Brent Council names Nigel Chapman as the new Corporate Director of Children and Families

 Brent Council has named Gail Tolley's successorfor Children and Young People, now names as Corporate Director after senior management reorganisation LINK.

From Brent Council:

Nigel Chapman is to become Brent’s Corporate Director for Children and Young People, after nine years in the borough. He will assume the role in September, following the retirement of Gail Tolley. 

Beginning his career as a social worker in 1998, Nigel worked his way up through the ranks in a series of charity and London Council roles. In 2013 Nigel joined Brent from Hackney Council, as Head of Service responsible for fostering, adoption and looked after children. Nigel became an Operational Director in 2016, where he oversees social work, early help and inclusion services (SEND). 

During this time, Brent has significantly improved outcomes for children. This progress was recognised by Ofsted, who judged the council’s children’s social care services to be good with outstanding features for the first time in 2018. In 2019 the Youth Offending Service was judged to be ‘good’, and in the same year services for children with SEND in the local area received a positive inspection outcome.

Carolyn Downs, Chief Executive of Brent Council, said:

Colleagues and partners who have worked with Nigel know that he puts the interests of children and young people at the centre of everything he does.

 His experience, starting as a social worker and now becoming our new Corporate Director for Children and Young People means Nigel brings a wealth of experience and expertise to his new role, with both front-line and strategic skills.

Nigel has a deep understanding of Brent’s young people – their hopes, ambitions, as well as the barriers that need breaking down to help them achieve their full potential.

Nigel said:

 So much progress has already been made to improve outcomes for children in Brent, from those in our care to an impressive 97% of local state schools graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. I’m excited to build on this excellent work.

Times are tough for many families right now, with bills going up and continued fall-out from the pandemic. Whilst we’ll always deal with families in crisis and safeguarding those children most in need, I am passionate about the importance of early-intervention.

Our Family Wellbeing Centres already play an important role in supporting parents and young people, and it is  likely that this  innovative approach will soon be adopted nationally. We’ll continue to push new boundaries to give our children the best start in life.

Nigel will take up the post at a time when numerous national debates are playing out about the best way of designing and delivering services for children and young people, from the government’s Schools White Paper, SEND Review, and the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

Cllr Mili Patel takes on the challenge of leading on Children and Young People

Cllr Mili Patel (Alperton) has taken over the role of Lead Member for Children and Young People in the Brent Cabinet.   She succeeds Cllr Wilhelmina Mitchell-Murray whose role had been covered by Cllr Muhammed Butt since December 1st 2016 because Cllr Mitchell-Murray was said to unwell. Today the Kilburn Times has quoted Muhammed Butt as saying that Cllr Mitchell-Murray had resigned for 'personal reasons.

The resignation means that three members of the 8 strong Cabinet (Pavey, Mashari and Mitchell-Murray) have resigned since Butt's successful retention of the Labour leadership in May 2016 after a challenge from Michael Pavey.

Cllr Patel had been Lead Member for just 25 minutes when she was asked to speak at last night's Council Meeting so  understandably she limited herself to a brief introduction.

Cllr Patel went to Furness Primary School and Claremont High and is a parliamentary researcher.   She previously worked for Frank Dobbs MP. She is married to fellow Brent councillor  Matt Kelcher who is chair of Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee.

Mili Patel is on the board of Brent Housing Partnership which is likely to be dismantled when Brent Council brings council housing back in-house.

Her other Council positions are listed as:

• Corporate Parenting Committee (Chair)
• Council
• Employees' Joint Consultative Committee
• General Purposes Committee
• Health and Wellbeing Board
• Highways Committee

The Children and Young People position is challenging at the best of time, covering as it does local authority schools, children's social work, safeguarding and the wellbeing of all young children and young people in Brent regardless of the type of school that they attend, but with funding cuts to schools in the headlines, the job is even more daunting.

Cllr Patel would have got a taste of that in the debate that took place at Council on school funding  when the following Labour motion was discussed. She did not contribute to the debate.

PROTECT BRENT’S SCHOOLS FROM GOVERNMENT CUTS

This Council condemns government proposals for a National Schools Funding Formula and rejects any effort to pay for the failure of an ideologically imposed programme of austerity by choking off essential and already insufficient funding for the education of children and young people in Brent.

