My report to the Council.

Posted By: Alan Taylor
Date Posted: 13/02/2008

Thank you Mr Mayor for the opportunity to report to the Council the latest developments on various matters relating to the Leader of the Council

May I start by thanking Councillor Roger Jones, the Chair of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, for asking for the opportunity to present to the Council his view of the future for transport across Greater Manchester?   I hope everyone takes the opportunity to raise issues of concern, and that Members will now be more aware of the vision of the Transport Authority.

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities has, as you know, put in a bid to the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund for over £1,200 million, with the possibility of a total of over £3000 million becoming available.   Again it needs to be stressed that all we have done is put in a bid.   One other thing that is being suggested as fact is that it needs a two-thirds majority of the Greater Manchester Authorities to go forward with this bid to Government.   That is wrong.   There is a suggestion that, in the future, if the Government finally agree to City Region Governance in the Greater Manchester area, which they haven’t yet, decisions of the proposed new Executive Board, which will replace the present AGMA Executive, may need a two-thirds majority.   The present system says that more than five of the ten AGMA Authorities need to agree any proposals.  

Another issue close to my heart is that our Trading Standards Service has again ensured that Fireworks abuse has been kept to a minimum around Bonfire Night.   With its partners, Community Safety, Greater Manchester Police, and the Fire and Rescue Services, they have ensured that our Good Guy Fireworks Scheme was the most successful yet.   This year resulted in even more improved safety statistics and complaints of firework abuse were the lowest across Greater Manchester.   Congratulations to all the services involved.   As always, we are continuing to gather support for a retail ban on over the counter sales of fireworks, and the move towards City Region Governance could make that easier to achieve across Greater Manchester.  

AGMA, working with the private sector, is seeking to establish a very high profile and high calibre Business Leadership Council to help deliver long term, sustainable growth in the economy of the Manchester City Region.   This would be comprised of 15 senior figures from the private sector within the City Region, who can shape and deliver our strategies for the future of the City Region.   I am very pleased to have been appointed, together with the Chair of the AGMA Executive, Lord Peter Smith, and the Vice Chair, Sir Richard Leese, to be a member on the selection panel to agree the composition of this Business Leadership Council.

I have also been appointed as a member of the new AGMA Health Commission, which will deal with public health issues across the City Region.   The first meeting of this new body has been held, and it was obvious that the membership wanted to make this new initiative work in a new way.   Lateral thinking about improving the health across the City Region is a welcome change to the usual formal meetings we all know too well.

Our new People’s Champion joined the Council in September.   The first issue to be dealt with was to see how different Council Departments dealt with complaints because each seemed to have evolved their own system over the years.   We will soon be given a set Complaints Procedure for the whole Council so the public will have more confidence in the way their complaint is being treated.   We are now at the stage where this new service will be available to everyone in the Borough.   It has taken longer than I had hoped, but then we are creating something completely new.   We want people to feel that if they have a complaint, they are being listened to, and if there is substance to their complaint, the way the Council works will be changed because of that complaint.   Using the People’s Champion, would, of course, be a last resort, because I would expect people to have made their complaint to the relevant Council Department first and only then would this new Department be able to step in if necessary.   Unfortunately, Rochdale Council only have the power to deal with complaints about Rochdale Council.  We cannot deal with complaints about Utility Services or Government Departments, but perhaps when our success is seen, it might be picked up at a National level by Government.

I attended a North West event early in December to sign the Skills Pledge on behalf of the Council.   The speakers were really inspiring, particularly the Local Authority workers who had had their lives changed by Skills for Life Learning.    By signing the pledge, we have taken a big step to improving the skills of all the people who work for us.   We have committed ourselves to actively improve skills for life across our whole workforce.   Skills for life are about the basic skills in reading, writing and maths, needed for people to get on both in work and away from work.   It’s thought that about four out of every five people could improve their skills for life.   The Council will support all our employees to work towards qualifications at Level 2 (equivalent to 5 good GCSE’s).   We know there are low skills levels within the Borough, and this commitment shows the Council is serious about changing things by starting with our own staff.   We think it will mean more motivated, confident employees and it will have a positive impact on the work we do within the Borough.

The Government’s proposal for formula grant for Rochdale for the three years 2008 to 2011 were finally published on the 6th December, 2007.   The grant allocations were significantly better than previously assessed.   The Government has listened to our lobbying over the years and I am prepared to accept the challenge that the Government has given us to use the extra funding to make Rochdale a better place to live, work and bring up our children.   This is an opportunity to improve our Borough and our own budget proposals will reflect this aim.   We will use this new recognition of our needs to vigorously attract other grants to bring more finance to help with our needs across the Borough.

This year we can look forward to more exciting developments and improvements right across the Borough.   The Council has always been excellent in bricks and mortar issues, but not so good sometimes in people and personal issues.   I want to get that right.   We’ll probably have more ‘events’ as Harold Macmillan called them – events beyond our control, but it is a delight to see our ideas turned into reality during the last year, and much of the hard work that has been going on locally will come to fruition in the coming months.

Councillor Alan Taylor
Leader of the Council