitment of
directorsofchildren’sservicesandadultsocialcare.
The posts are part of restructuring of Coventry’s
senior management designed to save more than
£500,000 a year from September 2015.
County Councils Network
names Kent CC leader
as chairman-elect
The County Councils Network has
named Kent County Council leader
Cllr Paul Carter as its new chairman-elect.
Cllr David Hodge stepped down as the
CCN’s chairman in July to become leader
of the Local Government Association’s
Conservative Group. He replaced Cllr Gary
Porter, who is the LGA’s new chair.
Cllr Carter was elected unopposed to
replace Cllr Hodge as leader of the CCN
Conservative Group.
The CCN’s Labour and Lib Dem groups
decided not to put forward candidates for
the network’s chairmanship, meaning Cllr
Carter will formally be appointed to the
post at the CCN Annual General Meeting
on 16 September.
Cllr Carter said his top priorities as
chairman will be pushing for “fundamental
and long-lasting decentralisation” for
counties, along with achieving “true
integration between health and social care”.
And he warned ministers that he will
not “stand by while CCN member councils
shoulder a disproportionate burden of
deficit reduction or are unduly penalised”.
“Despite the undoubted opportunities of
presented by devolution and the integration
agenda, this parliament will also be
challenging for CCN’s 37 county and county
unitary authorities,” Cllr Carter said.
“We face further unprecedented funding
reductions at a time of rising demand
and expectations over local services. This
round of spending cuts will be even more
challenging than the last, with councils
needing to take extremely difficult decisions
over the future provision of both statutory
and non-statutory services.
“Not only do we need to see counties
receive a long-term, sustainable funding
deal, particularly in adult social care, we
need radical reform to the system of local
government finance, including greater
fiscal freedoms, a recalibration of funding
incentives in two-tier areas and ensuring a
fairer distribution in capital and infrastructure
investment between county and city-regions.
“In embracing the opportunities and
rising to the challenges presented during
this parliament, it is my sincere pledge to
listen and learn from our member councils.
Whether Conservative or Labour, counties
remain the most innovative and efficient
authorities in the country. Part of the strength
of the CCN lies in its ability to speak on
behalf of all counties in England on a cross-
party basis and this is an approach that I will
strive to maintain and strengthen during my
period as chairman.”
London mayor appoints
LPFA’s Truell to key
pensions role
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has
appointed London Pension Fund
Authority (LPFA) chairman Edi Truell as his
advisor for pensions and investments.
The role is designed to push forward
pensions consolidation across the Local
Government Pension Scheme and the wider
public sector. The proceeds of increased
collaboration will be invested in infrastructure
and housing in London and beyond.
Truell will also establish a Strategic
InvestmentAdvisoryBoardforthenewlycreated
Lancashire & London Pensions Partnership, the
£10.5bn alliance that will see the LPFA and the
Lancashire County Pension Fund pool assets,
mergeliabilitymanagement,combinebackoffice
operations and negotiate with asset managers to
reduce fees. The partnership is expected to save
£32m within five years. He will start work on
establishing the board immediately to ensure it is
in place when the LLPP launches in April 2016.
Truell has over 30 years’ experience in
financial services, including senior positions in
banking, private equity, pensions, insurance
and debt investment. He co-founded and led
the Pensions Insurance Corporation, which
has insured more than £14bn of pensions
and invested heavily in infrastructure debt.
He also chairs the investment partnership
Disruptive Capital Finance, which is pioneering
investments in big data and a UK-Iceland
electricity interconnector.
He played a key role in shaping the LPFA’s
infrastructureandhousingportfolio,announcing
investments in Pontoon Dock and a £500m
joint infrastructure investment programme with
the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.
Truell will resign as chairman of the LPFA
on 1 September to take up his new roles.
Mayor Johnson said: “Edi’s leadership
of the London Pensions Fund Authority has
been a great success and the work that he
has done so far to consolidate our funds with
our Lancashire counterparts is a triumph of
service to public finance.
