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About John Principles and Obligations Record and Pledges Council Committee Work

Suffolk County Council Committees, Policy Development Groups And Appointments To Outside Bodies

Audit Committee - Council Appointed Chairman

The Audit Committee togther with the Standards and Scrutiny Committees is one a of trio of high level bodies that oversee and challenge the work of the County Council. Specifically the Audit Committee, which is constituted as a non-political watchdog oversees corporate governance across the whole council including any partnerships to which the council belongs. Corporate governance a technical term which covers how well the council is using the resources provide to it through central and local taxation.
Since it's inception in May 2005 the Committee has established a reputation as an effective driver of performance improvement across the whole of the County Council.
The chairman's role carries special responsibilities amongst which is signing off the County Council's accounts as having been properly kept and having been conducted in a prudent and affordable manner. These duties attract a special responsibiloity allowance.
The work of the committee comprises :-

• providing assurance that the accounts are properly kept, that borrowing and lending are prudent and affordable and that reserves are adequate
• identifying issue where improvemnt is needed and driving these through
• approving each year the internal audit plan and reviewing the cost and scope of external audit
• carrying through ongoing work to assure value for money, informed risk management and continous improvement across the council.

Pension Fund Committee - Committee Elected Vice Chairman

This is an executive committee accountable for the Suffolk Pension Fund which it manages on behalf of the County Council, all six District Councils, and various Town and Parish Councils and other admitted bodies. The fund has liabilities of over £2 billion and unlike some other public service pension funds is backed by a portfolio of investments amounting to some £1.5 billion built up over the years from employee and employer contributions.
The work of the committee comprises :-

• maintaining investment and funding strategies
• determining the level of contribution payable by the participating employers
• appointing, monitoring and dismissing fund managers
• monitoring the payment of pensions and the adminstrative response to enquiries

This is a highly technical committee who members must know their subject and who receive regular refresher training. It is supported by professional advisers.

Dismissal Appeals Committee - Council Appointed Member

This is a court of appeal, the last step for an employee short of going to tribunal, where allegations of unfair dismissal or redundancy can be put before an independent panel of three councillors that has the power to overturn decisions taken by the staff side or substitute some lesser penalty if considered just. The committee is one of a number of so-called quasi judicial bodies staffed by councillor which has to operate in compliance with employment law. It's members must therefore know their subject.

Waste Core Strategy Task Group

The council is required by law to have a prepare a forward looking strategy for the disposal of domestic and industrial waste. The task group comprises three councillors overseeing the work of council officers as they evolve this strategy. The group meets about six times a year to review and amend the work at key milestones. Typically we examine forecasts, proposals and the results of consultation. My background as a qualified chemical engineer is appropriate to the task.

Suffolk Coastal Local Strategic Partnership Board - Council Appointed Member

I serve on the Board which meets quarterly as a full voting member and also on its Finance and Governance Group and on its sub committee which evaluates funding bids.

The Partnership which spends around £250,000 annually promotes a vision for the future of the district which builds on the best of the present to develop a district where people want to live and to invest, to care for others and the environment.

Through the activities of its working groups, its tackles six priorities, identified in its Sustainable Communities Strategy, where they fall between the responsibilities and/or work of local councils, the police and the NHS :-

• access to services
• strong, supportive communities
• climate change & the environment
• economy & skills
• healthier lives for all
• young People

Website [..]

Optua East Suffolk Focus Group - Leader Appointed Member

Optua is a local charity that promotes the interests of disabled people. Its East Suffolk Focus Group meets quarterly to further the interests of disabled people in the immediate locality including key issues like access to buildings, talking buses, dropped kerbs. My role is to resolve actions placed on me which require attention by the County Council and suffolk Coastal District Council.

Suffolk Young Enterprise Board - Council Appointed Member

Suffolk Coastal District Council Committees, Policy Development Groups And Appointments To Outside Bodies

Joint Shared Services Partnership Board - Leader Appointed Member

Community Safety Board - Council Appointed Member

IS and E-Government Task Group - Leader Appointed Chairman

Local Community Groups

Twelve Parishes Community Safety Forum

The Twelve Parishes Together Forum acts as the local Community Safety Forum for the twelve parishes centred around Kesgrave, Martlesham and Rushmere St Andrew. It meets twice monthly to identify community problems and establish multi agency Pathway Projects to deal with them. All the partners co-operate in a Pathway Project under the management of a lead organisation. The Forum has appointed a small sub group which meets monthly to determine priorities for the next month.

My role is two fold :-

• to raise emerging community issues so that they are heard, priritised and acted upon.
• to represent the view of the forum in the Suffolk Coastal Community Safety Board and seek funds for local projects

Read More About Its Work [...]

Kesgrave and District Youth Forum

Modern thinking integrates the core education service with medical and social services and a variety of extracurricular activities known as 'extended schools'. Central to this way of working is the position of young people as members of the community working within the community to advocate their needs and make their contribution. In Suffolk it is intended that this be done through local youth forums with young people in the driving seat and adults in support.

Read More About Its Work [...]

