Fightback at Tory Conference

Romayne Phoenix, Green Party, speaking at Right to Work Demonstration

Report on the demonstration from Sara Cox: The Brent Fightback Campaign sent a contingent to the demonstration in Birmingham on Sunday October 3rd that marked the beginning of the Conservative Party Conference. Marching behind the banners of the Brent Trades Council and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group were pensioners and students, employed and unemployed, trades unionists and service users including disability rights campaigners and people with learning disabilities. Trades Unions represented included the NUT and UCU teaching unions, the CWU postal workers' union, the RMT rail workers' union, bus drivers and others from UNITE. Together they braved the pouring rain to join a lively protest that brought together thousands united by their determination to resist the proposed cutbacks to jobs, services and the Welfare State that the Government is proposing to bring in to solve the bankers' crisis. 

For more information about Brent Fightback go to www.brenttuc.org.uk or email brentunited@gmail.com

Brent starts school budget claw back process

Brent Council is in the process of sending members of the Schools Finance Team into schools with large budget surpluses to examine the paperwork associated with their spending plans. The Department for Education have stipulated an 8% of the school budget share threshold for primary and special schools and 5% for secondary. However local authorities can take into account the reason the school is holding a large surplus before deciding whether it is excessive or not. Schools may hold balances above the threshold when they are being used for specific projects, especially around building works.

It is likely that in the Comprehensive Spending Review for 2011/14 to be published on October 20th that Local Authorities will be required to monitor balances closely and implement claw back more vigorously. Local Authorities coping with cuts in their overall budget may well be tempted to claw back as much as they can. However, schools using their own budgets for building works actually save LAs money by rebuilding and refurbishing schools out of the school's own money, rather than letting buildings deteriorate to such an extent that the LA has to use its own money to remedy the situation.. Schools often put money aside over a period of years in order to build new libraries, IT suites, toilets, kitchens and classrooms that enhance the quality of education and standards of achievement.

If surpluses are clawed back in a period of retrenchment it will also rebound on schools' capacity to withstand the impact of cuts and lead to staff cuts as staff costs form the bulk of school spending. This will be most keenly felt in the provision of ancillary staff including teaching assistants, learning mentors and parent liaison workers. All of whom do great work in providing for children requiring extra support in order to achieve heir potential.

Brent has identified 39 schools with surpluses giving a potential claw back of almost £8 after setting aside 'acceptable' carry forwards at the 8% and 5% levels. . However the schools have largely claimed that these are ear-marked for specific projects and this will now be verified by the Finance Team. Some schools however still have uncommitted balances of which the largest are Michael Sobell Sinai at £169,000 and St Marys RC Primary £108,000.

The Finance Team will be looking at the following:

1. Where schools have given details of specific projects, evidence of inclusion in the School Development Plan, approval at Governing Body/Finance Committee meetings and correspondence with other agencies such as Asset Management, Architects, Planning, is seen. Also timescales for completion of the projects.


2. Where funds are being used to cover salaries, they will be asked to show how the long term funding will be covered once the surplus balances have been used.


3. Where funds are being used to balance 2010/11 or 2011/12 budgets, they will be asked to show where the pressures are and what the long term aims are to address those pressures in the form of monthly budget monitoring and budget setting spreadsheets.

Lack of evidence will lead to Brent implementing the claw back mechanism  at the next budget setting cycle for 2011-12.

Preston Manor on Academy Road?

In August I high-lighted the fact the School Places document going before the Council Executive during the school summer holiday included proposals for an expansion of Preston Manor High School into an 'all-through' 5-19 school.

Things have moved quickly since then. Matthew Lantos, headteacher of Preston Manor, presented his plans to the governing body at their September meeting. There was disquiet because this was the first most of the governors had heard of the proposal despite the School Places document stating:

3.3.8.4 Preston Manor Secondary School: has agreed to house temporary accommodation for two Reception classes on the school site from January
2011. The school has principally agreed to provide permanent primary provision from September 2011 (my emphasis). Further discussions need to take place with the governing body.

 Nevertheless the governors agreed to consult on on whether respondents agreed to support 'the proposal to expand Preston Manor High School by creating a two form entry permanent primary provision from September 2011." Consultation paper HERE

The consultees list includes Preston Manor High School (parents,staff, student council), all maintained schools in Brent; Westminster Diocesan Education Service, the London Boroughs of Ealing, Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Barnet, Harrow, Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Trade Unions, Brent MPs, Admissions Forum, local Residents Associations, councillors, London Diocesan Board for Schools and the Brent Governors Forum.

