The last year has been a difficult year for the Council & our residents as the cuts to our services are beginning to bite, the workload is increasing as more & more residents are needing help with different issues, such as housing issues due to the lack of social or affordable housing, benefit sanctions, as well as planning and licensing issues,
I was proud to be asked this year to be a Governor at Almondbury Community School, which I accepted & have attended many events at the school.
I helped the children at Almondbury Community School become involved in courses run by West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service, ‘the Fire fit programme’ the courses were run in conjunction with West Yorkshire Sport. This year I was proud to attend the National Awards for work in the fire service held in London where we received recognition for the programmes we have & are developing to work with young people in our communities.
I was joint chair of the Almondbury and Newsome Children's Advisory board representing the needs of children in our area again this year but due to government cuts our children’s centres are now under threat, the Sure start centres were started under Labour & helped many children across our ward.
I deal with ward work on a daily basis when residents contact me by phone or email and I also conduct street surgeries with members of the Labour party.
The coming years will be difficult for our communities with local services under threat due to the cuts being imposed on Local government especially in Kirklees.
As a Labour councillor I will work with and support the communities with the ward. There is severe pressure on our Streetscene, Highways and Library and Museums services and we need to work together to look for solutions to these pressures.
In Kirklees I was a member of
- Huddersfield District Committee
- Panel member on the Health & Social Care scrutiny Committee
- Policy Committee
- West Yorkshire Joint Health Scrutiny Committee
I was proud to be asked this year to be a Governor at Almondbury Community School, which I accepted & have attended many events at the school.
I also support the women’s groups in the area such as the Lepton Fellowship & the Towns women’s guild.
At the District committee I supported the Lepton Scouts gain money for much needed help with a replacement floor for their building, also funding for a Forest school at Almondbury community school & funding for Mental Health training within Huddersfield.
I was proud that Huddersfield District Committee funded the Mental Health courses and I attended the Mental Health Challenge AGM & workshop I my role as Mental Health Champion for Kirklees & West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Authority.
At the Fire Authority we have prioritised Mental Health and have been working with Leeds Mind in training all of our management & supervisory staff in dealing with Mental Health in the Workplace.
I helped the children at Almondbury Community School become involved in courses run by West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service, ‘the Fire fit programme’ the courses were run in conjunction with West Yorkshire Sport. This year I was proud to attend the National Awards for work in the fire service held in London where we received recognition for the programmes we have & are developing to work with young people in our communities.
I was once again proud to be elected as The Chair of West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority, at the Authority as Chair of West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service I am:-
- Labour group leader at the Fire authority,
- Chair of leading members ad hoc meetings
- Chair of Chief exec strategy Group
- Chair of the Executive committee
- Chair of the Consultation and negotiation panel
- Chair of Community safety
- Mental Health Champion for the Fire and Rescue Authority
- Member of the PCC’s Partnership Executive group
- Panel Member of the Association of Metropolitan Fire & Rescue Services
- Panel Member of the LGA Fire Commission
The Fire and Rescue Service have suffered from massive cuts to our budgets, in December 2015 we received notification showing further reductions in our grant settlement with a total grant loss of 17.35% by the end of the spending review, this will bring the total grant loss by 2019/20 to over 40%. However, due to the flooding in the area we saw our role as important in rescuing our residents, the authority receives no government funding to deal with flooding but we as an authority believed we needed the correct equipment to deal with these ever increasing situations so prioritised our budget to invest in up to date equipment.
In February we launched a recruitment campaign, the service hasn’t recruited fire-fighters in over 9 years due to a freeze on recruitment because of the cuts to the service & we were not scheduled to recruit for another 2 years. However, the Authority chose to use some of its reserves to bring recruitment forward as we didn’t want to be in a position in 2 years’ time where we had a shortage of experienced fire fighters. We will be recruiting over the next 3 years and the campaign we launched was entitled ‘Ordinary to Extraordinary.’
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority (WYFRA) also increased the rate of pay for its apprentices to be in line with the Living Wage Foundation rate.
The Authority currently employs three apprentices who work in different roles within the Service.
The new rate is £8.45 per hour for over 18-year-olds which is considerably more than the current National Minimum Wage levels and even the National Living Wage .
The Fire Authority strongly believes that decent pay and conditions are a right for all staff. Even in these difficult financial times we feel it’s absolutely the right thing to do to pay our apprentices at the Living Wage Foundation rate. The government brought in age discrimination under the National minimum wage but we feel that you should be paid for the work that you do whatever age you are, the cost of living is not cheaper if you are under 25 so why should your rate of pay be less.
This year the Government introduced the Police & Crime Bill placing a duty on the Emergency Services to collaborate. In West Yorkshire we have now set up the Tri-Services Collaboration Board. The board comprises of senior leaders from West Yorkshire Police, West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority and Yorkshire Ambulance Service.
The West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson was elected chair for the first year, and will rotate annually between the three services.
There are clear expectations around future collaboration outlined within the Policing and Crime Bill 2016 and this is the first step toward meeting them.
It presents many mutually advantageous opportunities across blue-light services and it is crucial that they are identified where they exist and that they are built upon in a co-ordinated manner.
This approach offers potential to achieve greater value for money and deliver a more effective level of service to the public of West Yorkshire. Any areas of inter-agency working highlighted by the project team will be put before the newly formed board to consider.
The project team will initially focus on non-operational support functions that exist within each organisation and the future collaborative possibilities they hold.
Collectively, the board will then make recommendations as to what can be progressed, subject to the final agreement of each organisation.