“If we now use this new partnership as a
blueprint for further pooling of pension funds,
we could have a war chest worth hundreds of
billions of pounds and access to the kind of
investment opportunities which have until now
been the preserve of foreign sovereign wealth
funds. I am therefore delighted that Edi has
offered to maintain his links with City Hall and
support the cause of further collaboration across
public sector pension schemes.”
Cllr Jennifer Mein, leader of Lancashire
County Council, added: “We are pleased to
have Edi in this position. His knowledge of
financial markets and investments is second
to none. We believe the partnership is in a
very strong position with him leading on
strategic investment advice as we strive to
grow it from £10bn to £40bn.
“Taking a more proactive approach
to managing the assets and liabilities of
the Lancashire County Pension Fund has
really paid off in recent years and this new
partnership will enable us to build on the
expertise we have developed. Facing the
challengesofsupportinganageingpopulation,
the good practice of funds like Lancashire’s
and LPFA can provide a template for driving
up the performance of public sector pension
schemes, both for the benefit of their own
members and for the country as a whole.”
Truell said: “I’m delighted to chair this
ambitious and specialised advisory board,
which will comprise a carefully selected
group of world-class investment and risk
management professionals. Once established,
the Strategic Investment Advisory Board will
extend its offer of advice to any public sector
funds wishing to join in with the LLPP. This
will make available an unprecedented level of
asset and liability management sophistication
and expertise to a large number of pension
funds, helping them to navigate a safe course
through turbulent world markets.”
Edi Truell

The Summer Budget:
What did you think?
Cllr Gary Porter,
chairman, Local
Government Association
It is right that the Chancellor did not use his
Summer Budget to further reduce in-year
local government funding. Councils already
have to find £2.5bn in savings this financial
year and these are proving the most difficult
savings to find yet.
Councils will now be looking to the
Spending Review in the autumn, which will
decide the future of our public services over
the next decade.
Without reform of the way public
services are paid for and delivered, we
predict councils could face a further £3.3bn
reduction in central government funding
for local services in 2016-17 and a funding
gap of £9.5bn by the end of the decade.
The case for wider devolution to city-
regions and county areas is clear. It stands
to bring significant economic and social
benefits by achieving up to £20.6bn in
potential public sector savings, as well as
creating at least £80bn in economic growth
and 700,000 new jobs.
Graeme McDonald,
director, Society of
Local Authority Chief
Executives
Local government will need support to
ensure services for vulnerable children and
adults are up to the challenge brought by
further reductions in welfare spending and that
the push to greater home ownership amongst
social tenants is backed up by a commensurate
ability to supply the homes required to fulfil
duties to those on housing waiting lists.
To solve the housing shortage, we need to
build around 250,000 homes per year - twice
the amount the UK is currently building. We
can only achieve this through a strong local
authority leadership role in delivery.
In the longer term, we know that future
cuts are on the way, and that councils
simply continuing to take cuts to their
revenue grant is not sustainable. The
pressures on social care, and on housing,
are not sustainable. We are looking for
much progress on the reform of council
tax, business rates and the devolution of
powers to enable councils to make a bigger
impact on productivity.
However, looking ahead to the Autumn
Spending Review, this remains the real
opportunity for the Government to
fundamentally rebalance its relationship
with local government; working with us to
chart out a course to self-sufficiency.
Jonathan Owen, chief
executive, National
Association of Local
Councils
We would have liked the Budget to say
more about how devolution of power
to communities and local people could help
us meet the current financial challenges.
There was much talk of creating
Northern Powerhouses but we’d like to
see ‘localist powerhouses’ too, with
parishes and their volunteer support
running a range of local services
to reflect local circumstances.
From providing shuttle buses
to reduce traffic in towns
to building dementia-
friendly communities
and supporting
older people.
From providing
discretionary
youth services
to small
h i g h w a y
maintenance. But parishes need to be
given the tools and fair funding to support
this work.
Terrie Alafat, chief
executive, Chartered
Institute of Housing
Our housing crisis means that millions of
people have no choice but to rely on
housing benefit to secure a roof over their
head - including an increasing number of people
in work, which has more than doubled from
around 445,000 to just over
a million in the last
five years.
