The government has “refused to consider” funding the costs of additional work on a now scrapped care reform scheme in North Yorkshire.

North Yorkshire County Council was one of six pilot authorities chosen by the Department of Health and Social Care for the project, which would have seen a cap of £86,000 placed on each individual’s spending on their care in their lifetime.

The reforms would also have allowed people to retain up to £100,000 of their own assets and still qualify for funding for their care. The current limit is £23,250.

However, the government has since informed councils the scheme is being abandoned after initially delaying it until October 2025.

The council carried out an overhaul of its IT system as part of the move and looks set to absorb any additional costs associated with staffing into its own budget.

It was awarded £1,159,684 in funding from government as part of the pilot.

But despite this initial funding, the Department of Health and Social Care has refused to contribute to the ongoing costs.

Anton Hodge, assistant director for strategic resources at the council, said in a report due before councillors on Friday:

“Although funding already received to cover costs in 2022/23 will not be required to be repaid, we and other trailblazers have pointed out the ongoing costs of staff already appointed in support of the project and we continue to pursue that aspect.

“However at this stage the Department of Health and Social Care has refused to consider any contribution towards these and therefore any continuing costs will have to be consumed within existing budgets.”

Read more:

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• Social care pilot scheme in Harrogate district ‘could bankrupt council’ without more funding

Senior councillors had previously warned that the pilot could “bankrupt councils” if more funding was not made available.

Cllr Michael Harrison, the Conservative executive member for adult services at the council, said much of the work for the trailblazer was taken on by staff taking on additional responsibilities.

He added:

“The county council was asked by the Department of Health and Social Care to be one of six national sites for testing adult social care charging reforms. Early funding was identified nationally to support this work.

“Given that the bulk of this work involved frontline social care and customer services staff undertaking additional responsibilities, the national funding has been used to enhance existing staffing levels rather than to create separate new posts.”

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said:

“The department is grateful to all the trailblazers for their work on charging reform and has been working closely with them to understand any costs incurred as a result of their work to date.”

Creating a Harrogate town council could require 35,000 households to pay an additional council tax charge of between £40 and £60, it was revealed today.

Under proposals put forward, elections would take place on May 2 next year to elect 19 councillors in 10 wards.

People living in the wards would face an additional charge on their annual council tax bills to pay for the new local authority.

North Yorkshire County Council today opened a second round of consultation on the proposals, which discussed how much council taxpayers would pay. It said:

“It is not possible to state an exact figure at this stage, but it is anticipated the amount could be in the region of £40 to £60 per year for a Band D property. This amount could give a total precept budget in the range of £1m to £1.6m.”

Knaresborough Town Council and Ripon Town Council currently levy charges on households of £25.27 and £70.77 respectively for a Band D property.

The county council said the precept “will need to be sufficient to cover the set-up costs, administration and running costs and costs of service delivery for future years”. It adds:

“It is anticipated that there would be a surplus in year one, which would go to reserves for use in future years and enable the parish to begin on a secure financial footing.”

A total of 75% favoured setting up a Harrogate town council in last year’s first consultation but only 1,250 homes — 3.5% of those affected — responded. The low response rate triggered concerns about the validity of the response.

Harrogate and Scarborough are the only parts of the county not to have a parish or town council.

The abolition of Harrogate Borough Council at the end of the month has led to calls to set up a town council to ensure local views are heard. But others say the cost will not be worth the limited power available the town council – which would have no more authority than a parish council.

The blue areas face an additional charge.

The consultation says the names of the 10 wards of the new council be the same as the names of the existing county divisions, with the exception of the unparished part of the Oatlands and Pannal division, which will be known as Oatlands ward; and the unparished part of the Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate division, which will be known as Saltergate ward. The ward names to be:

Bilton and Nidd Gorge
Bilton Grange and New Park
Coppice Valley and Duchy
Fairfax and Starbeck
Harlow and St Georges

High Harrogate and Kingsley
Oatlands
Saltergate
Stray, Woodlands and Hookstone
Valley Gardens and Central Harrogate

Councillor Greg White, the county council’s executive member for stronger communities, said:

“Town and parish councils give residents the ability to help to determine how the places in which they live look and feel. The benefits can be seen across our communities every day, so I urge people in Scarborough and Harrogate to seize the opportunity this consultation offers to have a say in shaping local empowerment where they live.”

