Just as countries such as Somalia might be seen as a failed state, a county like Surrey can be seen as a failed local authority.

Readers will be amazed that one of the wealthiest parts of the country could possibly fall into this category. But there is a mountain of evidence available to support this contention.

The clearest example of this failure is provided by the recent Ofsted Report placing Surrey among the bottom four local authorities for its care of vulnerable children in the whole of the country. But for the grace of God we have not had a Baby P here. The report points to the fact that Surrey had no knowledge about whether care workers had been checked by the police. Pinpointed was the dependency on agency workers by a council running up a bill of £12m for employing temporary staff. At Surrey the priority was seen to be minimising costs at the expense of providing adequate care for these children. Surrey’s performance was summed up by Ofsted through a comment which throws doubt on the county’s ability to remedy the crisis in the service they had identified.

The reaction from Surrey’s controlling Conservative group was to go into the High Court and challenge Ofsted’s decision. This cost at least £15,000. It then ushered in the departure of its chief executive and the senior officers from its Social Services Department through “early retirement.” To facilitate this the executive is believed to have received a payment of £200,000 and a pension of £120,000. Estimates put the cost of the whole operation as approaching £1m. One of the problems with this is that Surrey refuses to say how much its response to Ofsted has cost. The one service performing well is in public relations and hushing up its inadequacies.

What is known is that the Audit Commission has classified Surrey among the worst performing local authorities in the country. It has £20m locked in Icelandic Banks with only the uncertain promise that any of this will be recoverable. How should we regard a county council whose county hall is not within its own borders but whose members meet in the London Borough of Kingston Upon Thames? The latest ignominious attempt to move from Kingston to Woking involving extensive property dealing cost the council tax payers a large sum which Surrey refuses to divulge. For a county long wedded to the advantages of outsourcing important services like its highways the fact that the contractor concerned was recorded as achieving just 45 minutes of work per day and refunded part of its fee raises real questions about its competence in keeping its roads up to scratch.

While canvassing recently I came across a number of children excluded from Surrey’s schools. If they are lucky they may be receiving some education in the morning several times a week. This reflects the fact that the county has the highest number of children excluded from school in the whole country according to a recent report. Several years ago a report on Surrey’s lifelong learning and adult education failed to find any aspect of it had reached a satisfactory standard because Surrey neglected this provision and failed to fund it adequately. Fortunately the grant for schools that has been greatly increased for Surrey since 1997 is ring fenced. But the county always looking for savings is expected to divert a special fund for poor children outside of the fence for other purposes.

Last year a meeting was held in Guildford to allow the public to comment on the authority’s care service for disabled adult and the elderly. It again followed on a report that found provision for the elderly barely adequate. There is recognition here that the services in this area offered by Surrey are inferior to those available in nearby Hampshire. Charities such as Age Concern and Mencap were highly critical of the county’s provision at this meeting though it is unclear that any substantial improvements are to happen.

Faced with these damning criticisms Surrey Conservatives just keep repeating the mantra that it’s the government’s fault for slanting the rate support grant against them and favouring their friends in the north. There is an expectation that if there is a Cameron government next year it will redirect this money to needy Surrey. What is forgotten is that when there was the opportunity to spend adequately on social services Surrey chose to put levying a low council tax at the top of its priorities. One has to doubt the competence of Conservative leaders here when they are unable to distribute the money available for free bus travel for the over 60s in an equitable way between local boroughs charged with running the scheme. As a result some boroughs make a profit while boroughs such as Surrey Heath and Guildford make a loss.

Just how much all these major problems concern Conservative Surrey is reflected in the fact they have time to spend debating the absence of a referendum about Europe and the rights and wrongs of identity cards when the Council meets. The final break with any element of one nation Conservatism has come with the election of Dr Povey as leader of the council. He will continue policies of recent years that have lead to the disgrace of affluent Surrey failing our needy and vulnerable children. I look at our Surrey and think this will be what a Cameron government will be like. Meanwhile Cameron writes on the Tories election leaflet delivered here…”it is Conservative councils which are delivering better services and value for money.” Who is kidding who in Surrey?