Your District Councillor

Charlotte Cane Tel. 742509

District Council Notes (Oct / Nov 2001)

On the 9^th October I joined a group of campaigners to deliver a petition to Cambridgeshire Health Authority against their proposal to merge the East Cambridgeshire Primary Care Group with the Fenland Primary Care Trust. We had very little time to organise this petition, because the Health Authority sprang its plan on us at short notice. So I was amazed that over six thousand two hundred people signed in just over 1 month. And I understand that over 1,000 people have sent in cards to oppose the merger. Thank you to any of you who signed the petition and/or wrote to the Health Authority. Despite this overwhelming public opinion the Cambridgeshire Health Authority at its meeting on 17^th October decided that East Cambridgeshire Primary Care Group should merge with Fenland Primary Care Trust. And that the Bottisham Practice should move to South Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust. I am disappointed by this decision, but it has to be approved by the Regional Health Authority and the Secretary of State for Health before it can be implemented, and I hope the Secretary of State can be persuaded to overturn the Health Authority’s decision. If you want to comment, whether in favour or against, on the merger and/or on Bottisham being part of South Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust please write to Alan Milburn MP, Secretary of State for Health, The Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2NS.

Our review of East Cambs expenditure is now complete. We are now consulting on how people value our services. If we are to continue to provide good quality services it looks likely that we will need to increase the East Cambs Council tax for a Band D property to about £100. This is a significant increase from this year’s charge of £64 for a Band D. Most ECDC taxpayers are Band C and they would be charged about £89, Band A would be charged about £67 and Band H about £200. To these charges are added the County Council’s charge (this year £668 for a Band D), the Police’s charge (this year £68 for a Band D) and Reach Parish’s charge (this year £26 for a Band D). It arises because for many years East Cambs has subsidised the Council Tax charge because it earned high interest and spent from reserves. We cannot continue to do this indefinitely and have therefore carried out a full review to set a sustainable budget for the foreseeable future. I would have preferred to raise the Council tax more gradually, because I know a sudden rise like this makes it hard for people to plan their finances – especially those on fixed incomes. But the government system of penalising Councils who increase taxes over government limits means that we would not be able to take this gradual approach. Most of all, I would have liked to find savings to avoid increasing the tax at all.

So we have looked for savings and we have had government Inspectors in reviewing our services as part of the Best Value Review process. We have found nearly £174,000 of efficiency savings, but the Best Value Reviews have shown that we are under funding some services, so we need to increase expenditure in those areas. We spend about what the government thinks we should spend and most Cambridgeshire Councils have to spend above this, as it does not take account of the high cost of living in Cambridgeshire. We are planning to spend £7.1 million next year and the government will give us about £4.7 million towards this, leaving us to find £2.4 million locally. We have not yet fixed our expenditure budget or our Council tax rate and I would be interested in your views on this before 17^th December.

The Government has congratulated East Cambridgeshire on our progress in moving towards e-government. This is especially good news because it could lead to East Cambs being given government grants to help us to become a fully electronic council. Our e-government strategy includes computers in some villages to give people without their own computers access to on-line learning courses, a computer mapping system (CAPS/GIS) to make our planning, building control, environmental services and land searches better, and our web site. The web site has been improved, so that it is now easier to find your way around – please visit it and let us know what you think - http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk.

We are also ‘flushed with success’ as 8 of our public loos in Ely, Littleport and Wicken have been awarded Loo of the Year awards.

My next Councillor’s Surgery will be at Reach Village Hall on Tuesday December 11th from 7.30-9.00 pm. These Surgeries are an opportunity for you to come and discuss any District Council matters with me and I also have a selection of leaflets giving information about Council services and Planning matters as well as a copy of the Local Plan.

Jon and I are looking forward to our second Christmas with David, although he is still too young to realise the festival’s significance. But at least this year he will start to share in the excitement of spending time with his grandparents and uncles and exchanging presents. I hope that you all have a very happy Christmas.

Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat Councillor for the Swaffhams and Reach

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