Liberal Democrat County Councillors in Surrey have written to the county’s 11 MPs asking them to vote against the Local Government Finance Settlement in Parliament on Wednesday 7 February.

The Settlement sets out the level of funding from central government to local councils for the next financial year and has been widely criticised for failing to address the financial problems that many councils face.

The financial position of Surrey County Council is extremely poor, caused by a number of factors including local decisions taken by the Conservative administration at County Hall and reductions in funding from central government.

Furthermore, the government has failed to address the crisis in adult social care, phased out transitional funding which was worth £12m to the County Council last year, and has not provided adequate funding for the extremely high number of adults with learning disabilities who live in Surrey.

And the proposed Local Government Finance Settlement does not provide the resources that Surrey County Council needs – it just increases the pressure on already over stretched public services.

In the light of this poor outcome for Surrey residents, we have written to all of Surrey’s MPs asking them vote against the settlement on Wednesday 7 February. If they do support it, despite the clear damage it will cause to public services, Surrey residents will ask the question: “Why are they putting party loyalty ahead of their duty to protect local services?”

Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council have criticised the Conservative-administration for budget proposals containing £54m of further cuts to services and a 6% council tax rise.

The budget recommendations will be approved by the Council’s Conservative Cabinet on Tuesday 30 January 2018, and then put before the County Council on Tuesday 6 February 2018.

The Conservative proposals include drastic cuts to services such as libraries, road maintenance, services for children and families as well as cuts to support for people with learning disabilities. They come on top of the unpopular cuts which have already been made to services including highways, community recycling centres and support to vulnerable people.

Overall it reflects a failure by the Conservative government to provide adequate funding to the County Council, especially to provide for the costs for the much-needed social services to vulnerable residents, and a failure of the Conservative administration at County Hall to get to grips with the Surrey’s financial problems.

We believe that the proposed 6% rise in the Council Tax – the maximum increase possible without triggering a referendum – is still unaffordable for many Surrey residents, particularly for those on fixed incomes. However, the Conservative administration has been forced into proposing this rise due to the financial crisis at County Hall and the shortfall in government funding for essential services such as adult social care.

Overall, this budget is a bad deal for Surrey residents, who are being asked to pay more for less. The County Council’s own survey of residents revealed that only 37% of people believed that the County Council provided value for money and the Conservatives should take note of this level of dis-satisfaction with the services they provide.

Surrey residents should not have to pick up the bill or lose essential services because of the failures of this Conservative-administration.

The Government has responded to the campaign, led by Surrey Liberal Democrats’, which calls on local authorities to stop charging residents for disposing of DIY waste by stating that they wish to see an end to such charges by local authorities.

A consultation released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs states that “The Government’s view is that residents should be able to dispose of household DIY waste free of charge” and that “The Government will consider clarifying the law if councils continue to charge for disposal of reasonable amounts of DIY waste”.

Surrey County Council introduced the unpopular charges, dubbed the “Tory Tip Tax”, in September 2016 and from January this year ended the daily allowance for local residents to dispose of waste for free.

We are pleased that the Government agrees with us that these charges should be banned, and that they will, if necessary, legislate to stop councils like Surrey charging residents for disposing of DIY waste.

We believe that Councils should be doing everything they can to make it easier for residents to do the right thing and dispose of their waste legally and in a responsible manner. These charges did the exact opposite and sent out exactly the wrong message to residents in Surrey.

Liberal Democrat County Councillors have criticised Surrey County Council’s plan to set aside income derived from property acquisitions into further property speculation rather than investing in services.

According to the latest budget figures, the County Council is facing an overspend of £19 million in the current financial year but is planning to set aside £3.8m of income generated from property to invest in more property rather than take the pressure off council services which are facing cuts of £104 million this year.

The Conservative Administration at County Hall has said all along that the reason we are investing millions in commercial property across the country is to generate revenue which will protect council services in the future.

