Dear Editor,
At the last Council meeting, the Labour Leader of Cheshire East Council resigned just before he was due to face a vote of no confidence.
Sam Corcoran stated that he had to take responsibility after a report highlighted bankruptcy fears.
Much of this step towards bankruptcy is due to the historic overspending on the children’s special needs budget and (DSG) where Cheshire East now has a debt of £80million as opposed to the surplus of £1.6million that they inherited from the Conservatives in 2019.
Cheshire East is a national outlier in this, they spent 12 times as much as Cheshire West and have not followed a policy of inclusion, which means that our children are not attending schools in their own communities.
We have now had an inadequate rating from OFSTED for our Children’s services.
This again will cost money, other Local Authorities estimate it costs between £5 – £15 million to make the improvements rightly demanded by an inadequate inspection.
This again edges us towards bankruptcy.
What we need now in Children’s Services is stability and good leadership.
However, following on the heels of the leader’s resignation, we now have the resignation of the Executive Director of Children’s Services.
It is up to the new leader, to steady the ship but will he continue his support for the current Chairman of the Children and Families Committee (Carol Bulman Labour) or decide to have a reshuffle
Either way, he needs to get a grip on this service and drive the improvements that are desperately needed.
Yours,
Cllr Jos Saunders (Poynton East & Pott Shrigley)
Conservative Opposition Spokesperson: Children & Families
CEC council is a complete failure.
We fund what’s required, not what we can, you forget different areas have different levels of need, maybe you should do a little research on the subject instead of looking a funding instead of need
Surely the key point there is that CEC spent 12times as much as CWAC. Something’s wrong somewhere locally in CEC, not nationally.
Once again a political party missing the point it’s funded to provide a service, your party at national level underfunded and gave tax cuts instead, please take responsibility for your parties failure to look after the population by providing it’s responsibilities instead of spending on the south and ignoring the north
From an independent voter who has a bone to pick with both parties