Councillor Patricia Harrison Preston Ward

During the debate Cllr John Warren lambasted various Labour councillors quoting the bank balances of schools where they were governors. He claimed Brent schools had up to £30m  stashed away.  He did not mention that schools have to justify these  balances to the Council  and provide evidence of the ear-marked projects to which they are allocated.

The debate can be seen here:

Cllr Butt takes over Cllr Mitchell Murray's lead member role for time being

Following rumours circulating in the Brent Civic Centre 'village' about the Cabinet role of Cllr Wilhelmina Mitchell Murray, lead member for children and young people, a Brent Council spokesperson said:

"Cllr Wilhelmina Mitchell Murray has informed us that sheis currently unwell and hopes to return in January. Cllr Butt is currently carrying out her statutory duties."

Cllr Mitchell Murray is one of the three Wembley Central councillors. The others are Cllr Krupa Sheth and Cllr Sam Stopp.

Brent admits single Scrutiny Committee failures and proposes a change to two committee system

Less than two years after the adoption of the controversial decision to have just one Scrutiny Committee in Brent proposals are to go before the Cabinet to have two Scrutiny Committees. If adopted this would go to the May Council AGM.

The proposal outlines the issues that have arisen from the single committee structure, some of which were forecats by a guest blog on Wembley Matters in May 2014 LINK:

.        The purpose of moving to a single Scrutiny Committee meeting on a frequent basis was to enable a more consistent, holistic and streamlined approach to all scrutiny activities commissioned by a single committee. The introduction of a single committee to replace the previous four themed scrutiny committees also made a considerable saving in terms of member allowances. Prior to May 2014 each scrutiny committee had a chair, vice-chair and six members with respective allowances. The annual potential cost of each committee was £38,020 in member allowances, making a total for the whole scrutiny function of potentially £152,080. The current cost of member allowances for a single scrutiny committee is potentially £36,190 making a potential saving of £115,890 on the previous model. These costings are maximum potential costs only as members already in receipt of a special responsibility allowance would not be entitled to a second special responsibility allowance for their scrutiny role. The costings nonetheless provide a useful illustration of the indicative costs implications. 


.        It was considered that operating separate scrutiny committees produced a fragmented approach to scrutiny with each committee developing its own work programme which did not always reflect the cross-cutting aspects of complex policy issues. It was also felt that a single committee would be a more effective use of the finite officer resources available to support scrutiny given the pressure on resources. 


.        However after nearly two years of operating the single Scrutiny Committee structure, the anticipated advantages have not outweighed the logistical issues of monthly meetings and has resulted in a concentration of scrutiny activities into a relatively small group of members and officers. 


.        Having one committee responsible for all scrutiny activities has meant that the committee has not developed in depth specialism and understanding of services or key policy agendas. With a wide variety of issues being considered at each meeting the agendas can be incoherent and this makes it difficult to develop continuity on specific subjects or issues between committee meetings. 


.         In particular the move away from themed committees has resulted in less active engagement of service areas in working constructively with scrutiny members as there is less perceived ownership of one corporate Scrutiny Committee. This has both distanced service departments from scrutiny and meant that less members overall are activity engaged in debate and discussion on the policy issues and performance of Council services. In practice the current model means that only eight members are actively engaged in scrutiny discussion on a regular basis (although other members who are not part of the formal scrutiny committee do contribute to task groups). Previously around 30 non–executive members regularly contributed to a scrutiny committee at least once a quarter. 


.        The single Scrutiny Committee model has also impacted on the development of a productive scrutiny relationship with statutory partners, particularly in relation to the duties of the Council to scrutinise the provision of local health services and partnership work on community safety. It has proved difficult to accommodate a consistent work programme on health issues, children’s services and adult social care within the single work programme. This has limited the development of an in depth understanding of these complex and critical service areas, which was noted in the findings of the recent Ofsted inspection of Brent’s Safeguarding and Looked After Children’s services. 


.        The disadvantage of a single Scrutiny Committee structure could not necessarily have been foreseen. Brent is still the only Council in London to operate a single scrutiny committee structure, although three others have a main committee with themed sub-committees. However as the Council enters the next phase of change with the development of the Brent 2020 Vision and the programme of outcome based reviews, it is vital that we reconsider the most appropriate scrutiny structure which will facilitate the effective engagement of members in shaping the future direction of the Council via the Scrutiny function. This is particularly important given the political composition of the Council and the challenging nature of the issues the borough faces. 