During my six years as your County Councillor I have :-

1. come to the aid of many local people in difficulty with neighbours, councils and other agencies. See Case Work [...]
2. encouraged and brought together councils and other agencies, voluntray organisations, schools and their supporters across the county to work on community projects. See Working Together [...]
3. fought for and won money for several major projects. See My Campaigns [...]
4. defeated several detrimental developments that were not in the locality's interest. See My Campaigns [...]
5. together with my local Conservative councillor collegues re-united Kesgrave Town Council with the town after an estrangement of ten years. See Local Politics [...]
6. through the task groups that I chair in the District Council recommended and had accepted an improved approach to budgeting requiring managers at all levels to prepare business cases for each element of expenditure. See About John, Council Committee Work [...]
7. through my work as chairman of the County Council's Audit committee implemented improvements and efficiencies across the council - in particular a robust procedures for the recruitment of senior officers, quality of care monitoring by private sector care providers and a strict code for contracts and partnerships. See About John, Council Committee Work [...]

As your county and district councillor I pledge to :-

1. continue to come to the aid of any local people or groups that need my help and do all I can for them.
2. campaign vigourously for the basic infrastructure, school places, roads and transport, social care and medical services that we ned to cater for our growing population.
3. work hard to ensure that the voice of Kesgrave and Rushmere St Andrew continues to be heard and acted on in the County Council.
4. press through my membership of committees for the introduction of better systems and ways of working to deliver even better value for your taxes without compromising the quality of services.
5. working through properly contested elections do my best to build a majority within Kesgrave Town Council of new people that can be trusted to look after the best interests of Kesgrave.

My Principles and Obligations

I have been a lifelong Conservative finding in the principles of the movement values and standards with which I am comfortable. I believe :-

• in a society in which people rise by merit and the work they are prepared to put in and in which everyone can fulfil their potential.
• that with our rights as individuals go acceptance of personal responsibility for our lives and consideration of the needs of or neighbuors and our community.
• that we need to help people to help themselves rather than breeding dependence on benefits and handouts.
• in supporting the entrepreneurs and business people that earn our wealth and freeing them from red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy.
• in public services that are led and inspired by democratically elected councillors whose performance is held to account regularly in contested elections.
• in compassion and support for people suffering hardship or ill health through no fault of their own.
• in tolerance, freedom of speech and the right to hold differing views on any subject.
• that politics should be about effective legislation and not acting to the gallery.

It is often proclaimed that a local councillor has two roles :-

• to act as a community leader advocating the need of the locality
• to contribute in shaping the strategic direction of the council

As a serving local councillor I firmly believe that my first obligation is to take up any issues raised by the people and the community that I was elected to represent and to do all I can to get them resolved. Click to see my case work, current and past [...]

My second and equally important obligation is to ensure that the councils to which I have been elected deliver high quality services at the lowest possible level of taxation.

Essential to this is a prudent approach to spending public money and an efficient, business like approach to running public bodies of all sorts that emphasises firm action over seeming activity, active management over bureaucratic process and timely delivery over endless debate

About John

I was born in London in 1940. Educated as a professional engineer I hold a degree and doctorate from London University. Before starting my own IT business in 1980 I worked in government research and as the Engineering Director of a construction firm. I have lived in Kesgrave since 1994. I am married to June and we have four grown up children from previous marriages and three grandchildren.

Within the Town I served on the Management Team at the Kesgrave Community Centre between 2001 and 2009 as Treasurer and Secretary to the Board of Trustees responsible for legal issues, standards and governance. I serve on the Board of Suffolk Young Enterprise and have worked as a volunteer business adviser at the Kesgrave High School for the past seven years. I am a member of the Twelve Parishes Community Safety Forum and the Kesgrave and District Youth Forum.

I have served as Kesgrave's District Councillor for the East Ward since May 2003 and as Kesgrave and Rushmere St Andrew's County Councillor since May 2005.

My interests lie in financial management and corporate governance and I have picked out those council committees through which I can make the greatest impact.

During my six years as a District Councillor I have chaired working groups tasked with finding more efficient ways of running the council including IT, waste collection, finance and planning and the development of shared services.

At the County I chair the Audit Committee which oversees internal and external audit, corporate governance and financial and risk management. I am Vice Chair of the Pension Fund and Dismissal Appeals Committees. I am a member of the Waste Core Strategy Task Group which is working up the County's core strategy for waste disposal.

The County Council has appointed me to the Suffolk Coastal Local Strategic Partnership Board which manages those aspects of service delivery that are in danger of falling in between the responsibility of the main public bodies. The District Council has appointed me to the Suffolk Coastal Community Safety Board which determines the priorites given to action in fighting crime.

Whilst the abortive and wasteful attempt to re-organise local government in Suffolk is now dead for the forseeable future, the pressure to hold public expenditure within affordable limits remains inexorable. All six District councils across Suffolk are working to eliminate unecessary duplication by combining their services under a unified management structure. In our locality Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils are working togther in this way under the oversight of a Joint Shared Services Partnership Board to which I have been appointed as one of six local councillors.

Promoted by Tom Cunningham on behalf of John Klaschka, both of 19 The Business Centre, Earl Soham, Woodbridge IP13 7SA.