I had three letters from Ministers at the end of the year. The first was from the Minister for Children and Families. It’s good that he’s recognised the improvements we have been making, but like him we understand this is just the beginning. There is a long way to go, and we must remain laser focussed. The threat of a trust model intervention still hangs over us. It may be a legacy of over a decade of underperformance and failure, but the responsibility now lies with the new administration.

I’ve been invited to a meeting with the minister. I’m looking forward to it. He wants to hear at first hand our plans. We’ve been working on the strategy over the past few months. It covers a whole raft of policies but at its core are prevention, early intervention and inclusion. To get this right, we know we must work in partnership and that includes government. I’m hoping it will be a two-way conversation. More clarity around the whole Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) agenda. Stability around funding and of course delivering these services in a rural area.

The second letter was from the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness. Slipped out just before the Christmas break, it was about cancelling local elections this coming May. Dressed up as a scheme to help over worked councils embroiled in Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) and save council taxpayers money: you couldn’t make it up. They must think we’re stupid. Everyone can see it’s a rather shabby attempt to pervert the course of democracy. It sets an incredibly dangerous precedent; if you’re going to lose an election, cancel it. To be fair, Plymouth City Council swiftly announced they would be going ahead with their elections. It was the honourable thing to do. Exeter voted to cancel, despite howls of protest outside the Guildhall by the residents the council purports to serve.

Here we are with a government trying to cancel elections because, they claim, it’s all becoming too complicated with LGR. Of course, LGR was never part of their manifesto. Devolution was, but that’s now been kicked into the long grass. Why can’t they just admit they’ve got it wrong? Many of us can see what they’re trying to achieve, and we agree with a lot of it, but the way they’re going about it smacks of total incompetence. When you’re in a hole, as the saying goes, stop digging. Instead, the government has got the JCB out.

The third letter was from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I don’t know if he actually wrote it, but it’s one of the most disingenuous letters I’ve ever read. To be fair, that’s not what really riled me, we’re getting used to this. It was the thinly disguised and unashamed threat to micromanage a council in Cambridge. It’s exactly what one of his predecessors, Michael Gove, tried to do. Even he backed down when faced with academic research.

Struggling with recruitment issues, particularly around planning and legal officers, the council introduced the innovative strategy of a four-day week. In many ways mimicking the private sector. Whatever one’s views about the four-day initiative that’s not really the point. The thing is you have a local council, elected by local people delivering services in the best way it thinks it can. If they fail, they can be voted out by the same local people. It’s called democracy. How outrageous that a SoS starts trying to throw their weight around. Maybe he should spend more time helping his own government; goodness knows they need it.