The Herald has reported on the outcry over the review of the way the Community Safety Partnership is funded by the Police Crime and Commissioner. Worthing & Adur appears to have been the victims of our own success in working effectively between the police, councils and other agencies in combatting crime as our funding has been reduced compared to other parts of Sussex.
Subsequently, I took a delegation including Worthing Council Leader Dan Humphreys, Cabinet member Val Turner and Adur Cabinet Member Dave Simmons to see the Commissioner and challenge the way the funding decision was made. Whilst the allocations have already been made the Commissioner agreed to look again at their calculations and the way that good practice in our patch should be rewarded not penalised.
The good news is that after the recent announcement about an increase in the police element of the council tax Sussex Police will be recruiting an additional 200 officers a year over 4 years. I have asked that they prioritise Lancing in particular for these new recruits.
Last week, Sir Peter Bottomley and I caught up with the Chairman and senior management of GlaxoSmithKline at a presentation in the Commons. Glaxo remains one of Worthing’s largest and longest standing employers. They are also one of the UK’s most progressive employers with some 43% of management women and a virtually negligible gender pay gap of around 2.5%.
Brexit was predictably a topic of conversation and I am glad to say that they seem completely unphased about it. The UK accounts for just 4% of global revenue yet they spend a whopping 25% of their international research and development investment in the UK quite simply because we are a great and easy place to do business
In addition they pay a disproportionate amount of their international tax bill, around 16% in the UK, again because of our more equitable tax structures, which particularly incentives investment in R & D. I was delighted to hear that they have no plans to change their confidence in the UK generally or Worthing specifically.
The big news locally last week was of course the announcement by the CPS that the pilot at the Shoreham Air Show tragedy is to face trial. Many constituents have sent me their thoughts on the rights or wrongs of this. I certainly do not want to pre-judge the outcome of the trial but certainly it is hoped that some of the questions that were raised by the Air Accident Investigation Board’s extensive report can now be properly addressed.
Together with other Sussex MPs who have constituents who lost their lives we will be pressing ministers as to why it took 31 months to come to this decision leaving families in limbo for too long. It also means that the important coroner’s inquest which had already been delayed to November 2018 will be delayed yet further into 2019 depending on when the trial concludes. I have produced a short podcast with an update on what this means on my website. www.timloughton.com