Kent County Council is a
county council
A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.
Ireland
The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...
that governs most of the
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
of
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in England. It is the upper tier of elected local government, below which are 12
district councils, and around 300
town and parish councils. The county council has 81 elected councillors. The chief executive and chief officers are responsible for the day-to-day running of the council. Roger Gough is the leader of the council as of October 2019. Kent County Council is currently controlled by the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
with 61 seats. The
Labour Party have 7 seats. It is one of the largest local authorities in England in terms of population served and the largest local authority of its type.
[With a population of 1,463,700 at the 2011 census, Kent is the ]largest
Large means of great size.
Large may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics
* Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers
* Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...
non-metropolitan county in a two tier arrangement.
In November 2022, the county council stated it, alongside
Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council (HCC) is an English council that governs eleven of the thirteen districts geographically located within the ceremonial county of Hampshire. As one of twenty-four county councils in England, it acts as the upper tier of ...
, may face bankruptcy within 12 months due to austerity cuts.
Responsibilities
The council is responsible for public services such as education, transport, strategic planning, emergency services, social services, public safety and waste disposal.
Transportation
Kent Top Travel was owned by Kent County Council, and was established by them in 2005. It operated the council's bus network.
[Kent takes axe to council bus operation]
'' Buses'' 13 January 2013 It was argued that its existence stimulated competition. It also operated a coach charter fleet. The majority of Kent Top Travel's route portfolio comprised rural, evening and Sunday services won under competitive tender from Kent County Council and other local authorities in open competition with private bus operators. Kent Top Travel operated
Canterbury City Council
Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of th ...
's
park & ride
A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system (rap ...
service from October 2008 until 2013. Kent Top Travel operated both single and double deck buses as well as charter coaches. Buses were painted in a white and green livery, the Canterbury park & ride fleet silver and green. Coaches were painted both white & red, and yellow.
Following an independent report criticising Kent County Council's trading companies, in December 2012 it was decided to close Kent Top Travel once its existing contracts expired.
[ Kent Top Travel ceased trading on 1 October 2013.
]
District councils
* Ashford Borough Council Ashford may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Ashford, New South Wales
*Ashford, South Australia
* Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia
Ireland
*Ashford, County Wicklow
*Ashford Castle, County Galway
United Kingdom
* Ashford, Kent, a town
* ...
* Canterbury City Council
Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of th ...
* Dartford Borough Council
Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and
is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames estuary, is Thurrock in E ...
* Dover District Council
* Folkestone and Hythe District Council
* Gravesham Borough Council
Gravesham ( ) is a local government district with borough status in north-west Kent, England. Its administrative centre and largest town is Gravesend, which was known as ''Gravesham'' in ancient times.
Gravesham was formed on 1 April 1974 by ...
* Maidstone Borough Council
Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it wit ...
* Sevenoaks District Council
Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter main line railway into London. Sevenoaks is from Charing Cross, the traditio ...
* Swale Borough Council
Swale or Swales may refer to:
Topography
* Swale (landform), a low tract of land
** Bioswale, landform designed to remove silt and pollution
** Swales, found in the formation of Hummocky cross-stratification
Geography
* River Swale, in North Y ...
* Thanet District Council Thanet may refer to:
*Isle of Thanet, a former island, now a peninsula, at the most easterly point of Kent, England
*Thanet District, a local government district containing the island
*Thanet College, former name of East Kent College
* Thanet Cana ...
* Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council
Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...
* Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Tunbridge may refer to the following places:
* Tunbridge, Illinois, United States
* Tunbridge, North Dakota, see Locations in the United States with an English name#North Dakota
* Tunbridge, Tasmania, Australia
* Tunbridge, Vermont, United State ...
Council structure
The Council is structured as follows:
;County Council:
The County Council is made up of 81 elected county councillors. The full council meets seven times a year to agree the council's Constitution and amendments to it, appoint the Leader, and approve the policy framework and budget (including the level of Council Tax
Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge, which in turn re ...
).
;Cabinet:
The cabinet is made up of ten county councillors. The cabinet is responsible for the strategic thinking and decisions that steer how the council is run. The cabinet meets monthly and take decisions collectively.
