Key Conservative Pledges and Reviewing Child Care and Protection

Leader of the Opposition Cllr Gerald McGregor reports back on his week

Cllr Gerald McGregor

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The next meeting of the Council is on Tuesday May 31st and is a Statutory Meeting required by Law to select a Mayor for Council Year 2022/2023 commencing on June 1st 2022.

The meeting is the first in the four-year cycle that leads to the next election to the council; all councillors are required to elect a Leader of the council (usually the Leader of the majority party} and submit the names of a number of councillors to serve on Council committees.

With our current “Strong Leader” constitution the Selected Leader of the Council is able to submit his cabinet to the meeting without debate or vote. It is a series of choices. In this approach the system of council committees has little power and many of the chairmanships are little more than sinecures, (and chosen members of the cabinet are not subject to direct scrutiny from the Borough Council Meeting).

Earlier this year the Conservative Opposition indicated that we would change this system, to let some light into decision making and provide some accountability and transparency. Our manifesto still represents the policies we would like to see adopted.

Managing Local Taxation but not accounting for Inflation

On March 1st, Hounslow’s Labour-led council once again raised the Council Tax by the maximum possibly allowed without having to call a local referendum. Meanwhile, the Mayor of London also raised his share of council tax by 8.8%. People up and down the Borough of Hounslow are now victims of inflationary rises that were deemed unnecessary in the alternative budget offered by the Conservative Opposition. We have consistently opposed this huge and unnecessary inflationary extra burden on local residents.

No need for Unjustified Increases

The Conservative Group produced working documents for an alternative budget for the third year in succession. We had great success last year as our proposals on funding education and widening the scope of our legal team have been adopted in part since then by the former Labour administration. This year we established further progressive funding ideas and shifts in expenditure in our alternative budget

Spending More Wisely

In our alternative budget in March this year, we showed how the costs for putting back resources removed by Hounslow in 2018 and 2019 in Adult Social Care, could be met by careful financial management from the current existing funds. This could still be done without putting pressure on hard pressed working people and pensioners. The application of the same principles to the Childrens’ Service resulting from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care would generate extra capacity and an enhanced work load. We could spend money on frontline services without squeezing council tax-payers. Perhaps the new Leader of the Council could be persuaded to listen.

Campaigning in the Election

After the election our opponents were somewhat deflated by their inability to put forward a coherent set of values and commitments while your local Conservative teams continued to listen to residents right across the borough. Whilst Conservative candidates spend time talking to residents, the Hounslow Labour Party was still arguing amongst itself trying to decide who its candidates were and subsequently who should pick up plum jobs in the newly formed Cabinet. It is a matter of great pride to thank and applaud all the Conservative Party members who have been out delivering to residents, listening to their concerns, feeding back needs and truly standing up for our communities. We wish the new Council Leader, to be decided on 31st May at the AGM, every chance to perform their new duties, but the last decade in Hounslow is a continuous series of missed opportunities and overspent Labour budgets.

Listening to Residents

Our maintained conversations on the doorstep have informed our local plan to make our borough an even better place to live. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be delivering on our commitments to bring case work, inquiries and answers to the many residents we spoke to on the doorstep.

Listening to Businesses

The return to almost normality has seen a welcome burst of activity in and around trade and business in Chiswick. A buoyant property market and the final opening of the Elizabeth Line through Ealing are both economic enhancement markers that give our part of West London the opportunity to thrive. The Conservative Councillors have been respectful of the recovery issues facing the commercial and retail sectors with for example restaurants and cafes across the area finding it hard to recruit sufficient experienced staff to run full day seven day a week service. We will be concentrating a lot of future time and effort to economic development in Chiswick and building back better.

Policy Stream: Latest news on protecting vulnerable children at National Level

Recent sad court cases involving violence towards infants and young children (including some being fostered) have been very concerning to the general public. Soaring demand to protect vulnerable children at risk of harm has seen spending to provide support increase by almost a quarter in five years, with an upcoming national care review a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to set out long-awaited reform.

The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils, is urging the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care to call for a white paper by the autumn, as well as a long-term funding solution for services that have been “stuck in crisis mode” for too long.

Government Review

The government’s manifesto committed to review the children’s social care system to make sure children and young people get the support they need.

