Conservatives at County Hall are acutely sensitive to suggestions that grammar schools are increasingly dominated by children who have got there because they are somehow privileged.

The fact the county council has now acknowledged that the eleven plus is skewed towards those who can afford private coaching - and is trying to do something about it - reflects these sensitivities.

Now the authority has agreed to review its controversial decision to scrap discretionary transport subsidies for children who opt for a selective school - or a denominational school - above others nearer to where they live.

An estimated 4,200 families have lost out under the arrangements because their income means they do not any longer qualify.

Whether KCC would have done had it not been faced with one Conservative - Cllr Andrew Bowles, also the leader of Swale Council - breaking rank and publicly denouncing the policy is a moot point. 

I suspect the ruling administration would have faced down a similar Liberal Democrat call for a rethink but felt propelled to act knowing that Cllr Bowles might not be the only one to decide to speak out.

He made the point that other Conservatives have privately expressed, namely that ending transport support has adversely affected precisely the kind of children that Kent ought to be assisting when it comes to going to grammar schools.

A review, of course, is just that and there has been no commitment to a U-turn. The fact there will be an-party working group indicates that the Conservatives want to tie in the other parties to any changes that might be made.

And a review will help neutralise the opposition from contending that nothing is being done, even if it seems unlikely that it will report before the May election, which won't unduly worry the Conservatives.

The issue is complicated by the fact that KCC will also have to address the issue of whether it should bring back some kind of discretionary subsidy for children who choose a church school above others nearer to where they live.

And it is worth noting that in an environment where parents are sold the idea they can choose a school, some may question why discretionary support for transport costs should not available for those who choose a non-selective school above others nearer to where they live.

This anomaly was actually a factor when KCC originally determined that it would end most subsidies and it was suggested it could be legally challenged.

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Even the most fervent believers in transparency and accountability would have to question whether Kent County Council's annual budget meeting represents open democracy at its best. 

The gruelling day-long meeting was singularly lacking in political drama - with the one exception of the debate on grammar school transport - and enlightening debate and there was a distinct impression that county councillors were simply going through the motions.

There was an awful lot of Conservative councillors standing up to say what a good job KCC was doing and equally, a lot of opposition contributions saying they weren't.

Perhaps the format might also benefit from an all-party review.

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After hints that he might enjoy another run against the incumbent MP Helen Grant in Maidstone and Weald, it seems the former Liberal Democrat candidate Peter Carroll, who is now working for the Kent police commissioner Ann Barnes, is to give it a miss.

The constituency party will select its candidate this weekend from a shortlist of three - all men but Mr Carroll is not among them.

When county education chiefs set out their blueprint for Kent's schools for the next five years, the introduction to the extremely lengthy Commissioning Plan acknowledged the education authority was operating in "an increasingly diverse environment."

Some of the consequences of that environment are beginning to be seen, not least in the challenge facing Kent County Council to ensure there are not just enough school places across Kent for children but that there are, in its own words, enough "appropriate places". At the same time as fulfilling that statutory obligation, it retains a general responsibility for the performance of schools in the area - regardless of whether schools have broken free of the supposed shackles of the county council and become academies.

Squaring this circle has its problems and data from the authority shows wide-variations in the intake of Year 7 pupils across the 99 secondary schools. The data was obtained by the well-known Kent education adviser Peter Read.

That there are five - including Kent's first academy, The Marlowe in Ramsage - that took in less than half the 11-year-olds they actually had places for is not quite as shocking as it might appear. Worrying, true, but Kent is no different to any other area in seeing fluctuations in pupil numbers across both the primary and secondary sector.

Education chiefs say that a general surplus - or spare capacity - is not necessarily a bad thing, although if it applied the same calculations to the empty desk data now as it did when it embarked on a programme of closing and merging more than 40 primary schools a few years ago, we might be seeing the same happening in the secondary sector.

The arguably more interesting aspect of the figures is not the under-occuppied schools but the third where more pupils were accepted in Year 7 last year than schools had places for. They include nine academies and 13 grammars and it hardly needs saying they are all among the best performing schools in the county.