ROUNDTABLE
LGE 16
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk/roundtable @localgovexec
Terrie Alafat
Graeme McDondald

And cutting the benefit cap risks making
large areas of England unaffordable for
larger families on benefits.
Action to restrict entitlement to
benefits is at best a stop-gap measure
and at worst increases poverty and
misery for already poor and vulnerable
people. Long-term, effective action
would focus on increasing our housing
supply, not further restricting access to
our already insufficient and inadequate
supply of homes.
Freezing working age benefits for
four years fails to reflect the reality of
the housing crisis - we have failed to
build the number of homes we need for
decades, which means the cost of housing
and therefore the housing benefit bill is
going up.
Social landlords built almost 60,000
homes in 2014-15 and have also made
significant investment in employment
and training support. We understand
the Government’s desire to manage the
cost of the housing benefit bill - but
undermining their income by cutting
social housing rents by one per cent a
year over the next four years is going
to make it much tougher to build new
homes at a time when we desperately
need to do so.
Paul Dossett, head
of local government,
Grant Thornton UK
We have a few months to wait and
see how accurate the LGA’s forecast
of £9.5bn funding reductions to local
government over this parliament will be.
The Chancellor did, however, confirm
that no in-year departmental cuts will be as
severe as any year in the last parliament. We
believe the new secretary of state will
be more robust in his defence of local
government spending than his predecessor.
The challenge of delivering the £22bn
in efficiencies identified in the NHS Five-
Year Forward Plan will be much worse
should there be further cuts to social
care and public health budgets as a result
of the Autumn Spending Review.
Protecting social care budgets
is crucial to both NHS and
local government financial
sustainability.
The £12bn of
welfare cuts
announced by
the Chancellor,
including the
reduction in
household
benefit caps and social housing rents,
will be dependent on the economy
growing to provide the jobs suggested
by the Chancellor. If these jobs are
not available to all localities, there will
undoubtedly be increased pressures on
local authority services at a time of further
local government funding reductions. The
financial and social cost of homelessness
remains a concern in many areas.
Andrew Jepp, director
of public sector, Zurich
Municipal
While local government was spared
further cuts, they have been dealt
little reprieve, especially as the Chancellor
announced another £4.5bn in cuts only weeks
ago. While this announcement knocked
schools, health and transport the hardest, the
Budget will have a broad-ranging effect across
all sectors of local government, not least with
the impact of welfare cuts on already strained
local services.
There is no single solution for local
government that will address this challenge
and a range of measures will be required.
What is universal, however, is the need
for innovative and transformational
change to the delivery of public services.
Local councils should see this as an
opportunity for reform with the ultimate
goal being the delivery of public service to
the highest standard. With this is mind, it is
important that local authorities do not take
a short-term view. Instead, council chiefs
should consider a risk-based approach
to transformation. To be clear, this is
not about avoiding risk but about taking
calculated risks having fully assessed the
exposures. This will become especially
important in anticipating where the risk sits
in increasingly complex local government
structures, such as combined authorities
and partnerships.
ROUNDTABLE
LGE 17
Andrew Jepp
Paul Dossett

LGE 18
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk @localgovexec
Local government
has long been at
the vanguard of UK
outsourcing. Since
the 2010 Spending
Review, increasing
budget pressures and
major Government
reforms have led many
authorities to hand over back-office services,
such as revenues and benefits processing,
to private sector partners to help them save
costs and improve services. Arvato’s UK
Outsourcing Index recently reported a 27
per cent increase in the value of revenues
and benefits contracts in the last five years to
£239m compared with the period under the
previous Labour administration.
The majority of shared service
agreements have been small-scale in
nature, characterised by councils sharing
a head of service, co-locating or joining
up to share a particular operation, but
without the true standardisation of
technology and management processes
needed to deliver noteworthy cost savings.
This is in contrast to central government,
which is setting the precedent with a
series of independently run back-office
shared service centres established as part
of the Cabinet Office’s Next Generation
Shared Service (NGSS) strategy, which
aims to help save over £400m in
administration costs.
So why have councils been reluctant
to establish genuine shared service
agreements? The problem lies with a
number of political barriers that are
stopping partnerships progressing.
