Key questions for the anti-cuts movement as councils start budget setting process

Brent Council, along with all other local councils and public sector bodies, are beginning the process of formulating its budget this month.   The anti-cuts movement is faced with what to say to councils as they review their policy in the face of reduced central government funding.

I outline some of the issues below. In the last two Brent by-elections Brent Green Party has stood anti-cuts candidates and the party as a whole has opposed the austerity agenda. However it is no secret that there has been disagreement over the minority Green council in Brighton and Hove, where a 'Purple Coalition' of Labour and Conservative councillors defeated the Green budget. The Greens rather than resigning, decided (with one dissenter) to work with the budget, which has led to the implementation of cuts.

Green Left, of which I am a member, organised a public debate on the situation which was reported in Red Pepper.LINK Romayne Phoenix, a supporter of Green Left, who is Chair of the Coalition of Resistance, stood in the recent leadership election which was won by Natalie Bennett. However, Will Duckworth,  her running mate, won the deputy leadership contest - not on the highest number of votes but because of our rules which require the deputy should be male if the leader is female and vice versa.

I think the main issues are:

1. Probably fundamental - whether local authorities have any real power when most of their funding comes from central government and that has been cut and is to be cut further.  LAs of whatever political complexion end up delivering central government cuts locally and have little room for manoeuvre once statutory services have been provided.
2. Whether devising a 'needs based' budget - either to shape an actual over-spend budget or as a campaigning tool to show the area needs more money than government.funding provides, is a demand we should make.
3.  If it is, how should we go about campaigning for such budgets and what form should consultations with the local community take?
4. Where do we stand on the raising of council taxes when local councils argue that this is the only way to protect vital services. Aren't  council tax rises,  particularly with the changes in council tax benefits, going to cut the disposable income of the poor even more?
5. If we decide that such rises are needed should we be triggering a local referendum on them to bring the cuts right out into open democratic debate?
6. The Brighton Question - the Socialist Party/TUSC are busy 'exposing' Labour (and probably Green) councils who implement cuts and advocating old Militant/Liverpool solutions of setting deficit budgets to defy the Coalition and being taken over by commissioners etc. They are planning to stand TUSC candidates in the local elections and re are busy building their platform now. (See Fightback Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/151133068251358/)
7. Recognise that cuts are being passed down the line and that soon school governing bodies will be facing making cuts in staffing (if they have not already done so). What should Green and anti-cuts governors do? (In answer to the question 'Are schools allowed to submit a deficit budget?' Brent Council  has responded 'No. A school that identifies a potential deficit must submit a deficit recovery plan, and work with [the council's] Children and Families Finance department to get formal approval for the deficit and recovery plan'.)
8. How do we build an anti-cuts movement across local authorities involving trade unions, political organisations, voluntary groups,  single issue local campaigns, patient groups, parents, etc?

Whistles, leaks and the public interest

In its 'Council at War' front page story on September 6th the Brent and Kilburn Times, LINK apart from  reporting the proceedings of the Brent Labour Group regarding the relationship between Muhammed Butt, the current Brent Council leader, and Gareth Daniel, then the Chief Executive, also published extracts from a series of e-mails.

The content of the e-mails vividly illustrated how the relationship was at breaking point. Daniel accused Butt of writing in a 'vitriolic and accusatory tone' and Butt described Daniel's e-mail as 'aggressive' and doubted whether they could continue to work together.

The Council's whistle blowing policy  is mainly aimed at uncovering fraud and offers protection to the whistleblower.. The most prominent local case has been Hank Roberts' reporting of alleged fraud over bonuses at Copland High School in a case which is ongoing. He has received official recognition for his whistleblowing.

In the case of community  schools the whistleblower can go to the chair of governors or the local authority. As far as academies go it is not quite so clear, particularly if the alleged fraud involves the chair of governors. In that case it goes straight to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State, who has an increasing number of such schools under his direct management.

What happens in the case of the council when the whistle blower is confronted with evidence of a major bust-up between the two most senior people on the council?  It is not fraud or even unlawful but surely it is in the public interest that residents should know about a matter that directly impacts on the efficient running of their public services. Surely council employees have a right to know that their employers are at war with each other?

So someone leaked the e-mails to the press; perhaps a council employee with access to the e-mail accounts of both men, or a councillor with similar access. Either way I imagine they would have to have been quite senior.  It seems unlikely that Butt or Daniel themselves may have done the leaking - but these are the strangest of times. The central question for me is: does this leak constitute a form of whistle blowing? Some might argue it was all just tittle tattle.

If the leaker was an employee, their union representatives may well be able to mount quite a strong case that the leak was in the public interest and so he or she should be protected. 

