Under Conservative control Trafford Council has continued to invest and improve the services that are important to you. Our education system remains the envy of the country, we now recycle more than any other council in Greater Manchester and we have set the lowest council tax increase in Trafford’s history keeping our council tax one of the lowest in England. Under the Conservatives we are now recognised nationally for how we look after adults with care needs, since 2008 we have invested over £18 million in repairing our roads and pavements and there has been a great improvement in confidence in community safety across the Borough.
But we will not stop there. Despite the difficult economic situation we have an ambitious agenda to go further still to deliver on your priorities. We are also adamant that we will continue to drive down costs and to improve the services that we deliver. And because it is your money that Trafford spends ‘value for money’ will be the watch word for everything that we do. Here is a brief overview of our proposals for 2010/11.
Falling rates of crime and anti-social behaviour has ensured that Trafford remains the safest place to live in Greater Manchester.
We are increasing investment in tackling crime and anti social behaviour resulting in 5,000 more patrolling hours for our Community Safety Patrol Teams. We are strengthening our working partnership with the police to make our homes, streets and public places safer still.
This is in contrast to Labour, where police numbers have been cut.
It is no accident that Trafford has the best schools in the Country. Our children benefit from schools that produce the best results in the North West of England
We will support and defend our excellent Grammar and High schools.
Both Labour and the Lib Dems would abolish our school system, to the detriment of all Trafford children.
We recognise that improving the condition of roads and pavements is of importance to you – and we continue to listen.
Hence this year we are investing a further £5.5 million improving the condition of our roads and pavements, bringing a total investment over a three year period by this Conservative Council to £24 million.
Under Labour Trafford’s roads were left to crumble through a lack of investment. This year the Lib Dems voted in Council to cut Conservative spending on roads by half.
Trafford is increasing spending on Adult Social Care by £1.4 million this year to ensure that adult care needs are met. This is vital because of a lack funding from the Labour Government.
We are introducing a Personal Budget system. As Conservatives, we believe that people benefit enormously when they take personal control of managing money to pay for their own care. This corresponds with our philosophy on individual choice and freedom.
Under Labour Adult Social Services had ‘all but collapsed’ according to Government Inspectors in 2003.
Trafford has the lowest council tax in Greater Manchester and one of the lowest in England.
We will continue to drive out costs and we will deliver over £6 million of efficiency savings in the next year. We will also make the Council more transparent – council spending and councillor expenses will be published for public viewing.
Labour raised Council Tax by 12.9% in none year alone and squandered £18 million of reserves.
Community Safety continues to be a clear priority for this Conservative administration and will continue to be at the forefront of our thinking.
Working in an effective partnership with the Trafford Division of GMP, through the Safer Trafford Partnership, we continue to develop a shared thinking approach which is delivering some of the best results within Greater Manchester. This is evidenced by a continual reduction in crime levels across the Borough, and an increase in public confidence. Our partnership working, particularly around guns & gang crime, has fallen by 39% between 2006/9 and has now received national recognition.
Having strengthened our Community Safety Patrol teams, an extra investment of £150,000 over 2010/11 will allow for an additional 5000 more patrolling hours to safeguard our parks & play areas, with an emphasis on dawn patrols, night patrols & surveillance operations. In addition we plan to investment an extra £50,000 to support further allygating schemes.
We will continue our work to more closely align our community safety patrollers with the neighbourhood policing teams. This has proved successful in both reducing levels of crime & ASB, and driving up public confidence. Residents’ perception of anti-social behaviour as a serious problem in Trafford has been halved in the last 5 years from 36% in 2004 to 17.8% in 2009. Tackling anti-social behaviour is one of the Safer Trafford Partnerships strong performance areas, and we are recognised regionally and nationally as one of the leading authorities in this field of work. We will continue to develop and support our ASB unit by providing the necessary tools to combat ASB. We have recently introduced drink banning orders which target individuals causing ASB, and focus on prevention, early intervention and enforcement as key drivers to maintaining Trafford's reputation of being the safest place to live in Greater Manchester and one of the safest metropolitan areas in the UK. Additionally, we will shortly publish our anti-social behaviour minimum standards document.
With our schools and colleges delivering some of the best outcomes in the country, it is tempting to rest on our laurels – but that isn’t going to happen. Although we are blessed with a team of dedicated and capable professionals throughout the education infrastructure there are still some difficult problems that we need to address. We will have just one guiding principle – to provide facilities and resources to allow our schools and colleges to deliver the best possible outcome for every child.
Trafford’s population is defying national trends and we are seeing significant growth in the number of young children arriving in the borough and looking for school places. The Council’s priority over the next few years will be to rebalance our capacity. We are looking to invest over £6 million in building projects for schools to make sure that we provide the quantity of places to complement the undoubted quality that is attracting more and more families to Trafford.