Yet, as millions of pounds worth of cuts have been made by this Conservative Administration to services for vulnerable and disabled adults, for people with learning disabilities, for community recycling centres, for street lights and much more, we see income from the County Council’s property investments being set aside for more property investment rather than alleviating the huge financial strain on vital services to Surrey residents.

We are thus calling for the Conservative Administration to do what they said and put this property income into protecting services for Surrey residents, rather than investing more public money in commercial property hundreds of miles from Surrey.

On Thursday 14 December 2017 the Conservative Cabinet of Surrey County Council is expected to agree to enter into a Joint Venture with an external company to redevelop the Council’s own land and buildings for housing for sale and rent.

Although we welcome action being taken at long last to utilise County Council owned buildings and land which have been left vacant for many years, the proposed Joint Venture between the County Council and an external company fails to meet the needs of Surrey residents and is lacking in safeguards and is shrouded in secrecy.

In short, there is insufficient detail in the public domain to give an assurance that the County Council’s property and finances will be adequately safeguarded and that the needs of Surrey residents will be met.

We do not know if there are sufficient safeguards within the Joint Venture to adequately protect publicly owned property and finances by ensuring clear accountability as there are no elected county councillors on the Joint Venture Board, as the County Council does not have a majority on the Board and as it is unclear what the methodology will be to decide which properties are surplus to the County Council’s requirements.

There is also no mention of any consultation with local County Councillors about properties within the areas that they represent or any kind of engagement with Surrey residents.

Furthermore, with such high property prices in Surrey, genuinely affordable housing is desperately needed so that social workers, teachers and care workers can afford to live here. However, the proposal does not contain a commitment to provide additional housing units above the minimum amount of affordable housing required under planning legislation which is simply not good enough. Through this venture which uses land already in the public domain there should be a significantly higher proportion of housing that local people can genuinely afford.

Overall, this Joint Venture proposal is a missed opportunity to help meet Surrey’s need for genuinely affordable housing and to meet other needs such as for special needs places for children and housing in the community for adults with learning disabilities. This deal is for selling off County Council land and buildings for the maximum amount of money and income without adequately considering what public benefit could also accrue if the Joint Venture was structured differently.

Liberal Democrat Councillors on Surrey County Council have called for an end to the County Council relying on members of the public to report missing or damaged road signs and are calling for a sign inspection policy, as exists in other County Councils, to be developed and implemented.

Surrey’s roads are littered with posts with no signs and damaged signs. Not only does it look untidy, but it also means that motorists are not getting the benefit of information from signs warning of hazards such as bends or low bridges, informing them of speed limits or directions to towns or places. These signs are either necessary to make Surrey’s roads safer, in which case they should be replaced, or are redundant, in which case they should be removed.

We believe that the County Council needs to develop and implement a road sign inspection policy so that it has an accurate record of what road signs should be in place and, through regular inspections by council officers, identify those signs which are missing or damaged and should be replaced. This would ensure that vital road signs which are necessary for road safety can be and are replaced.

Alternatively if the County Council is expecting members of the public to notify it of missing and damaged road signs, it should provide an interactive map showing which road signs should be in place to enable them to more effectively perform their role.

A recent letter published by OFSTED has raised very serious criticisms of Surrey County Council three years after the County Council’s Children’s Services were inspected by OFSTED and subsequently rated as “inadequate”.

There is a long list of failings that have been identified: the poor quality of social work, weaknesses in managerial oversight, children not receiving the right help at the right time and, in some cases, children being at risk of harm.

It is clear that the pace of improvement within Surrey has been too slow and that in some cases basic social work practice is not being followed.

We believe that what is needed now is a step change in the drive to improve these services, much better communication and lines of accountability between management and the front line and a real sense of leadership from the County Council that it has the will, drive and expertise to turn these services around for the benefit of children in Surrey.

Senior management should resist the temptation to blame the front line and their immediate superiors as in reality it is the failure of leadership over the years that has left front line staff without the right guidance and with case loads too large for them to manage well.

