Interaction saved

Published on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017

(picture shows me at the Interaction Christmas party)

Excellent news for people with mental health issues: the City Council has found a way of keeping the Portsmouth Interaction service running.

This service provides support and activities to allow people to gain confidence and move on with their lives. The pressure on budgets has meant this was in danger, but by working with its new leisure provider, BH Live, the council has come up with a deal that will see that organisation take over the running of the service as part of its contract.

With BH Live running the Mountbatten Centre and various other leisure venues across the city, it has the space and the facilities to provide this kind of help. This is a great example of the council thinking differently and managing to not just save but to improve services while still making the savings it has to make.

Tags: Adult Social Care

Housebuilding stats

Published on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017

Tables of government statistics sometimes make interesting reading: the recently published figures on the calculation of the New Homes Bonus being a case in point.

This gives an update on the number of houses completed and brought back into use by every local authority in England.

In Portsmouth 440 new properties were built and 234 properties back into use between April 2015 and April 2016. That may sound a large figure, but in comparison with other areas around the region it really isn't. Comparing it to the 66 councils that comprise the Southeast region, Portsmouth has the eighth lowest rate of household construction per 100000 people but the highest rate of empty properties brought back into use. The former reflects both a shortage of land and the council's restrictive policies on planning, while the latter reflects the large number of existing houses made available as a result of student accommodation being built in the city centre.

Many people always have the impression that there's a great deal of construction in Portsmouth, but the figures show otherwise and in many other areas the numbers are four times greater.

The full table is here. The areas with lower rates of housebuilding are Adur, Gosport, Medway, Mole Valley, Hastings, Thanet and Canterbury. The highest rate was in Vale of the White Horse, where was 4.2 times as much.

Tags: Planning

Eastern Road waterbridge

Published on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017

Of all the investments the council made in infrastructure last year, one of the most important received very little attention.

The local authority set aside £1.8m for repairs to the Eastern Road Waterbridge. These works were structural and the engineering advice was that without them, traffic flow would have to have been reduced to one lane of traffic in each direction. This spending accounted for a majority of the money spent on transport capital works last year but giving how vital it is to keep that road fully open it was unavoidable.

The repairs have now been carried out and the bridge should be secure for many years to come. As an aside, there is now an outside chance of getting the Highways Agency to add a protected turning for traffic leaving the A27 heading westbound, so that those vehicles do not have to go round the roundabout. 

Tags: Transport

Four-year funding settlement for local government

Published on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017

The annual spending settlement for local government was released just before Christmas and it contains few surprises. Last year the government offered all local authorities a guaranteed level of funding for four years and the latest settlement is in line with those promises.

In order to access the four year guarantee, councils had to submit efficiency plans and had to request that they wanted a guaranteed deal. Almost all did this, with only five of England’s 300+ local authorities refusing the offer. The two known hold outs are Lancashire and Surrey County Councils, both of which are in particular trouble, with the former burning through reserves at an alarming rate and the latter reportedly contemplating a 16% council tax rise.

Portsmouth City Council was one of the overwhelming majority that signed up for a deal, with the decision taken by full council in the autumn. I try not to make these posting partisan, but it was really disappointing that the Liberal Democrats pushed for the council to refuse it, so they could claim to be against austerity. The reductions in funding for local government are universal and nowhere has the option of just opting out and it is simply false to claim otherwise. Labour also abstained, but thanks to support from UKIP, the vote was passed and the council has accepted the offer of a four-year settlement.

Now that the settlement has been published, it is possible to compare the actual figures for those councils that refused the deal with the offer they were made a year ago. The numbers are identical. 

Guaranteed levels of income make planning considerably easier and also make it possible to operate with a lower level of reserves. There is still going to be further pain for local government, but having surety of what the numbers are going is helping Portsmouth City Council plan its finances on a two-year basis rather than the traditional one.

Tags: Budget

Request for funding for South Parade Pier

Published on Monday, 5th December 2016

The council charges an infrastructure tax on new development, a slice of which has to be spent in the area where the development takes place. The McCarthy and Stone building on the seafront means there is now a sizable pot of cash for this ward.

There has been a request for cash to provide a walkway around South Parade Pier. It’s a bit of a dilemma frankly and I would like to know what you think.

