Delivering better services to disadvantaged communities and tackling the challenges around Special Educational Needs and Disabilities have led to Cabinet changes at Nottinghamshire County Council.
The changes reflect the Council’s priorities going forward and focus on the Children and Families and Adult Social Care and Public Health portfolios, the two largest budgets in the council.
Council Leader, Cllr Ben Bradley MP, said: “There are two reasons why we’ve made these changes. Firstly, we’ve obviously got key priorities as a council, and these include tackling our challenges around SEND and delivering on our improvement commitments.
“Secondly, we’ve had a constant discussion about prevention and delivering better services within communities and we want this to be a key focus.”
The County Council has in recent years moved from a committee system to a Cabinet set up, and these changes will see new Cabinet members for SEND and for Public Health and Communities introduced to the Cabinet. There are the same number of posts as before, and therefore no additional cost.
Cllr Bradley added: “Having specific Cabinet members for these two areas means we can make sure we drive through the improvements that are needed in SEND and delivering services to our most disadvantaged communities, these are undoubtedly key priorities for this council.
“We’ve brought Public Health and Communities under the same portfolio as it brings that health and prevention agenda together with place and community delivery for the first time in our structure, which is what I want to see in how we deliver services on the ground in the most disadvantaged communities to improve our outcomes.”
Cllr Bradley also said the changes would lead to a more evenly balanced workload, as some portfolios like children’s social care and education are huge and hold a third of the council’s annual budget, whereas other portfolios have much smaller budgets and workload.
The new structure will be in place from Friday, 1 December and the new Cabinet will have its first meeting at Full Council on 7 December.