;Local Boards:
Local boards are local community groups that hold regular public meetings across Kent so that the people of Kent to voice issues that affect their community. They also allocate funding to local projects. There are 12 local boards in Kent, and every county councillor is required to be a member of one local board.
The work of the Council is organized into directorates:
;Strategic and Corporate Services:
supports the work of the directorates by providing specialist expertise and strategic direction. The department also leads and co-ordinates major change and organisational development.: It manages services that include Human Resources, Finance, Governance, Law and Democracy, Strategic Commissioning, Property and Infrastructure, Information Technology, Media and Communications, Consultation and Engagement, Customer Relations including Gateways and Contact Centre, Business Intelligence and Policy.
;Children, Young People and Education:
It combines Education services with universal and targeted services for children and young people designed to reduce demand for specialist services, also provided in this directorate. By focusing on prevention and early intervention, their aim is to reduce demand in specialist children's social services by helping families earlier, improving parenting skills and the health and educational outcomes of young children, ensuring they are school ready. KCC will intervene earlier to support families in crisis through area based working and joined up teams providing a more seamless service and better working arrangements with partner organisations.: This encompasses the Kent Youth County Council which provides the young people of the county to have a voice on the issues that matter to young people aged 11–18. Successes of the youth council include the introduction of the Kent Freedom Pass, which allows unlimited travel around Kent for a year at the cost of £100. The Youth County Council holds its elections every November, and four young people from each of the 12 districts are elected to a two-year term. The Kent Youth County Council is also affiliated with the UK Youth Parliament
The UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) is a youth organisation in the United Kingdom, consisting of democratically elected members aged between 11 and 18.
Formed in 2000, the parliament has 369 members, who are elected to represent the views of young ...
and British Youth Council
The British Youth Council, known informally as BYC, is a UK charity that works to empower young people and promote their interests. The national charity, run by young people, exists to represent the views of young people to government and decisi ...
.
;Adult Social Care and Health:
works with people who need care and support, providing Adult Social Care Services and Public Health Services.
;Growth, Environment and Transport:
This includes strategic responsibility for the future of the county in terms of planning, economic development, transport policy, and major transport improvement schemes, waste disposal and recycling services. In addition to a range of leisure and cultural facilities including the Turner Contemporary; country parks; libraries; and enforcement services including trading standards and community safety.
Elections and the democratic process
The most recent Kent County Council elections were held in 2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
.
History
In 1889, the Local Government Act 1888
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
created an administrative county
An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although mos ...
of Kent, with its own county council. The area of the administrative county was closely aligned with the area of the historic county. The main variations were that the northwestern extremities of the historic county came under the newly created administrative County of London
The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...
, and Canterbury became a separate county borough
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...
with powers similar to that of a county. The county council's duties at first were few, but gradually it absorbed school boards, the rural highway boards and the boards of guardians. The county council adopted the Old Sessions House as its meeting place.
In 1965, the London Government Act 1963
The London Government Act 1963 (c. 33) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which created Greater London and a new local government structure within it. The Act significantly reduced the number of local government districts in the ...
abolished the existing county of London and replaced it with a new administrative county called Greater London
Greater may refer to:
*Greatness, the state of being great
*Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality
*Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film
*Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record
*Greater (song), "Greate ...
. Greater London covered even more of the northwestern of the historic Kent. In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...
abolished the previous structure of local government in England, except for Greater London. A new non-metropolitan county
A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoffi ...
of Kent was created that was divided into districts, including a new City of Canterbury, which combined the former county borough with other areas to form a single district.
In 1998 the districts of Gillingham and Rochester-upon-Medway
Rochester-upon-Medway was a local government district in north Kent, England from 1974 to 1998. It covered Rochester, Chatham, Luton, Lordswood, Walderslade, Strood and the Hoo Peninsula.
The district was formed as the District of Medway under t ...
were removed from the control of the county council to come under the control of a new unitary authority
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...
, Medway Council
Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined.
The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Medw ...
.