There is nothing KCC can do to stop popular over-subscribed academies enlarging as the government, which likes to apply a market forces philosophy to education, has decreed that is what should be permitted: it's a question of supply and demand. This approach marks a return to the Thatcherite ethos in which competition between schools was considered the best way to drive up standards. No politician will ever say it but underlying this approach is a view that if schools can't make the grade, they should wither on the vine.

For KCC, this means trying to provide places while some schools, understandably focused more on their own interests, look to increase their numbers to respond to parental wishes. But the only real area where KCC has direct control is over its maintained schools. It has very little power over academies which is precisely the point (whether you agree with it or not) of the policy. If successful schools expand, continue to be succcessful and siphon away more able children, where does that leave the others? And where does it leave KCC as the commissioning body?

That 13 grammars took in more children, coupled with plans by at least three more to add places next year, should also be a concern. There may be an issue of a shortage of places in west Kent but there are some who suspect something else is going on here.

The relentless quest and obsession among politicians for diversity in the schooling system has over the years, created as many problems as it solves. If the government does genuinely believe that academies and free schools are the answer to declining standards, perhaps the solution is for all schools to become them.

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When Katherine Kerswell was managing director of Kent County Council, she embarked on one of those "re-structuring" exercises with the Orwellian title of "The Change To Keep Succeeding" programme. This was dressed up in all kinds of impenetrable jargon but was basically about cutting away staff and particularly management.

It was not, to put it mildy, terribly popular especially with county councillors, who at one point questioned just how successful the programme could be considered when in an early incarnation, it appeared KCC was to end up with just as many top officers as it had under the old management structure.

Of course, the managing director secured more notoriety when she left KCC after less than two years in the job and picked up a £420,000 pay-off in the process, not exactly what council taxpayers considered value for money. Now she has written an article extolling public sector leaders to do more to be cost-effective in "these austere times".

It's hardly the most revelatory suggestion ever to have been uttered and the irony of it coming from someone who was extraordinarily well remunerated when she quit has not been lost on some.

However, I do agree with one thing she writes - namely that "decision-making that is obscure, unseen or hidden fails the test of a modern democracy. As citizens, we now want 24/7 accountability, and we expect the full disclosure and transparency of those public decisions taken in our name."

Why then, did we have to wait for KCC to fulfill its statutory requirement to publish its annual accounts to find out about her payout - six months after she left?

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Where is Kent's Big Society? It's hard to tell on the strength of the pitiful take-up of Kent County Council's £3m fund available to social entrepeneurs to set up business in the county. Just three loans have been taken up in a year, suggesting there's not much appetite out there for this kind of initiative.

Of course, KCC's loan rate of between 12 and 15% may have something to do with the low take-up.

Have I been swanning off round the globe? Have I contracted a horrific flesh eating illness that has prevented me from accessing my computer? Were my hands chopped off by rogue pirates?

Alas, no, dear readers, the reason I haven’t been able to keep you updated on my Wonderful Life of late is that I have simply been too busy spinning too many plates. We’re organising a charity fundraiser, you see: a Ball, in fact, (well, a less starchy affair than most people might envisage when we say ball) to raise funds and awareness for Macmillan Cancer Care Support. So many a sleepless night has been had fretting about how this event is going to pan out with lots of jolting awake at 5am worrying about floor plans and welcome drinks and I’ve been so busy persuading some lovely local businesses to support us that I simply haven’t had time to blog. But we’re just 16 days til D-Day now so I figured I had better let you lovely lot in on it in case you wanted to come along: I’ll be doing a speech and everything (anyone who knows me well knows this is likely to be comedy highlight of the year considering my track record with public speaking)! What will this ball of ours look like I hear you ask, well:

As many of you will recall I covered an event in aid of Breast Cancer Care a short while ago: kicking off my coverage by interviewing the amazing lady organising it all. I have been asked again to cover Steph’s fundraising activities and am kicking off again with an interview with the lady herself.

