19/05/09 - Local Election Manifesto Launch 2009

A Record of Action. A Promise of More.

Essex Conservatives launched their Manifesto for the County Election today.  They have pledged to keep council tax as low as possible, to continue to deliver excellent services and to save £200 million pounds by transforming the way that the County Council conducts its business.

Conservatives have produced a detailed plan setting out their proposals to fight for the interests of individuals and local communities through these difficult economic times. The Conservatives are the only group to have produced a positive agenda including detailed plans for the next four years.  This gives voters in Essex a clear choice - vote Conservative for good value, excellent services and a clear vision or vote Liberal Democrat or Labour if you want poorly funded inadequate services.

Lord Hanningfield emphasised that this election is about the quality of service provided in Essex and said:

 "I am extremely proud of the Conservative administration's achievements over the last four years. We believe in putting power in people's hands and we are fighting back against a discredited Labour government for the benefit of Essex. We will provide excellent, value for money services and low council tax in order to deliver the best quality of life in Britain. There is stark difference between our positive agenda and the negative campaigns that the opposition groups are running. It is the Conservatives alone that have a proven track record of success and the ideas and drive to continue to make a positive difference.''

Highlights of the manifesto include:

·         Keeping Council tax rises below inflation

·         Concessionary fares for 14-19 year olds in full time education

·         Developing over a thousand apprenticeships across Essex

·         Helping local businesses benefit from our groundbreaking Bank of Essex

·         £100 million investment in vocational skills training

·         Recycling to reach 60% by 2020

·         £200 million of tax payers money to be saved through streamlining processes and slashing bureaucracy

·         Expansion of popular schools

·         Leading the campaign to establish a sustainable and fair social care system in the UK

The full manifesto can be seen below.

ENDS

 

Essex County Council

Conservative Party Manifesto

County Council Elections 2009

Foreword

Essex Conservatives believe in putting power in people's hands. We believe in spreading opportunity widely and fairly. We believe that our society is better served when power is decentralised. And we believe empowered citizens and communities are the best architects for their own future success.

But twelve years of a Labour government have steadily hollowed out the power and responsibility individuals and communities have over their own lives. Labour's big, impersonal state-controlled schemes run by Whitehall and its unelected quangoes have left a disastrous legacy of decreasing social mobility, government waste and a struggling economy drowning in debt.

But Essex Conservatives have been leading the fightback against this Labour juggernaut. We saved the Essex Police from being regionalised. We have reopened closed post offices. We have set up a Bank of Essex to restore sensible finance to good local businesses. We have massively expanded individual budgets for social care users giving them choice and control over the services they use. We campaigned for and won desperately needed investment for the A12. We have stood against excessive and insensitive development in Essex. We are championing the customer by introducing new models of service delivery to cut unnecessary bureaucracy, and we are delivering excellent, value for money services. We have achieved all of this whilst delivering below-inflation Council Tax increases.

We have achieved this because we take our community leadership and financial stewardship roles very seriously. Only Conservatives offer the guarantee to get behind individuals and local communities and fight for their interests in these difficult economic times. Only Conservatives inherently believe in individuals and local communities being as free as possible to pursue opportunity and responsibility. The dead weight of Labour strangles local innovation and social enterprise whilst crowding out individual aspiration and responsibility.

Essex Conservatives have a clear vision - to deliver the best quality of life in Britain - based on a clear philosophy of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and community leadership. Only Essex Conservatives have a clear plan and detailed positive agenda for service improvements, low Council Tax and public service reform and innovation at the County Council for the next four years.

On polling day, please be sure to vote Conservative.

Lord Hanningfield, Leader of Essex County Council

Essex Conservatives have a six point plan for the next four years.

1.  Revive our struggling economy

Labour has taken the British economy into its deepest recession since the 1930s and has brought the country close to bankruptcy. Despite the national scale of the crisis, Essex Conservatives have been taking the lead locally in helping households and businesses deal with the recession.