Policies are derived from the Public Interest Disclosures Act 1998 and this section seems relevant:

Disclosure of exceptionally serious failure.(1)A qualifying disclosure is made in accordance with this section if—
(a)the worker makes the disclosure in good faith,
(b)he reasonably believes that the information disclosed, and any allegation contained in it, are substantially true,
(c)he does not make the disclosure for purposes of personal gain,
(d)the relevant failure is of an exceptionally serious nature, and
(e)in all the circumstances of the case, it is reasonable for him to make the disclosure.
(2)In determining for the purposes of subsection (1)(e) whether it is reasonable for the worker to make the disclosure, regard shall be had, in particular, to the identity of the person to whom the disclosure is made.

The last section looks a little dodgy and comes back to the question of whether there was anyone else, other than the press, to whom a disclosure could have been made. There is also the question of whether the employee is in breach of a duty of confidentiality that forms part of their contract.

From the trade union representative point of view this could be a fascinating case. When I was a Natsopa print union representative at Reuters back in the 1960s I found myself handling some bizarre cases. One involved defending a worker who was found lighting paper in the basement of the Reuters building, apparently to set fire to it, Another was a studious young man fresh from college who took a week's unauthorised leave without contacting the management. On his return they decided to sack him.  It turned out that he had used the time to come up with some ideas for automating the workplace  and reducing the workforce. I found myself negotiating to stop the sacking of a union member who wanted to do us out of our jobs!

On reflection this case may be more straightforward and I wish Unison or any other union involved the best of luck.

(By the way I 'won' both cases with appropriate help for the workers involved)

ARCTIC ICE CAP MELT - VITAL MEETING WEDNESDAY

London Public Meeting Wednesday 26th September  7pm

  Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, London WC1 (Great Portland Street, Warren Street or Goodge Street tubes) 

 With Professor Peter Wadhams, Head of the Polar Oceans Physics Group at Cambridge University and John Vidal, Guardian Environment Correspondent (just back from a trip on the Greenpeace ship to the Arctic) To be sure of a place you can now register in advance for this meeting HERE

 Organised by the Campaign against Climate Change with the Arctic Methane Emergency Group 

The Arctic ice cap is disappearing before our eyes: this is the first large scale unmistakable impact of climate change, clearly visible from space. The Arctic sea-ice broke an all time record for lowest ever extent on Friday 24th August (after breaking several other records according to other methodologies of measurement by other scientific institutions etc…). This was a bombshell because it was nearly a month before you would expect the ice to reach its seasonal minimum – it is still decreasing now and we can expect it to continue decreasing until around mid September. (so we should probably have a good idea of the absolute minimum by the time of this meeting). 

What does this mean for our estimates of when the Arctic will be completely ice-free at the end of the summer?

What will be the consequences when this happens?

How will it affect the Arctic biosphere, its animals its indigenous people? 

More to the point how will it affect the rest of the world, global weather patterns  and the agriculture and food supplies dependent on those? 

What about the melting of the permafrost? How fast will that happen and how much will that accelerate global warming? 

What about the methane hydrates under the Arctic ocean?. How suddenly might they be released? Are we looking at apocalypse tomorrow? 

Professor Wadhams is a leading expert on sea ice. Whilst the forecasts of the IPCC for instance have been left well behind he has been at the forefront of those in the scientific community predicting a rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice. In his own words : 

For 40 years I have been measuring sea ice thickness in the Arctic from UK submarines. I first detected substantial thinning in 1990, and since the most recent submarine voyage in 2007 I have been warning that the combination of sea ice retreat and a massive amount of thinning will lead to the disappearance of the summer sea ice by as early as 2015. Despite the fact that this is a simple extrapolation of a clear and measured trend I have been vilified by scientific colleagues for making such a seemingly radical prediction. I am pleased to see these same colleagues now jumping on the bandwagon and supporting my prediction

Come to this meeting to find out how significant what we are now seeing really is – and what the future might hold.

Time for a Brent campaign for accountable and equal education?

'At the heart of every child...is a unique genius and personality. What we should be doing is to allow the spark of that genius to catch fire, to burn brightly and shine'

Michael Morpugo          

'Though this (Exam and Test) cult pretends that it can discern differences between people and makes judgements on their worth, this has little relation to real people's real worth in the real world, where all kinds of other capabilities are needed which the cult can't and doesn't test. eg ability to contribute to and learn from others in the process of performing a task; being flexible when confronted by the unexpected; knowing what to do and how to do it if required to research, investigate or enquire - particularly if the enquiry is going to involve more than one person; being able to motivate oneself (or a group of people) without an outside authority demanding that you do so' 

Michael Rosen        

Getting carried away at the Brent Education Debate

I cannot offer a comprehensive summary of the speeches made at the Brent Education debate this week by Cllr Mary Arnold (lead member for children and families), Jon O'Connor (Cooperative College), Melissa Benn (local parent and author) and Hank Roberts (President ATL). This was because I was due to speak further down the list and constantly updating what I was going to say as other speakers raised the issues that I had planned to cover.  Always a problem with a list of speakers. I hope to publish something more from an attendee later.

What I can do, however,  is outline some of the key themes that emerged.

