Monday 16 June 2014

Brent Council to lease out two floors of Civic Centre as staff numbers reduce

Tonight's Cabinet will consider a proposal to lease out the 7th and 8th floor of the Civic Centre to an unnamed commercial organisation. LINK

This follows a review of the accomodation. The proposed 'Partner Village space' has attracted no partners who could afford it and parts of the first floor are empty. 

The proposals will see increased density of workstations on floors 2-6 with the Council anticipating some staff transferring out of the Centre when Veolia takes over the Public Realm contract and Wates takes over Brent Housing Partnership maintenance. 120 extra workstations will be added to floors 2-6.

The report also anticipates further Brent Council staffing cuts as out-sourcing continues and reductions in staff are made as a result of budgetary constraints. Revenue from the lease will be used to supplement the budget.

The report notes:

The security aspects of having a third party commercial occupier will need to be carefully considered. Therefore the Council should not and will not accept any tenant unless deemed acceptable to the image of the Council and the Civic Centre; the one under current consideration is well known to the Council and is reputable with an International standing. However in regard to security issues it should be noted that the Civic Centre already has other 3rd parties using the building: Capita, Serco, Metropolitan Police, Europa, Wates Living Space and Brent Housing Partnership. 

Along with contractual conditions and appropriate management controls it is envisaged that as part of a HR refresh about working in the Civic Centre staff can be reminded again about the need to ensure a clear desk policy is operated and that confidential discussions should take place only in appropriate settings. Therefore at this stage it is suggested that the current physical security arrangements remain in place.




Stop the War and PSC will benefit from another successful fundraising Garden Party

What's going on beyond the borders?
Rachel Rose Reid, storyteller, entertains
Brent Stop the War and Brent & Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign held another successful fundraising garden party on Sunday. Local residents and activists turned out to enjoy the food and entertainment. Apart from Brent StW and Brent PSC there were members of the Labour Party, Green Party and SWP present. I am not sure about the Lib Dems this year, but some usually attend.

It is always good to see how political differences can be sunk in aid of a good cause.

The fundraiser attracted people from other parts of London including Jeremy Corbyn MP.


Saturday 14 June 2014

Residents and activists block Cricklewood Broadway to stop Fascist march

Anti-fascists and residents block Cricklewood Broadway
The South East Alliance are brought to a halt
Fifty or so members of the far-right group South East Alliance were brought to a halt on Cricklewood Broadway when local residents and activists occupied the road to stop them proceeding. Despite police lines trying to push them back to clear the road, residents stood firm with a little determined pushing back, and the line held.

The SEA were ostensibly protesting against what they claimed to be Muslim Brotherhood offices at 113a Cricklewood Broadway. (on their Facebook page they called it Cricklewood High Street).  In fact the group that previously occupied the offices had been minor sympathisers of the MB and not the MB itself and, as the police have stated, moved out some time ago.

The police themselves seemed rather confused as they had put up an enclosure outside 119 Cricklewood Broadway and tried to get the anti-fascists to stand there to no avail.

The SEA was about 50 strong and out-numbered 3:1 by the counter demonstrations. After making short speeches, entirely to themselves, the SEA turned round and heavily escorted by police went back to Kilburn station.

Residents celebrated what they saw as a victory over attempts to divide a diverse but united community.

Friday 13 June 2014

Police investigation into fraudulent emails not concluded but Kensal Rise planning application goes ahead


Curioser and curioser - Kensal Rise library occupied by tenants despite no change of use granted
Despite calls for the Kensal Rise Library planning application to be postponed until the police investigation into fraudulent emails has been concluded, the new application (by the same developer) will be heard at Brent Planning Committee next week.

For those without long memories, here is how the issue was reported by the Kilburn Times at the time of the last application, just 8 months ago LINK :
Council chiefs have called in the police over claims that emails supporting plans to develop an axed library branch were faked.


The action has been taken after an investigation by Brent Council into the allegations surrounding Kensal Rise Library concluded the case should be referred to detectives.

