In answer to a question from John Doran, Lib Dem transport spokesperson, the Conservative executive member for transport on Surrey County Council admitted that the council was on target to under-spend its roads budget by nearly £1 million pounds. Mr Munro said "£1 million is about right".
Tory-led Surrey County Council voted today to keep the freeze on youth service recruitment, despite the obvious damage it is causing to youth services throughout Surrey. Liberal Democrat Councillor Diana Smith (Knaphill) put forward a motion calling for an immediate end to the recruitment freeze, put in place in December 2007. But the ruling Tory group voted to keep the status quo.
The 'equal preference' system for school admissions was first used for admissions to Surrey schools this year, September 2007. It means that parents don't have to worry that they will lose a place in the second or third of their preferred schools if the first school is full, just because they did not place those schools first.
When the Conservative administration at County Hall took an axe to its Emergency Planning department as part of a major review, the 11 staff were reduced to just 7 - putting the whole county at risk. All the staff bar one left, leaving the county in an extraordinarily vulnerable state for several months, made worse because a freeze in recruitment blocked the advertising for new staff.
At the Transport Select Committee on 5th December members were given the latest set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the ill fated Surrey Highways Partnership (SHiP). The SHiP is the arrangement whereby Carillion manages road maintenance in the East of the County and Ringway in the West. Although there has been some improvement things are still not good enough.
Surrey County Council Liberal Democrats have called on the ruling Conservative administration to urgently prioritize filling vacancies to front-line services in what group leader Cllr Hazel Watson said was a clear case of the Council "taking its eye off the ball". Nearly two years on from SCC's Business Delivery Review (BDR) which was supposed to result in a "Council fit for purpose" with the right workforce to deliver those services, front-line services are still short on essential staff according to the Liberal Democrats.
Ed Davey's Leader's Speech to Spring Conference 2026
After years of neglect, our local councils are in financial survival mode. The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to move past emergency bailouts and deliver a sustainable future for local government.
The international stage has been shaken by a series of reckless and illegal actions from Donald Trump’s White House. Liberal Democrat members have passed a new motion to bolster our national defence and strengthen our alliances with reliable partners.
For too long, tech giants have treated children as data to be mined, using addictive algorithms and harmful content to keep them scrolling. While some are calling for blanket bans, we know these are impractical and risk isolating vulnerable groups.
If the answer to “Is our nuclear deterrent working?” depends on what Donald Trump had for breakfast, then the answer is no, it’s not. And our deterrent is not truly independent.
The UK is facing a mental health emergency. Liberal Democrats have a proud record of pushing Britain’s mental health services forward. Now we are offering the bold solutions we need to fight the crisis unfolding in our communities.