Despite councils acknowledging the need
for further efficiency savings, they’re
often hesitant to redeploy staff and let
another authority “own” a service - this
is a contentious issue, particularly in the
case of small councils, which are often
one of the main employers in their area.
Delivering genuine cultural change
can also be a challenge, with the
departments involved often unwilling to
accept substantial changes to established
structures and processes - smaller councils
also voice concerns about being lost in
the structure of a shared service centre as
the larger authority gets priority.
However, the question will soon
change from how local public services
can be provided to whether they can be
maintained at all. To meet the new cuts of
40 per cent predicted by the Department
of Communities & Local Government for
November’s Spending Review, and with
much of the low-hanging fruit already
picked, councils are going to have to
radically rethink how they deliver back-
office services to protect the frontline.
Local councils have already
outsourced services where possible
and squeezed their operations for
efficiencies; genuinely sharing services
across councils remains one of the few
unexplored strategies that can deliver
those significant back office savings
above and beyond what has already been
achieved. As opposed to the small-scale
shared service projects we’ve seen so
far, a true shared back office operation
will deliver efficiencies and economies of
scale through the implementing of new
technology, back-office platforms and
standardised processes.
SHARED SERVICES
Above and beyond
After years of making efficiency savings and with even deeper cuts expected in
November’s Spending Review, councils will need to search for new ideas and
fundamentally rethink how they deliver back office services. John Wybrant, key
account director at Arvato, explores how councils can make genuine shared service
partnerships work to save money in the back office and protect the frontline.
416 - Number of shared services
arrangements currently in place, up
from 212 in 2012.
£462m - Efficiency savings
made by councils through sharing
services since 2012.
£105m- Increase in savings
from shared arrangements
between 2014 and 2015.
£145.8m - Savings from
sharing back office functions, such
as legal services, audit and HR,
between 2014 and 2015.
£79.4m-Savingsfromshared
arrangements for procurement and
management of capital assets.
£75.1m - Efficiency savings
from sharing customer-facing
services.
£60.3m - Savings from
sharing of senior management and
chief executives.
£15m- Savings from councils
sharing services and management
with other public sector bodies,
such as the police and fire and
rescue services.
90-Sharedservicesarrangements
in the South East, the most of any
English region.
38 - Increase in shared services
arrangements in the North East, from
eight to 46, between 2014 and 2015.
This was the biggest rise in England.
Source: Local Government
Association Shared Services Map
In numbers:
Shared services
John Wybrant
Arvato
Pic: Loyola Hoops

LGE 19
File: 209533-8-15LGE Zaun Advertorial
Ad size: US A4 Product Size (210mm wide x 278mm high)
File: 209553-8-15LGE ZAUN 1-2L
Ad size: US A4 1/2L (178mm wide x 126mm high)
Students at an Essex specialist science and
sports college were‘blowing bubbles’when
their new artificial sports pitch and air dome
was opened recently by stars from Premiership
football team West Ham United.
Hammers then-manager Sam Allardyce,debu-
tant Reece Burke and vice captain and longest
serving current player Mark Noble opened
The Dome at Great Baddow High School in
Chelmsford.
The development was made possible by
funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities
scheme,which funds the renovation and mod-
ernisation of grassroots sports facilities.
ETC Sports Surfaces collaborated with long
term sports fencing partner Zaun and sports
pitch design consultants Surfacing Standards
Ltd to put in the new double skinned air dome,
which houses two 43m x 33m five-a-side foot-
ball pitches and is 9m high at its highest point,
surrounded by Duo Sports fencing.
West Ham development coaches led training
sessions and ran a tournament for local primary
schools at the launch event. Both Noble and
Burke,who made his Premier League debut
just four days earlier,joined the training and
a question and answer session and signed
autographs.
‘Big Sam’presented St Michael’s School with
Essex college blown away by Hammers opening new Dome
the five-a-side tournament winners’trophy
then spoke passionately about the benefits The
Dome offered students and budding sports
stars.
He said:‘It was important for me to be here to
encourage as many schools as possible to build
a facility of this quality,to give an opportunity
for youngsters of all ages to enjoy team sports.