Hello again Steph, thanks so much for finding the time to share with my readers again what you have been up to, we had a great response last time.

Q. What have you been up to since we last met about your In Conversation With.. . event?

A. Quite a lot actually. We did the Pink Ribbon walk at Blenheim Place which raised around £1500. This was a fantastic event: I even got to meet Denise Lewis and have my picture taken with her! The event was so well organised! I attended the Canadian High Commission a couple of weeks ago as a guest at the Breast Cancer Care meeting of the ladies Dragon Boat racers. I’ve been working with an American lady over here in her fundraising events and it’s proven pretty insightful for us both as our fundraising and charity systems are quite different. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the Breast Cancer Care headquarters. I recently helped open a new Cancer Research shop in Sevenoaks. I’ve actually written a piece for the volunteer section on the Breast Cancer Care site – I’d never blogged before so that was a whole new experience for me! Otherwise, it’s been a whole lot of organising, coming up with new ideas and lots of meetings. Oh and lots of canvassing for this event over the weekends. It’s like a full time job, but I love it and the potential for all the good we can do!

You certainly have been incredibly busy! I think we’re all keen to find out what New to This Solar System is all about so I guess we had better not keep the readers waiting.

Q. So what IS New to This Solar System about?

A. This event is a benefit concert to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer Care. This event also presents the opportunity to introduce four local, unsigned [as yet] acts to the people of Sevenoaks. All of these acts have very kindly agreed to donate their time and their talent to this wonderful cause.

Q. So how did you go about getting all of these acts on board?

A. Well, I had seen The Find in concert as we held a small event a while ago where Jay invited Sarah Lillie as a guest. It was so good we knew we could do something more with it. I am frequently being asked at events if I could get Amy Coulshaw to do a set so this was the perfect opportunity. Electric isn’t feasible at this venue so, bearing in mind the need for a really great acoustic sound, we stumbled across Dan Clews who fits this perfectly. Everywhere I go, I find myself talking about these guys.

Q. So, what marvellous venue have you managed to secure this time and what are the details of this event?

A. Well, Sevenoaks School have actually been kind enough to allow us use of their facilities for this event: this place is absolutely beautiful [she says this knowing how much I fidgeted in my attire at the Tonbridge School because it was so grand] and it holds 420 people. New to This Solar System is actually a part of the Sevenoaks Festival.  The concert is being held on the 6^th July in the Pamoja Hall, The Space at Sevenoaks School. The doors will open for guests at 18.45 and the concert will begin at 19.30. With ticket sales and drinks purchases on the night we are hoping to raise around even more for Breast Cancer Care this time around.

Q. What’s prompted you to organise this event?

A. Well, we know how much people are struggling with the economy being as it is and we also know that charity fundraising is also really struggling because of it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether the economy is bad: Breast Cancer doesn’t go away just because we can’t afford it! Breast Cancer Care doesn’t stop working just because people are hard up and it’s really important to me that they continue getting the funding they need for their outstanding work.

Q. I know from your previous events that organising a concert is a fairly new thing for you. Have you had many difficulties?

A. Well, we’re finding that a lot of people aren’t really sure what the event is about and that people aren’t buying their tickets straight away which inevitably causes us a bit of worry that we won’t actually be able to deliver for Breast Cancer Care on this event. The difference with this kind of event is that usually I make all the decisions on what’s happening, when whereas this time I’m working with groups of people who all have different agendas and workloads. We’ve still got a lot to do but, well, it’ll be alright on the night! We just really want people to come along and have a drink and enjoy the music: it’s all about having a really great night whilst raising money for a worthy cause.

Q. So, how can people find out more about the event or get themselves a ticket to this great occasion?

A. We’re doing a poster drop over the Kent area, we’re advertising the event on the Breast Cancer Care online site, we’re listed in the Sevenoaks Festival line up, we’ll be out in Sevenoaks telling people about the event and we have a Facebook page [http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-to-this-Solar-System/125336894270462]. For tickets you can also call: 01732 450175.