The report goes on to propose a two committee structure to remedy the situation after setting out the role of Scrutiny:

 

.        There are a number of key objectives which any new scrutiny structure should be designed to achieve. These are:-

·      To enable non-executive members to develop a thorough understanding of key policy and service issues which supports effective and constructive scrutiny of performance and decision-making across Council services and meets the statutory requirements of scrutiny. 


·      Maximises the number of Members engaged in regular scrutiny activities and enables non-executive members to contribute to the shaping of Council policy at the right point in the policy development process. 


·      A structure that covers both the breadth of internal and external issues but also provides sufficient scope for the committee to develop specialisation and become experts in their subject areas. 


·      The frequency of scrutiny meetings is aligned to the decision-making timetable and enables high quality reports to be produced with scrutiny input made at the right time in the development of options and proposals. 


·      Can take a holistic view of partnership, performance and resourcing issues in relation to the individual service or issue under scrutiny. 


·      Enables clear accountability of Lead members and senior officers for decisions and service performance. 


·      The scrutiny function should be responsive to the views and concerns of service users and residents, actively seeking their opinions to shape their work programme. 


·      Is properly resourced and supported by senior officers and services within the Council and the contribution of scrutiny members is a valued part in the process of defining the Council’s future policy direction. 


.        3.15  In order to achieve these objectives it is therefore proposed that the future Scrutiny committee structure should, as set out below, be more closely aligned to the organisational structure of the Council as well as providing more opportunity for in-depth scrutiny.

 
Proposed Scrutiny Structure 


The proposal is to have two scrutiny committees combining the following remits:- 


·      Community and Well being Scrutiny Committee 

This committee would cover Housing, Adult Social Care, Public Health and the statutory responsibilities with regard to scrutiny of local health services and major reconfigurations of provision. It would also scrutinise the children and young people’s service, partnership work undertaken by the Children’s Trust and scrutiny of Safeguarding arrangements. The committee would be composed of eight elected members (seven from the Labour Group and one opposition group member which is consistent with current political balance arrangements). The four voting education co-opted members and the two non voting education co-opted members would be part of this committee. 

·      Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee 

This committee would cover corporate resources, (including Customer Services, Policy, Partnerships and Performance, Procurement and IT) as well as regeneration, environment and community safety. The committee would be composed of eight elected members (seven from the Labour Group and one opposition group member which is consistent with current political balance arrangements). 

The indicative cost implications in respect of special responsibility allowances are set out below. As previously stated, however, these costings are potential maximum costs only and actual costs are likely to be lower as some of the members will already be in receipt of a special responsibility allowance. 
In addition, in accordance with the provisions of the Members’ Allowance Scheme, a 1% uplift in allowances has been factored in. On this basis the total potential costs are £40,614 higher than the current scrutiny structure. 


2 x Chairs allowance at £14,140
2 x Vice Chairs at £5,050
12 x SRA allowance for committee members at £3,202

Total

£28,280 £10,100 £38,424

£76,804

  

The full report can be found HERE

Coming Soon Club takes over Wembley's Chesterfield House

The Coming Soon Club is taking over Chesterfield House, the previous Brent Children and Families Office, which is at the corner of Wembley High Road and Park Lane.

Education Commission honestly critiques Brent's record but does it have the answers?

Regular readers of Wembley Matters will be aware of concerns over the fragmentation of education in the borough as free schools are proposed and academy conversions take place. The provision of additional school places has been ad hoc and often last minute and led by the Regeneration  department of the Council rather than Children and Families.

An Education commission set up by Chief Executive Christine Gilbert, a former head of Ofsted, is reporting to the next Cabinet on Monday.  The report is to be welcomed but needs a much wider discussion. It is hard to see how how its far-reaching recommendations can be given proper consideration at a meeting with much else on the agenda and a lead member for Children and Families only a few weeks into her post.

The introduction starkly sets out the issues which in effect also constitutes a critique of the lack of leadership on education in the borough, a matter also raised on this blog.

Brent boasts impressive results in early years education and at key stage 1. Its GCSE results are close to the London average and its key stage 5 results are higher than the London average. But these achievements obscure less flattering statistics. 

Given the excellent education the youngest children in Brent receive, it would be reasonable to expect progress would be equally impressive by the time they reach key stage 2. Unfortunately, it is not. Brent lags the London average at key stage 2 and its position relative to the other 32 boroughs is getting worse: it slipped from 15th place in 2012 to 22nd last year. This trend cannot be allowed to continue. 