The council’s IT officers scrutinised the emails including IP addresses which are exclusive to each computer.

Cllr Roxanne Mashari, Brent Council’s lead member for environment and neighbourhoods, is responsible for libraries.

She said: “The council compiled a report after their own investigation and we have handed this over to police.

“Abuse of Brent’s planning system will not be tolerated.

“This has now escalated into a police matter and we await the outcome of the police investigation.”

In September, a council report added strength to claims by campaigners Friends of Kensal Rise Library (FKRL) that false statements were made against its fight to retain the Bathurst Road building for community use.

The report stated that when email notifications were sent to everyone who made a statement about the plans on the council’s website 78 were returned as being undelivered with 70 of those belonged to ‘supporters’.

Andrew Gillick, the director of Platinum Revolver Limited which took over the building from owners All Soul’s College in Oxford, hit back with claims that false objections against the application had also been posted on the council’s website.

He had applied for permission to convert the site into six flats, a cottage and a community hub but it was rejected by the council.

Margaret Bailey, chair of FKRL, said:

“We applaud the action of our council and it’s willingness to take seriously this attempt to subvert local democracy and mislead the public.

“Our community is strongly against this development for the library building and these fraudulent emails of support for the development were an attempt to divide and denigrate this community.

“Fraud is illegal and we support a thorough investigation by the police.”

Cllr Mashari added: 
“We must keep our eyes on the end result of securing a community library at Kensal Rise.

“I am ready to work with the community and any stakeholder to ensure that this happens and that it is viable and sustainable.”
The alleged illegality seems to have been forgotten, or swept under the carpet, with both Brent Council Planning officers and FKRL supporting Gillick's new application.

It appears to me that whether one is for or against the revised application, until issues around the previous application by the same developer have been cleared up, it will be tainted and should not be tabled.

What price Brent Council's commitment to preventing the subverting of local democracy? Sarah Marquis, with no previous experience as a councillor, but with experience as a lawyer, chairs the Planning Committee.

What does she think?

Anti-Fascist Demonstration Saturday Cricklewood 11am

Historical precedent

Message from Brent and Harrow Unite Against Fascism
We have heard that a particularly unsavoury group of fascists known as the South East Alliance plan to invade Cricklewood on Saturday June 14th at 12.00 noon. Their pretext is to call for the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood, but they have a record of wider Islamopohobia, apparentlythey're made up of remnants of the former Essex EDL.

We are therefore calling on all anti-racists in Brent & Harrow - and neighbouring boroughs - to assemble at 11.00 am outside 113 Cricklewood Broadway NW2 6TU in defence of Cricklewood's vibrant multicultural community just as we did when Britain First came to Cricklewood in January. 
Here's their Facebook invitation: LINK
Message from the Metropolitan Police
We have been informed that the South East Alliance plan to demonstrate outside the premises of 113a Cricklewood Broadway, NW2, on Saturday 14th June.  We anticipate this will start from 11am.  They are demanding the British Government ban the Muslim Brotherhood and associated organisations.


The company that occupies 113a Cricklewood Broadway states they are not part of the Muslim Brotherhood. (My emphasis MF)



We are aware that there will be a counter demonstration by groups associated with the anti-fascist movement.



There is an appropriate policing plan in place to deal with this demonstration.  



Neil Kentish



A/Chief Inspector - Neighbourhood Policing

Thursday 12 June 2014

Education Commission honestly critiques Brent's record but does it have the answers?

Regular readers of Wembley Matters will be aware of concerns over the fragmentation of education in the borough as free schools are proposed and academy conversions take place. The provision of additional school places has been ad hoc and often last minute and led by the Regeneration  department of the Council rather than Children and Families.

An Education commission set up by Chief Executive Christine Gilbert, a former head of Ofsted, is reporting to the next Cabinet on Monday.  The report is to be welcomed but needs a much wider discussion. It is hard to see how how its far-reaching recommendations can be given proper consideration at a meeting with much else on the agenda and a lead member for Children and Families only a few weeks into her post.