Read more:

• Harrogate set to get town council after 75% back the idea
• Just 3.5% responded to Harrogate town council consultation
• Second consultation to be held on whether to form Harrogate town council

‘Strong support for proposals’

Cllr David Chance, the county council’s executive member for corporate services, said:

“Having received strong support in the initial consultation for the creation of new parishes and councils to serve them, we are keen to hear views from as many residents as possible on the detailed proposals we are now putting forward.

“If you took part in the first consultation, please share your views again on these detailed proposals. This is a separate consultation, so please make sure your views on the proposals are taken into account by completing the survey.”

You can take part in the consultation, which runs until Friday, May 5, here.

Or you can request a paper copy of the survey by calling 01609 536400 between 9.30am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday, or emailing cgr@northyorks.gov.uk.

A public health boss has revealed how an educational programme to counter the social media marketing of vaping products to children was being developed, amid growing concerns about the number of youngsters being “enticed” into using e-cigarettes.

Cllr Michael Harrison, North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for health and adult services, announced the move following the leader of Selby District Council questioning what action could be taken to reverse an apparent escalation in children vaping.

Cllr Mark Crane told a meeting of the county authority he was seeing more and more young people using vaping products, adding: 

“I see them in school uniforms and I also see ones that seem very young to me.”

A NHS survey in 2013 of 10,000 children found three per cent of children aged 11 to 15 had vaped, but last year the figure had risen to 10%.

Cllr Crane was speaking days after England’s chief medical officer called for a clampdown on firms who use social media sites, such as Tik Tok, to market colourful e-cigarettes with flavours such as pink lemonade and strawberry, banana and mango to youngsters.

Sir Chris Whitty told MPs it was beyond doubt that firms were designing vapes to appeal to children, branding their actions “appalling”.

It is believed e-cigarettes have increased in popularity with children due to their relatively low cost, bright colours and fruit flavours.

Last month, the leader of neighbouring council Stockton, Councillor Bob Cook said the authority would lobby for more regulation on vaping following concerns over growing under-age use of the products.

Meanwhile, Dr Elizabeth Garthwaite, a kidney specialist and clinical director at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, has told teenagers at Ripon Grammar School that an increasing numbers of young people were presenting to hospital with problems associated with addiction and vaping.

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She said while vaping products were initially designed as a nicotine replacement to help smokers break their addiction, vaping was far from harmless.

Cllr Harrison said there was “certainly something national government could do” to tackle the marketing, but the council was intent on educating people about the dangers of vaping.

He said: 

“It is illegal to sell vape materials to under-18s, but it is clear that there is marketing going on that is enticing under-18s to take up vaping…”

The meeting was told the authority’s public health team were working on a programme of education and awareness which would be rolled out across our schools and young people in the coming months.

Cllr Harrison said the authority recognised the place of e-cigarettes in helping people to give up smoking, but the council’s educational campaign would stress that neither habit was healthy.

Underlining the scale of the challenge to educate young people, he added: 

“You are fighting a battle if there’s advertising that is more prevalent on social media than mainstream media.”

A new council is set to take over in the Harrogate district in four weeks’ time.

Both Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council will make way for North Yorkshire Council on April 1.

While the move throws up questions over council tax and economic development, perhaps the first thought on residents’ minds is who is going to collect the bins?

In this article, we will explain what this means for waste collection and disposal in the district.

Who currently collects my bins?

At the moment, Harrogate Borough Council collects household bins across the district.

Waste collection staff employed by the borough council collect bins on a weekly basis.

This includes garden, general and recycling bins.

What about waste disposal?

Disposal of waste is currently a responsibility for North Yorkshire County Council.

It is responsible for household waste recycling centres, including those on Wetherby Road and Pennypot Lane in Harrogate and Dallamires Lane in Ripon.

The county council also oversees the Allerton Waste Recovery Park near Knaresborough, which recycles and converts biodegradable waste to biogas.  

What will happen on April 1?

On April 1, the borough council will no longer be responsible for waste collections as it will not exist.

Instead, North Yorkshire Council will take over the responsibility and bins will be collected as normal.

Staff who currently work for the borough council on waste collection will move over to the new authority.

The new council will also be responsible for the running of household waste recycling centres in the district, as well as Allerton Waste Recovery Park.

