Volunteer Saturday School teachers wanted

A Kingsbury Supplementary School is looking for volunteer primary school teachers to help them out on Saturdays.

Teachers are needed for Years 1-3 am and Y4-5 pm to help children with English and Maths.

Contact the Kingsbury Project For Somali Youth at sabaax48@googlemail.com

Willesden Green Library not on December Executive Agenda

The report on the  rebuild of Willesden Green Library, which was rescheduled  for the December 12th Executive has not been tabled. The item was deferred at the last Executive meeting on November 14th.

Anyone know what's going on?

A Brent 'social enterprise' to provide school services?

A little more information is emerging on possible new models for Brent's school improvement and other educational services.

Brent Council will  make a offer in January 2012 for its traded services to schools and is confident it has the resources to provide all the services schools wish to buy in 2012-13.

However from 2013 any remaining funding from the Council will be spent on supporting the core, statutory services that remain with them. This includes overviewing schools performance and intervening in schools experiencing decline or difficulties.

In one model being proposed other services would be provided by a Social  Enterprise Board that is based on 'co-leadership and co-ownership' of school improvement through a partnership between schools and the local authority.  The Board would have 2 headteacher representatives, 2  from the local authority, 2 managers and two external members (commercial and higher education).  There would be 11 'theme' groups covering different services. The Council suggests that such a social enterprise could trade within and beyond Brent on a self-financing basis.

At the same time the LA is exploring links with neighbouring boroughs to see if a jointly owned 'bank' of educational professionals could provide 'high quality, specialist expertise across a wide range of areas'.

The LA intends to go ahead and consult with headteachers on the proposals over the next year.

Although schools already pay for traded services from within their own budgets there are clearly budgetary implications. 'Self-financing' may require a contribution from school budgets which are likely to be under pressure by 2013.  It could be seen as a way of shifting the financial burden of cuts  from the LA to schools. The proposals may well not be sufficiently attractive for some schools that are currently discussing academy conversion and want to move swiftly to take advantage of current financial incentives.

Watch this space.

Does this make a mockery of planning?

Brent Council's recent consultation on the Wembley Stadium area plan included questions about the concentration of waste management facilities in the area and included the possibility of de-designation. There was an implication that some facilities were there without proper planning permission and a suggestion that some sites could be moved as they constituted 'dirty neighbours' and discouraged new firms moving into the area.

A 'retrospective' application for change of use of F. Flannery Yard, Third Way, Wembley HA9 OEL has just gone up on the Council website. Retrospective permission is sought for a change of use of part of the site from builder's yard to:

concrete crushing for waste disposal and soil recovery

 Lo and behold, on November 14th 2011, a planning application for the same site was approved for its use for storage of plant, machinery etc which specifically stated:

Any use of the land for waste processing or the storage of waste, loose aggregates and building materials or use of the site as a transfer site for such material is excluded.

Brent Greens are already very concerned about air quality in the Neasden/Wembley area and 'concrete crushing' to a layman does not sound as if it will improve it!. The retrospective nature of the submission implies that the process may already be happening which sound like a flagrant breach of the exclusion of only a month ago.

The site is not far away (across the Metropolitan and Chiltern railway lines) from Chalkhill and Margaret Clitheroe primary schools.

MAP

Doing the Coalition's Dirty Work?

An improvement in Brent Council's collection rate for 2011-12, partly due to more people using direct debits, means that it will have a surplus of £1m on its collection account at the end of this financial year. Last year there was a loss of £1.3m at the end of the financial year. Brent's share of the £1m  surplus will be £776,000 which can be used for services that otherwise would have had to be cut.

Meanwhile I look forward to hearing how the Council is intending to consult on this year's budget. Its Report tabled at the November 21st Council meeting stated:

Late December: Consultation with residents, businesses, voluntary sector, partner agencies and trade unions on budget proposals.

As I have suggested previously it would be much better if the Council worked with local people to construct a 'needs budget' that would set out what the Council needs to provide effective services for the people of Brent. This could then be used as a campaigning tool to bring councillors and citizens together.

It was interesting to read the comment in last week's New Statesman by Sally Gimson.  Gimson won the Highgate by-election for  Labour  two and a half months ago again despite a strong showing by the Greens. She wrote:

We have been elected by the people of Camden to protect them against the worst of Tory/Lib Dem excesses, but I wonder now I've got here whether we may just be forced to do their dirty work.

Exactly!

The Schools Forum will tonight be agreeing funding principles and discussing budget issues against the background of more schools considering academy conversion.

Dos the 'market' govern us now?

Well, I used to worry that multinational companies really ruled the world and that governments were relatively powerless...

Now is seems that the markets can impose unelected technocrat governments (Greece and Italy) and via Standard and Poor's rating agency make whole regions quake in their boots and adjust their policies to please the market.

Where were Standard and Poor's  when the banks were behaving so recklessly back before 2008?

Where does that leave democracy and our right to elect a party that will govern in OUR interests?

See Wall Street Journal on S & P's role in original US mortgage crisis HERE

Draft West London Waste Plan

Avoiding this....but what will replace it?

 The draft Plan for dealing with the waste of the boroughs of Brent, Richmond, Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon and Harrow can be found HERE  It is an item on the agenda of Brent Council Executive at the meeting to be held on Monday 12th December, 7pm at Brent Town Hall.

Standing Up for Climate Justice

Several thousand  people did just that today when they marched from Blackfriars Bridge to the Houses of Parliament midway through the Durban Climate Change talks. It was important amidst all the devastation of cuts, unemployment and the euro-zone crisis to remember the even larger environmental crisis engulfing our planet.