Well I, for one, can’t wait for this event because I’ve looked up all the acts and they are genuinely amazing. I’ve got my ticket, have you?

IT is probably a little much to declare it a 'victory' - as the inevitable press release described it - but it is undeniably good news that KCC, along with a handful of other councils, are poised to recover  the money they invested in former Icelandic banks.

KCC on course to get Icelandic cash back>>

But while the words "rejoice" may be resounding around the corridors of Sessions House, it is worth making a couple of relevant points.

KCC originally invested the £50m because it was attracted by the rather generous interest rates being offered by the banks, around 5-6%. It put the money there precisely for that reason and no other. It is not, however, money the authority will be seeing - and you can do the maths yourself to see what budget papers usually refer to opaguely in accounts as the "net impairment loss."

According to KCC's audited accounts for 2010-2011, the sum associated with the 'net impairment loss' is £7.6m. Now, I am guessing this is the sum that the council expected to make as a return on its deposit but now won't. Victorious in the courts, yes but that is only part of the story.

And the protracted legal wrangle, which lasted three years, will also have a cost but as the action was being pursued on behalf of 100+ authorities, this may be relatively modest.

There is no doubt that treasury management policies at County Hall were not quite as robust as they should have been at the time this happened, but neither were they at many other town halls and public bodies (and before I'm reminded the now defunkt Audit Commission was among them).

There was the unopened email that meant £3m more was invested when brokers had advised KCC to halt, for example.

One consequence of the saga is that there is now a little more transparency about how and where taxpayers' money is being invested. Previously, little was volunteered about the subject and what was was largely impenetrable to many.

However, much of it unfortunately goes through an informal members group at County Hall, whose meetings are closed to the public.

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SOCIAL services chiefs appear to have finally got to grips with the crisis in vulnerable children's social care. A positive Ofsted report which apparently says KCC has successfully addressed many of the problems identified in a highly damning report issued a year ago is due out shortly. We'll know the full details in a week or two.

Having overcome that challenge, another is on the horizon - adoption, where Kent appears to have a fairly dismal track record compared to many others when it comes to the speed with which it deals with applications from would-be adopters.

Clearly,the downward trend began a few years ago but for whatever reason, was not spotted or was but ignored.

Adoption challenge for KCC>>

All of which makes me wonder again exactly how it was that for several years, KCC secured high ratings from inspectors for the quality of its social services.

The suspicion is that County Hall had any number of policy wonks skilled in completing self-assessment forms on which judgements were often based but rather fewer people overseeing what was actually happening at the coal face.

SINCE January, councils up and down the country have been publishing thousands and thousands of invoice details on websites, listing all transactions of more than £500. They have been doing so in response to the government's much-vaunted transparency crusade - a genuine effort to encourage the public sector at all levels to engage the people they serve by telling them much more about how money is being spent.

In the case of councils, the communities secretary Eric Pickles has spoken of his desire to enlist the support of an army of armchair auditors, in the belief they may be able to spot areas where money might be saved or more appropriately spent. The only problem with this tsunami of information is that it is almost unintelligible and incapable of being scrutinised.

The invoices are the worst kind of crude data, providing no context and no explanation. Comparisons are next to impossible to make. Councils like KCC have literally thousands of invoices to publish each month and to be fair, it presents them in a way which makes the data easy to sift and sort. But that is about as far as it goes.

Calling councils to account on the basis of what they publish under this transparency regime is next to impossible. That is not to say they are deliberately misleading us or trying to draw a veil over what they are up to. They are doing just what the government wants them to do.

If you really want to establish why, for example Kent County Council spent £1,995 on lunches at the Open Golf championship at Royal St George's, you won't find it in the invoice details.  The only real way is to ask via the Freedom of Information Act for an explanation and account. And from personal experience, I can say that what superfically may look to be an example of unnecessary profligacy often turns out to have an entirely reasonable explanation.

In the case of those golf lunches, KCC says the costs were recouped from sponsors and therefore no costs fell to the taxpayer. Not that you would know from the invoice.

