Here is this week’s update on developments in the Council and community.
COUNCIL
(1) Durham County Council generally tries to avoid holding meetings during school holidays, so last week was committee-quiet, apart from an Economy Scrutiny Committee on Friday 21st February. This, nevertheless, was very important, because it focused on the issue of workforce skills, which are vital for the County for two reasons: firstly because, if the economy is to grow successfully, we need to match the skills of the upcoming workforce with the present and future needs of businesses; and, secondly, because they are the key to individual workers moving out of low-pay employment into better, higher-value jobs. Workforce skills, therefore, are the key to raising the county out of deprivation. Members heard presentations from, and asked questions of, the North East LEP Skills Director, and the Chair of the County Durham Business Enterprise & Skills Working Group, and also from DurhamWorks, DCC’s EU-funded initiative to get 16-24 year olds into work.
(2) On Tuesday 25th I attended a very interesting lecture on economic performance and outlook, given by the Bank of England’s Deputy Agent in the North East. The message? Confidence (especially consumer confidence) has improved since the election, even though every other performance indicator (most worryingly, productivity) is down.
(3) Other than that, the big issues of the week were Storm Dennis, and the snow day on Monday 24th. Both caused controversy. There were claims that the River Wear had flooded the site of the new DCC HQ on The Sands in Durham (it did not). And there were (unjustified) claims that the snow caught DCC “unprepared”.
COMMUNITY
Finally, I had complaints all week about dog dirt and driving on the grass – please be ‘good neighbours’ in these respects, because both cause significant offence.
As always, there is more about all these issues on my blog at: bit.ly/CNB154
