Yes, We Can! Leader reflects on delivery for local residents this year

The Leader of West Berkshire delivered his annual address to Council last week - reflecting on all that has been delivered for local people over the last two years.

Standing in front of councillors in the Council Chamber, Councillor Jeff Brooks in his speech drew on the key themes around support for vulnerable residents, investing in young people and schools, public facilities and environment - and the efficiency and effectiveness of the council. Among the achievements acknowledged were:

• Opening a new family unity in Walnut House, Thatcham to provide a family-friendly environment for families to meet and receive help from the Council
• Repurposing Walnut Close to provide temporary accommodation - helping to reduce to zero the number of children in B&B accommodation from 36 in January
• Providing 469 new affordable accommodation homes
• Providing new classrooms for Castle School and Willink School, approving the rebuild of a classroom at Falkland Primary School and building a new iCollege in Calcot.
• Recruiting six new foster carers, with another seven joining soon
• Changing criteria to enable an extra 600 potholes a year to be repaired - bringing the annual total to more than 3,000 pothole repairs
• Providing an additional 72 charging points for electric vehicles (EVs)
• Re-opening Faraday Road football pitch - with a new 3G pitch coming soon at Cotswold Leisure Centre in Calcot, adding a modular dance studio at Hungerford leisure centre, re-furbishing the Kennet sports centre  - and delivering an almost £5m improvement programme for Northcroft Leisure Centre
• Protecting the environment - investing £2.5m to safeguard chalk streams, adding solar panels to council buildings as well as those of our partners, increasing our overall recycling rates and reaffirming a commitment to achieving carbon neutrality for the Council by 2030
• Improving the Council's recruitment rate by 29% and reducing the number of people dropping out of the process by 40%

Speaking about the work of the council, Councillor Brooks said:

"Given the pressures facing local government we've had to work hard improving and transforming the way the Council works - doing things smarter and better and with much more pace and energy. Reflecting on the past couple of years, there is plenty we have already achieved and I was pleased to be able to stand in the Council chamber before councillors, officers and members of the public and talk about just some of these successes.

"There is more we need to do, of course, and this will only spur us on as we look to the year ahead. I thank all our staff for the work they are doing and their commitment. I say to them - be proud of what you do here and know that we want what you want - the very best for our residents. Our ambitions are vast, and our determination is boundless - we have a lot more to do - watch this space!"

You can watch the Leader deliver his speech below, or read it in full if you prefer.

In Full: The Leader of West Berkshire Council's address to Council

The Administration has faced very significant challenges in the last two years with considerable service pressures, particularly in adult and children's social care needs and children's special educational needs, and these have dramatically stretched our finances. It is quite clear that Councils across the country are not funded properly.

We currently spend 64 pence in every pound on these vital services, to support our most vulnerable residents. We do not and will not choose to cut those services to fill more potholes - but more on those later!

So, faced with such financial challenges, this Administration has had to get very involved in improving and transforming the way the Council works - doing things smarter and better and with much more pace and energy.

As examples, we have improved our recruitment rate by 29% in the last 6 months, by simplifying the application process and reducing the number of people dropping out of the process by 40%.

We re-launched an internal recruitment referral scheme which has supported the council to fill some of our hardest to fill roles, in planning, ecology and taxation - 7 referrals since the re-launch. We also won the Large Employer Award from Berkshire Training Consortium for the provision of 130 apprenticeships throughout the Council.

We have made significant savings by reducing the number of temporary workers from 270 to 115 and converted 59 temporary workers to permanent employees. This has led to an annual reduction of nearly £6M in temporary worker costs - vital savings that have had a huge impact on our ability to respond to essential service demands.

These things matter and staff turnover has fallen from nearly 15% to just under 13% - fulfilling our commitment to make West Berkshire Council an employer of choice.

We have revitalised the Senior Management team, recruiting a new CEO, and new Executive Directors of Adult Social Care and Children's Services, supported by 8 newly appointed Service Directors. That is ten senior appointments out of fourteen posts at Service Director level and above - and all those appointments are helping make this Council stronger, more ambitious and better.

So, what will the public have seen as a result of this large body of internal work?

Firstly, better support for our vulnerable residents...

We have opened a new family unit at Walnut House in Thatcham where families with difficulties can meet in the right a nice environment.

We have repurposed Walnut Close to provide a temporary accommodation unit. In January, before this unit opened, we had 36 children in Bed & Breakfast accommodation. As of the end of this week we will have no children in Bed & Breakfast accommodation!

Our Adult Social Care service was assessed by the Care Quality Commission as 'Good' - this is a very challenging inspection regime. This is impressive, and I congratulate our officers on this achievement.

We are supporting residents with their health and have rolled out the Community Wellness Outreach Service across West Berkshire, giving vulnerable people checkups, picking up physical health risks and offering health advice and treatment and we have launched a new £90,000 'Let's Get Mindful' fund for projects supporting people with their mental health challenges as well.

