A new role

After the conclusion of the Council Meeting, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet met to agree spokespersonships. Our role will be to lead the scrutiny of the decisions being made by the individual cabinet members as well as to play a role in helping members of the public to have their say to the Council - especially where they oppose any particular decision being made.

I was asked by Liberal Democrat Group Leader Doris Ansari to cover the brief known as Health and Wellbeing. The principle focus for this portfolio is to deal with libraries, leisure centres, adult education and public health -a bit of a wide range of subjects! I'm looking forward to it immensely as I think that Cornwall has a fantastic library service which needs to be able to continue to grow and reach out to the entire population. As for leisure, we are lagging behind a little bit. We have facilities across the county but it is clear that more can still be done. I'm going to arrange extensive briefings with officers over the next few weeks as well as arranging to visit as many facilities as possible to bring me totally up to speed. In the meantime, I'm also going to get in touch with the different user groups to hear what they think needs to be done to develop our services.

Our other shadow cabinet members will be Ann Kerridge who will cover the corporate support brief, Shirley Polmounter who will cover Planning Highways and Transportation, Kym Willoughby who will shadow on Adult Care, Graham Walker who will cover schools, Tamsin Williams who will deal with children's social services, Adam Paynter who will cover Stronger Communities, Edwina Hannaford who will deal with the Economy, Derris Watson who will cover Housing and Roy Taylor who will cover Waste and the Environment.