 Our achievements include:

 - attracting millions of pounds of outside investment into our regeneration areas

- launching the Bank of Essex to help viable local businesses survive the downturn

- financial support for our most vulnerable residents through a Council Tax rebate

- paying the County Council's invoices within 10 days

- below-inflation Council Tax increases

Our plans for the future include:

- helping Essex businesses survive and prepare for future market conditions

- developing over a thousand apprenticeships across Essex's public and private sectors, equipping the workforce of tomorrow with the skills employers need

- helping local businesses benefit from our groundbreaking Bank of Essex

-  accelerating wherever possible the County Council's capital investment schemes and regeneration priorities

- helping eligible businesses to claim small business rate relief

- securing the economic and procurement benefits of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

- working to put Essex at the forefront of the shift to a low carbon economy and supporting green technologies and research and development

- maximising broadband coverage across the whole County

- promoting and increasing the tourism market in Essex

- limiting any increase in the Council Tax to below the level of inflation

2.  Improve our transport and roads

 Tackling congestion and improving road conditions is a top priority for many of our residents, which is why Essex County Council under the Conservatives has delivered record levels of investment in Essex's transport infrastructure.

 Our achievements include:

 - coming top in a national survey for public satisfaction with highways services and road conditions

- reducing the numbers of people killed and seriously injured on Essex roads to their lowest levels for 25 years

- delivering the County's first, highly popular, park and ride scheme

- increasing bus passenger numbers in Essex against national trends

- the pioneering A12 Inquiry, which helped secure additional funding and a realistic improvement plan for the road

- the delivery last year of 12 congestion-busting schemes, one in each District of the County, on time and within budget

 Our plans for the future include:

- introducing a concessionary fare for all 14-19 year-olds in full-time education

- continuing our investment in hi-tech solutions for road repairs and congestion, such as our successful Making Potholes History initiative and the Essex Traffic Control Centre

- widening transport options by expanding the bus network and the number of journeys available

- sustaining our top performance in road maintenance

- more congestion-busting schemes which reduce delays on the CountyÂ’s roads

- promoting other modes of transport such as rail and cycling

  3.  Support our vulnerable people

We have a duty to ensure that elderly, disabled and vulnerable members of our society have access to the best possible health, care and support services. Essex Conservatives believe in ensuring that those who need our support should be able to exercise as much independence and choice as is possible over the services they receive, and that these should be high quality and value for money.

 Our achievements include:

 - reopening 3 post offices (with 4 more due to reopen imminently) which are vital local assets supporting small communities, businesses and vulnerable people

- helping thousands of elderly people to stay independent and in their homes

- transforming our adult social care provision from a one star rated service to the top ranking and one of the best in the country 

- pioneering individual budgets and self-directed support to give vulnerable people choice and control over their services

Our plans for the future include:

 - fully rolling out our transformation of social care through the continued expansion of self-directed support, telecare and our reablement service

- investing more resources in prevention, early intervention and dedicated family support

- trialling more ambitious, co-produced education and care plans for looked after children

- making our vulnerable children's service outstanding by 2012

- expanding tailored family recovery and therapeutic interventions to decisively stabilise vulnerable families

- providing a sustained focus on tackling the CountyÂ’s health inequalities

- leading the campaign to establish a sustainable and fair social care system in the UK

 4.  Increase our educational achievement and skills

Learning new skills and gaining qualifications play a vital role in equipping children and adults to experience personal fulfilment and success. Education's role in tackling inequality of opportunity and as the motor of social mobility cannot be overstated. This is why Essex Conservatives have championed world-class standards, choice and diversity in our education system so that everyone can fulfil their potential.