All these organisations are expected to respond by October 25th despite the fact that many schools will not have a scheduled governing body meeting by then.The Preston Manor governing body will then consider publication of a statutory notice by 1st November.  If it decides to go ahead there will then be a formal six week consultation with the Council Executive making a final decision in January 2011.

As with the ARK the decision is foreshadowed (pre-empted?) by a temporary 2 form entry Reception  building on the site to be erected in January 2011.

The document is based on meeting the need for primary places because of the growth in Brent's population but no data is supplied providing evidence that there is a need in this particular area of Brent. No assessment is made of the potential impact on the roll of other local primary schools.

The document states that "the LA consulted with primary schools in the borough to explore the possibility of increasing the number of school places." As a Brent school governor I challenge whether any such formal consultation has taken place - instead there have been a number of informal discussions and an ad hoc series of decisions made to add a 'bulge class' to some schools (a one-off class in a particular year that moves through the school as an additional class in that cohort) or increasing the form of entry of some schools..  The process seems neither well-researched or well thought out and my fear is that there may be repercussions later when demand stabilises and some schools find themselves with half-empty classes with a consequent detrimental impact on their budgets.

Informed sources suggest that Matthew Lantos sees this as the only way that Preston Manor can compete with the ARK Academy just down the road. Year 7 pupils started at ARK this term as the first cohort in the secondary school.

The danger is that once (if?) the all-through school is approved that Lantos will then decide that the only way to fully compete with the ARK is for Preston Manor to seek academy status - otherwise the ARK would have the edge in terms of finance, curriculum flexibility and the ability to decide its own teachers' salary structure and conditions of service. If  Preston Manor becomes an academy that could start a domino effect with other Brent high schools feeling that they have to take the academy route in order to compete.

This was exactly what happened in the 1990s when Claremont, Kingsbury, Convent of Jesus and Mary, Queens Park, and Copland high schools all applied for self-governing Grant Maintained Status, creating problems for Wembley High and the then Willesden High. Willesden was designated a failing school and became the first City Academy in Brent.

If this were to happen Brent Council would be in the position of losing a lot of money to the academies with a detrimental impact on the remaining schools, special needs provision and other services. In turn poor local authority support and provision  could lead to more schools opting for academy status and thus ending democratic control of local education.  This is not so far-fetched: Surrey Council is in talks with the DfE over plans to convert all its secondary schools to academy status.

Fightback Against Cuts Strengthens

Brent Fightback met again this week to plan against against council and government cuts. The meeting was strengthened by attendance from the local branch of the NUT.  Plans were made to circulate the Brent Fightback Newsletter via local trade unions as well as posting it as widely as possible via e-mail lists and blogs.

Fightback supporters will be joining a number of events organised around the Autumn Spending Review including a TUC rally on October 19th and a March and Rally on 20th October organised by Camden Trades Council and supported by a wide range of organisations including Brent Trades Council and Brent Fightback. Assemble at 4.30pm at Lincoln's Inn Field (Holborn Tube) to march to the rally in Whitehall. On Saturday 23rd October the NUT, PCS, RMT, NSSN and FBU are having a march and rally against the cuts. Assemble 11am outside the RMT's Unity House in Charlton Street (Euston or Estoin Square tubes) to march to Bedford Square.

Meanwhile Green Party member Derek Wall has published the following article on the cuts in the Morning Star (edited extract)

Politics is about power. Not the power of swapping one party for another but the art of making fundamental change.  Effective political leaders do not simply win an election but uses electoral power to shape society. In 1945 - while I of course don't defend its pro-US foreign policy - the Labour government of Clement Attlee changed Britain for the better. The creation of the NHS, the expansion of the welfare state and the building of hundreds of thousands of council houses were just some of its many achievements. 

Now fast forward to 1979. Margaret Thatcher won the general election and ushered in a right-wing revolution. She destroyed the trade unions outside of the public sector, started a trend towards privatisation and outsourcing, dramatically weakened local government and freed finance capital so it could profit from esoteric and exploitative practices. 

There should be no doubt that the present government has similar ambitions to fundamentally change Britain. While its liberal politics rejects the shrill homophobia and other petty prejudices of Thatcher, David Cameron and Nick Clegg want to create a more market-based Britain just as Thatcher did.  The deficit provides an excuse for massively rolling back the state and outsourcing the entire British economy. The effects will be brutal but neoliberals Cameron and Clegg worship the market and are closely allied to the City of London. 

