At Bury’s last Full Council meeting, Lib Dem councillors asked questions on how Bury was performing on reducing the rate of smoking in the borough. Local Councils have responsibility for public health, of which reducing smoking rates is an important part.

We asked following the Public Health England report on smoking rates for 2016, which showed the biggest drop in a decade with the rate falling to 15.5% of the population, a 1.4 percentage point drop from 16.9% the previous year.

For the first time, the figures show that the biggest drop is among younger adults, aged 18-29 years, with smoking rates having fallen by an impressive quarter since 2010. This reverses a long trend, which has seen rates among this younger group stubbornly fall at a lower rate than the overall population.

We wanted to ask how Bury was doing compared to this national picture:

Question: Nationally smoking amongst young people has fallen faster than other groups in the last five years. Could the Leader inform members how Bury compare to the national statistics, and what is the authority doing to achieve an above average smoking reduction in Bury.

Answer: The latest research conducted by Trading Standards North West (2017) indicates that there is a downward shift in levels and perceptions of smoking among young people, reporting that fewer than 5% of children aged eight to 15 in England have smoked – representing the lowest level on record.
According to the report, between 2009 and 2017, the smoking rate in the North West among14-17 year olds has fallen from 22% to 9%. Whilst at present, the Bury cut of data has not been made available, it is interesting to note that Bury had the largest volume of responders to the survey within the NW, so the data is likely to be representative of the trend locally (although this cannot be guaranteed).
The biggest impact on reducing the uptake of smoking by young people has come from measures taken at a national level including:
– Increasing the price of tobacco products
– Plain packaging legislation
– Banning the sale of packs of 10’s cigarettes
– Raising the legal age of tobacco sales from 16 to 18yrs
– The ban on smoking tobacco in cars when accompanied by children The ban on tobacco advertising

There are a number of measures being undertaken locally here in Bury to support the further reduction of smoking rates among young people including:
– E-cigarette guidance and support to refresh smoking policies in schools Pilot program to de-normalise smoking around children in sporting spaces
– Development of an information pack for Primary schools’ use to raise awareness of how children and young people may be targeted with illegal and illicit tobacco.

We asked a follow on question about funding for Smoking Reduction Services, and whether Bury had reduced their spending on this. This followed a report by the charity Action on Smoking and Health that 40% of Councils had reduced their spend.

Answer: Since the council took responsibility for commissioning of Smoking Cessation there has been no overall reduction in funding. We are however working to modernise the service and create an integrated healthy lifestyle service to support people with various aspects of healthy living. So whilst we continue to invest in smoking cessation support there is no longer a separate service identity. In addition to the Healthy Lifestyle service, some pharmacies offer smoking cessation support and our school health service is working with Early Break to deliver smoking education to children and young people.

Part of our locality plan transformation proposals include a proposition to significantly increase the capacity of the Healthy Lifestyle Service and there are GM proposals to invest in a GM wide digital self help offer.

More information on the Public Health England Report here.

Health organisations and the Liberal Democrats have criticised the Government’s announcement on mental health NHS staffing shortages as inadequate.

The Government announced plans yesterday to recruit an extra 5,000 staff into mental health services by 2020-21, but many have critised the existing crisis in filling jobs, and the lack of any new funding to pay for these posts.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb said: “This is a government that is all bark and no bite. We need to be serious about mental health but all this government has done is pluck a number out of thin air. This government has built a reputation for big announcements which then fail to materialise, this has all the markings of another one. Time and again we see bold announcements while services continue to struggle to cope.

Jeremy Hunt called for thousands of extra GPs to be in place by 2020, yet so far he has overseen a shrinking of the workforce. They then quietly dropped the commitment in their manifesto. And now he has already been forced to admit that he hasn’t got the money for his latest plans.”

Prof Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said 570 extra consultants had been promised in the plans.
“You would expect to see a consultant if you had cancer and the same applies for mental health. The biggest challenge to creating robust mental health services is the workforce. I am very supportive of this strategy which starts to tackle that problem.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “There is already a dangerous lack of workforce planning and accountability and this report is unable to provide detail on how the ambitions will be met. It is clear the government will need to work hard just to get back to the number of specialist staff working in mental health services in 2010. Under this government, there are 5,000 fewer mental health nurses and that goes some way to explaining why patients are being failed.”

Last week Bury’s Councillors met together for an important extraordinary meeting. This was to consider the outcome of an investigation in to senior staff, which had resulted in the resignation of the Council’s Chief Executive and Executive Director of Children’s Services.

This is an important and serious issue, and one which you will probably have seen reported in the media.

Background
An investigation was initiated by the Council at the start of this year around an incident which took place in April 2015. The Council commissioned an independent report into the incident, which resulted in the suspension of senior staff. This was followed by a formal Human Resources Panel and legal investigation which has resulted in the two members of staff mentioned above resigning from the Council.

The details of the case have been reported extensively in the press. Essentially they relate to how senior people in the Council did not follow proper procedures when informed of a criminal investigation of a then Labour councillor for possession of child sexual images. The incident occurred in the run up to the 2015 General Election, and the information was incorrectly kept out of the public domain until after that General Election.

Outcome
Two very senior members of staff (Chief Executive and Executive Director of Children’s Services) have resigned and are no longer employed by the Council.

It is important to stress that the Council, at the start of this process, put in place strong interim management arrangements to ensure that the important functions of the Council are working as they should be.