A few years ago, Brent outperformed most London authorities at GCSE, now it barely manages to be average. Although overall its youngsters perform creditably, disproportionately few of them get the highest grades. And even though a third of the authority’s secondary schools are classed as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted – compared to less than a quarter nationally – it has the highest proportion of ‘Inadequate’ schools in London. 

Unfortunately, these failings are magnified by a lack of shared vision and the absence of a strong, energetic relationship between the local authority and its schools. All want the best for the children in their care but too often good intentions are unsupported by good practice. And where good practice exists it is too rarely shared.

In short, education in Brent is muddling through; scrambling reactively to avoid immediate problems when it should be planning ahead, pulling together and setting its sights on becoming one of the highest performing boroughs in London so that children and young people thrive in all Brent Schools.

There are 34 recommendations in the report which I reproduce below.  The full report needs careful consideration but two things immediately strike me. One is the contradiction betweem the authority cutting back on its School Improvement Service whilst at the same time wanting to get to know its schools better and have early warning of any difficulties. Will handing over responsibility to the Brent Schools Partnership, an organisation at an early stage of development, be sufficient to address this problem. There is a worrying absence of any reference to the role of School Improvement Partners (SIPs), the 'inspectors' of old, in the school improvement process, and consideration of their effectiveness and quality control.

Secondly, given the fact that Crest Academy, City Academy and now Alperton Academy have received less than Good, and sometimes Inadequate Ofsted ratings, and the failure of two planned Free Schools to open, is the proposed cooperation with academy and free school providers a viable option?

The impact of cuts and staffing uncertainties is honestly assessed:

Feedback to the Commission indicated that the Council’s approach towards many issues is not sufficiently strategic or ambitious. It is described as often being too reactive and too late.

The Commission was given the example of the abolition of assessment levels, as announced by the Secretary of State. There seems little preparation for this and, consequently, a risk that each school will act separately, resulting in a lack of common language about assessment and learning across the borough.

Another example is the lack of forward planning for free schools meals capacity.

Head teachers believe that, to some extent, significant reductions in education staffing, particularly at managerial levels, have made this inevitable.

Another factor is the lack of continuity of staff within the Council. Lots of interim posts add to the challenges of long-term strategic planning and reduce the drive to implement agreed priorities.

Establishing a staffing structure, which has resilience and continuity, should be a priority for the new Director, Children and Young People

RECOMMENDATIONS

Education Strategy and Leadership 

1.     The local authority should set out a clear statement about its own role, within the changing education landscape, for discussion with the education community. This should be rooted in ambitious aspirations for and expectations of Brent Children and Brent Schools. The statement should underline the moral imperative for all schools in the borough to have shared ownership for the education of all children in every Brent school.

2.     The role of the governing body as an important force for support, challenge and improvement should be recognised and the local authority should invest in the development of governors.

3.     A strategic group involving the principal education partners should be established, chaired by the new Director of Children and Young People, to drive forward the education strategy in conjunction with key education partners.

4.     This new strategic group should develop and agree the vision for education in the borough. This must not be a protracted process. The resulting vision should lead to a strategy which contains a few key goals that are owned by all key participants and result in well-defined, agreed actions.

5.     The local authority, in collaboration with schools themselves, should set out challenging but achievable excellence targets demonstrating high expectations for children in the borough. The Commission believes that these excellence targets should include an expectation that all schools in the authority will be good or better within three years and that outcomes at key stages 2 and 4 will be at least 2% above the London average within three years.

6.     The Leader of the Council and the Lead Member for Education should establish a forum for meeting on a termly basis with a group of representative head teachers to ensure the education strategy is being taken forward and to reinforce the importance of education as part of the political agenda of the council. 
 

Planning School Places 

7.     The local authority should produce an agreed strategy for place planning. The quality of education and the potential for school improvement in any expansions should be the foremost priority when determining the programme of expansion.

8.     The Council should appoint one head of service to be responsible for drawing up and implementing all aspects of the place planning strategy across the two departments that currently have responsibilities for place planning.

9.     The new Director of Children and Young People should urgently review the authority’s arrangements for projecting the future school population and the geographical spread across the Borough to ensure they are rigorous and fit for purpose.

10. The local authority should be proactive in encouraging the best schools in Brent and free school providers to set up new schools in areas where extra places are needed. The Council should encourage open competition in order to establish new schools.

