Surrey County Council has been downgraded from 3 stars to 1 by the Audit Commission, the Government body that assesses the performance of local authorities. They have concluded from the most recent inspections carried out last year that Surrey services are performing inadequately and failing its most vulnerable residents.
The Liberal Democrats have opposed Surrey County Council's budget as "fundamentally flawed". Surrey council tax payers will continue to receive poor services over the next year, after the ruling Conservative administration adopted a budget that cuts bus services, pot hole repairs, gritting and road gully cleaning.
Arising from a challenge by Capel Parish Council to the Surrey Waste Plan, a High Court judge has stated that he will quash SCC's recent planning permission for the Capel Incinerator. A similar thing happened to the previous planning consent given in 2001, though that was on a challenge by the Capel Action Group to the SCC officers' report to the Planning & Regulatory Committee.
Speaking during the debate at this week's meeting of Surrey County Council, Lib Dem opposition leader Hazel Watson said that the Conservative administration must stop wasting council taxpayers' money.
QUESTION: What does Surrey have in common with Haringey, Milton Keynes and Doncaster? (and nowhere else?). ANSWER: Surrey's Children's Services have been rated 'inadequate' by Ofsted, with a rating for 2008 of just 1 out of 4.
This time last year Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council campaigned, with some success, against a sudden and counter-productive freeze of recruitment to the Youth Development Service. Now the county's (Conservative) Executive have imposed a fresh one.
