As leader, Cllr Tony Cox highlights the upcoming challenges and decisions needed to make sure residents get the service they deserve.
I always knew the role of leader would be challenging. I knew there would be difficult decisions to make and a tricky political landscape to navigate, seeing as we are a minority administration. However, I never expected to be dealing with several serious decisions simultaneously.
We are trying to chart a course through the challenging financial situation and making difficult decisions relating to budget setting to balance the council's books for the coming years. This is against a backdrop of the rising cost of living and increasing demands on our services; it's not easy and the situation is not without its problems.
One of those challenges was evident at Shareholder Board on Monday, where we heard about financial concerns from Southend Care, a company owned by the council. It is vital that a balanced and viable business plan can be delivered by them and therefore strong action is and will be taken to ensure that our residents get the good quality services and support they deserve and need.
Elected by our residents, we are here as councillors, to speak for and represent their views and opinions. But following on from a decision made at full council on Thursday night, we need your views on a potential change to the election cycle.
Councillors agreed we need to go out to consultation to ask residents whether we move from an annual election cycle, to an 'all-out' four-year cycle. This means local elections would only take place once every four years for all seats, in every ward across the City.
Once the consultation tools are in place, we will really need the feedback from residents to understand their thoughts and views on the topic so we can make the right democratic decision for the City.
And we need to pull together as a City for the coming months. Not only on issues such as the forthcoming budget, but on priorities such as fostering. It was great to see the cross-party support at the fostering pier walk event.
A fantastic opportunity for team building, it saw members of the children's services team join foster carers and councillors as a show of support and a thank you for all their hard work. Anyone interested in fostering can find out more on our fostering website.
It's half term school holidays next week and there are many events, of the spooky kind and the not-so-spooky kind to keep children of all ages entertained. I encourage you to take a look and have fun. I will hopefully see you at the Halloween Parade which promises a night of free, spooktacular fun.
Have a great weekend.
Cllr Tony Cox,
Leader of the Council