Senior managers must listen to the social workers as well as the children. Doing more of the same won’t put things right; imagination and innovation are urgently needed. No social worker goes to work to do a bad job – they and the children of Surrey are being let down.

Liberal Democrats have called upon Surrey County Council to improve and expand its provision of services to children with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND).

The County Council spends a total of £237 million on SEND services for children and young people, educates 822 SEND students outside of the county, and spends nearly £27 million on travel costs for SEND students.

Liberal Democrat County Councillors are now calling on the County Council to invest in more SEND provision within Surrey in order to reduce the number of placements outside of the county, as well as reducing travel costs and times for children and parents alike.

This call follows an OFSTED inspection in October 2016 where Surrey County Council was found to have significant areas of weakness in its SEND practices and that there was “overwhelming” lack confidence in the local area’s leaders and SEND services.

In short, we believe that it should not be necessary for children to be placed out of County for their needs to be met and that we have the skills and commitment in Surrey to be able to create our own specialist units to address SEND needs which would both improve the lives of children and their families and provide for their needs closer to home.

This Investment in Specialist Units within Surrey, if made, will be life changing for those who use the facilities, and their wider family members. Let’s do it and make a real difference.

A petition of over 2,000 signatures calling for Surrey’s Performing Arts Library to be saved has been presented to a meeting of Surrey County Council’s Cabinet. The petition, which was launched by Liberal Democrat County Councillors in September, was handed in by Ges Ray, Vice-Chair of the Leith Hill Music Festival.

Recommendations as to the future of the service will be proposed by the Communities Select Committee at their meeting in February 2018 with a final decision taken by the Council’s Cabinet in March.

The Library, which is currently based near Dorking at Denbies Wine Estate, houses a truly unique collection of music, theatre, orchestral and dance materials available for public loan. It also holds a specialist Vaughan Williams collection and permanent display covering the life and works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), commemorating his strong links with the area where he lived and where he composed some of his most important pieces.

Ges Ray said, “With music scores sourced through the Surrey Performing Library, The Leith Hill Musical Festival reaches some 3,000 singers, performers and audience members each year in the Dorking Halls alone, let alone the many thousands of users across the county and beyond. If this unique jewel of a collection is dispersed now, it will effectively be lost.”

Whilst we are pleased that the County Council appears to have ruled out the closure of the service as a result of the campaign to save the library, the County Council is still considering breaking this collection up amongst a number of libraries – an action which would be tantamount to closure.

We believe that what is needed is time to allow the Performing Arts Library and its supporters to come up with a workable and viable financial model which secures its future going forward and we will continue to fight and protect the Performing Arts Library until a viable option can be developed to retain it. We further believe that it would be very foolish to close a service which has provided such enjoyment to audiences across Surrey and beyond.

Today’s Budget was a missed opportunity for the Government to address the crisis in social care funding in places like Surrey and to alleviate the pressure on local councils delivering essential services to vulnerable residents but who cannot keep up with demand and cost pressures.

The worsening growth figures outlined by the Office of Budget Responsibility paint a bleak picture for local councils who desperately needed a cash injection from the government in order to carry out their statutory duties.

The Chancellor’s announcement of extra money for house building is welcome but these must be homes that people can afford, with a range of tenures and in the right places. High cost areas like Surrey and the South East of England need an increased supply of genuinely affordable homes so that teachers, care workers and others working in the public sector and providing the essential services that we all rely on, can live and work locally.

The Conservative Government has failed to address some of the critical issues affecting areas like Surrey and is having to put £3bn extra aside in order to prepare for the fallout from the extreme version of Brexit that it has chosen to implement.

To address these issues, Liberal Democrats have called for a cash injection into the NHS, funded by an increase in income tax of 1p which would raise an extra £6bn, alongside reforms which would bring together health and social care whilst boosting mental health care, and to for an extra £7bn for schools.

It is disappointing that the Chancellor, himself a Surrey MP, has not recognised that these issues need to be addressed when putting together this Budget.