Residents may not notice much change in their collections. However, for council bosses, the idea is that the transition to the new authority is smooth.

Read more:

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Taxi drivers in the Harrogate district have said a new system for regulating hackney carriages will be bad for customers and cause cabbies to go bust.

The current limit of 148 hackney carriages in the district will be abolished when North Yorkshire Council comes into existence on April 1, paving the way for a flood of new drivers.

At the same time, a new single taxi zone allowing drivers to operate countywide rather than stick to their local districts will begin, even though 52% opposed it in a consultation.

Drivers say the single zone will lead to some places being flooded by taxis at busy times while less popular rural areas will struggle to book cars.

They also say ending the cap on the number of hackney carriages means licence plates they paid thousands of pounds for are now effectively worthless.

Supporters of the new system say it incorporates Department for Transport best practice guidance and “any negative impacts tend to level out over time”.

‘Totally destroyed’

The Ripon cabbies in Harrogate this week

Six Ripon hackney carriage drivers, who are supported by colleagues from across the district, met the Stray Ferret this week to express anger at the changes.

Katie Johnstone, of Johnstone Family Hire, said lifting the limit on the number of vehicles would ruin many taxi firms.

She said until now, people like her had paid about £20,000 to buy a plate so they could operate one of only 148 hackney carriages in the Harrogate district.

Ms Johnstone said abolishing the limit meant the plates now had no sell-on value, leaving current plate holders a combined £3 million out of pocket.

She said she took out a five-year bank loan to buy her plate as part of a career change two years ago and “it’s not worth anything now”, adding:

“I’m a single parent — I worked on minimum wage for years. I’ve invested a lot of money to try to better myself and they have totally destroyed it.”

Read more:

• New taxi fares for North Yorkshire revealed
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‘The system has worked for 100 years’

Keith Snowden, whose family has operated taxis in Ripon since 1926, said:

“It’s a ludicrous situation. The system has worked for the last 100 years — why change it?”

All the cabbies predicted many private hire drivers will get hackney licences because it would enable them to make more money by picking up customers from ranks whereas they currently have to be booked in advance.

They said this would create hotspots as drivers battled for customers in busy times in the most lucrative areas, and ignored calls from less profitable rural customers.

Anne Smith, of ANB Taxis in Ripon, said:

“Everything we have put into these plates has been completely taken away from us.”

Ms Smith tried to enlist the support of Julian Smith, the Conservative MP for Skipton and Ripon, but said he had been “absolutely useless”. Mr Smith did not reply when the Stray Ferret asked for a response.

Paul Dodds, of JPD Taxis, said he feared he and other drivers would have to “pack in” because of the changes.

North Yorkshire Council will replace North Yorkshire County Council and seven district councils, including Harrogate Borough Council, at the end of the month.

The drivers all said the new system was being introduced for the convenience of the council rather than for drivers because it was easier to manage than the current district-wide system.

Richard Fieldman

The taxi drivers said they would continue to oppose the changes until the new system begins next month.

Ripon cabbie Richard Fieldman criticised North Yorkshire County Council’s defence of the changes:

“They keep relating to Department for Transport best practice guide, but have chosen to leave bits of it out to suit them, ie it states that in areas where licence limits are in place, they should firstly conduct an unmet demand survey to see if there is any latent demand, before proceeding with the policy; they have failed to do that.

“The fact is, they have totally ignored the result of the consultation, which concluded 52% are against it.”

‘A coherent regulatory framework’

Cllr Derek Bastiman

Social workers recruited from Zimbabwe and South Africa to help plug the social care staffing crisis in North Yorkshire have begun working in Harrogate.

Adult social care has been experiencing well documented recruitment problems in recent years, which has left some providers struggling to hire qualified social workers.

It has previously been reported that on any given day there are at least 1,000 care jobs available across the county.

To address this, a North Yorkshire County Council report said the authority ran several large recruitment campaigns in the UK for more than 30 social worker vacancies but had “very limited” success.

It found recruits were also often newly qualified social workers and not yet ready to manage more complex work.

The report said that with full-time roles unfilled, expensive agency workers have also been used.

Since August, the council has overseen an international recruitment drive with the aim of hiring 30 social workers and five occupational therapists.