We are investing in our young people and schools...

• Falkland Primary Classroom rebuild was approved and started
• The Keevil Unit outdoor space for children with disabilities was opened
• We've provided new classrooms for Castle School (rated 'Outstanding' by Ofsted) and Willink School
• We've improved children's mental health support and SEND provision, opening the Castle@Theale school and a Social Emotional and Mental Health facility at Kennet Valley Primary
• We built a new iCollege at Badger's Hill
• 99% of children in West Berkshire have been offered one of their primary school preferences with 94% being given their first choice of school

Our deep commitment to looked after children continues. We launched a new foster carers' recruitment campaign, resulting in 6 new carers in place, and another 7 being onboarded with a further 27 kinship families recruited - a projected 166% increase in carers for 2025-26. 83% of children 189  of children in foster care are now with West Berkshire Foster Carers, making a very real difference to many children's long-term outcomes.

Our Public Protection Partnership - assessed by an external peer review last year as performing well and delivering high quality outcomes for residents and businesses - has recovered, or prevented the loss of around £400k for residents that have been scammed, investigated nearly £1.5 million worth of fraud and unfair trading cases and  seized counterfeit goods with a retail value of many hundreds of thousands of pounds and the West Berks Community Alcohol Partnership was awarded the Spotlight Award for exceptional youth education on the dangers of alcohol in conjunction with Newbury College.

We are improving public facilities - roads, homes, transport and leisure:

To date, we have helped provide 469 new affordable accommodation homes across the district on our path to creating 1000 such homes by 2030 as we committed to - we are nearly halfway there, we are achieving at pace!

We have brought football back to Faraday Road; opened the re-furbished Lido; spent nearly £5M on Northcroft Leisure Centre, opened the Hungerford modular dance studio; re-furbished the Kennet sports centre and are currently installing a 3G pitch at Cotswold Leisure Centre in the East. We have increased leisure centre attendance and membership and all these improvements have helped West Berkshire improve its ranking to the 5th highest of 317 Local Authorities for the percentage of adults classified as active!

We are making roads safer and have reduced the depth at which potholes qualify for repair from 50 to 40mm, meaning over 600 additional potholes will be filled per year (3048 filled in 2024/25) and our investment in our highways means that nationally (England), our roads are in the top 29% for A-roads; top 16% for B&C roads and top 10% for unclassified roads - such as estate roads. We resurfaced over 42KM of our roads last year and this will grow to over 60KM in this municipal year.

Now we still get criticised for roads, but I ask motorists when they drive over the border into Oxford and into Hampshire have a look at their road and compare then with our own because we stack up really, really, well.

We introduced a 20mph speed limit within Theale in agreement with residents and we are accelerating (!) this programme across the district with another 14 to be introduced in towns and villages this financial year and we introduced new and 'on-demand' bus services to help tackle rural isolation.

And we are protecting the environment...

Solar panels are being installed on council and council partner assets, at Padworth HWRC and Kennet Leisure Centre and we are the first Local Authority in the country to map the route to net zero. The Grazeley solar farm will help power us on to that target and I am re-iterating our commitment to achieving carbon neutrality for this Council by 2030 - we will get there!

We have pioneered Kerbocharge, the first Council in the UK to do so, with 13 installed to date with an additional 72 EV charging points across the district installed (66), or in progress (12).

Our Newtown Road HWRC was awarded Top Tip award by the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee and our overall recycling rates have increased to 53.4% moving us from 84th out of 320 Councils in the 2022 league tables to 49^th in 2024, putting your Council in the top 15% of Councils across England.

We have introduced coffee pod and vape recycling; plastic pots, tubs and trays as well as batteries are now collected at the kerbside and 56% of residents now pay less for their green bin than before we came to power.

£2.4 million is being invested to safeguard our precious local chalk streams and an extra £1M has been invested in drainage schemes and flood risk mitigation across the district. We have also launched the Kennet and Avon Canal Towpath improvement programme making it much more accessible to more of the community.

We have three overarching principles as you will see writ large in our re-furbished Reception area.

Customer Focussed, Integrity and Fairness and it was that fairness that led to us refunding nearly £400K to people who were wrongly charged Community Infrastructure Levy on their home building projects - the only Council to have rectified this dreadful injustice and I hope there are many more Councils who do the right thing and put this right.

We introduced a service catalogue to Town and Parish Councils, empowering them to keep their libraries open for longer or have a pop-up library installed or to take over litter and dog bin emptying and hedge trimming and generally provide the service that suits their community best.

This Administration is delivering at pace and driving change across all areas of the Council; we are demanding a great deal from our senior managers; I thank all of them and all our staff for the work they are doing and their commitment. I say to them - be proud of what you do here and know that we want what you want - the very best for our residents. Our ambitions are vast, and our determination is boundless - we have a lot more to do - watch this space!