Brent teachers to strike over pensions on March 28th

 

Teachers in Brent schools will be coming out on strike again on Wednesday March 28th in further action over the pensions issue.  They will be distributing a leaflet to parents and carers setting out their case:

 

Why are teachers going on strike?

A message to all parents and carers in Brent

Teachers across Brent will be taking strike action on Wednesday 28^th March.

We know this may be inconvenient for you but we hope you will understand why we are doing this and that you will support us.

Teachers do not like taking strike action but we believe we have been given no choice by the government.

We are striking because the government won’t listen to us and insist on making unnecessary changes to our pensions. We believe these changes will be damaging for teachers and for education.

Below we list some of the facts about our pensions we think you should know. For more information please talk to teachers at your school.

FACT ONE

Teachers, and other public sector workers, are being asked to pay 50% more for their pensions, work longer and get a smaller pension when they retire.

FACT TWO

Teaching is an all consuming and tiring job and can be stressful. We do not believe it is reasonable to expect all teachers to work until 68 to get a pension.

FACT THREE

The government says our pensions are unaffordable but their own figures show that this isn’t true.

FACT FOUR

Many private sector workers have no proper pension scheme. The government should do something about this, not cut the public sector pensions.

FACT FIVE

Cutting public sector pensions will just make more pensioners poorer and put the cost of supporting them on to the State and taxpayers.

Town Hall Hotel in Wembley?

From 'The Caterer and Hotel Keeper'

Conversion to a hotel is a possible option for the future of Brent Council's Town Hall, which is soon to be put up for sale.

The Grade II-listed 1930s building, which sites on a five-acre site with views over London, is to be sold as its life as a town hall will end with the opening of Brent's new Civic Centre in June 2013. It is hoped that a new owner, who will preserve the heritage of the building, will be found before the council leaves.

Property agent Colliers International has helped the council prepare a planning brief, in conjunction with a heritage report, which says the building could be converted to a hotel or be used as a residential, healthcare, leisure or retail development.

A precedent for the conversion of a Grade II-listed former town hall to a hotel was created with the £20m opening in Bethnal Green of the Town Hall Hotel and Apartments, in 2010. The hotel went on to win the RICS London Award for Building Conversion.

Barn Hill by-election on May 3rd

The offiicial notice announcing a by-election in the Barn Hill ward has been posted on the council website. The by-election follows Cllr Judith Beckman's resignation following her move out of London.

Dollis Hill shenanigans continue with scurrilous leaflet

Following the controversy over the Lib Dem leaflets with a near invisible imprint which was last week  raised in Parliament via a Labour attack on Sarah Teather, a leaflet emerged this weekend with no imprint at all.

Printed on one side of A5 in black and white it is is headed  GUILTY . Beneath that word are portraits of Sarah Teather and two Lib Dem councillors and a list of their alleged misdemeanours it goes on to urge 'Vote for whoever you want. Don't vote for Lib Dem losers'.

I am not sure of the legal situation regarding this particular leaflet but it does not state who has produced it nor have any details of the printer.

As the leaflet makes a couple of environmental points I should make clear that it has nothing to do with the Greens and we disassociate ourselves from its contents.

We have distributed the London Green News in some parts of Brent, including Dollis Hill, but are delivering only one A5 leaflet for the by-election.  This is at the most 1/20th of the Lib Dem's distribution per household!

Brent Performance Report reveals impact of cuts

Brent' Council's Performance Report for the third quarter of 2011-12 which is published as a supplement to the Performance and Finance Review gives an indication of how both Coalition policy and council cuts are beginning to hit services.

It uses a  RAG (Red, Amber, Green) traffic light system where Red indicates performance below target, Amber performance below expected levels but within tolerance of the target, and Green where performance is as expected and the target met or exceeded.

All the tables below are of services given a warning Red rating. Therese are the services where improvements need to be made. It is fair to point out that many services also achieve Green ratings and these are likely to be publicised in Brent press releases and the Brent Magazine.

The Environment and Neighbourhood Services department has suffered cuts and reorganisations so it is not surprising that out of 12 performance indicators half have a Red rating and 2 an Amber and only one Green. The others are black indicating that the Council thinks performance cannot be fairly measured against a target. In reading the table remember that there is another quarter to go.