Joint arrangements with Medway
Kent County Council co-operates with the unitary
Unitary may refer to:
Mathematics
* Unitary divisor
* Unitary element
* Unitary group
* Unitary matrix
* Unitary morphism
* Unitary operator
* Unitary transformation
* Unitary representation
* Unitarity (physics)
* ''E''-unitary inverse semigrou ...
Medway Council
Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined.
The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Medw ...
in many ways, for instance in the Kent and Medway Local Plan, and together they run joint agencies. Kent is combined with Medway for the purposes of representation in Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
. The combined area elects 17 MPs, of whom 14 represent seats entirely within the Kent County Council area and another whose constituency is in both Kent and Medway.
Controversies
Section 28
The Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
-run Kent County Council decided to ignore the government's decision to pass legislation to repeal Section 28
Section 28 or Clause 28While going through Parliament, the amendment was constantly relabelled with a variety of clause numbers as other amendments were added to or deleted from the Bill, but by the final version of the Bill, which received R ...
(An amendment to the Local Government Act 1988
The United Kingdom Local Government Act 1988 is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament. It was famous for its controversial section 28. This section prohibited local authorities from promoting, in a specified category of schools, "the teachi ...
that stated that a local authority
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
''"shall not intentionally promote homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality"'' or ''"promote the teaching in any maintained school
English state-funded schools, commonly known as state schools, provide education to pupils between the ages of 3 and 18 without charge. Approximately 93% of English schoolchildren attend 20,000 or so such schools. Since 2008 about 75% have attain ...
of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship")'' and create their own version to keep the effect of the now repealed law in their schools. This was replaced with provisions stating that heterosexual marriage and family relationships are the only firm foundations for society on 16 December 2004.
Credit crunch
Kent County Council is one of a number of authorities that invested in the Icelandic banks that have since been taken over by the Icelandic Government as result of the Icelandic financial crisis
Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to:
*Icelandic people
*Icelandic language
*Icelandic alphabet
* Icelandic cuisine
See also
* Icelander (disambiguation)
* Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandai ...
. KCC invested a total of £50m of taxpayers money that could be at risk. A 2009 report by the Audit Commission claimed KCC was negligent by continued investment in Icelandic banks after being informed not to do so. KCC is now threatening the Audit Commission with legal action.
Investment in the tobacco industry
In August 2011 it was revealed that Kent Council had around £24m of its pension fund for employees invested in the tobacco industry
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any ...
. The authority has about £13.5m in the Altria Group
Altria Group, Inc. (previously known as Philip Morris Companies, Inc.) is an American corporation and one of the world's largest producers and marketers of tobacco, cigarettes and related products. It operates worldwide and is headquartered in ...
; £3.6m in Philip Morris; £3.5m in Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Brands plc (formerly Imperial Tobacco Group plc), is a British multinational tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, England. It is the world's fourth-largest international cigarette company measured by market share after Philip Mo ...
and £3.4m in Japan Tobacco
Hepburn: ''Nippon Senbai Kōsha''
, type = 1985-: Public (''kabushiki gaisha'') 1949-1985: Statutory corporation
, traded_as =
, industry = FoodTobacco
, foundation = 1898 (as Imperial Japanese Tobacco Company)1 June 1949 (as Japan Tobacco ...
.
Pension fund
Its pension fund has been affected by issues arising at Woodford Investment Management
Neil Russell Woodford CBE (born March 1960) is a former fund manager and the founding partner of the defunct Woodford Investment Management.
Early life
Woodford was born in March 1960. He was brought up in Berkshire and attended Maidenhead Gra ...
's fund, as it has had about a £263m investment in one of their main equity vehicles. Due to the issues it has been working to withdraw its investment.
See also
* List of Members of Parliament in Kent
This is a list of members of Parliament in Kent, covering each of the seats in the English county, except Kent (to 1832), East Kent (1832–1885), West Kent (1832–1885), and Mid Kent (1868–1885).
Ashford
The Ashford constituency was cre ...
* White horse of Kent
Notes
References
External links
Kent County Council
{{Authority control
Local government in Kent
Politics of Kent
County councils of England
Local authorities in Kent
1889 establishments in England
Local education authorities in England
Major precepting authorities in England
Leader and cabinet executives