Councillor Mark Wheeler

I was pretty enthused by our budget proposals this evening. Working with other councillors and council officers I believe we have come up with an imaginative and thoughtful budget. My contribution to the debate is below -

Budget Speech

I would firstly like to add my support to the previous speakers on this subject this evening - to achieve a significant investment in local services whilst at the same time increasing reserves and freezing the level of Council tax is truly a remarkable achievement that any Council would be proud of, I doubt whether many Council’s will match this performance, this year. Moreover it shows our acknowledgement of how the economy will impact on our residents this year, we will not add to the burden of rising costs to our households e.g fuel, energy and North Yorkshire County Council.

Speaking of performance, and as portfolio holder for transforming the Council, I want to make transformation the central theme of my speech this evening. The hard work that has gone into producing this budget, sustained over a period of time and commissioned in a collaborative and inventive manner with involvement from both officers and members is a testament to our approach to dealing with issues in Craven.

Our performance as a Council has been well illustrated earlier and I make no apology for repeating the excellent result we achieved in 2006 best value performance indicator survey, which placed Craven joint top of the North Yorkshire district councils for overall resident satisfaction, whilst charging the second lowest level of district council tax - this surely is performance that bears repetition. I always like to compare our budget with North Yorkshire County Council – I am disappointed that they set a cynical just under capping rate increase, and I believe at the executive meeting on Tuesday it was reported there was an anticipated year end under spend of £7m – I wonder if they will be as creative as us in addressing service demands and put that under spend to work or perhaps just plonk it in their £51m reserves.

Performance across the Council has also improved dramatically as evidenced by the significant improvement in the direction of travel basket of performance indicators, monitored by the Audit Commission, which show that 57% of the Council’s indicators have improved, according to the latest figures, compared to 43% in the previous year.Performance is of course important and is quite rightly taken very seriously here at Craven, I am however delighted to say that we have also transformed the delivery of some services in the Council in this current year: -

·        The Planning service has transformed its processing of applications across all categories to such an extent that all national standards are being exceeded

.·        Asset management across the authority has been transformed with the capital receipts budget of £500k being quadrupled by a projected actual receipt total in excess of £2m.

·        National initiatives such as the Quirk report have been embraced with the result that the Council is now gifting land to assist with affordable housing development

.… Turning away from our achievements to date I want to talk a little about the major implications that the budget proposals have for the future…

Probably the most significant transforming initiative that this council has undertaken in recent years relates to the “Martini Project”This project is all about allowing staff, members, partners and indeed residents of Craven to enjoy and benefit from world class connectivity to communications infrastructures such as the Internet.The Martini angle comes in since this project will not just content itself with providing world class connectivity in any old way but has at its heart the core ambition to enable the afore-mentioned stakeholders of this council to connect - anytime, anyplace, anywhere - hence the name of the project.

I am particularly excited about this project since this council will, in a few short weeks, be the first district council in North Yorkshire to take delivery of connections to the NyNet ring of fibre optic cable that has recently been installed throughout North Yorkshire.

In point of fact, as a county councillor I am doubly proud of our early adoption of the Martini project since the NyNet ring was conceived and part-funded by North Yorkshire County Council over two years ago in response to the “black hole” in connectivity in our area that existed at that time.NyNet brings an amazing potential for our local businesses to compete shoulder to shoulder with businesses located not just anywhere in the UK, but anywhere on this planet.It also brings the same potential to the doorstep of this district council.

However, NyNet is of little or no use without vigorous and imaginative exploitation of the potential it offers - we believe that this is where the council can come in to play its part in not just exploiting NyNet for its own sake, although this is a major benefit we fully intend to secure, but also catalysing the exploitation of this world class infrastructure throughout the district, within every business and amongst every stakeholder.

This budget provides the finance to secure the first stage of the Martini Project which is centered on exploiting NyNet anytime, anyplace, anywhere primarily in relation to the staff and members of the council going about their day to day business.However, the lessons we expect to learn and the deployment knowledge we will undoubtedly gain will be a priceless asset when we come to the second phase of Martini, later in 2008/09 which will involve catalysing the take-up of NyNet and opening access to our Martini environment to all the stakeholders of Craven.

Much is talked nowadays about the impact of global warming, the need to be planet friendly, and the balance that needs to be struck between environmental considerations and economic ones.Greener travel plans, traffic control mechanisms and home working are some of the more popular mechanisms employed in the UK.We believe that the Martini Project will not only enable our businesses and ourselves to become more competitive worldwide, but it will also enable through its anytime, anyplace, anywhere philosophy, stakeholders to let their fingers do the walking.

There can be no greener travel than not travelling at all. There can be no more potent economic enabler than a world-class communications infrastructure that allows our businesses to compete wherever they are with any other business in the world.There can be no better traffic control mechanism than leaving your car on the drive.As for home working, why restrict this to the home? With Martini, stakeholders will be able to work anytime they wish, anyplace they happen to be, anywhere they find themselves.

Incremental improvement is not just necessary, but an imperative in modern public service today. But truly transformational ideas such as Martini are indeed rare and we are therefore delighted to be leading the charge in North Yorkshire in this critical transformational innovation. 

The improvement bids are a direct response to residents concerns and I am particularly pleased to see the £60K/YEAR community transport bid which I put forward, included. This is an issue that both Cllr Pat Fairbank and myself have campaigned on for our patch in the district. I know Pat was going to speak to this bid but cannot – She would have said that all of us car drivers have no idea what a poor deal bus users have in the area and its about time something was done about it – then slipped out for a fag with Steven and Paul. Well something has been done and this will address the concerns of the more vulnerable within our community allowing them to access essential services and to utilise their concessionary fares passes. It doesn’t let NYCC off the hook but it does plug a gap in current service provision. 

We are told repeatedly at Craven that there is only so much a small council can do; we are told it must be difficult to make a difference without the critical mass and economies of scale enjoyed by larger councils. But I firmly believe that this council is succeeding on virtually every front and I would submit to you tonight that the independent surveys which you have heard about concerning our leading status on satisfaction and our economy of council tax is powerful evidence of this contention.

Furthermore I would hope that I have been able to give members an inkling of the innovative and transforming approach that this council has taken in the past and the unabated appetite that this council has for continuing to innovate and to transform in the future.This council may be small, but it punches above its weight and it moves fast to embrace innovation. We believe this is a potent combination, which has brought us success and will continue to bring us success in the years ahead.