Forget the mock outrage of the Daily Mail in response to Vince Cable's attacks on the banks - he was the court jester put in place to keep a nervous party on board. While the government would like a stable banking sector the bigger goal is an assault on public-sector spending. Above all, cuts are being justified by the deficit. On the face of it this is economically illiterate. Britain has had far greater debt in the past - one thinks again of the 1940s when Attlee's government spent more money to create a more just society. Likewise, cuts will slow or reverse economic activity reducing tax revenues and making things worse. 

Economic insanity is trumped by more fundamental considerations - utter stupidity is not an obvious feature of the British right in government. The deficit is a means to legitimise policies based on the desire to dismantle what little is left of the Atlee legacy. 

Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine could read as a manifesto for Cameron and Clegg. Klein starts with the overthrow of the socialist government of Allende in Chile in 1973 to describe how a crisis is used to justify intensified capitalism - in the 1970s, as Pinochet's government killed and tortured opponents, the "Chicago Boys" such as monetarist guru Milton Friedman flew into Santiago with their neoliberal blueprints. 

Britain's current deficit was created by the billions of pounds needed to bail out the banks that had crashed because of the fundamental contradictions in global capitalism, triggered by regulatory failure. The deficit is now being used to cut, privatise and outsource on a massive scale - a failure of capitalism is being used to strategically extend the rule of capital. 

The Con-Dem's ambition is to take five years to cut so fundamentally that they cannot be reversed. Massive public-sector cuts are intended to destroy public-sector trade unions so that politics can be permanently shifted right.
It is hoped that if the pain can be introduced swiftly, "reform" of the electoral system together with a continuing partnership with the Liberal Democrats can be used to cement a permanent rightwing, neoliberal politics. From "free schools" to the "decentralisation" of the NHS to an assault on the BBC, Cameron and Clegg believe clever tactics can be used to shove society in their desired direction. 

The fight against the cuts is a life or death struggle for the left in Britain. I would urge all readers of the Morning Star to support the Coalition of Resistance and to build a fight for the survival of the NHS, free education, pensions and the other services under threat. We need to build solidarity for unions taking action against the cuts like many of us did for the miners' strike in the 1980s. We need to create and sustain local anti-cuts networks. We need to build for the Coalition of Resistance national conference on November 27 in Camden, London (www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk). 

There is going to be a fight within and across different political parties too. The very fact that the hardcore neoliberals mounted a coup against the social liberals within the Liberal Democrats enabling the neoliberal coalition to rule shows that while we may be in a particular political party contests within other political parties are crucially important....

There will also be a battle in Labour - I am not a Labour supporter and I am broadly hostile to Ed Miliband given his failure to fight for climate action at Copenhagen, including trying to lean on the left Latin American countries which in contrast to Britain and the US, are at the forefront of action to save our planet. Nonetheless the defeat of his Blairite brother and Ken Livingstone's double victory - once again topping the NEC poll and winning the mayoral nomination - are to be applauded. Labour Party members must push their party towards real opposition to the cuts. There are some tiny straws in the wind indicating that with focused effort this might just be possible.
Socialist parties must be assessed by their ability to learn from Marx, link up with others and fight the cuts in a non-sectarian way, and I am confident that this will be the approach of Morning Star readers. 

Within my own party, the Greens, I have been impressed by the leadership Caroline Lucas has shown in supporting the Coalition of Resistance. The newly elected Green Party campaigns co-ordinator Romayne Phoenix stood on a platform of making the anti-cuts campaign a priority for the Greens. The cuts cannot be justified economically and, as Lucas has argued, the deficit can be tamed by cutting nuclear weapons, war and taxing those with cash. 

The deficit is a weapon which will be wielded to smash the left and transform Britain into a society ruled by and for the hyper-rich. If the cuts agenda succeeds we can forget demands for social justice and progressive policies for a generation at least. 

A viciously neoliberal but intelligent enemy has thrown down the gauntlet and failure to respond will lead to long-term marginalisation of all those who want a fair, humane and green Britain. 

See you on November 27th.

Lib Dem on Academies: This isn't fair and it will cost us dear

Yesterday's Evening Standard carried a vital letter which challenged the whole Coalition academies policy. Importantly it was written by Kirsty Jerome, executive member for Education and Schools at the Liberal Democrat Sutton council.  She states that if academies open they will take money from other children's services:

There will be less "money which means children with physical disabilities such as hearing impediments or emotional or behavioural problems from damaged backgrounds get early support and which helps children avoid exclusion, detention and attainment issues."

She concludes. "Kids get only once chance at education, yet a huge experiment is about to begin that could leave the most vulnerable behind. This isn't fair and it will cost us dear."