The Future
Councillors met to consider a joint motion agreed by all three political parties on how we need to move forward from this very serious incident. This has now been agreed by all councillors.

For us there were three things we particularly wanted to ensure happen:

1 – Learn from what has happened
The external experts have made recommendations on how some of the rules that determine how the Council operates are strengthened (particularly the Members Code of Conduct), and there are a number of actions that are recommended coming from the report. We are very keen to make sure that any changes, actions or improvements are taken, and as quickly as possible.

2 – Investigate Elected Member involvement
The investigations so far have been into the paid staff of the Council. There remain questions which are unanswered about whether or not any elected Councillors knew, or were involved, in this process. It has been agreed that there will be an independent investigation into these councillors which we fully support. You may have seen in the press that the former Leader of the Council has been suspended by the Labour Party, pending these investigations.

3 – Review the Culture of the Council
At a senior level it is very important that the different roles of councillors, and the professional paid staff we employ to run the Council are understood. They need to work closely together, but there also need to be clear boundaries in place. We have asked for an all-party review of the culture of the Council at a senior level, which has now been agreed.

This is a very serious issue so if you have any questions you want to ask the Liberal Democrat group at the Council please do not hesitate to get in touch with our Group Leader tim@burylibdems.net.

The papers for the Council meeting are here.

Justine Greening has announced £1.3bn of additional funding for schools that she has said will come from “efficiencies” from within the education budget.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary Layla Moran said: “This is a desperate attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Instead of providing the £4bn of extra funding promised in their manifesto, the Conservatives are recycling cash from the education budget. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Schools are still facing cuts to their budgets once inflation and increasing class sizes are taken into account. Children only get one go at education. We need to invest more in our schools to ensure that no child is left behind.”

The money includes cutting £280m cut from the free schools budget and £315m from “healthy pupils” projects. The DFE is promising £416m extra for schools from `savings” in 2018-19 and a further £884m in 2019-20.

A joint statement from the NUT and ATL teachers’ unions accused the government of “smoke and mirrors”. “Whilst any extra money is welcome this isn’t enough to stop the huge cuts that schools are making,” said the teachers’ unions.

They pointed to evidence from the National Audit Office and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which warned of £3bn funding gap and schools facing an 8% real-terms budget cut.
During the election, the Conservatives had promised an extra £1bn per year, which on top of planned increases, would have meant the core schools budget rising by about £4bn in 2021-22.
Most of this extra funding was going to come from scrapping free meals for all infants, a policy which was subsequently ditched.

Our two local NHS walk-in centres will remain open for at least eight more months. NHS Bury CCG has confirmed that the centres, at Prestwich and within Moorgate Primary Care Centre in Bury, will remain operational until at least March 31 2018.

The CCG says that: “The CCG remains committed to the redesign of urgent care services in Bury in order to ensure the best possible care for the GP registered population of Bury. We will communicate further updates on the next steps in this process following the release of further national and Greater Manchester guidance.”

The public consultation on the future of urgent care services in Bury was paused in March to allow for the release of further national guidance. Since then it has been confirmed that the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership is also considering the composition of urgent care services across Greater Manchester. Current indications are that it is likely to be September 2017 at the earliest before this further guidance is released.

The consultation will remain paused until the further guidance is received.

Earlier this year the Liberal Democrats collected a significant number of petition signatures, handed into the CCG before it considered the closure. Thank you to everyone who supported this campaign – this was the only petition received by the CCG.

Our view is that it is great that the centres get a reprive for another 8 months, but the fight to keep them open is far from over.

Full story Bury Times.

Letting agents fees look set to be banned in this year Queen’s Speech following pressure from the Liberal Democrats.

The fees cost on average £223 per tenancy but under the new plans they will be banned and tenants will be given the opportunity to recover illegal fees imposed upon them.

Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, Olly Grender, who has led a campaign against the fees, said:

“I am absolutely delighted that the ban on letting fees set out in my Private Members’ Bill is now being proposed as law. It’s time we made them a much greater priority, including by introducing a public register of rogue landlords.

Theresa May is expected to have dropped plans to scrap free school lunches for infant pupils from today’s Queen’s Speech.

It comes after the Liberal Democrats strongly criticised the Conservatives during the election campaign over the plans which would have deprived 1.7 million children of free school lunches, including 700,000 living in poverty.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary Layla Moran said:

“I’m glad Theresa May has bowed to pressure and agreed not to scrap free school lunches.

“This is a victory for families across the country. Thousands of children living in poverty will now continue to receive a free nutritious meal a day.

“I am proud of the role the Liberal Democrats played in first introducing free school lunches and then protecting them from Theresa May.

“We will now fight to ensure the Conservatives rein back on their plans to extend grammars and reduce school funding.”

This wee (12-18 June 2017) is Carers Week – an annual annual campaign week to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges carers face and recognise the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.

The campaign is brought to life by thousands of individuals and organisations who come together to organise activities and events throughout the UK, drawing attention to just how important caring is.

This year the campaign is focusing on Building Carer Friendly Communities. Communities which support carers to look after their loved ones well, while recognising that they are individuals with needs of their own.

The Liberal Democrats in Bury signed the pledge to support Carer Friendly Communities supporting carers to have the recognition and support that they need and deserve.

More information about Carers Week events here.

Download a research report to find out why Carers UK are calling for and how we can all help build Carer Friendly Communities.

More information about services for Carers in the Bury area here.