Environment and Neighbourhood Services

Performance indicator	2010-11 end of year	2011-12 year to date	2011-12 current target
Volume of residual waste kg per  household	644	453	427
% of household waste sent for recycling	33	35	47
Tonnes of waste sent to landfill	80,000	59,000	53,000
Number of fly-tipping incidents	3882	4435	3000
Active library borrowers as % of population	18.6	13.81	16.4
% of streets below standard for litter	10.2%	11.7% Nov	9%

Despite the Council's claims made for the Library Transformation Project the target  for the percentage of Brent residents who are active borrowers was set below the 2010-11 level and performance is below that lower target. Next year with the closure of Willesden Green for redevelopment. the figure is likely to decline further. The number of library visits  per 100,000 population gets an Amber rating. The target was 4,834 compared with 6,660 in 2010-2011 and after the third quarter stood at 4,606.

The Council ridiculed the Green Party's claims that cuts to street cleansing would result in Brent becoming a dirtier borough but the figures justify our claim and the residual waste/recycling figures are also below  the Council's expectations.

Children and Families

Performance indicator	2010-11 end of year	2011-12 year to date	2011-12 current target
Net shortfall of places at Key Stage 1 (5-7 year olds)	n/a	-304	0
Percentage of 16 to 18 year olds not in education, employment or training	5%	4%	4%
Percentage of care leavers in  education, employment or training	71%	64%	80%
Number of looked after children with independent fostering agencies	112	100	89
Number of looked after children placed with in-house foster carers	103	109	127

 

The shortage of school places is a continuing problem which has been addressed by an ad hoc mixture of school expansions, temporary classrooms and bulge classes. Coalition policies giving priority to free schools and academies and providing them with disproportionate amounts of funding, makes it difficult for the Council to build the new schools that are needed.

At the other end of the age range the number of school leavers not in education, employment and training is likely to increase in the recession and the situation has been worsened by the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance. The plight of looked after children is highlighted by the number of care leavers who, as they enter adult life, are not in education, employment or training.

Regeneration and Major Projects

Performance indicator	2010-11 end of year	2011-12 year to date	2011-12 current target
% of major planning applications processed within 13 weeks	73	25	70
Gap between Brent and London for working people on out of work benefits	3	3.4	1.4
Number of households living in temporary accommodation	3,019	3.073	2,973
Proportion of residents with no qualifications (gap between Brent and London. Minus figure reflects higher than average gap)	n/a	-4.8	-2.0

The increase in the proportion of people on benefits compared with the London average and the increase in numbers of temporary accommodation are clearly the most worrying items ion the short term but the 'no qualifications' figures builds up problems for the long term.

Central Services

Performance indicator	2010-11 end of year	2011-12 year to date	2011-12 current target
Serious violent crime rate (per 1000 of population)	1.64	1.72	n/a
Serious acquisitive crime rate (serious thefts, burglaries per 1000 of population)	31.82	33.92	n/a
Serious knife crime rate per 1000 of population	2.05	2.09	n/a
Gun crime rate per 1000 of population	0.39	0.43	n/a
Time taken to process Benefit claims (average number of days)	9.77	8.33	8.0

 

Crime usually increases in a recession and although I am not suggesting a direct causal link, clearly delays in benefit payment do not help.

Adult Social Care

The Council is not meeting its target of 90% of Mental Health Social Care assessments completed within four weeks and the figure currently stands at 65%. Similarly the percentage of social care packages put in place within the recommended timelines following assessment is 65% against a target of 95%.

Financial Report

Adult Social Care is a major financial pressure  and although overspend has reduced compared with the second quarter the General Fund overspend stands at £292,000.  In Children and Families' General Fund there is as underspend on Achievement and Inclusion (School Improvement Service and Connexions which was cut) but an overspend on Social Care partly due to an increase in child protection cases following the baby Peter case.

Environment and Neighbourhood Services had no overall  under or overspend with savings from Neighbourhood Services (including libraries and transportation) offsetting an increase in Environment and Protection costs which receives a Red rating.

The Regeneration and Major Projects General Fund had a small underspend and there were underspends overall on Capital Budgets with that of the Civic Centre underspent as a result of 'adjusted profiled cash flow'. It was originally £51m and reduced to £29.5m.  Children and Families Capital Projects which this department has taken over gets a Red grading with an overspend of £5m.

The Department's main pressure is caused by the housing benefit cap with an increase of 27% in homeless applications and 42% in acceptances compared with last year. The total pressure is forecast at £750,000 for 2011-12.