When you’ve got a facility as good as this and
when you enjoy that facility,then the boys and
girls don’t realise the physical demands they
are putting on themselves,because they’re
enjoying it. That’s the key thing for me.’
The Dome is connected to the ground
with over 100 anchors installed at 1.5 metre
intervals. It includes a diesel fired heating
system and hanging LED floodlights,while the
translucent membrane allows daytime use
without lighting.
For more information: Call 01902 796699,
email sales@zaun.co.uk or visit
www.zaun.co.uk.
Advertorial
SHARED SERVICES
So the question is, how can councils
make it work?
The first step is for the authorities
involved to embrace a real will to
transform, as simply bolting services
together won’t create the efficiencies
needed to make an impact. If implemented
properly, shared services will require
significant change, joining up technology,
infrastructure and standardising working
processes across councils.
Councils need to be on the same page
from the beginning, with common goals,
shared objectives and a real commitment
to collaborate, and ideally put one
dedicated leadership team in place
that will steer the project, rather than
spreading authority and responsibilities
across the councils.
Although sharing services still raises
the issue of having to relocate jobs, there
are several solutions to help the situation.
Concerns can be allayed by allowing each
partner to specialise in a particular service,
creating “centres of excellence”. This is
actually easier within large, multi-council
partnerships where a greater number of
resources can be pooled together.
The availability of new technology
offers another option. Virtual shared
services and mobile working technologies
can enable authorities to digitally
combine their service delivery using
standardised technology and processes
so their staff don’t need to move.
A shift in mindset can also provide
councils with a greater number of
potential collaborators. Authorities have
often limited their list of potential partners
to those they border with, which has
resulted in many partnerships failing to
get off the ground. Just because councils
share borders doesn’t mean they share
the same challenges or the will to make
shared services a success; by putting the
technology in place to share services
virtually, councils don’t have to rely on
their neighbours and instead can look
further afield for authorities of similar size
and with the same issues or opportunities.
In addition, joining forces for a shared
services venture provides smaller councils
with the buying power to invest in new
technology or draw up an attractive
tender for external providers to deliver
outsourced work, which they wouldn’t
have been previously been able to.
What should help the establishment of
multi-council partnerships is the increased
culture of collaboration thanks to the
growing number of joint chief executives
and combined management boards.
While this is encouraging, councils still
require the expertise and technology to
make shared service agreements work,
which often doesn’t exist in-house. We’re
therefore seeing a growing number of
authorities partnering up to outsource
multi-council shared services to private
sector partners to provide the advice,
experience and solutions to encourage
change and deliver results.
What’s certain is that pressure on local
authority budgets is only going to increase,
and greater collaboration across the back
office will provide an essential route to
protecting public-facing services.
Pic: Horia Varlan
Care to share?

As of February, there were 4,461 academy
schools in England, accounting for 60
per cent of secondary schools and 13 per cent
of primaries.
Since 2010, there has been a rapid rise
in the number of academies opening after
maintained schools were given the option of
voluntarily converting to join “traditional”
academies - those schools that have been
taken over by private sector sponsors to
turn around performance.
Whether converter or sponsored,
academies are independent from local
authority control and directly funded
by the Department for Education.
They can develop their own curriculum
models, change policies on staff pay and
conditions, and set admissions policy. But
like maintained schools, they must carry
out statutory testing, submit to regular
inspection by Ofsted, comply with the
schools admissions code and provide a
broad and balanced curriculum including
English, maths and science.
Academies have proved controversial
ever since their introduction in 2000
under the Blair government. But there
has been a fresh debate about their
effectiveness after first the Coalition
and now David Cameron’s Conservative
administration placed them at the heart
of education policy.
Under the Government’s education and
adoption bill, maintained schools rated as
Inadequate by Ofsted will have to convert
into academies without consultation. The
Government expects that up to 1,000
schools will be converted under the bill
by 2020.
Meanwhile, “coasting” schools will
become eligible for fast-track academisation
and ministers will have new powers to
intervene in school leadership.
