THIS GOES SHOW THEY ARE FAILING TO TALK TO THE RESDENT'S OF THE COUNTY

Photos
Bill Brooks, Leader
Peter Hillman, Deputy Leader




Whats the leadership doing at county hall to upset the residents of this county, and the executive as well

Overall Satisfaction with the Council fell to 46% - a decline of 3.97 percentage points since 2003-04*

Whats happening at Northumberland County Council when you get a decline like this in the residents of this county,

OVERALL SATISFACTION FALLS AT NCC TO 46% A DECLINE OF 3.97 PERCENTAGE POINTS SINCE 2003-04*

It should be noted that whilst the Council failed to achieve its targets for Overall Satisfaction and Complaints Handling the same survey tells us that satisfaction with the County Council’s services has improved:

BV90 Satisfaction with Household waste recovery centres

90% an improvement of 8.84 percentage points since 2003-04
BV 103 Satisfaction with transport information
52% an improvement of 7.71 percentage points since 2003-04

BV 104 Satisfaction with Bus Services -
57% an improvement of 7.09 percentage points since 2003-04

119b Satisfaction with Libraries
72% an improvement of 11 percentage points since 2003-04


7.7.8 Summary of Performance against FoE

· Household waste recycling targets were exceeded - 21.1% against a target of 20%
· Major planning applications carried out in 13 weeks has improved from 59.26% in March 2005 to 73.33% at December 07 (against a target of 60%)
· Freedom of Information enquiries completed within time scale (20 days) - direction of travel continues to improve, up from 75.41% in quarter one to 84.5% in quarter three; however this is still outside the targeted figure of 100%
·
Overall Satisfaction with the Council fell to 46% - a decline of 3.97 percentage points since 2003-04*

Overall Satisfaction with Complaint handling rose to 32% - an improvement of 4.56 percentage points since 2003-04**

*Nationally overall satisfaction rates with Top Tier and County Councils have fallen
**Nationally complainants satisfied with the handling of their complaints has improved by
1 percentage point since 2003-04 to 32%.

LGA PRESS RELEASE

LGA PRESS RELEASE
Press release no:
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
Response to announcement on unitary local government - LGA
By LGA Media Office
Responding to Phil Woolas' announcement on unitary structures, Sir Jeremy Beecham, Vice Chairman of the LGA said:"Councils are committed to providing an ever better deal for taxpayers and service users and want to see the best systems in place to help shape local services. Any structural reorganisation of local government must strengthen its ability to provide local leadership and value for money services while allowing it to keep on responding to local needs. "There is no one right way to organise local government. Unitary councils work well in some areas, separate district and county councils in others. What matters is that local people in every area get a system of local government that meets their needs and wishes."

There we have it - Sir Jeremy is off the fence.
Lets have a referendum on the matter and settle it once and for all - agree the question and put it to the public!

EARLY DAY MOTION IN THE HOUSE'S OF PARLIMENT

The MP For Blyth Valley Ronnie Cambell, Early Days Motion
EDM 1227

NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL
27.03.2007

Campbell, Ronnie
2 signatures
Flynn, Paul

That this House regrets that Northumberland County Council is £37 million in debt; hopes it can clear this debt before local government reorganisation is implemented; and further hopes that this underperforming council can go forward.

Extracts from the e-mail, more to come

THEY DON'T HAVE MONEY FOR THE ACADEMY

Extracts from the e-mail which goes to show that Northumberland County Council, is not giving the residents of Northumberland the truth.

As I said in my email dated 16 March, Ministers have not approved funding for the proposed Academy. However, Northumberland County Council was informed in February 2006 that the estimated cost of the Academy was £22.65m (excluding abnormals).
The proposal has been revised since then to incorporate pupils aged 4-11.

If Ministers are content for the Academy to be established, they will approve a funding agreement with the Academy Trust.

We now have a copy of the e-mail

We are pleased to say that we have a copy of the said e-mail, and our legal team are checking it out with the Dfee,

More to come of a cover up in funding at NCC and the academy at Blyth

We have been in formed by our source that we will have a copy of the e-mail on Friday 30 March, lets hope our source can deliver the e-mail , watch this space ?

From what we are told this e-mail came from the the Academy's Division at the Dfee

Follys is trying to get a copy of the e-mail from Dfee, when we receive it
We will publish it.

As we believe it shows that Northumberland County Council is misleading the residents of Blyth in respect of the funding for the new Academy's in Blyth.

Their latest escapade is a consultation document stating that the Government had given the NCC over £22m for the Academy!

Wrong.

One councillor produced e-mails from the Dfes to show this to be untrue. The county do not appear to have any funding in place.

We were told the councillor has asked the Head of Fact and the Portfolio holder to comment or put him right at least.

After all the odd £22m could have slipped out of the Dfes without anyone noticing.

NORTHERN ECHO

Posted by: Arthur Holland Pegg, Northumberland on 9:51am today on the Northern Echo ‘on line’.

'As far as Northumberland County is concerned, two unitary authorities would be a 'half-way house' inasmuch as it would split the county into two areas neither of which would be able to claim the title of Northumberland County. If two unitary authorities are created in Northumberland then for certain services both authorities would need to come together e.g. Fire Services, there would be terrific duplication of effort, a need for more buildings, disputes over allocation of financial support, more staff, and a greater confusion among the residents of Northumberland - who we would expect to be the beneficiaries of the new organisation. Therefore one - good, two - bad.

This County Councillor is a symptom of the problems we have with the Northumberland County Council.
He lists his occupation as full time Liberal Councillor yet he hasn’t got the time or inclination to read the TWO COUNCIL BID..Surely Councillor Pegg's viewpoint regarding the District Bids for Two Unitary Councils for Northumberland and his obvious lack of knowledge regarding the bid must be coloured by the hypocrisy of protectionism.
The District bid supports the different needs of the urban and rural areas of Northumberland and if he had bothered to read the bid supports one fire authority shared by both areas. Sharing this service allows the fire authority to ensure that the needs of both areas would be fulfilled and that the "terrific duplication" as he puts it would not happen.
So do we now have a convert?

We know what the view of the Executive is on the Fire Service -its slash and burn (no pun intended)