Beneath all these figures are real people experiencing real hardship as a consequence of  the Government's cuts to national benefits and the  public sector, alongside cuts in local authority funding leading to cuts in Council Services.It all adds up to further evidence of the damage the Coalition's austerity measures are doing to people who are not to blame for the crisis.

Housing: The Brent crisis and Jenny Jones' solutions

As a result of rising rents, housing benefit cap and demographic pressures the crisis in housing is likely to deepen in Brent over the next year. Green Party Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones has launched a 'mini-manifesto' to address the issue across London.

At present the media private rent for a two bedroomed resident in Brent is £1,300 a month compared with £975 in Harrow and £1,100 in Ealing. As a proportion of the media of local  individual take home pay that is 74% in Brent, 49% in Harrow and 61% in Ealing. So Brent residents pay more in cash terms and as a proportion of income.

The proportion of the population claiming housing benefit is of obvious relevance to future pressure when the cap hits and this is 14% in Brent, 7% in Harrow and 10% in Ealing.

Brent has 2,370 empty homes which is 2.13% of the housing stock. 27% of these have been empty for more than 6 months. Of Brent's total 59 are owned by the council, 290 by housing associations, 24 by other public bodies and 1,997 are privately owned.

Jenny Jones has issued a mini-manifesto which seeks to address the roots of the problem:

LET’S MAKE HOUSING AFFORDABLEWe will build genuinely affordable housing and refurbish over one million homes to cut energy bills. We will push to give private tenants more security and stabilise rent levels. We want to change the housing market from a playground for speculative investment to a source of secure, affordable homes. (In Brent the proposed Willesden Green regeneration includes NO affordable housing in Galliford Try's development)

1. Build genuinely affordable homesBuild at least 15,000 affordable homes per year, of which 40% will be family sized. Calculate an annual London Affordable Rent for the average household and use public land to keep rents at or below that cap.

2. Build homes that are affordable to runEnsure all homes are actually built to high energy and water efficiency standards with enhanced building control checks, making them affordable to run as well as rent or buy.

3. End fuel poverty and cut carbon emissionsRoll out the RE:NEW home insulation scheme to over one million homes in London by 2015, helping people to install simple measures and to access the Green Deal, and work with councils and housing associations to bring all social housing up to an enhanced Decent Homes standard by 2016.

4. Help co-operatives build more housingEstablish the London Mutual Housing Company to help communities set-up Community Land Trusts, which will give them control over the design, development and management of permanently affordable homes.

5. Help co-ops restore empty homesSet-up a clearing house to make all suitable publicly owned empty homes available to be brought back into short-life or permanent use by self-help co-operatives, and encourage private owners to list their properties on the system.

6. Protect the rights of private tenantsLobby for comprehensive and smart reforms of the private rented sector to bring down rents, make tenants more secure in their homes with a default secure five year tenancy agreement, protect tenants from exploitative landlords and improve the condition of private rented housing. Guarantee these rights for homes built on public land and with public money.

7. Create an Ethical Lettings Agency Set-up an ethical lettings agency for private tenants and landlords, and a web site for tenants to post feedback on landlords and letting/managing agents.

8. Protect the rights of tenantsOppose all elements of the Government’s housing agenda that weaken security, raise rents for social tenants, and that reduces housing benefits for private and social tenants instead of reducing rents.

9. End rough sleepingBring all grants for pan-London homelessness services into the GLA to protect frontline services, and work closely with homelessness organisations to ensure nobody needs to spend a second night out sleeping rough on the street.

10. Campaign for root and branch reformUse our influence and new research to build momentum behind radical reforms such as land value taxation and a ban on foreign investors, solutions which could stabilise house prices. Our housing crisis will only deepen if we fail to fix the roots of the problem. 

Angry residents question Cllr Crane on Willesden Green Library plans

At a public meeting - called by the “Keep Willesden Green Campaign” - the Green Party candidate for Dollis Hill, Pete Murry, has called on Brent council to rethink its plans to demolish Willesden Green Library. The meeting, which was originally intended as a hustings for the by-election, saw a huge amount of anger directed at Councillor Crane; the Labour executive member for regeneration. The public demanded to know why the regeneration plan did not include any provisions for social housing. The audience also asked why there has been no proper consultation on the plans and why their  petition of 5700 names was being rejected by the council. 

Pete Murry, who is a long standing Brent resident and user of the library said:

It beggars belief that the petition submitted by Keep Willesden Green is being fobbed off on a technicality. We will continue to press for the petition to be accepted and for a full council debate to be had.

