ANGELL - HEART (THE DEMOCRATIC WAY) 

A brand new way of working by the Labour team for Children, Families & Education at Kent County Council has already reaped rewards. 

KCC Shadow Cabinet members Christine Angell and Clive Hart now work jointly on CFE policy issues and their first success has been to get Kent County Council to accept real democracy in relation to the future of children’s services across Kent. 

At Thursday’s meeting of KCC, following a round of behind the scenes negotiations, a consensus was finally reached with the Conservative leadership that should now see KCC elected councillors playing a full and ongoing role in the Kent Children’s Trust. 

Cllr. Christine Angell said ‘Children’s Trusts are designed to be a new way of working for the professionals who work with, and for young people.  With health, education and social services personnel working and training closely together to ensure children, young people - and their parents get the right service they need, at the right time, and on time’                                                 

Cllr. Clive Hart said ‘ The whole point of our negotiation was to make sure that democratically elected councillors would also play a meaningful role in the future of the Children’s Trust. Lots of councillors have children of their own, many of us are school governors and each and every one of us is a corporate parent in relation to looked after children cared for by the authority. Elected members are in a unique position in their communities and could become the ‘glue’ that brings together and keeps together all the agencies concerned to provide the holistic service for which a Children’s Trust is intended’. 

The Labour team called for full councillor involvement in the Children’s Trust and were pleased to support a negotiated amendment, which also accepted that ongoing councillor involvement would be beneficial.