Friday, 22 March 2013

Challenge privatisation - join the Barnet Spring March

Barnet is in the vanguard of privatisation of services and the destruction of democratically accountable local government. Join the protest.

Thursday, 21 March 2013

Gilbert wields the axe as senior posts go on Brent Council

The proposed structure - click to enlarge
There was a flurry of consternation at the Health Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee the other evening when members were shocked to discover the Director of Adult Social Care had seemed to suddenly disappear. A muttered explanation was not audible to the public gallery.

Christine Gilbert
An explanation seems to lie in the Brent Council Management Restructuring paper that is going to the General Purposes Committee on March 28th. The paper from Christine Gilbert, Interim Chief Executive proposes the amalgamation of a number of departments which include a new Education, Health and Social Care Department.

The proposals aim to take advantage of the move to the Civic Centre to defragment services, restructure in line with the shrinking Council and save about £900,000. A new post of Assistant Chief Executive is created.

There will be consultation on the changes before the first take effect in May 2013.

To save readers from navigating around the Brent website I have made the paper available below.

12 year old student gets national coverage on poor state of Copland's building

In a piece recorded the day before the recent Ofsted, Copland High School 12 year old student Khadija was on the World at One today. She had raised the issue of the school's crumbling build with David Cameron a year ago in a face to face meeting and he had promised to investigate. Little has happened since.

The DfE were unable to supply a spokesman to answer her criticisms.

There are pictures on the World at One Facebook HERE You do not have to have a Facebook account to see them,


Natalie Bennett on Question Time with Michael Gove tonight

Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader, will be taking part in Question Time tonight on BBC1 at 10.40pm. You can watch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rgszs/Question_Time_21_03_2013/

Other panelists include:

Michael Gove MP
Emily Thornberry MP
Mark Littlewood, Director General of IEA
Anthony Horowitz, Author