Education secretary Nicky Morgan has
said the “landmark” bill will sweep aside
the “bureaucratic and legal loopholes”
that can hold up academy conversions. At
present, it takes an average of 13 months to
complete the process; the bill would reduce
this to “a couple of months”.
She has criticised anti-academy
campaigners who launch judicial reviews,
appeals and other legal processes to challenge
conversions for putting “ideological
objections above the best interests of
children” and delaying the chance to turn
around a school’s performance.
“A day spent in a failing school is a
day too long when a child’s education is at
stake,” Morgan said.
However, she has insisted that the
Government’s proposals will not take
away parents’ right to “ask the questions”
about conversion.
But, as far as ministers are concerned, it
seems the case for more academies is clear.
“Hundreds of schools, often in
disadvantaged areas, are already being
turned around thanks to the help of strong
academy sponsors - education experts who
know exactly what they have to do to make
a failing school outstanding,” Morgan said.
“This bill will allow them to do their
job faster and more effectively, ensuring
that thousands more pupils from across
the country get the world-class education
they deserve.”
But the question of whether becoming
an academy, in and of itself, actually
improves performance is hotly disputed.
According to Department for Education,
the Academies Annual Report for 2013-
14 showed established sponsor academies
have GCSE results 6.4 percentage points
higher than their predecessor schools after
four years, compared with an improvement
of 1.3 per cent in non-academies.
Sponsored primary academies also
improve test results at more than double
the rate of non-academies - nine percentage
points compared to four percentage points
after two years.
However, the UK Statistics Authority
said this claim, repeated by Morgan in
the House, “did not make it clear that the
differences in the rates of improvement in
performance were not necessarily caused
by school type”.
UKSA director general of regulation Ed
Humpherson wrote to the DfE to stress
the statistics “could not be used to infer a
causal link between school type and either
attainment or rates of improvement”.
Back in January, the cross-party
EDUCATION
Coasting to conversion?
Nicky Morgan
LGE 20
www.localgovernmentexecutive.co.uk @localgovexec
Pic: Elizabeth Albert
Government plans will see 1,000 failing schools put on
the road to becoming academies while other, “coasting”,
schools face being fast-tracked to conversion. But councils are
warning that a change in legal status alone will not deliver
improvements. Andy Jowett reports.

LGE 21
Education Select Committee concluded that
the current evidence “does not prove that
academies raise standards overall or for
disadvantaged children”.
Committee chair Graham Stuart MP
acknowledged that academisation has led
to greater competition and challenged many
maintained schools to improve. It has also
created an incentive for local authorities
to “develop speedier and more effective
interventions” for underperforming schools.
However, while some academy chains
have raised attainment, others have seen
standards deteriorate and the committee
found “huge disparities” in performance
compared with maintained schools.
Similarly, recent research by the Sutton
Trust found that the performance of
academy chains in improving educational
outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils
is “highly diverse” - and the gap between
the best and worst performers has widened.
Of 34 chains, 22 performed below
the average for all mainstream secondary
schools at GCSE level. Disadvantaged
pupils - those entitled to the pupil premium
- performed above the average at just 11.
“Some chains continue to achieve
impressive outcomes for their disadvantaged
students against a range of measures,
demonstrating the transformational impact
on life chances that can be made,” said
Professor Becky Francis of King’s College
London, one of authors of the study.
“However, a larger group of low-
performing chains are achieving results that
are not improving and may be harming the
prospects of their disadvantaged students.”
Another study, published by the LGA
and the National Federation for Education
Research, found “no significant difference”
in GCSE performance in 2014 between
converter academies and similar maintained
schools. There was also no evidence of
a trend towards school performance
increasing relative to similar maintained
schools over time.
The report noted it is too early to judge
the full impact of conversion on school
performance because almost all converter
academies have been open for three years
or less, but there were nevertheless “no
short-term benefits” associated with
academy status.
The difference between sponsored
academies open for between two and four
years and maintained schools was “generally
small and mostly not statistically significant”.
There was “tentative” evidence of a
trend towards greater improvement the
longer a sponsored academy had been open
but there could be competing explanations
for this - for example, DfE funding available
to new sponsored academies fell by 83 per
cent between 2010 and 2014, which could
have “reduced the long-term effectiveness
of academisation among schools that have
become sponsored academies recently”.