We will also continue to defend our selective secondary school system to ensure that Trafford continues to be a great place to learn. Labour oppose this system and actually tried to get rid of our Grammar and High Schools in the past. Nationally the Lib Dems are against our selective school system.
We remain committed to addressing residents concerns over our roads and pavements and ensure that significant investment is made to reverse the years of decline under Labour. Building upon significant investment over the last 24 months we will be spending £5.5million over the next 12 months directly on our roads, and pavements, footpaths and street lights. This brings recent investment by your Conservative Council over three years to £24 million over.
But it is not just about investment - we believe in efficiency too and in 2010/11 our contractors will deliver even more for every pound spent, as we work with our partners to win ever better prices and performance, guaranteeing real value for our money.
Reducing Congestion
We consulted extensively in Trafford about taxpayers’ views, and have put tackling congestion high on our list of priorities. We are investing in forward thinking initiatives such as the centrally controlled traffic lights along the A56 which will improve traffic flow for all forms of transport, as well as junction improvements along the length of the A56, thereby reducing congestion.
For Road Safety
The safety of all our road users continues to be of great importance to us and this year we are determined to tackle more key accident hotspots by re-focusing attention on these areas. Meanwhile we will continue to promote road safety education in our schools through our excellent free junior cycle training scheme and junior road safety programmes. We also support initiatives like Safer Routes to Schools, delivering greater protection for the Borough’s children.
Better Transport
We recognise the importance of all forms of transport across the Borough. Trafford Conservatives will ensure that the Council actively works with cycling and walking partners, taxi operators, bus & rail operators, car park owners, the GMPTE as well as businesses and schools to provide better transport links for all across the whole of the Trafford.
Our Environment
Recycling
This Conservative administration has overseen an increase in our recycling rates from 7.5% under Labour in 2004 to 47% under the Conservatives. Trafford now sends less waste to landfill than any other Borough in Greater Manchester, yet the service is the most cost effective when compared to neighbouring authorities.
Litter and Graffiti
We are allocating an additional £120,000 for an additional street cleaning team resulting in thousands of miles of additional street cleaning per year. Our success to date means we will continue with our 'Deep Clean' initiative across the Borough, each ward will be targeted every eight weeks. We are extending our 'Tidy Britain Campaign' and our aim is to make Trafford the UK's champion of champions, this will be achieved by continuing to work with our partners to deliver the best outcomes.
We will continue with our successful on-the-spot fines to tackle dog fouling and the dropping of litter in public places. A new policy will be introduced to combat fly-posting, this will be to support our 'Defacement Removal Team' when removing fly-posters and graffiti across the borough.
Sustainability
Trafford Conservatives will build upon our success in areas of recycling by adding food waste to the recycling chain. We will continue to work with our partners to lower greenhouse gas omissions by offering council tax rebate, and discount home insulation schemes.
Trafford Conservatives have successfully reduced energy use in it's own buildings, we will now work with our schools to cut their energy use, saving money on their bills and cutting their omissions for the benefit of all Trafford residents.
Parks and Greenspace
Trafford Conservatives continue to support our Parks & Greenspaces. We will spend over £3 million this year to keep our parks attractive to all residents. We have been successful in obtaining £1.6 million in grants which, coupled to our own resources will ensure that we will have much to celebrate about our parks & greenspaces.
Conservatives this year will continue to engage with the public we will invite people to have their say about our parks and gardens. As part of our ongoing consultations with our residents park users of all ages and backgrounds will be invited to take part in the GreenSTAT survey. The feed back we receive will help Trafford Conservatives make Trafford an even greener borough.
Adult Health and Wellbeing
The population of Trafford is living longer as is the rest of the country. Over the last 6 years, this has resulted in a phenomenal rise in demand of over 7% per year for social care both for the elderly and those with learning difficulties. Furthermore the numbers of older people with dementia is increasing at a higher rate. These trends are placing an increasing burden on Adult Social Services and make maintaining the overall well being of the community more difficult.
Trafford will continue to lobby the Government for a fairer settlement which recognises this increase in demand for adult social care. Despite a disappointing 1.5% increase in the Labour government grant to the Council for 2010/11 Trafford Conservatives have increased spending on Adult Social Care by £1.4 million to meet the increased numbers we have to provide services to.
Despite the poor funding and increases in numbers, Trafford Conservatives have managed to provide a service which has won the Improvement and Development Agency award for innovation in the provision of services. We are one of only 26 Councils in England to achieve an excellent rating for providing Choice and Control to service users. This is a dramatic change from the situation in 2002 when under Labour, the Inspectorate reported that services for Adults had “all but collapsed.”
We are increasing the use of Personal Budgets to give choice and control to service users, encouraging them to take charge of their lives. As Conservatives we believe that people benefit enormously when they take personal control of managing money to pay for their own care. This corresponds with our philosophy on individual choice and freedom and with the policy of Putting People First.