I look forward to seeing Sarah Teather's response in view that special needs children are her responsibility at the Department for Education.

Gardiner's Manifesto for Shadow Cabinet Post

Now that Ed Miliband  has been elected leader the shadow cabinet election campaign will start in earnest. Barry Gardiner's hat was in the ring early on and he has already published his manifesto on the website Left Foot Forward LINK. He has been working assiduously in the House of Commons on environmental issues and he sets out his vision in a posting entitled 'Sustainable living: A radical manifesto for 2015' with his eye clearly on the shadow version of Ed's old job,

He argues that we have no right to diminish our children's right to fare as well as we have:

The Labour Party must rise to this challenge from generations yet to come, so that the environment we hold in trust will be transmitted to them cleaner, healthier and more resilient. The environment is not just another discreet policy issue like housing or transport. It is the context in which all our other policies are carried out.

The roads we build and the buildings we construct, the power we generate and the industries they power, all are influenced by and have an influence on our environment. For this reason a radical manifesto for 2015 must integrate environmental considerations and policies into every aspect of government decision-making...

The tension between these two imperatives – to reduce emissions whilst meeting rising demand for economic growth — presents us with one fundamental challenge: to increase carbon productivity. The amount of wealth generated per tonne of CO2 equivalent emitted has to rise.
To maintain the current average global economic growth rate of 3.1 per cent per annum and to reduce emissions to around ten gigatonnes per year, carbon productivity must increase in real terms by a factor of fifteen by 2050.
‘Sustainable living’ sets out bold and radical policies to achieve:

• The successful integration of the value of Natural Capital into UK government accounts;
• Climate change mitigation strategies to achieve UK emissions reductions of 65 per cent by 2030 and at least 90 per cent by 2050;
• Climate change adaptation strategies to protect biodiversity and enhance habitats;
• A marine recovery strategy;
• Proposals to enhance carbon sinks.

‘Sustainable living’ requires a commitment to internationalism, equality, fairness and justice. These are the values upon which the Labour Party was founded.
 Apparently Gardiner has won respect from some Labour MPs for his campaigning on the environment and it will be interesting to see whether he can bounce back from the setbacks he suffered latterly under Blair and after he called for Brown's resignation.

New Director of Children and Families

Usually reliable sources tell me that Dr Krutika Pau has been appointed as the new Director of Brent Children and Families following the retirement of John Christie.   Krutika has worked for Brent (with a break) for a long time and until this appointment was Assistant Director for Strategy and Partnerships. As Krutika Tanna, she was principal research officer for the Brent Race Unit   She is known as an excellent administrator and organiser.  It will be interesting to see whether she now delivers on vision.

Blogging on June 8th 2010 I set out my views on what I felt was required:

Although policy is in theory made by councillors, the Director of Children and Families... is extremely powerful and his or her educational philosophy and perspective on current educational issues vitally important. Will the  Labour Council appoint someone with the ability to stand up for children and schools, with an independent mind and the strength to resist government pressure; or will they appoint someone who will manage 'efficiency savings' and implement poorly thought out 'innovations' and in the process oversee the deterioration of Brent's education system?

An issue that has concerned some in education in Brent is that the post was filled internally, in effect ring-fenced, because of the 'savings' restructuring going on in Brent. This meant that there was a very narrow field with only a handful of people eligible to apply. In contrast when headteacher and deputy headteacher posts in schools are vacant they are always, as a matter of policy, advertised nationally to ensure the widest and best quality field of candidates.  This is because the children of Brent need and deserve the best possible headteacher and the field should not be limited for other less worthy reasons.

Teather's Tory Troubles

Sarah Teather's troubles worsened on Monday when the Lib Dem Conference passed a motion opposing Tory plans for 'free schools' and critical of academies. She is now on a collision course not only with her past political convictions but with the current convictions of the rank and file of her party.

Still enraptured by Michael Gove she expressed 'secret pride' that the party's conference could still make trouble even when in government, but speaking against the motion claimed that the party could have more impact in government than in opposition. Conference voted against her indicating a lack of confidence in their own Education minister.

Peter Downes, a retired headteacher and Lib Dem councillor, made a cogent case in the Guardian yesterday against the 'five fallacies' underlying Gove's 'vision'.  Having gone through the fallacies he says, "We should go back to the places where decisions are being made - and explain to heads, governors, parents, teachers and councillors that academies and free schools are likely to be divisive, costly and unfair.'

If the Lib Dems have  no confidence in Teather's support for Tory policies, why should we?