Yet despite what could be described
as, at best, a mixed picture of the
effectiveness of academies, Morgan has
insisted that the results show “students
do do better in academies”.
The National Union of Teachers said
there is “no convincing evidence” for this
claim and its deputy general secretary Kevin
Courtney said Morgan should instead focus
on protecting the education budget at a time
when schools are facing 10 per cent cuts.
“This, the teacher shortage and the failure
to provide enough school places should
be her main concerns - not continuing
with these unproved experiments,”
he said.
There has also been vocal opposition
to the bill from lobbying group the
Local Schools Network, which criticised
it as “naive and simplistic” and said
ministers are “clinging to the notion that
academisation is the answer despite all the
evidence to the contrary”.
Meanwhile, Emma Knights, the chief
executive of the National Governors’
Association, claimed the bill “represents
a further centralisation of decision making
regarding our schools”.
“NGA agrees with the secretary of state
that we should not delay with the business
of improving schools, but some of that delay
can be caused by her department being slow
to agree to local authority proposals to
intervene; we suggest the Government should
use this bill to remove the bureaucracy which
surrounds that first level of intervention with
maintained schools and let local authorities
get on with setting up an Interim Executive
Boards when they are needed,” she said.
“Sponsored academy conversion is not
the only route to school improvement, and
NGA has concerns about the capacity of
the existing academy system to take on and
improve many more schools in challenging
circumstances.
EDUCATION
Education & adoption
bill: Key points
• A school rated as Inadequate
by Ofsted will be subject
to an Academy Order.
• There will be no requirement
to consult on the conversion
to academy status.
• The governing body and local
authority will have to take “all
reasonable steps” to facilitate
the conversion of a school
subject to an Academy Order.
• The secretary of state will have
the power to direct a governing
body and/or a local authority
to take specific actions to
facilitate the conversion process.
• The secretary of state, as well as local
authorities, will have the power to
issue warning notices to maintained
schools and to determine the form
of intervention, such as requiring
the governing body to enter into
specific arrangements, appointing
additional governors, suspending
the delegated authority for the
school’s budget, and/or appointing
an Interim Executive Board (IEB)
to replace the governing body.
• The secretary of state will have the
power to determine the membership
of an IEB, even if the warning notice
was issued by a local authority.
• “Coasting” schools could be issued
with warning notices to improve.
They could have their heads
replaced or be ordered to convert to
academies.

Calling all Local Authorities!
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major EEE producers is calling on all Local Authorities (LAs) to exercise
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Collectors of WEEE can choose to ‘self-treat’, as long as it is properly treated
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can, if not partnered with a Producer Compliance Scheme (PCS), ask any
PCS to collect WEEE free of charge. This means WEEE collectors can make
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REPIC is also keen to ensure WEEE recycling levels continue to increase
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vitally important group that discard most of the used electrical equipment.
The Responsible Recycling campaign engages with communities across
the UK to encourage the recycling of used electricals at the nearest civic
amenity site, and by doing so reducing unaccounted for WEEE.
Dr Philip Morton, CEO of REPIC says: “An upcoming change to the way that
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) targets are calculated is
set to have a major impact on the industry. It is our goal to help increase
awareness about the importance of recycling used electricals through the
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our Responsible Recycling campaigns – and openly engaging with Local
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collect WEEE at least free of charge.”
Ten reasons why REPIC should be the producer compliance scheme of
choice for Local Authorities:
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operated sites regardless of location, target or WEEE stream
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has been responsibly recycled with the least possible impact on
the environment
5) Secure and robust funding mechanism
6) Established relationships with reuse partners
7) Certainty of a funding pot to support increased WEEE collection
rates
8) Access to our consumer facing WEEE awareness campaign –
www.responsible-recycling.co.uk
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HAVE YOU REQUESTED FREE COLLECTION OF WEEE YET?
REPIC also offers
• An engaging ‘Responsible Recycling’ campaign
• The opportunity to link with the website www.responsible-recycling.co.uk

LGE Aug Sept 2015 ezine

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