Brent Council CEO Christine Gilbert Announces ‘Whistle Blowing Hotline’

Christine Gilbert

 

 

                       Confidential hotline for concerned staff’ planned.

Guest Blog by 'Gilbert Harding'

Christine Gilbert, perpetual ‘interim’ CEO of Brent Council which, together with HR lead and interpersonal staff relations role-model Cara Davani, was recently found guilty of racial discrimination, victimisation and workplace bullying,  has announced her plans  to set up ‘a confidential whistle-blower hotline so that any staff who had serious concerns’ could communicate their worries to their bosses.

This would be a great relief to those many Brent Council employees who have, openly on this blog, privately to Martin Francis, and most recently and publicly to Private Eye, expressed their ‘serious concerns’ about bullying, victimisation, threats of dismissal, cronyism, gagging clauses  and corruption at Brent Council’s Civic Centre.  Such a move would be welcomed as an appropriate intervention by a leader wanting to find out what was really going on in her organisation with a view to turning a troubled situation round in an open and transparent way.  

Slightly disappointingly, however, Ms Gilbert made the whistle-blower announcement quoted above not recently but a whole 6 years ago on December 10^th 2008 to a Commons Select Committee and in relation to her then job as Head of Ofsted (the previous employer also of Cara Davani, Clive Heaphy and Ark Academies employee Dame Sally Morgan).    

(Details HERE )

Nevertheless, Brent Council staff will be feeling confident that Ms Gilbert’s passionate desire to let some light into the murkier corners of institutional malpractice will not have faded since her earlier statement and that her principles remain intact.

 Indeed, one hooded and masked Civic Centre employee was relaxed enough yesterday to tell me, in an unsigned encrypted  message smuggled out  past a cordon of G4S security personnel and hidden in a camouflage-pattern green and  brown envelope :  ‘I think I can speak for all my anonymous colleagues when I say that I believe Ms Gilbert’s earlier interest in openness and transparency and her very real and publicly declared desire to tap into the honest, uncensored and unintimidated experience of the people she leads, still burn as  brightly now in 2014 as they did in 2008.’

A statement from Ms Gilbert on plans for a new updated whistle-blower hotline is now expected. But perhaps not for another 6 years.

Alternatively, less patient Civic Centre whistle-blowers may find it more productive to communicate their serious concerns more urgently to Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs' contact here:

                                            tim.minogue@private-eye.co.uk.

(Ms Gilbert was unavailable for comment).

ARK Academy: And the dismissal letters went out two by two...

Guest post by 'Ark Angel'

Full union meeting at Copland today as letters go out to those facing the chop next April in the next stage of the cull: only about 50 teachers  took ‘voluntary’ redundancy or otherwise bailed out in the summer. This was not good enough and Targets Must Be Met so some more will have to go. During and after the meeting a number of points were raised including:

·         The fact that the Chair of Ofsted  (which condemned Copland to forced Academy status) is Dame Sally Morgan. Dame Sally Morgan is also an ‘Advisor’ to Ark  Academies. Ark Academies is the business that Copland is being flogged off to*. (This kind of potential conflict of interest is one about which Private Eye magazine has been trying for some time without success to get a straight answer from Ofsted).

·         The reputation that Academies have of a very high staff turnover-rate as a result of poor conditions of service and a bullying management  culture. Reports of teachers on one year contracts only being told on the last day of summer term that their contract was terminated, with no chance even to say goodbye to their classes .

·         The inflated claims of the ‘success’ of the Wembley Ark Academy when they’ve only just got a third year of secondary students in. Even Ian Duncan Smith could manage that, (especially if his school had an ‘Advisor’ who was also Chair of Ofsted). 

·         The inability of Michael Pavey to provide any solid supporting evidence for his decisions regarding Copland other than ones which are inherently compromised by, for example, the historic exceptionalism of Copland’s mismanagement at school and local authority level; events at Crest;  the ability of even Tory Redbridge Council to defend democratic, locally-run education;  and the dubious integrity of an Ofsted organisation which is generally seen as an arm of Michael Gove’s DfE  (with some questionable links to Academy chains). 

·         The timing. The tide is turning against Academies. Sweden is no longer mentioned by Gove because they’ve gone off Academies. Finland never had them despite being praised by Gove. Only half the schools in this country are Academies and comparable countries to ours are dismantling them. Soon they’ll be seen as an historical aberration. Like Betamax. Or Simon Cowell’s trousers.

The mood of the meeting was resolute and determined. Action against the Ark plans and the axing of staff looks like being stepped up.

Next stage of the cull will be Management.

*For  Dame Sally’s inevitable expenses scandal details, see LINK