Prioritising Essex’s vulnerable adults, families and young people; environment and local road schemes

Making the proposals, Lib Dem Deputy Leader Cllr. David King said it was a “carefully-targeted list of important actions”. Those actions would support:

• Older people leaving hospital 
• Adults with learning difficulties 
• Families struggling with the cost of living 
• Children with Special Educational Needs 
• Children and family Mental Health and Resilience
• Environment and Climate Change 
• More Highways inspectors 
• Pavement and road repairs and Local Highways schemes 
• Highways Rangers for minor works 
• Residents claiming for damage to their cars.

Lib Dem Leader Cllr. Mike Mackrory noted that all these proposals could be funded by using cash from the £332 million stashed away in the council’s ‘back pocket’ reserves plus an extra 36p a week on Council Tax.

Cllr Mackrory added, “Essex CC is ignoring its own Residents’ Survey, which said that people would be willing to pay a small amount extra on Council Tax if it improved services. Through carefully targeted projects, the Lib Dem plans would have done just that, and also given extra support to those struggling.”

Budget speech

In the debate, Cllr Mackrory also drew attention to the enormous financial pressure on all Councils and these challenges are made worse by the Government’s increases to National Insurance Contributions, which just piles extra costs onto all Councils as an employer and for the contracted services.

Cllr Mackrory also noted that Essex Conservatives have made the problems worse (and meant they had to make bigger service cuts) because they insisted on Council Tax increases below the rate allowed, in many recent years.

The Conservatives commented that it was a carefully thought through set of proposals but nevertheless they voted them down!

Lib Dem Budget amendment detail

1. Care services

• Effective support to adults with learning difficulties like Meaningful Lives Matter. 
• Support the Connect Programme to ensure the most appropriate support is offered to older people going into and leaving hospital.
• Making better use of technology in provision of care. 
• Hardship Support - adding £300,000 to the fund for those struggling with Council Tax

2. Special Educational Needs (SEND)

Essex CC is still failing the majority of children with SEND:

• only 44 per cent receive their Education, Health and Care Plan within the statutory 20 weeks.
• a further £2million would help secure extra interim staff to further reduce the backlog and to improve handling and responses.

3. Supporting the mental health needs of children and young people

• Reduce the risks of harm and suicide: 
• £1million for work with schools. Support children and young people to achieve stable, resilient and safe family environments. 
• £1million to the Family Innovation Fund (including coaching, mediation, conflict resolution and counselling through 1:1, group and family/parent/couple work). 
• Help family resilience with £1million for Essex Short Breaks, to help families and carers to have a break to look after their needs, and mental health. Support exercise and activity, to recognise the link with physical and mental health and wellbeing, £1m to extending school and club capacity.

4 Supporting the environment and acting on the climate emergency

• 4.1 £500,000 into the Essex Forest Initiative with a priority for greening our towns and cities, to reduce heat island impacts, and to make them better places to live work and visit, through urban tree planting and “tiny forest” initiatives. 
• 4.2 Community support for local wildlife and bio-diversity sites with £500,000 for Parish and Town Councils and charitable organisations seeking to help own, protect or enhance local sites of a recognised status, working with Natural England and other partners. 
• 4.3 Enhancing flood risk ECC modelling including with other Essex Councils and partners such as the Environment Agency, to increase their capacity, on SUDS, capital schemes and flood related work: £500,000.

5 Improving our Highways

• 5.1 Reduce the pothole backlog and secure value for money from Ringway Jacobs. 
• 5.2 Better oversight and supervision of road projects: double the ECC supervisory, oversight and planning central function, currently just six strong. £700,000 to improve their ability to drive and improve the performance and value for money on the £150million spent each year. 
• 5.3 Extra priority highways schemes in local areas - £1million to Highways Panels 
• 5.4 Reduce the backlog of repairs that make life intolerable for our residents. £2million to the Highways Capital programme provision for Road Maintenance. 
• 5.5 Increased footway maintenance spend (£1million) - the most neglected area of highways. 5.6 Supporting residents for damage to their cars (£1million to the insurance and claims process).

Minor Highways works – restore Highways Rangers

• 6.1 Work with District Councils, to bring back the local crews for each District that were removed in 2023, recognising the value placed by residents on the service: £2million.