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The first cohort of social workers arrived in Harrogate towards the end of last year and the second cohort arrived in January and February of this year.

The new arrivals have been given three weeks of training and have also been allocated a “community buddy” to help them settle into their new country.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for health and adult services, Cllr Michael Harrison, who is also the Conservative councillor for Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate, said:

“We have recruited 29 qualified social workers from South Africa and Zimbabwe using a network of specialist agencies and working alongside other councils.

“They will work across the county in what is a great opportunity to help this group of professional social workers further their career in North Yorkshire whilst filling vacancies in specialist areas where there is a national workforce shortage.

“We will monitor the success of this recruitment campaign closely, whilst continuing to advertise our current vacancies regionally and nationally.”

Almost 90 per cent of Year 6 pupils in the county have been awarded their first choice of secondary school, North Yorkshire County Council has revealed. 

Since the deadline for applications at the end of October, families across the district have been waiting anxiously to find out whether their child will be able to move up to the school of their choice.

The long wait ended this morning when parents and carers were informed which school their children would have to attend in the autumn. 

A total of 89.84 per cent secured their first preference, with 96.4 per cent of all families in the county who requested a school place receiving an offer from North Yorkshire County Council for one of their top three preferences of secondary school. 

This year, 6,262 North Yorkshire pupils are transferring to secondary school. 

The county council’s executive member for education, learning and skills, Cllr Annabel Wilkinson, said:  

“Once again, so many of our families have gained the first preference from their choice of schools, which is great news.” 

In North Yorkshire, parents can list up to five schools in order of preference on their common application form, but this year, some parents did not use all five options and others did not complete an application form at all. 

This meant that the council, which must ensure each child is allocated a school place on national offer day, had to place some children in schools further way from their home.

However, disappointed parents can appeal, and the council said its admissions team would try to accommodate their wishes. Appeals for a place at a particular secondary school must be received by March 29; these will be assessed between April and June.

Read more:

• Pressure grows as politicians join calls for road safety outside Harrogate schools
• Ripon Grammar named top northern secondary school again
• Harrogate district primary school places: Majority of parents get first choice

A councillor has called for a pause in housebuilding in Harrogate while work on a new local plan for the whole of North Yorkshire is drawn up.

In December, members of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive approved the creation of a new local plan, which must be finalised within five years of North Yorkshire Council being formed on April 1.

It will identify land that can be developed and will replace the seven local plans that are currently used by the soon-to-be-abolished district and borough councils.

This includes Harrogate Borough Council’s Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which was adopted in 2020 and says over 13,000 homes can be built between 2014-2035. The council has said the document will guide planning decisions until the new local plan is created.

Harrogate’s local plan has led to large new housing developments being built in almost every corner of the district. Last month, approval was given to 162 more homes on Kingsley Drive in Harrogate and 1,300 homes at Clotherholme in Ripon.

But councillors have heard repeated concerns about whether the district’s roads, schools and GP practices can cope with the increase in housing.

Read more:

• New Harrogate district housing plan should not be ‘tickbox exercise’, says councillor
• Knaresborough housing site should be reviewed under local plan, says councillor

The thorny issue came up at a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council on Friday.

Statistics released in the government’s last Housing Delivery Test revealed 1,641 homes — 266% above target — were built in the district between 2018 and 2021.

This led Liberal Democrat councillor for the High Harrogate and Kingsley division, Chris Aldred, to ask North Yorkshire County Council’s Conservative executive member for planning for growth, Simon Myers, if the new council would consider pausing new applications in areas where these government targets are being met.

He said:

“There are areas within the county where we’re well ahead of scheduled housing delivery targets. In Harrogate we are 200% over-target according to the government’s own statistics.

“While we’re developing a new local plan for the county, could you consider in areas where we are well ahead of delivery, we actually pause the application process so we don’t get any houses in areas where we might not have done when we’ve got the new local plan.”

The new council will create six new planning committees to oversee decisions across parliamentary constituency areas, such as Harrogate and Knaresborough and Skipton and Ripon.

They will be set up with councillors from across the political spectrum voting on whether significant planning applications go ahead.

‘Misleading’ figure

After the meeting, Cllr Myers told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the 200% figure was misleading. He said:

“Essentially, Harrogate has only just caught up with its own housing targets. It isn’t 200% over. The development is all in accordance with the local plan and to halt development would put Harrogate at risk of the plan being seen as out of date and open the possibility of speculative development. And of course with development we hope to deliver affordable housing which is sorely needed in every part of the county.

