We MUST hear from Children and Families about these vital issues

Brent Council's website is acting up but there still appears to be no report from Children and Families going to the Executive this evening.

I have posted before on this silence regarding a major area of Council business.  Here are some of the things happening right now that the Executive really should be asking about:

CHILDREN'S SAFEGUARDING - The possible injury or death of a child is quite high up in Brent Council's Corporate Risk Assessment and the Council's last Ofsted inspection in this area was only 'satisfactory' with some inadequate areas.

CHILDREN NOT IN SCHOOL - Failure to meet statutory obligations regarding offering all children of school age a school place is another issue on the Risk Register and it appears that some expansion programmes are falling behind.

FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT IN BRENT SCHOOL - A forth Brent headteacher hit the headlines in the Evening Standard last week after being suspended while investigations into financial management issues take place and the Copland accused appeared in court. These matters are damaging the reputation of Brent Council and Brent schools and deserve some scrutiny.

FREE SCHOOL - The School Expansion Report confirmed that the Council was seeking partners to set up a free school and this is something that split the local Labour Party.  Have any sponsors been found? Are they the rumoured Christian organisation?

ACADEMIES - Staff at Alperton high School have been on strike following the governing body's decision to seek Cooperative Academy status and Queens Park and Wembley High are  considering co-op conversion. All this will mean a further loss of money to the hard-pressed local authority. Meanwhile Sudbury Primary, already a foundation school, is also trying to fast-track to academy status. Sudbury was in the headlines last week for charging children to listen to the children's poet (and socialist activist) Michael Rosen.

COOPERATIVE TRUST - A public notice was published last week indicating Preston Manor All-though School's decision to go for Trust status with partners including The College of North West London, the Wembley Primary School Cluster and Woodfield Special School. The LA will have one trustee on the board.  

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT SERVICE - It appears that Brent Primary Headteachers' Group  has rejected all the possible options for future school improvement services and in-service education provision put forward by the Council and appear to be determined to 'go it alone' unless the SIS comes up with something better. This raises all sorts of questions about whether schools have the ability to provide such a service, how it will affect the workload of headteachers, and whether it will be sufficiently stringent to ensure that failing schools are spotted early on before children are damaged.


Neither the Lib Dem nor Tory opposition groups have a spokesperson on Children and Families, despite it being a major department, and it seems to me that these issues are not being given the attention they deserve.

The lack of leadership on education from either Brent officers or councillors has created a vacuum which ate present appears to have been filled by the two Johns: Yates and Simpson who as consultants are advising Brent primary headteachers.

Schools in crisis - assurances needed from Children and Families

There's lots happening regarding schools in Brent at the moment so it is a bit of a surprise to see that no report from the Children and Families department has been tabled for the Executive Meeting on May 21st LINK

Brent Council was featured in the Times Education Supplement on May 4th LINK in an article entitled 'Financial scandal continues to plague Brent Council'. This was followed up a front page story in the Brent and Kilburn Times this week.

The TES links four stories of financial mismanagement commencing with the Copland High School allegations of unlawful bonuses which has resulted in the arrest and bailing of seven staff and a governor , the sacking of the head of Furness Primary for 'serious mismanagement' and the suspension of the head of Kensal Primary for 'alleged breaches of financial regulation'. They are joined by Malorees Junior School this week where it is claimed that the school spends 101% of its budget on staffing compared with the 80-85% of most schools and is heading for a deficit of £0.25m within the next two years.

The TES states:

The school's chair of governors, Brent councillor Patricia Harrison, resigned in April after parents called for her departure and accused her of incompetence. One letter from a parent said the governors at Malorees Junior had "spectacularly failed the children in this school, their families and can only have left the teaching and support staff feeling vulnerable, professionally bruised and demoralised".

Presumably the Children and Families Department is undertaking some kind of investigation which will establish the facts of the matter. It should also ask why Brent Council's monitoring and auditing processes, despite the Copland case now being three years old, still seem to fail  to unearth such problems and deal with them quickly. It appears that the Malorees staff will suffer the consequences with teachers being reduced from 16 to 12 and others losing their allowances. Councillors surely need to know how the quality  educational provision will be maintained in this situation.

Another matter deserving of  discussion is the possible academy conversion of four more Brent high schools and the teaching unions' threat of strike action to secure secret ballots of staff and parents over the issue. The financial consequences to the overall education budget of such a move is a matter of great concern, particularly as the Council has warned schools about the flat budget settlements to be expected over the next three years. The possibility of Brent Council forming a partnership with a free school provider to create a new school in Brent should also be reported on.

Diminishing school budgets and the withdrawal of the authority from provision of all but core educational services have put also put the future of the borough's School Improvement Service in the balance. It is quite likely that the Service will not exist in its present form by April 2013.  This will impact on monitoring of the quality of teaching and learning in our schools. Schools in danger of failing may not in future be quickly identified and remedial action taken.

It would be disastrous if cuts in experienced staff that have already hit the financial management section of Children and Families and may have contributed to the situation of Malorees and other schools, are compounded by cuts that will reduce the school improvement expertise that has raised standards across Brent.

There has rightly been a sharp focus on the provision of additional school places to cater for the increase in the borough's pupil population and this has been led by the Major Projects and Regeneration Department. Children and Families need to be assuring councillors and the public that the urgent and serious  issues outlined above are under control and  receiving the attention they deserve.