Anyway, attached is a recent response to an FOI request I submitted to KCC querying seven particular transactions - including £1,346 spent on hotel accommodation, drinks and food at a Ghananan beach resort - and the authority's explanations.

FOI.11.1070 Transactions.pdf (9.27 kb)

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An almighty behind-the-scenes row among Conservatives over plans to cut the number of community liasion managers appears to have been the trigger for the leadership contest now underway within the county council's ruling group.

But what is the “official” line on these posts which were to have been axed?

Asked to explain the background to the decision - a blatant political U-turn - this is what the council had to say:

"It has been decided to increase the number of community engagement officers from 7 to 12. These posts support county and district councillors in the growing localism agenda. As the scope for a meaningful localism agenda increases, it has been decided that each of the districts in Kent should have a dedicated support officer to ensure that the many benefits which can be realised from effective and efficient locality boards are realised.”

I suppose it was too much to expect the council to say there had been a huge political row and the leadership had backed down after a revolt by backbenchers.

Reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984 and the concept of doublethink.

Given that the coalition government has decided that we have too many MPs, it seems logical to ask whether we have too many councillors. The question may be one council taxpayers will ask when they see how much they are paying for KCC's 84 elected representatives in figures for allowances and expenses published today.

How much county councillors claimed last year>>>

The overall sum claimed by county councillors in 2010-2011 was £1.85million - pretty much in line with previous years but about £42,000 more than last year.

I think many councillors work pretty hard and do a decent job for their constituents but I've often sat at meetings at County Hall - especially full council meetings - and wondered exactly why we have so many (notwithstanding the fact that Kent is a large county).

Like it or not, the facts of cabinet government mean that only a select few are involved in the important decision making stuff. If you're a backbencher, you're pretty much sidelined from the decision-making process and when it comes to scrutiny, have only a minimal amount - actually pretty negligible - of influence.

Which makes it all the more surprising that there are, despite this concentration of power within the cabinet, that there are currently 106 county council committees and forums established by KCC. That's more than one committee/board/forum per member.

List of KCC committees here

So do we get value for money and would KCC be any different if it was represented by say, 60 county councillors, rather than 84? Democracy needs strong political advocates and it is vital that there are strong checks and balances in the system but I do sometimes sense that County Hall would get along just as well with fewer politicians.

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Not for the first time, I'm struck by the fact that many county councillors appear to be devoted petrol heads when it comes to going about their official business.

Despite espousing more use of public transport, many councillors prefer to let the car rather than the train - or bus - take the strain. It can be tricky getting to County Hall from some of Kent's furthest flung corners but it is not as if County Hall is miles away from a train station (you can see Maidstone East from the entrance to Sessions House).

It's worth pointing out that councillors' milage rates have recently increased from 40 pence to 45 pence a mile.

County councillors have, after much hand-wringing, agreed to take a pay cut. It's a small gesture in every way. The 1.5 per cent cut in their basic yearly allowance will lop a modest £200 off their £13,000 they get.

If you want an illustration of why it is fairly small beer, I've worked out that it accounts for 0.017 per cent of the £95m of savings the council is making this year. 

But there's another issue here. Namely that the £16,400 that the 1.5 per cent cut will achieve represents a fraction of the £200,000 savings package the council has agreed for members' services. Once you've accounted for the other measures - such as a reduction in special responsibility allowances for cabinet members - our elected politicians together will be saving the taxpayer the grand sum of £80,000. And the rest? That is to come from cutting jobs in the staff who support members.

Opposition parties argued at this week's full council meeting that the cut should be greater. Labour and the Lib Dems pushed for an eight per cent cut, taking them back to the annual levels of allowances that they had before 2009, which is when the independent panel last set them.

Of course, there was - as Conservative leader Paul Carter pointed out - an element of political posturing going on here. (The race to be holier than thou is never more intense than when politicians are involved.) 

But he forgot - until he was reminded by departing Labour group leader Les Christie - that it was the Conservative administration who decided to make a virtue of the original plans for a pay cut when it first unveiled its budget plans in January.