Tags: Pier

New housing to help the disabled

Published on Monday, 5th December 2016

The council is half way through a programme to provide new accommodation for people with learning disabilities. The new supported living units maximise independence by giving people their own homes. In some instances, live in carers are provided, while for others more targeted support is all that is required.

A repurposed building in Cosham now provides living space for eight people, while a new block of five flats has just opened in Portsea: Alexander McKee Court consists of five flats, one of which has widened doors to accommodate wheelchairs.

The standard of the new accommodation is excellent. This is an example of how it is possible to provide better services at lower cost. Two more new housing schemes are being worked on.

Tags: Adult Social Care

Consultation on changes to the health and care system

Published on Monday, 5th December 2016

The NHS is putting together plans that layout how the health and care sector will cope with rising demand, will embrace new technology and will move some way towards a community model of care, with less reliance on hospitals. Together the 44 Sustainability and Transformation Plans cover the whole of England and they will set the background for health decisions over the coming decade.

In this area, the local plan covers the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, including both Portsmouth and Southampton. The City Council has had some input into its preparation, although it is still very much an NHS document.

In my role as chairman of the Health and Wellbeing Board, I have publicly asked for all partners to run consultations; my opposite number in Southampton has done something very similar and I hope both Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will also join in, so that this can cover the whole area.

The document is high level and mapping it to possible changes on the ground is not easy. Both it and a summary document are online, if you are interested. See here and here.

Tags: health 

Generating income to offset budget reductions

Published on Monday, 5th December 2016

The council budget for 2017/8 has been published and will be put before the council on 13^th December; it will then be adopted, albeit potentially in amended form.

This will be the seventh year in which grants from government have been sharply reduced. In Portsmouth the Revenue Support Grant, which was once the mainstay of local government finance, has fallen from £91.2 m in 2011/12 to £22.3m in 2017/8. There have been numerous changes to funding arrangements and responsibilities over the years and those two numbers cannot be compared directly, but the essential point that there is now far less money still stands.

The good news though is that the City Council is coping really well. This year’s savings programme, while not without pain, does not include the sort of stark service reductions we have seen in the recent past. Additional commercial income, greater efficiency and cost sharing with other authorities have gone a long way to close the £9m gap, leaving most frontline services in tact. No major facilities are closing and in many areas the service delivered should improve. My own portfolio of social care is a case in point. We have done a lot of work to improve processes and waiting times should reduce sharply as a result.

Generating millions in commercial income is not the norm in local government and there are numerous examples of councils on the edge as a result, Lancashire being a particular example. Despite reducing its museums budget to just £100,000 and closing over 20 libraries, it is burning through its reserves at such a rate that it is prophesying bankruptcy in two years time (or four even if it can transform itself into the lowest spending council in the country). Meanwhile just down the road in Southampton, the council there is looking at moving to fortnightly bin collections. I am sure they are not doing that lightly, but eventually there are no further options.

Here in Portsmouth, the administration’s commercialisation strategy is bearing fruit. Additional property deals will generate £1m, sharing management with Gosport £500,000, changes in debt management £1.3m and by commissioning some public health services jointly with Hampshire and by using the third sector more, £500,000. This has got a long way left to run and further benefits from thinking commercially are in the pipeline for 2018/9.

Tags: budget

Prison land deal will make city just a little more attractive

Published on Saturday, 29th October 2016

Back in the summer, the council granted permission for the conversion of the former Kingston Prison into flats along with the construction of some new build units in the grounds; now it has concluded a land deal to improve the landscaping.

The triangle of land facing the roundabout is a mixture of grassland, trees and bushes. There are some problems locally with anti-social behaviour and it being used by local youths.

The council has agreed a long lease for the land to the developer of the prison for its use as a landscaped area. They have every incentive to make it look really nice - a high quality entrance area will make it easier for them to sell their flats - and the eventual end occupants of the flats will have a similar incentive to keep the entrance to their homes looking its best.

While the £7500 this will raise for the council is neither here nor there in the big scheme of things, this is an example of how the council can improve our area without spending more money. The landscaped area will not be enclosed and on-going public access is assured.

Tags: Planning