 Our achievements include:

- delivering one of this country's top performing adult community learning and library services

- raising attainment across all the key stages, including improving the percentage of pupils achieving 5 grades A* - C at twice the rate of our statistical neighbours

- significantly reducing the number of failing schools and promoting parental choice

- more than halving the proportion of young people not in education, employment and training (NEETs) in Essex

- securing state of the art academies in Basildon and Witham

Our plans for the future include:

 - investing £100 million in vocational skills training to ensure both a diversity of options and that our young people can enter the jobs market with the right skills

- transforming the quality of careers advice available to all children and adults and ensuring clearer, tailored pathways to the job market

- working to ensure all our secondary schools are rated good or excellent

- renewing the schools' estate in Essex, at both primary and secondary level

- expanding popular schools so that more families get their first or second choice of school

- investing in pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they access the best educational opportunities

- improving the quality and quantity of health and leisure opportunities for young people

 5.  Protect our communities and environment

Essex is a safe County but levels of crime are always a top priority for our residents.  This is why last year we pledged to make Essex the safest place in the country within five years.  Protecting the County's natural environment and promoting sustainability are also important for realising our ambition to ensure Essex offers the best quality of life in Britain. Essex Conservatives will deliver a safer, cleaner and greener Essex.

Our achievements include:

 - funding Community Support Officers who have assisted in reducing priority crime by almost 20%

- the Essex Drug and Alcohol Partnership exceeding all of its major targets last year

- doubling of recycling levels since we took control of the County Council

- planting over 400,000 new trees in the last year alone

- leading vigorous, high-profile campaigns against the Labour GovernmentÂ’s plans for excessive new housing in Essex and a second runway at Stansted

- allocating £4.6 million through our Community Initiatives Fund, supporting local projects with a total value of £38.5 million

Our plans for the future include:

- making Essex the safest place to live in the country by 2013

- making greater use of community and voluntary groups to tackle social failure, such as youth offending

- increasing recycling to 50% within the next three years and to 60% by 2020

- promoting initiatives that will encourage micro-generation energy and 'greener' consumer behaviour

- sponsoring initiatives to deliver more affordable housing whilst ensuring it is high-quality and locally-appropriate

- enhancing the coast, with new forms of investment to reverse the decline of coastal communities, supporting our remaining fisheries and ensuring we have robust coastal protection plans in place

 6.  Champion our innovation and public services reform agenda

Under the current Conservative administration, Essex County Council has become one of the UK’s leading local authorities - efficient, innovative and progressive.  In the face of an overweening central government, we have ambitiously championed the interests of Essex's residents.  All of our achievements listed above highlight our passionate advocacy of decentralisation, public service reform and citizen empowerment.  We want to continue our fight on behalf of Essex residents so that we see more power transferred from Whitehall into the hands of individuals and their communities and more money going into services rather than into bureaucracy and process. Essex Conservatives believe in putting power in people’s hands.

Our plans for the future include:

- redesigning the operating model of Essex County Council, abolishing silo-based directorates and organising service provision to reflect the outcomes for service users rather than the public sector’s existing processes and institutional borders 

- streamlining processes and slashing bureaucracy - not extensively outsourcing services – to channel £200 million of savings into front line services

- quality-assuring our customer service more rigorously so that we know we have done everything possible to help our customers

 - launching Counting Essex, a project to map the totality of public expenditure in Essex so that with partners we set about cutting waste and duplication of effort

-  exploring innovative financing mechanisms so that investment in Essex’s public service infrastructure is not paralysed by the effects of the economic downturn

- extending and deepening Essex County CouncilÂ’s collaboration with the voluntary sector, recognising its unique strengths and independence

- introducing and promoting volunteering schemes throughout the County, using a variety of incentives and initiatives

- championing novel models of welfare-to-work reform that help address the causes of long term worklessness, the most important driver of pernicious deprivation

- reopening more post offices for the benefit of Essex residents and businesses

- using the Sustainable Communities Act to deliver better government and promote and protect thriving local communities

- piloting educational reforms that free up schools to concentrate on excellent teaching and learning

- investing additional resources in extra curricular, sport and youth activities

- making the economic and social benefits arguments for a massive scaling back of the regulations associated with LabourÂ’s nanny state

- making Essex the best, most efficient County Council in the country.