11. The place planning strategy, and future updates about its progress, should be kept under review and progress should be discussed with school leaders, chairs of governors, academies, and faith and community groups, on a regular basis. 


Knowing Brent Schools

 

12. To support school improvement, the local authority should put in place a system to provide each school with a picture of how they perform against both local and national indicators. These would be a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators. The process for designing this system, in particular the evidence used, should be co-produced with schools, both head teachers and governors.

13. To support their role as champions and guardians of the needs and interest of children, the local authority should produce an annual report that should be easily accessible to parents and the local community. This should set out achievements and progress in education in Brent, as well as highlighting challenges and areas for development. It should be sent to the governing bodies of all schools in Brent as well as academy trusts, Ofsted and the Secretary of State.

14. The local authority should urgently investigate, with schools, the introduction of a data tracking system that can be used to risk assess the progress and performance of schools within the school year as well as at the end of the year. This system should be co-produced with head teachers and school governors.

15. Through the new strategic group, an agreed programme of peer reviews should be established between schools, drawing on best practice in models elsewhere. The peer review model should influence Brent’s current Rapid Improvement Groups (RIG) process. Regular development opportunities should be provided for teachers to observe good practice in other schools.

16. The local authority and schools should devise a programme of activities to showcase excellence and interesting practice in education in Brent

17. The local authority, in conjunction with the Brent Schools Partnership and teaching schools, should publish case studies of good practice in local schools, before the end of 2014. This should give a clear picture of what good and outstanding schools look like in practice.

18. An annual schools awards scheme should be established in 2014/15 to recognise and celebrate practice in Brent schools. 
 

Promoting and supporting school - to - school networks 

19. As part of its changing role, the local authority should work together with all education partners to build the capacity and effectiveness of the Brent School Partnership. This should include its ability to commission teaching schools and other excellent providers in Brent.

20. The Brent School Partnership and the local authority should be encouraged to learn lessons for school partnerships from other authorities and from families of schools, such as chains, federations and trusts.

21. Mechanisms should be put in place across all schools in the borough for school-to- school challenge and support in order to improve practice and build shared ownership for the education of all children in Brent schools. The local authority should play a key role, encouraging schools to consider the benefits of cluster and other partnership arrangements and to break down any barriers that may prevent such collaboration.

22. The local authority should provide funding to the Brent School Partnership to appoint a full time Director, or coordinator, for two years with a formal review built into the end of year 1.

23. The new strategic group (see recommendation 2) should work with the Brent School Partnership steering group to agree a set of priorities and a costed programme for action in the school year, 2014-2015, for all schools. The local education authority should provide financial support to incentivise collaboration and work in clusters or networks. It should also agree a process for how the Brent School Partnership and teaching schools might be commissioned to provide and broker support for schools causing concern, including use of the Rapid Improvement Group process.

Providing challenge to address weaknesses

24. There should be more forensic examination of the schools that are assessed as being at risk or requiring improvement through investigation of teaching and its impact on learning in the classroom.

25. There is a need for more effective support for schools that are struggling, drawing on the wider capacity and expertise of other Brent schools.

26. The local authority should be bolder in deploying executive heads, NLEs, LLEs, teaching schools, federations and academy sponsors to ensure that schools judged inadequate or requiring improvement have the necessary leadership and governance expertise to drive improvement.

27. The local authority needs to identify underperformance at an early stage and to be prepared to be more robust in how it addresses concerns, including issues relating to underperformance in leadership. 


Improving school governance 

28. All schools in Brent should review their governance arrangements and consider reconstituting their governing body in line with the new regulations.

29. The local authority should complete and implement its review for nominating local authority governors with a view to speeding up the process, drawing in a wider pool of talent and making the skills and capacity of nominees the primary criteria for nomination.

30. The local authority should produce guidance for schools on conducting audits of governor skills.

31. The local authority should give greater priority within the governor development programme to understanding and using data and to supporting the role of governors in school improvement.

32. The local authority should broker collaborations between pairs of governing bodies to scrutinise each other’s performance data and to engender confidence and skill in providing constructive challenge.

33. The local authority should look at opportunities for governors to observe how each other works, perhaps on a cluster or network basis, and through developing contacts in other boroughs to observe and learn about good practice.

34. The best chairs of governors should be encouraged to seek accreditation as National Leaders of Governance and be deployed to support other chairs.

