South West Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats

Local Authority Trading Companies - or LATCos in the jargon - are not new. They are authorised under the 2003 Local Government Act.

Perhaps it's time to think about a LATCo to handle basic highway maintenance in our county?

For a long time now, Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) has outsourced most of its highway maintenance and design work under long term contracts. The current contract with Ringway has been in place since 2012 and is worth £182 million.

However, these contracts need more checking and management than HCC seems able to carry out. The public's view certainly is that the results for this contract - like the one before it - always fail to meet their expectations.

Nevertheless, despite poor contract management HCC still clawed back £1.2 million for proven poor workmanship over the last 5 years - and further deductions are pending.

You might think that they may have learned the lesson at the end of the first 5 years - but no! The Tory councillors decided to extend the contract for another 5 years.

There appears to be have been no market testing. The Tories say that results are getting better.

This could be true if fewer penalties really does mean performance is improving, but Lib Dems say, "This is not the experience of residents. It could just mean Ringway are getting better at gaming their targets - or even just that HCC is catching them out less! These contracts are working no better in other parts of the country. Completely new arrangements should be explored."

"Southampton is said to be setting up a Local Authority Trading Company (LATCo) to run waste collection and other public services and savings could be reinvested into council services."

"Some highway work is already directly contracted and this works much better. Why not a LATCo like Southampton, but for routine highway repair and maintenance? It could hardly be worse than what we have at the moment - and it could be a lot cheaper!"

Recently was announced that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan had refused an offer of £73 million of funding from the government to start the Metropolitan Line Extension rail project (MLX). But now the Liberal Democrat Mayor of Watford, Dorothy Thornhill, has weighed in, saying this will not be "the end of the line" for the scheme.

Since April 2004, Dacorum Sports Trust (DST) has managed the sports services previously provided by Dacorum Borough Council (DBC) on a 20-year contract. Since starting up they have also contracted to run newer facilities and services.

DST is a not-for-profit company and a registered charity and trades as "Sportspace" under which name they are well known throughout the borough and beyond.

STABBED IN THE BACK!

Between Labour 's London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Tory minister Chris Grayling South West Herts has been stabbed in the back with the cancellation of the Met Line Extension.

Local leaders have come up further funding but there has been no leadership shown by Chris Grayling - with the result that Sadiq Khan has finally refused to take on the project - funding notwithstanding.

The responsibility for waste is split between the district and borough councils - which are responsible for collecting household waste - and the county council - which is reponsible for setting up Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) and for disposing of all the waste arising within the county. Hertfordshire County Council must devise a Waste Disposal Strategy and this must account for commercial waste as well as all municipal waste. The Hertfordshire Waste Partnership is a consortium between all the districts and boroughs in the county and the the county council itself. This shares costs, refunds savings and explores and assesses new methods of waste disposal. It also uses the economies of scale that result from a county-wide co-ordination in order to negotiate competitive contracts for waste disposal that save money for all of Hertfordshire's council tax payers.

To be fair there are several different approaches to making short-distance suburban rail services quieter, greener, less polluting and more efficient. Most involve batteries or fuel cells and relatively short routes. However, this is one which caught my eye recently.

Last year the French engineering company Alstom presented a zero-emission, self-powered train at the annual InnoTrans trade fair in Berlin. It was a modified version of a service-proven, diesel-powered unit, the Coradia Lint 54, with hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen storage replacing the diesel engines.

2017 saw the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Chemistry Society in 1841. A few years later, in 1847, in recognition of the importance of this field of study and the quality of its proceedings, it received its Royal Charter.

Originally named the Chemical Society of London, it was formed in 1841 by 77 scientists as a result of increased interest in scientific matters. Chemist Robert Warington was the driving force behind its creation and Thomas Graham was its first president.

Last year London Mayor Sadiq Khan set out a business case for more suburban rail services to be transferred to Transport for London (TfL).

The principle of these transfers was agreed by the Government in January 2016 and the Mayor presented his business case for four groups of services.

• South East London (franchise ends June 2018)
• South Central London (franchise ends September 2021)
• South West (current franchise now ended)
• North Central (franchise ends September 2021)

As with so many other things, this Brexit-obsessed Tory government has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to running the railways.

The fundamantal mistake was made shortly they got into power in 2015. One of their first acts was to cobble together "one huge, diverse and highly complex rail franchise" (words of the Transport Select Committee) made up of Southern, Gatwick Express, Thameslink and the Great Northern franchises. They then failed to put into place any management procedures with enough capacity to monitor this mega-franchise effectively.

Thirdly they overlooked the disruption which the Thameslink Programme, a substatial infrastructure development project, would inevitably cause - especially at London Bridge.

Then they were gullible and over-optimistic and failed to challenge the franchise holders' "wildly inaccurate" assumptions about how they would deal with the London Bridge works. The Select Committee stated that this "raised serious questions about the Department for Transport's (DfT's) competence to run an effective franchising programme."

The Committee also said that if the DfT does not develop contigency plans for restructuring or terminating the franchise - i.e. to put itself in a position to make a "clear and credible threat" - then it will be unable in practice to manage the franchise.

The Comittee stated that it regarded the franchise operators, the RMT and the government all "to some extent culpable" for the series of disruptive strikes that had been plagueing commuters and other travellers last year, but added it that it expected the DfT to be "more hands-on with monitoring franchises, and the Southern Railways mess inn particular," as well as fostering negotiations with the unions regarding driver-only operated services.

The DfT's lame response was to protest that they do "monitor closely the performance of all rail franches" and that "changing management or franchises... would only cause more disruptionand delay the introduction of new trains by Southern."

Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Tring, Nick Hollinghurst, said, "The DfT's response to the Select Committee is disrespectful. It amounts to saying, "It's so unfair - and we're not going to listen to you anyway!"

"The root cause of this and similar shambles is because the DfT is presided over by Tory Chris Grayling, who is more concerned with appearing on TV to tell us how wonderful Brexit will be. Instead of concentrating on his current responsibilities he appears more interested in preparing for more trade with Asia and less with Europe. This could have been behind his recent decision to buy a fleet of inefficient dual-fuel trains from Hitachi and to cancel the South Wales electrification which would have enabled cheaper and lighter all-electric trains to be used."

Nick Hollinghurst concluded, "Grayling's not focussed on his job. As a result, the travelling public has to put up with delays and cancellations, the taxpayer gets poor value for money and the industry is disrupted by a lack of any consistent strategic planning."

2017 marks the Silver Anniversary' of the founding of Quantum Care - a not-for-profit social enterprise delivering care mainly to elderly people and mainly in premises owned by Hertfordshire County Council. Quantum Care is an important and valued contractor delivering care to over 2,000 people at 23 homes across Hertfordshire as well as at three other homes in Bedfordshire and Essex.

Apprenticeship Scheme

Quantum Care are always looking for ways to develop and improve ways of delivering care. They value their staff and place great emphasis on training and staff development. They are committed to working with local colleges to help make the social care sector a respected and professional occupation with defined and accessible career paths.

They have now launched an apprenticeship scheme building on their existing staff development programme, which will be delivered by a dedicated in-house Training Team. Apprentices will able to gain nationally recognised qualifications in Health & Social Care and in Dementia Care.

Apprentices will be employed on a full-time contract and will be paid £6.00/hour, which is £2.50/hour above the National Apprentice Minimum Wage. On completing the apprenticeship pay will be £8.60/hour - £1.10/hour more than the National Living Wage (irrespective of age).