The Green Party do not agree with the demolition of the library in the first place and are fighting against it. If, however, the Labour plans do come to fruition it seems absurd that there will be no social housing built as part of the project; especially considering the fact that almost 15,000 Brent residents are on the housing  waiting list.

Centre for Staff Development to close in 2013 amidst uncertainty over future provision

The Centre for Staff Development (Gwenneth Rickus Building) which houses Brent's School Improvement Service and is the local authority's base for in-service education, will be closed in the Summer of 2013.

The building in Brentfield Road, close to the Swaminarayan Temple , was formerly part of Sladebrook Secondary School, which closed in the 1980s to be replaced by the fee-paying Swaminarayan Hindu all-through school.The school suffered some bomb damage during air raids in the second world war but is of a very solid build, characteristic of the period - in sharp contrast to some of our newer buildings!

The building has been much improved and has is  an exemplar of energy saving innovations with very low energy costs. It will be sold off by Brent Council and there is a possibility, because of the shortage of school places in the south of the borough, that there may be an approach by a free school provider - either alone or in partnership with the council (see previous posting on the internal Labour debate about this LINK).

When I worked on children's consultation in Brent this was a building that was considered as the possible site for a new secondary school. Controversially, the Wembley Park site was chosen instead.  More recently a group called Ma'at has formulated a bid for a secondary free school to serve the south of Brent. This was partly the result of the lack of secondary schools in the area compared with north of the North Circular and also the views of some black parents and teachers that black children were being failed by the school system - although the organisers denied that this would be a school for only black children. See my previous post on the issue HERE

Although the new  Civic Centre is due to house most of Brent Council staff from Summer 2013 this is more complicated in the case of the School Improvement Service as it may well not exist in its present form by then.

This morning John Simpson, now an independent consultant, but a former Brent Chief Executive and Director of Education, gave a presentation to school governors at the CSD on 'The Future of Services to Schools in Brent'.

Against the background of local authority cuts, the Coalition's wish for reduced local government, and schools converting to academies as well as  the setting up of free schools, he argued that the Council could no longer carry on as before. He set out a model whereby the council would continue to provide core statutory services but others would be traded services.

Options for the core services were:
1. Minimum interpretation of what the Council should provide.
2. Intervention support - intervening in schools which are in difficulty and support them in overcoming them
3. Prevention support - preventing schools getting into difficulty which would involve monitoring and visits.

Options for the traded services were:
1. The council withdrawing from the market completely - schools would buy-in from elsewhere
2. The council establishing a local authority traded services company in collaboration with schools
3. Schools establish an independent public service mutual organisation with the local authority as a minority partner - cooperative working between schools.

John said that at recent headteacher consultations he had been surprised that many heads had favoured Option 2 rather than 3. In a contribution I suggested that the danger was that headteachers would become business managers whose main job was procurement, leading to a neglect of the main job which is the improvement of the quality of teaching and children's learning.  I also expressed a fear that the uncertainty would lead to a loss of some key staff (68 people are employed in SIS) and thus a deterioration in the quality of the service schools were being asked to buy into.  This has already happened in the case of some other council departments.

Another speaker thought that Option 2 gave more democratic accountability and would be less of a distraction to headteachers.

Further questions are raised about overhead costs, particularly in the case of Option 3 but also possible with Option 2. In the case of the Willesden Green Cultural Centre we have been told that as this is a high quality, state of the art building, rents would be high. As the Civic Centre is probably an even higher specification building, positioned next to the Arena and the Stadium, how much would an independent traded services mutual organisation  have to pay for office space and meeting rooms so that they could provide in-service education?

There was a concern that the changes would lead to fragmentation:  reduced in-service education and training, and increased isolation of schools because of the lack of affordability of buying-in when council revenue and government funding are being reduced. Paying for services that were formerly free and increased charges for those that were subsidised, amounted to a cut in real terms to school budgets.

Discussion afterwards also speculated on practical issues of whether teachers from the south of the borough would find it easy to travel to Wembley for courses starting at 9am (i.e. rush hour) and the lack of parking spaces at the Civic Centre.

These changes need to be very carefully considered. The briefing will be repeated on the evening of Thursday March 22nd at the CSD and I urge all Brent governors who didn't come today to attend. The wrong decisions could have a devastating impact on the future education of our children and their life chances.

The Schools Forum recommendation on the issue is likely by December 2012 so it is important that governing bodies discuss the issue this term or early next.