Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats

Following on from the election of the new Tory Leader at Oxfordshire County Council Annual Council meeting yesterday, Liberal Democrats in Opposition have formed a new Shadow Cabinet to match the new Cabinet positions. The list is below:

Leader Cllr. Zoé Patrick

Deputy Leader Cllr. Alan Armitage

Adult Services Cllr. Jenny Hannaby

New figures released last week show that in Oxfordshire, 2,330 people have started an apprenticeship between August 2011 and January 2012.

This comes on top of record numbers of apprentices in our area last year: 3,600 were on an apprenticeship in 2010/2011, which is an increase of 42% on the previous year.

Millions of people are facing increasing energy bills, but the confusing number of different tariffs mean the best deal is difficult to find. To help people make the right choices, Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has announced a landmark deal with the major energy suppliers so they let people know every year what the cheapest deal is.

The Coalition Government has announced that Oxfordshire will get an additional £5,520,025 this year to relieve the pressure on school places.

This is part of an additional £600m of capital spending in England this year, which is for investment in, for example, extra classrooms. This comes on top of the £800m to address the shortage in pupil places already announced for 2012-13.

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats have supported an cross-party motion at the County Council's meeting last Tuesday calling on the government to adopt an Activity Led Funding formulae methodology which will demonstrate fair funding for each school based on established need.

There have been concerns at the council that as schools convert to academies there will be less money available, which could then financially disadvantage those schools that choose to remain as part of the local authority. There is also a need to recognise the extra costs associated with rural sparsity which is not currently recognised in the formulae distribution.

First of all I have to say that I think this is the first motion to Council which I have seen from the Leader. And as this will be his last full Council meeting before he has to hand over the reins to his successor, then no doubt he will wish that it goes through unanimously. He will have seen my question to council on this subject because I have also been concerned about how our military personnel are treated when they are discharged from service. Indeed in his answer to my question he hopes that this motion will receive support from the Liberal Democrat group.

I am pleased that Council has accepted our amendment to the report on embedding personalisation. This is an important debate and indeed could almost be classed alongside what we used to have as 'themed debates' in this council, and for that reason, we think it is important that the views expressed during the debate are recorded and taken into consideration by the Cabinet and Adult Services Scrutiny committee.

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats were pleased to receive all-party support for their motion at the County Council's full Council meeting this week calling for the review of transport to day centres to be "fair and affordable and easy to access".

Day centres are a valuable resource for the elderly, disabled and vulnerable and for some people it is their only way of being able to socialise with their friends and access a whole range of services which would otherwise not be available to them if left at home on their own. Under the new system of personalised budgets, the review of charges at both day centres, and the potential to increase charges for transport arrangements, means that some residents will feel that they are unable to afford to attend in the future. This puts at risk the viability of the centres in the long term, and Liberal Democrats are concerned that this could lead to closures in the future.

I always look forward to reading the Director of Public Health's report and this year is no exception. We continue to be aware of the demographic challenge and the pressures this continues to create in Oxfordshire. I was pleased to see the acknowledgement to the increasing number of people engaged in caring for elderly friends and relatives as these pressures grow. However, the key point is that this is still a priority for Oxfordshire and as we see how delayed discharges continue to be a problem not yet solved, there must be ways in which this can be taken on board. The section on REFERRALS is key. We have to try and minimise the time that is wasted where people are referred unnecessarily from one part of the system to another - and this does need to be monitored. Let us hope that by the time we receive next year's Annual Report there will be some improvement on all of this.

Commuters and bus passengers in Oxfordshire will see more eco-friendly buses on the roads, congestion reduced and services upgraded, thanks to a new £1,408,937 package of improvements approved by Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker.

Across the country £101 million is being spent to improve bus services. £31 million of that will be spent on the Green Bus fund, which aims to bring down fuel emissions and air pollution levels.