I AM writing this report on April 23 which is St George's Day, an event which seems to slip by hardly noticed. It is also the anniversary of the death of our great bard William Shakespeare who died on this day in 1616.
April has been an interesting month of four major events.
The first came about when I unveiled a plaque to celebrate 50 years of Mid Devon District Council.
The second when Devon County Council received the latest Ofsted report on children's services in Devon.
As I have reported before we have had considerable problems in the service particularly with SEND. The report has positive and negative observations.
Looking on the positive side the inspectors saw an improvement in stability of staff, the morale of staff, the increase in permanent staff as opposed to agency and most importantly that no child in the care of County could be considered in an unsafe situation.
The negatives were mostly about consistency and speed of delivery.
With the new stable senior team we feel a little more confident that this will be addressed.
As I travel around my Division I am amazed at the number of road closures in the last six weeks. There seems to have been a flurry of work by highways and the utilities.
Long may it continue but road closures do bring some problems of course.
On the topic of highways I attended a highways masterclass for members.
As I have reported before the Milestones contract is due to terminate in April 2027. Senior officers are now exploring a possible new approach.
They have come up with four options to consider. The first is obviously to seek a new contractor. They also floated the idea of everything in-house, some other service in-house, the rest put out to tender and the possibility of more than one contractor fulfilling the varied and demanding roles of the service.
The final decision will be made by Cabinet and I shall let you know the outcome and the possible consequences.
You may have heard that there is a new beast raising its head known as the Combined County Authority.
It is a devolution of central powers which will amalgamate two councils, Devon County Council and Torbay Council.
The board will have 10 members but only six can vote, namely three from Devon and three from Torbay.
The eight District Councils will be represented by two members who will not have the vote.
There were concerns raised by members who are District and Town Councillors because of the lack of power of both.
One thing that the Districts need is control over the Homes England budget to help them build more social houses.
The document we read claims that there will be no right for the CCA to raise council tax.
In the first three years it will be funded by central government but after that who knows?
The claim is that there will be no extra cost to taxpayers and sheep may safely graze and pigs will fly! Cllr Frank Letch MBE Devon County Councillor
Crediton Rural