I don't believe that county councillors should have to go around wearing hair shirts. They deserve some financial compensation for the work they put in. But these are uniquely challenging times for councils wrestling with the impact of austerity measures forced on them by the government.

In a week they unveil proposals to raise care charges for elderly and vulnerable people, their decision to agree a fairly miniscule reduction in their own pay does look a little selfish. Was it too much  to expect them to take a bigger hit - even if only for a year or two?

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Social services chief Malcolm Newsam is to be commended for deciding that transparency is the best  policy when it comes to dealing with the challenges of turning around Kent's troubled children's services.

One of the greatest problems KCC had over recent years is what one county councillor described as "the culture of fear" that existed as things started to unravel - staff knowing that things were going badly wrong but finding it impossible to tell anyone.

For years, KCC basked in the glow of independent inspection reports that suggested it was a five-star service. When it commissioned internal reports assessing the resilience of children's social services, they came back saying everything was more or less OK - with the odd caveat about workload pressure.

At last, the politicians have grasped that they cannot take these things for granted. Too late for some but better late than never.

It is indisputably good news that east Kent is to get high speed trains although there will be some who do not think local councils - in this case KCC - should be subsidising the costs.

KCC has some form in this area, having been involved in a few spectacularly unsuccessful ventures subsidising various initiatives with airlines at Manston airport that cost the taxpayer a considerable sum.

It is on rather more secure ground with its decision to pay £151,000 subsidy to get the High Speed services running to Sandwich and Deal and is on balance, probably right to do so - especially given the fact that it is clearly a service that could genuinely enhance the prospects for the Pfizer plant after it closes in 2012.

The tricky issue is whether there is enough commuter demand from the two areas to make the planned rush-hour services commercially viable. Clearly, Southeastern hadn't thought so otherwise it would have introduced them itself. But the rail operator is fully on board and not just because KCC is underwriting the service.

It has one eye on the next franchise and its willingness to give the idea a try is good PR, particularly given the justified hammering it has had from disgruntled passengers across Kent over the winter. (Indeed, at the KCC rail summit at County Hall, I was struck by just how co-operative a tone Southeastern was adopting to suggestions about how it might improve things).

But the message from all involved is a familiar one: use it or lose it. If insufficient numbers are travelling on these trains from October, neither Southeastern or KCC will want to make open-ended commitments given that the former cannot be seen to be propping up services that don't make enough money for shareholders; the latter because hard-pressed council taxpayers will inevitably begin to question whether it is the sort of thing the authority should be paying for.

But both KCC and Southeastern deserve some credit for taking a calculated gamble.

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Mind you, I was intrigued by the  timing of the announcement. KCC is not having an election so it is perhaps not bound by the purdah strictures quite as tightly as those councils who are. (Purdah effectively prevents councils announcing anything in the run-up to an election that could be construed as politically helpful to any party).

Thanet and Dover councils are having elections and they are both areas likely to benefit most from this news. Both are currently Conservative controlled and facing a challenge by Labour, which has hopes of wresting control. No wonder some Conservative councillors and the area's MPs appeared so delighted by the news.

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I had never heard of Payan Tamiz until yesterday and I'm prepared to bet that not many voters in Thanet had either.

But Payan became the centre of attention for 24 hours after postings he put on Facebook landed him in trouble with party chiefs because of their derogatory and offensive nature. He won't be the last would-be politician to unwittingly land in trouble over unguarded comments on a social networking site.

Having seen the comments, I can see why he chose to quit the Conservative party. There's no doubt that he would have been pushed had he not done so. I also understand why those who masterminded the sting chose to release the incriminating evidence now rather than after May 5 - there was no real prospect of him getting elected.

Will it make any real difference to the results next week? Labour evidently hope so but I'm not so sure. There are bad apples in every party and every now and then, they get found out and it is good that they are.

But while undeniably an acute embarrassment for the Conservatives, I doubt it will swing many votes.