Derek Deedman

The meeting, open to the public, will be at County Hall, Chichester, starting at 10.30am.

The meeting may be filmed for live or subsequent broadcast via the County Council website on the internet. Log on to the West Sussex website (link from this site) at 10.30am on Friday!

Apart from questions to the Leader and Cabinet Members, one major debate will be on whether to approve more paid jobs for the Tories with an additional Cabinet post (for Education & Skills) and up to four more deputy cabinet posts.

Another debate will be on my Motion to welcome the Government’s proposals in the draft Queen’s Speech to improve local control over the National Health Service, by asking the Leader of the Council to call on the Government to approve a merger of the West Sussex PCT and the County Council.

In starting the debate, I will highlight the Conservative Chairman of the Local Government Association press release supporting giving people the chance to have a greater say in how their local health services are delivered. I will refer to the existing close working between the County Council and the PCT in a number of areas (£100m budget) and how this is proposed to be extended in the next Local Agree Agreement to work jointly on a number of targeted improvements to services.

I will stress how such a merger would address the democratic deficit in the current situation, which led to the appalling proposal as the original ‘Fit for the Future’ which has only been more-or-less corrected at a high cost to the County Council budget, MPs and stress to the public. Furthermore such a merger would give democratic control over the need for a new hospital in the Crawley and Horsham area. In addition the County Local Committee network would be an ideal forum for local monitoring and public consultation on local area health provision.

Finally such a merger should lead to considerable cost savings. Starting at the top, one organisation would only need one Chief Executive and one set of support services for finance, legal, IT and personnel.

This is a ‘win win win’ situation - better, more effective and efficient local health and social care services, under local democratic control, and at a lower cost. I hope the Council will support my proposal.