November ended with me opening the new Bincombe Valley Childrens Centre, next to Bincombe Valley School.  This is one of over 3000 being opened nationally across the country, with centres already up and running in Weymouth, Portland and Bovington.  Others are planned in Westham and Swanage.

The centres provide support to parents of pre-school children and babies.  As well as childcare they provide support from a range of professionals - from social services, education and health - as well as from other parents.  A really positive feature is the full involvement of local parents in the their management.  It was great to meet one of my Facebook friends as well as local councillor Simon Bowkett at the opening.

The day before Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children Schools and Families visited All Saints with me to present GCSE certificates, and the week before my colleague as a schools minister Andrew Adonis came to Portland.  His visit was to look at the proposal from local heads to form a Portland Academy.  This hugely exciting project would bring together childrens services for 0-19 year olds, in new buildings and offering post 16 education on the island for the first time.  A third government minister visited in December when Ben Bradshaw, health minister, came and met a group of sixty constituents to hear their ideas for health improvement and respond to their questions.

I also led two delegations to see government ministers.  I took officers from Weymouth and Portland Borough Council to see Rosie Winterton, minister at the Department for Transport.  They raised their concerns over the costs to seaside areas of the national free bus travel for pensioners.  Rosie was clearly interested in their feedback.  I was pleased that she opted for the most advantageous funding arrangement for our area.  Just before Christmas I went with a larger group of Dorset MPs and representatives from the Dorset Fire Authority to see Parmjit Dhanda about the authority's funding settlement.  Whilst the County Council received a 10% increase, the Fire Authority had a below inflation rise.  I hope Parmjit can find a way of alleviating the impact when the consultation concludes.

The other big campaign has been around the County Council's proposals to close day centres around the county.  I have met the Chief Executive and Director of Social Services to discuss the proposals.  They said that they weren't cost driven but owed more to changing the way the elderly were supported.  However they acknowledged that last year's change to who was eligible for day centre services was cost driven and was a reason for the reduction in usage that was informing the closure proposals.  I am encouraging them to use the excellent increase in Government funding to buy them time to keep the centres open while they properly consult on how to change services. The possiblity of keeping the centres open should be retained and explore how to share useage with the other services.