Melissa Benn spoke about the introduction of the market into education and the way the state sector was being opened up to profit makers. She spoke about the continuities of approach of both Conservatives and Labour but also expressed hopes about Labour's current policy review. I broadened the analysis to suggest that the destruction of the post-war settlement which created the welfare state was an attack on the alternative, communitarian values of the public sector because of the threat they posed to the market values of competition and profit making.  The bottom up innovations by teachers in the 1970s and 80s and their broad and progressive definitions of the nature and purposes of education had been attacked through the abolition of the ILEA, removal of teachers' wage bargaining, the national curriculum,  testing, league tables and centralised systems such as the Numeracy and Literacy strategies. There has also been changes in teaching training which served the new agenda. Teachers, as well as pupils, were being disciplined into the market.

The threat of fragmentation of the school system through  academies and free schools was also a recurring theme.  The lack of democratic accountability, limited parental representation and the  limited powers of the LA to intervene could not bring about just fragmentation and limit the ability to plan school places, but could also create segregation and limit access for children with disabilities or special needs. I pointed out that although we didn't talk about it there was already segregation in Brent schools. I mentioned two cases of places in Brent where a community school and a faith school were next to each other. When children left at the end of the day, one school's pupils would be mainly white and Afro-Caribbean and the other mainly Somalian and Middle Eastern. (Clearly here religion and ethnicity overlap).

Cllr Mary Arnold said that in order to provide school places, and because all new schools had to be either free schools or academies, the council were trying to find an acceptable free school partner. This was better than having a less acceptable one turn up in the borough. The council had devised criteria LINK that the partner would have to meet.  I expressed doubt that a partner would come forward that would meet these criteria as justification for creating free schools and academies was not to be bound by such demands. I expressed concern about council's policy of increasing the size of primary schools to meet the school places shortage. Primary schools of more than 1,000 4-11 year old pupils would be the result and I questioned whether this was a suitable size of institution for young children. I said that the Green Party favourd small schools where the staff knew all the children and their families and where special needs and vulnerable children could be catered for. I was especially concerned about safeguarding in large schools.

Jon O'Connor, who has been involved in talks in Brent about setting up Cooperative Schools and Cooperative Trusts, stressed that such schools still followed LA admissions guidelines, were financed through the LA, did not take funds away from other schools and had a positive democratic ethos. He did not go into detail about Cooperative Academies which are a different kettle of fish. Melissa Benn, who is a parent at Queens Park Community School which has become an academy despite parental opposition, joined O'Connor in pleading that schools making very difficult decisions in the present climate, particularly in terms of the financial benefits of academy status, should not be harshly judged by others.  Hank Roberts said that he against academies and would carry on fighting even if only one survived, said that there was a hierarchy of preferences starting with the community school, through cooperative trusts and federations, cooperative academies to free schools and sponsored academies. O'Connor said that becoming a cooperative trust could protect schools from being 'enforced' academies but Roberts retorted that Gove would quickly close that loophole if it proved effective. He praised the staff and parents of Downshill  Primary in Haringey who had fought Gove's decision to enforce academy conversion. Cllr Mary Arnold said that the formation of a federation between Furness Primary and Oakington Manor Primary had prevented the possibility of the former being forced to become an academy.

The two Michaels quoted above introduce the next theme which is that of the impact of all these  'reforms' on childhood, the role of education, the nature of teaching and learning and much else beside. It is significant that they are both children's writers in regular contact with children and schools. The narrowing of the curriculum, exam and test driven teaching, the target culture (an audience member said that in one primary school children responded to their name being called in the register with their targets rather than 'Yes Miss') and packed timetables all impact on children. With the pressure of testing, even now extended to phonic testing of infants, the abolition of the EMA, introduction of  tuition fees and prop[sects of unemployment our children are under pressure as never before. I described how when I was a headteacher, a parent accused the school of putting so much pressure on her daughter regarding SATs that she was being robbed of her childhood. I urged that children,  rather than the needs of industry and international PISA comparisons, be put at the centre of education. We needed to reclaim the right to childhood as well as reclaim our schools. 

The last theme, proposed by Pete Firmin of Brent TUC, was that of resistance to what was going in education just as there is resistance to the destruction of the health service. A parent voiced, to loud applause her determination to resist the increasingly political role of Ofsted by promoting a parent strike when Ofsted visited, with children being kept off school. Cllr Mary Arnold spoke about demands that were being formulated through  London Councils that would mean a united strategy across London and cooperation between boroughs.  I suggested that with the demise of the local Campaign for the Advancement of State Education (CASE) and the Brent Federation of School Governors that from the meeting we should build a broad-based campaign involving parents, teachers, governors and students  on the basis of the  basic principles emerging from the meeting.

Jon O'Connor had been been busy with pen and pad as I was speaking and suggested a campaign called Building the Right Education Now Together (BRENT).

A little clumsy perhaps?

More than 70 people attended the debate which was very ably chaired by Gill Wood a local parent and governor. The audience included students, parents, teachers, governors and the headteachers of Copland, Kingsbury and Preston Manor High Schools. Unfortunately, although I don't know them all by sight, I could see no primary headteachers at the meeting.