Lead reviewer

The review is independently led by Josh MacAlister, who is a former schoolteacher who founded the social work charity Frontline. The review was supported by an Experts by Experience Group to help the lead reviewer hear the diverse experiences of children and families who are supported by social workers.

“The Pandemic has shuffled who helps and who is helped. As individuals we have been vulnerable in countless ways to the forces of a global event, but families, friends and

neighbours have bolstered us. Since March 2020, our shared national experience has been one of greater isolation but out of this shared experience has grown a fuller understanding of our human need for quality relationships and, dare we say it, love.

There is therefore perhaps no better time to launch a bold and broad review of how we – all of us – can support families to provide children with safety, stability, and love, and where this is not possible that care can provide the same foundations. :Forward byJosh MacAlistair, Chair of the Independent Review

The review was commissioned by the central government to look at where and how far the children’s social care system needs to change. Children’s services departments such as those in West London are currently focussing much of their resources into supporting those who are in most desperate need of help.

It means many councils are struggling to invest in the early help services that prevent families from reaching crisis point in the first place. This comes as latest figures show that councils in England spent over £10.5 billion on children’s social care in 2020/21 – nearly 25 per cent higher than in 2016/17, where expenditure was almost £8.5 billion.They also reveal:

· More than two thirds of councils are now overspending their budgets, to keep up with rising demand to support vulnerable children. Councils overspent by more than £800 million in the year 2020/21. This is despite councils increasing their budgets by £708 million that year and by £1.2 billion in the past two years.

· In the past decade, the number of Section 47 enquiries, carried out when councils have reasonable cause to suspect a child is suffering, or at risk of, significant harm has increased from 111,700 in 2011 to 198,790 in 2021 - a rise of 78 per cent.

· The number of children in care in England has increased from 65,510 in 2011 to 80,850 in 2021 – a 23 per cent rise.

The LGA quotes the Chair of the panel:

“This is a crucial year for all the services that support children and young people, with the schools’ white paper, a SEND green paper and the care review all being published in quick succession.

“Councils, and the children, young people and families that they work with, have waited a long time for all of these pieces to be published.

“Children’s social care services are ready to start making the changes that will improve our services and make children’s lives better. The new figures demonstrate how hard councils are working to invest in the services children need. However spiralling costs and increased demand means that funding is largely supporting those in most urgent need of help.

“The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care is a chance to reform our systems to make sure all children and their families receive the right support at the right time, to enable them to thrive. The review must be followed by a children’s social care white paper that demonstrates government’s commitment to investing in and reforming the services that change children’s lives.”

Conservative Councillors The Conservative Councillors Group in Hounslow welcomes the clarity of the report and the need for transparency in policy and delivery. We will be assessing how to assist Council Officers and policy makers in achieving the best responses in the days ahead.

Ongoing activity across Hounslow

The ten elected Conservative Councillors met as a Group for the first time. Holding eight seats in Chiswick and two seats in Feltham and Hanworth we discussed ways of co-ordinating policy and starting the process of building a shadow administration, creating positive economic and social policies to meet the needs of our residents, and assessing how best to use our capacity in listening and feeding back on policies and actions.

Surgeries In Chiswick

We are back to our usual routine, after the election, of holding face-to-face surgeries in Chiswick and Gunnersbury. Chiswick: Every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am at Chiswick Library (the nine Conservative councillors take this surgery in turn). Gunnersbury: First Saturday of the month from 10am to 11am at The Gunnersbury Triangle Club, Triangle Way, off The Ridgeway, W3 8LU (at least one of the Turnham Green ward councillors will take this surgery). 

Chiswick Homefields ward

Cllr Jack Emsley jack.emsley@hounslow.gov.uk 07977 396017

Cllr Gerald McGregor gerald.mcgregor@hounslow.gov.uk 07866 784821

Cllr John Todd john.todd@hounslow.gov.uk 07866 784651

Chiswick Riverside ward

Cllr Peter Thompson peter.thompson@hounslow.gov.uk

Cllr Gabriella Giles gabriella.giles@hounslow.gov.uk 07966 270823

Gunnersbury Park (was Turnham Green) ward

Cllr Joanna Biddolph joanna.biddolph@hounslow.gov.uk 07976 703446

Cllr Ranjit Gill ranjit.gill@hounslow.gov.uk 07976 702956

Cllr Ron Mushiso ron.mushiso@hounslow.gov.uk 07976 702887

May 26, 2022