Report by County Councillor John Clare
Council Leader Simon Henig reported that – after lobbying by Durham County Council (and actually, against our own government’s advice) – the European Union had declared Durham and Tees Valley a ‘transition region’; this entitles County Durham to growth funding of 160m euros, to be used to help small and medium enterprises.
He also told members that the Council spent last year £3.5m on disability adaptations … and received a 100% satisfaction rating from the people who benefited.
Great Aycliffe got two mentions in the Leader’s report, firstly because it is our 65th anniversary, and secondly because Greenfield School won the Business Magnates competition.
Great Aycliffe then got a third mention when Mr Henig introduced the motion to agree to join the north-east ‘Combined Authority’ which, he said, will stretch “from Great Aycliffe to Berwick-on-Tweed”.
The LibDems suggested that Council reserves are too high – and were told by an officer that they are necessary to guard against the current “massive financial risks” of Council Tax Welfare benefit changes and the business rate. They also drew attention to an internal auditor report that the Council’s internal controls were ‘moderate’; the Council is of course not satisfied with ‘moderate’ but, given the government cuts, redundancies, amalgamations etc., the sustaining of a ‘moderate’ opinion is a positive outcome.
There was cross-party agreement to move reporting of complaints and suggestions to the Corporate Issues Scrutiny Committee, which will mean that complaints are monitored and acted upon much more thoroughly.
Finally, after a bit of horse-trading, there was agreement to set up a working group to look into the broadcasting of Council meetings. This is something that Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, wants, but will be very expensive, and is not quite as easy to do legally as Mr Pickles thinks.
