Rosamund Catherine Kayes

Personal Party Website: http://roskayes.mycouncillor.org.uk/


http://www.libdems.org.uk/ros_kayes

Ros Kayes
West Dorset

Brought up in the Midlands, Ros graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1985, later completing an MA, a PGCE and an Advanced Diploma in Counselling & Psychotherapy. She has worked for the BBC and GLC conducting social surveys, as well as in the fields of education and health, becoming Deputy Head of a Sixth Form unit in Dorking, a post which she left to have children and work as Counsellor in General Practice in a large GP surgery in Yeovil .

In 2007 Ros was elected to West Dorset District Council, where she is Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem Group. In 2010 she was the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate in the adjacent constituency of South Dorset, achieving the biggest increase in vote share for the Lib Dems in any Dorset constituency. In 2013 she was elected as the Bridport member for Dorset County Council where she specializes in adult and community services and health issues.

A tireless social and community activist, as well as developing innovative policy ideas, Ros has a record of delivering economic change on the ground and is involved in a number of projects to improve housing, skills training and the economy in West Dorset. In 2009 she managed to get £220,000 of European funding for the Skills for Self Reliance project, a public/private partnership delivering eco-skills training in West Dorset. In 2012 Ros set up Skills Training Bridport, a training social enterprise whose Fresh Start project in its first year supported 34 unemployed adults into employment, education or training. Other initiatives include the Bridport Community Justice Panel - a restorative justice scheme that it is hoped will be rolled out throughout Dorset. As Parliamentary Candidate for South Dorset in 2010, Ros spearheaded the campaign to save Weymouth Women's Refuge.

Ros believes strongly that politicians, and especially Members of Parliament, have a responsibility to support their local economy. She will be prepared to speak out when decisions nationally work against the interests of her constituents. A member of the Green Liberal Democrats, she believes that only the Liberal Democrats have the combination of rigour, flair and innovation required to develop new answers to the problems faced by a western economy which is being outpaced by newer industrialized nations but whose welfare, health and social care costs are on the increase. A social liberal, her interests lie in economic development, in protecting the vulnerable and in innovative delivery of social justice in the three fundamental areas of welfare reform: housing, health and social care, and education and training.