THE FULL REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE

Brent Council prepared to act to ensure safety at Michaela Academy Free School

Responding to the story below about Brent Teachers' Panel's fears for the safety of childrren and staff over asbestos  at the Wembley Park Michaela Academy Free School, lead member for Childrren and Families, Cllr Michael Pavey has made the following statement:

Children must be absolutely safe in school. I look forward to the Michaela School clarifying these concerning points raised by local teachers. 

The Council has already supplied the Trade Unions with a full briefing on this important matter and we are very prepared to take further action if necessary.

Sufficient places in other schools for Year 7s if Brent free schools fail to open

In response to concerns I expressed about the fate of Year 7 pupils in  September 2014 if the free schools they have been offered do not  find premises or open in time, Sara Williams, Strategic Director of Children and Families states:

There are sufficient places in Brent secondary schools to offer places to all Brent children offered places at Free Schools in the event that the Free Schools do not open. 

The admissions team always works throughout the summer to place pupils for September and this year will be no different. The council will do everything it can to support families if the need arises.

Gladstone Free School in Cricklewood and  Gateway Free School in Wembley Central have still not found premises. Katharine Birbalsingh has assured parents of children going to Michaela Academy that planning permission has been granted for building works at Arena House in Wembley Park. She assures them that although there may seem to be little evidence of any work going on (I can see none) there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

Brent Council's spending cut by £18m in proposed 2014-15 budget

Full Council on March 3rd will vote on the 2014-15 Budget which incorporates £17.8m reduction in service areas as set out below:

The situation is likely to be even worse in 2015-16 with a budget gap expected to be more than £33m.  The report going to the meeting states that the Council since 2010 has made £80m 'savings' at an average impact of £702 per household.'  The Council Tax proposed is £1,357.94 for a benchmark Band D property.

Further details on the impact of the savings/cuts are set out in the document below:

4,000 petitioners demand that the Queensbury Pub be saved for the community

Busy Rascals Mums and toddlers wait to present the petition

Local residents, especially parents from the Busy Rascals group, came along in strength this week, to present a 4,000 plus petition to Cllr Michael Pavey to save the Queensbury Pub from developers. Pavey is Brent Executive member for children and families so may seem a strange choice, but that is because the Queensbury is no ordinary pub - it is now recognised as an 'asset of community value' not just as an exellent pub but as the base for Busy Rascals, a parent and toddler group and National Childbirth Trust meetings.

Pavey received the petition, not in his official role, but as a councillor committed to the interests of children. Independent Make Willesden Green Candidate, Alex Colas (on the left of Michael Pavey) was there to show his support, as was I for the Greens and there were several prospective Labour Party councillors present, but the real message was that this was a non-politically aligned community campaign that intends to fight on for the common good.

Willesden Green has lost too much in the last year or so and cannot afford to lose any more community assets. The Queensbury campaign deserves all our support.

Cllr Pavey calls on local MPs to support School Places Crisis campaign

Cllr Michael Pavey has written to local MPs Barry Gardiner, Sarah Teather and Glenda Jackson asking them to support the 'School Places Crisis Campaign'. The campaign seeks the restoration of  power to local authorities to plan and build new schools to address the current shortage of primary school places.

The campaign has already been supported by Green MP Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader.

Pavey wrote:

Dear Barry, Sarah and Glenda,

I am writing to ask that you support the NUT's 'School Places Crisis' campaign: www.theschoolplacescrisis.com 

As you know, we have a terrible shortage of school places in Brent. As a Council we are proactively expanding our schools and opening up additional spaces such as the Gwenneth Rickus Building. Yet even with all these additional forms of entry the shortage continues.

Personally I believe the diversion of precious public money into Free Schools is a terrible distraction from the urgent challenge of providing additional places. It is absolutely essential that, rather than sitting back and hoping that appropriate providers establish appropriate Free Schools in appropriate locations, Government policy allows for the strategic planning of new school places. I firmly believe that this function is best performed by local authorities. 

To meet the ongoing shortage of school places it is absolutely essential that the law be changed to allow Councils to open new schools. I would be very interested to get your thoughts and would strongly encourage you to support the NUT campaign in the interests of Brent families.

Best wishes,

Michael.

Cllr. Michael Pavey

Lead Member for Children & Families

Labour Councillor for Barnhill, Brent Council