We are exploring the use of new technology to assist those who wish to remain in their own homes to feel more secure and able to call for assistance in an emergency, such as a fall.
We are providing more low level preventative services for all and are increasing the re-enablement services to help people back to normal life after being discharged from hospital. We intend to do this in partnership with the Primary Care Trust to provide the fullest possible coverage for Trafford residents.
We will work with our partners in Trafford to improve health outcomes in those areas where currently, on average, they are significantly lower than in other parts of the Borough, thereby reducing the health inequality gap.
We are fortunate that we have a very strong voluntary sector in our Borough and we are working to support and enhance their role in Trafford. Given the increasing demand for social care in the future we will explore ways of encouraging greater community involvement in the care of our more vulnerable residents. The strength of this sector was demonstrated during the winter snow of 2009/10 when extra help was provided to the vulnerable residents of Trafford.
Children’s Social Services
The Council as Corporate parents has a responsibility to the children in its care. Trafford Conservatives take this responsibility very seriously and want the same outcomes that all parents want for their children.
Statistics demonstrate that 'children looked after' do not on average achieve at the same level as their peers. To help all our 'children looked after' reach their full potential we will focus on improving.
In 2009 Trafford’s Children in Care Service achieved the prestigious national investors in excellence standard. Trafford Conservatives will continue to support the team in the work they do to ensure positive out comes for all of the Children and Young People in our care.
Trafford’s services for Children and Young People were judged by Ofsted in 2009 as performing well and the Unannounced Safeguarding Inspection was very positive. These are just two of the many improvements that have taken place since we took control in 2004.
This year we will invest over £1 million extra in caring for our most vulnerable children.
Youth Service
Trafford Conservatives will continue to fund our very successful youth service and offer services directed at areas of greatest need, not always from youth centres, but increasingly via street based work. We will continue to improve on Trafford’s excellent performance in this area.
Foster Care Service.
Since taking overall control of Trafford Council in 2004 we have revitalised the service. We have improved the pay and conditions for our carers and now meet regularly with the Trafford Foster Carers’ Association. The improvements to the service mean Trafford is now considered to be amongst the best foster care providers in Greater Manchester. We will continue to offer help and support to this invaluable group of people
Economy & Regeneration
Town Centres
Trafford Conservatives believe that our town centres play a vital part for the community and the commercial well being of the borough.We will continue to maintain our focus on the redevelopment scheme well underway in Urmston, whilst maintaining our focus on the longer term redevelopment schemes underway in Altrincham and Partington. We will work with the private sector to attract investment into all our town centres to secure their long term viability.
Trafford Town Hall
The transformation of the Town Hall complex is an ambitious programme of work which:
We will move to selecting a preferred bidder for the Town Hall renovation works in the coming year. We plan to vacate the current building in late 2010/early 2011 whilst it is renovated and hope to return for the 2012 Olympics.
Value for Money & Customer Services.
Following the merger of our call centre and libraries team, we have seen call response times improve significantly, while residents can access our services at many more libraries across the Borough.
Over the next 12 months we plan to enhance customer access to services further through an even more improved approach to customer service. Residents’ queries and requests will be dealt with more efficiently and seamlessly, with customers only having to provide key information to the Council once.
Key commitment:
Over the next two years, we also plan to:
Libraries
Last year saw the opening of Urmston’s new library, which is triple the size of the previous facility. The new library has signed up around 900 new members who can take advantage of the 24,000 books, DVDs and CDs. This first class facility is right in the heart of Urmston, delivered by local Conservatives despite the current economic difficulties.
Key commitment:
Over the next two years, we plan to improve our libraries even more. In particular we will enhance the childrens’ play and refreshment areas and improve opening times at customer contact points.
Communicating with you
Our Borough wide newspaper Trafford Today is very widely read and provides an invaluable source of Council and local news for residents across the Borough.
Key commitment:
We plan to refresh the format of Trafford Today with a new, revitalised version launched in Summer 2010.
We will also continue to provide an annual survey of residents’ views to make sure that the Council’s priorities accurately reflect those of local people.
Value for Money
Despite Trafford receiving 34% (£202) less per head than the Greater Manchester average government funding, local Conservatives are continuing to deliver the lowest Council tax in the North West.
Since taking control of the Council, £72 million of efficiencies have been delivered from working more efficiently. We will deliver a further£6 million of savings in next financial year - worth £75 per band D property.
We will further increase the efficiency and productivity of our workforce, ultimately improving customer service by providing access to systems and services from a variety of locations and beyond normal working hours. Technology will be used to achieve greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the way services are delivered across the whole organisation.
Key commitment:
The Council tax increase this year will be 1.9%, the lowest increase in the history of Trafford.
We also plan to increase transparency - starting in the new financial year we plan to publish how much has been spent with each major Council supplier and the details of Councillor expense claims.
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