Friday brief: Labour councillor wins opposition motion to get previously hidden community safety information reported
Plus lots of other news from the county
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) has agreed that reports from the area’s previously hidden Community Safety Partnership (CSP) will be brought out into the open.
Labour councillor Anne Lee proposed a motion at last night’s full council meeting held at Corby Cube, to have quarterly reports about what the CSP was doing brought forward to the council along with an annual report.
She also asked that following the murder of Harshita Brella, 23, in Corby last month, there should be a focus on domestic abuse in the new plan.
Cllr Lee said:
“Who exactly sits on the CSP? I don’t know. The meetings are held behind closed doors and this council is not receiving any reports. Underlying the CSP is a plan for 2022-25, it is a well written plan.
“I am asking for the partnership to do what is in the plan, which is to publish an annual report to tell residents how progress is made on delivery of the plan. There was also an undertaking in the plan to give quarterly updates with trends. None of that is currently available to us as councillors. I am asking for a tip of the veil to be lifted on the work of the CSP. They are doing good work, we know that through Neighbourhood Watch.
“In Kettering we now have a regular gathering of people in the town centre drinking. What is happening with that? We don’t know. There is no reporting. What is happening with school children and county lines? What are the trends? West Northants is getting these reports. West Northants also gets metrics.
“But where are these figures for NNC? We have a team of officers working full time, but their work is never reported.”
Earlier this month the council had told NN Journal current guidance meant there was not a legal requirement to produce an annual report.
All 46 of the councillors at last night’s full council agreed with the motion so the CSP will now produce quarterly updates and an annual report.
Referencing Harshita’s murder, Kettering Green Alliance leader, Cllr Emily Fedorowycz said:
“We are not doing enough and we failed in this incidence and there have been incidents before this, where we are not helping people who we know are at risk. I’ve had this in my ward, where we’ve reported issues that are happening and we know police are not going back out. Why are we not looking at these processes? We should not have to wait for something awful like this to happen and yet we are still here.
“I am grateful this motion has been brought forward and I have no doubt the community safety partnership are doing a huge amount, but I would like to hear a lot more about it, especially because colleagues in West Northants are getting these levels of reports. More transparency from our police and community safety teams is something that has been brought up recently in our Kettering town forum. “We need to be more transparent and communicate more.”
Conservative councillor Andy Mercer said he had been a member of the safety partnership and there had been obscurity.
He said:
“Where you do not have transparency it is very difficult to ensure that the service delivered is of high quality. It is a process, you start off by making something transparent, then you can assess it. You can monitor it and see whether it is going in the right direction
“If you don’t publish anything, then who knows and there is no way of ensuring you get the desired outcome the public deserves.”
Harshita’s body has been returned to India, where she had lived until April this year. Her funeral was held this week. Her husband, Pankaj Lamba, suspected of her murder, is still on the run and police say they think he has fled abroad.
News in brief
Junior doctors at Kettering General Hospital are increasingly overworking their shifts due to staff shortages, newly released board papers show.
A meeting of the hospital’s people committee on Saturday heard that in this current quarter of the year there had been 122 exception reports made by junior doctors who had worked longer than their shift. This compared to 134 exception reports made during the whole of the previous year. Every NHS hospital must have a Guardian of Safer Working (GOSW), who is supposed to assess whether doctors below consultant level are working unreasonably long hours.
The system was introduced in 2016 to help avoid burnout of trainee medics.
Despite the hospital being part of the same trust as Northampton General and the two hospitals sharing a new joint chief executive, Laura Churchward, NGH did not submit a report, so it is unclear what the situation is at Northampton.
Agenda papers released ahead of the hospital trust’s board today say:
“Key themes identified were increased awareness of the GOSW [Guardian of Safer Working], increased work intensity, early winter pressures, staff sickness and inadequate staffing levels. The GOSW shared his recommendations with the Committee, and this included increased staffing levels and support of business cases to increase resident doctors. The Medical Director shared several mitigations which included his attendance at the JD Forum, the creation of a joint medical board (January 2025) and the launch of a rostering system in April which would enhance understanding of the gaps.”
Both Kettering and Northampton hospitals currently have a vacancy freeze on departments which are over budget and also included in the report are details from the trust’s finance committee with mention of the ‘removal of 182 full time roles across the hospitals, which would save the trust around £4m.’
Permission has been granted to build 19 homes on the edge of Kilsby despite the plans receiving more than 200 objections.
Green space on the western edge of the village, close to the M45, will be transformed into a small housing estate consisting of one to three-bed homes. Applicant Richborough Estates has agreed that seven of the homes in the development will also be up for affordable rent.
Kilsby resident Rob Chamberlain asked the planning committee at a meeting on Wednesday evening “to bring this madness to an end”. He raised concerns about the road safety of the housing scheme, pointing to a bend and a hill before the entrance which he claimed would likely obscure visibility for drivers travelling at the national speed limit.
He added: “There is no housing need. The land promoter is trying to create one for a simple motive and that’s profit. They’ve been trying to develop this land for nearly ten years. They’re simply gaming the system to open this field for development.”
The applicant reduced the size of the development from an initial request to build 44 houses on a larger site. According to the authority, prior plans to build 65 homes on the same plot of land were also blocked in 2015.
Councillors voted the housing application through, following officers’ recommendation for approval despite the intense local pushback. As the application only asks for outline permission, a further reserved matters plan with more specific details will have to be approved before building can start.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
Some children in Northamptonshire are being sent to care placements hundreds of miles away from their home, figures obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) have shown.
Out of the county’s 228 children placed in residential care homes this year, 45 per cent were living more than 20 miles away from their home with a care provider.
The Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), which is responsible for running children’s services for both West and North Northants councils (WNC and NNC), said there are occasions where it is ‘best’ to place a child out of the county, but admits that there is otherwise always a preference to keep children in Northamptonshire.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by the LDRS shows that one child was placed 267 miles from their home. A similar pattern is evident dating back to the NCT’s creation in 2021, with the furthest distance peaking at 301 miles and dropping down to 267 miles in 2023.
The number of children being placed in care has also grown rapidly in the county, with 175 children being placed by the council in care homes in 2021 rising to 228 in October of this year.
Responding in conjunction with the two local authorities, an NCT spokesperson said: “There are occasions when a decision is made that it is best to place a child out of county and this will usually be for safeguarding reasons otherwise it is always a preference to keep children within the county. However with the number of children with more complex needs coming into care increasing significantly, these cannot always be met locally and it is then that placements out of county are used to best meet the needs of the child or young person.
“It is critical that children are placed in homes that can meet their needs so that they have a safe and secure environment to thrive with the right support and links to family. Numbers of children coming into care is now stabilising and, in addition to ensuring we have sufficient homes to meet need, we work hard to both keep children at home and support children to go back to the family home from care when this is appropriate.”
Not only is the demand for children’s care services expanding, but prices are also increasingly poking holes in councils’ bursting budgets as the social care market is rife with profiteering.
Last month, the government issued a policy paper setting out ambitions to fix the broken care market, tackle profiteering and ensure the system is working effectively for vulnerable children and families.
The Children’s Trust was the single biggest cost to both NNC and WNC last year, going a massive £31 million over budget. Both authorities managed to claw themselves back from the spiralling costs of the demand-led sector and finish the year on budget, but they required using up contingency budgets and raiding reserves.
Recent financial reports indicate a similar position for 2025/26, with the Trust predicting a £9.8m overspend just over halfway through the financial year. West Northants Council has pointed to increased average placement costs and higher complexity of need driving spending up.
The county’s most expensive placement this year cost £16,096 a week—or £837k a year for a child in the council’s care. In the last four years, the highest weekly cost has increased by almost £4,000, with the NCT reporting their most expensive placement in 2021 as £12,600 per week.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
West Northants Council (WNC) has published its draft budget for 2025/26, eliminating an initially forecast £53m funding shortfall.
The budget report, published on Tuesday, confirms the council has closed the gap through identifying efficiencies and savings within its portfolios. Despite pressures, it says it is ‘on course’ to set a balanced revenue budget of £427 million, excluding the Dedicated Schools Grant.
WNC’s cabinet will consider the measures next week on December 10, before launching a public consultation on the draft plans. The authority has said that ‘essential public services’ across the region will be protected from cuts in the next financial year, despite its ‘significant funding and demand challenges’.
The draft budget has also set out a council tax increase of 4.99 per cent, which is the maximum amount an authority can raise without a referendum. This increase, in line with last year’s, would mean an average rise of £1.71 per week on a Band D property.
This does not include the council tax precepts for individual town and parish councils or the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner contributions.
Councillor Malcolm Longley, WNC’s cabinet member for finance, said that setting a balanced and deliverable budget this year had been “challenging and complex”.
“Productivity improvements have remained the key to offsetting the financial pressures brought on by increases in demand-led services and the broader cost base.
“WNC has done everything necessary to bridge an initially significant shortfall whilst ensuring that the needs of residents remain at the forefront of the decisions and actions.”
In total, £26m of efficiencies and income generation has been identified. A general contingency budget of £9m has also been maintained for the next financial year to cover any unforeseen budget risks.
The final budget is subject to change and will be formally set in February 2025, after the six-week-long consultation process.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Westminster Watch
Northampton North MP Lucy Rigby has been appointed as the government’s solicitor general. She follows in the footsteps of her Conservative predecessor Michael Ellis and will deputise for the attorney general.
It is a meteoric rise after only becoming an MP in July. Rigby has acted for many years as a competition lawyer.
Ridiculous responses
We’re starting a new regular feature this week which will highlight some of the ridiculous responses we receive from our public bodies. Back when we had daily local newspapers operating in Northamptonshire, journalists could expect a same day response to questions from organisations funded by the public purse. This is now a rare occurrence and typically responses can take several days. That is not acceptable, especially as we have highlighted earlier this year the communications teams in public bodies are now well resourced teams, with several staff.
NN Journal has now noticed that having had to wait several days for responses from our councils and health bodies, we are now regularly receiving responses that are not worth the wait. After complaining to senior officers and in the absence of any change, there will now be a regular feature in our Friday brief where we highlight some of these responses.
The one we are highlighting this week is from West Northamptonshire Council. A short note in the auditor’s report that went before the council’s audit committee meeting last month stated that the authority was facing having to write off £2m due to failed house build projects.
We asked the authority: On which scrapped capital projects has the authority made a loss and how much has been lost on each project? What were the reasons for the loss and which companies have the lost monies been paid to? And is this money that could have been used on repairs and maintenance?
We received the following response from a spokesperson that did not address the key questions and instead re-iterated information already in the public domain.
“Through our monitoring arrangements with Northampton Partnership Homes, we identified viability issues with several large development sites. As a result, we took the decision to bring control of these major developments back in-house and undertake a thorough review. This proactive approach was reported to Cabinet in November and ensures we are taking steps to secure the best outcomes for our residents and communities.
“We are currently finalising proposals to determine the future direction of these developments. A detailed report outlining proposed changes and their financial impact will be presented to cabinet."
All of the information apart from the last sentence is already known.
We will now have to resort to using the Freedom of Information law to obtain information that the authority should have disclosed.
Excellent work by Cllr Ann Lee for bringing the CSP work out into the open.
Who on earth thought keeping it secret was a good idea?
Glad ridiculous responses has gone down well with readers. Born of frustration (but could hopefully provide some entertainment at times. )