New Chair of City and North District Committee

I was delighted to have been elected as the new Chair of the City and North District Committee on June 17th. Having been the Deputy Chair of the Area Committee in 2007/8 and the Deputy Chair of the District Committee in 2008/9, I have been doing my homework and learning about local devolved budgets, Neighbourhood Area Agreements and Neighbourhood Partnership Working Groups.

Now I will have an overview of the areas of
Health and Older People
Children and Young People
Safer Stronger Communities
Enterprise and Economic Development and
Physical Regeneration (of which I am also the chair of the NPWG)

in the geographical areas of
Kirkdale
Everton
Kensington and Fairfield
Picton
Riverside and
Central (the city centre)

We work with partners and agencies such as council staff, PCT, Police, Fire Service, schools, colleges, the JET, Elect, LCVS etc to ensure that the priorities for our residents and businesses in our area are clearly highlighted and focussed on.

This is in fact a bigger responsibility that being a shadow spokesperson for the Labour Group, and receives a bigger special responsibility allowance (about £6k I believe), because it is an actual "doing" post rather than a shadow post, although it is of a lesser status in terms of party politics.

Anyway, I am really delighted to be in such a privileged position and I would like to thank my councillor colleagues for giving me this wonderful opportunity to shape developments and services in our area over the next 12 months.