“The figure of 200% ‘over delivery’ was published in the government’s housing delivery test calculation pre-adoption of the Harrogate local plan. This was based on delivery against the standard methodology figure that does reflect an accurate picture of need. If you look at delivery against the actual plan-target, the figure is lower.

“In summary, the 200% figure is misleading and the higher-than-plan-target delivery rates should not be cause for alarm as they reflect positive progress on addressing a significant shortfall and reflect a planned trajectory.”

North Yorkshire County Council is set to consult on the closure of a children’s centre in Nidderdale.

The authority has proposed to close five centres across the county as part of cost cutting measures.

Among them is Nidderdale Children’s Centre, which is based at St Cuthbert’s Church of England Primary School in Pateley Bridge.

The council has recommended consulting on closure of the facility, which it says has not reopened since the covid pandemic.

Instead, officials have proposed giving the space back to the school in a bid to save the authority £13,400 a year.

In a report due before a children and young persons meeting, Stuart Carlton, director of children’s services, will say:

“Previously used on an occasional basis for service delivery, the Nidderdale Children’s Centre building was unused during the pandemic and has not re-opened. There has not previously been any partner use of the building which connected to the school.

“The proposal is to release the space back to St Cuthbert’s Church of England Primary School, with an agreement that the premises would be used for direct work with children attending the school.”

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The centre opened in September 2010 as a designated children’s centre. It was backed by £590,715 worth of Sure Start funding from the Department for Education.

The county council said it does not anticipate that the government will request any of the money back.

Centres in Eastfield, South Craven, Kirbymoorside and Wensleydale will also be considered for closure.

County councillors will discuss the proposal at a meeting on March 7.

Councils have pushed forward a move to transfer some central government powers to York and North Yorkshire, despite cross-party concerns York’s residents will gain more than the county’s.

Less than 24 hours after City of York Council gave its seal of approval to sending the results of a public consultation over a proposed devolution deal for the city and North Yorkshire, the majority of councillors on its Northallerton-based counterpart followed suit.

While the deal seeks to fuse the futures of the two councils, numerous North Yorkshire councillors underlined their view that York’s 200,000 residents would be the winners in a mayoral combined authority with just two councillors from each authority.

During a lengthy debate on the devolution deal during a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council, numerous councillors attacked proposals to hand a disproportionate amount of power to York.

Many councillors agreed that the deal was far from perfect, but there was little option than to agree to it if the area wanted extra money from the government.

The authority’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said the deal on the table was “just the start” of negotiations with the government to hand more decision-making powers and funds directly to the area.

He said: 

“We have got to move on. The past is the past, this is the future. This is how government prefers to work. And if we negate that we are going to lose out yet again.”

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council.

Cllr Les said the deal would help avoid bidding wars, by moving decision-making out of Whitehall to York and Northallerton, there would also be safeguards in place on the mayoral combined authority to protect the interests of both councils’ populations.

However, opposition councillors said the deal would lead to decision-making becoming more concentrated in a small group of unelected people on the combined authority.

Green group leader Cllr Andy Brown said the authority was being offered “crumbs not substance” following decades of the government stripping back funding for County Hall, so the deal was “more propaganda than reality”.

Cllr Stuart Parsons, Independents group leader, said of the £18m extra annual government funding the deal would bring, up to £4m would be spent on staffing the mayor’s office.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Bryn Griffiths said the mayor’s office would be “yet another layer of bureaucracy to be funded by the poor taxpayers”.

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Labour group leader Cllr Steve Shaw Wright said devolution would happen whether people in North Yorkshire wanted it or not, while Craven District Council leader Richard Foster said branded the deal was “York-centric”.

Ripon Cllr Andrew Williams said York was a “basket case of a council that the poor residents in York have to suffer” and that many people in York would like to see it abolished and being a part of a wider North Yorkshire.

He told the meeting: 

“It is a local authority, quite frankly, which fails the people of York every day it opens its doors for business.”

Seamer division member Cllr Heather Phillips was among few councillors who expressed any solidarity with York.

She said: 

“York, we welcome you. We want to work with you and we’ll be a better North Yorkshire when we do that.”