The introduction starkly sets out the issues which in effect also constitutes a critique of the lack of leadership on education in the borough, a matter also raised on this blog.
Brent boasts impressive results in early years education and at key stage 1. Its GCSE results are close to the London average and its key stage 5 results are higher than the London average. But these achievements obscure less flattering statistics. 

Given the excellent education the youngest children in Brent receive, it would be reasonable to expect progress would be equally impressive by the time they reach key stage 2. Unfortunately, it is not. Brent lags the London average at key stage 2 and its position relative to the other 32 boroughs is getting worse: it slipped from 15th place in 2012 to 22nd last year. This trend cannot be allowed to continue. 

A few years ago, Brent outperformed most London authorities at GCSE, now it barely manages to be average. Although overall its youngsters perform creditably, disproportionately few of them get the highest grades. And even though a third of the authority’s secondary schools are classed as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted – compared to less than a quarter nationally – it has the highest proportion of ‘Inadequate’ schools in London. 

Unfortunately, these failings are magnified by a lack of shared vision and the absence of a strong, energetic relationship between the local authority and its schools. All want the best for the children in their care but too often good intentions are unsupported by good practice. And where good practice exists it is too rarely shared.
In short, education in Brent is muddling through; scrambling reactively to avoid immediate problems when it should be planning ahead, pulling together and setting its sights on becoming one of the highest performing boroughs in London so that children and young people thrive in all Brent Schools.
There are 34 recommendations in the report which I reproduce below.  The full report needs careful consideration but two things immediately strike me. One is the contradiction betweem the authority cutting back on its School Improvement Service whilst at the same time wanting to get to know its schools better and have early warning of any difficulties. Will handing over responsibility to the Brent Schools Partnership, an organisation at an early stage of development, be sufficient to address this problem. There is a worrying absence of any reference to the role of School Improvement Partners (SIPs), the 'inspectors' of old, in the school improvement process, and consideration of their effectiveness and quality control.

Secondly, given the fact that Crest Academy, City Academy and now Alperton Academy have received less than Good, and sometimes Inadequate Ofsted ratings, and the failure of two planned Free Schools to open, is the proposed cooperation with academy and free school providers a viable option?

The impact of cuts and staffing uncertainties is honestly assessed:
Feedback to the Commission indicated that the Council’s approach towards many issues is not sufficiently strategic or ambitious. It is described as often being too reactive and too late.
The Commission was given the example of the abolition of assessment levels, as announced by the Secretary of State. There seems little preparation for this and, consequently, a risk that each school will act separately, resulting in a lack of common language about assessment and learning across the borough.
Another example is the lack of forward planning for free schools meals capacity.

Head teachers believe that, to some extent, significant reductions in education staffing, particularly at managerial levels, have made this inevitable.

Another factor is the lack of continuity of staff within the Council. Lots of interim posts add to the challenges of long-term strategic planning and reduce the drive to implement agreed priorities.
Establishing a staffing structure, which has resilience and continuity, should be a priority for the new Director, Children and Young People

RECOMMENDATIONS

Education Strategy and Leadership 

1.     The local authority should set out a clear statement about its own role, within the changing education landscape, for discussion with the education community. This should be rooted in ambitious aspirations for and expectations of Brent Children and Brent Schools. The statement should underline the moral imperative for all schools in the borough to have shared ownership for the education of all children in every Brent school.
2.     The role of the governing body as an important force for support, challenge and improvement should be recognised and the local authority should invest in the development of governors.
3.     A strategic group involving the principal education partners should be established, chaired by the new Director of Children and Young People, to drive forward the education strategy in conjunction with key education partners.
4.     This new strategic group should develop and agree the vision for education in the borough. This must not be a protracted process. The resulting vision should lead to a strategy which contains a few key goals that are owned by all key participants and result in well-defined, agreed actions.
5.     The local authority, in collaboration with schools themselves, should set out challenging but achievable excellence targets demonstrating high expectations for children in the borough. The Commission believes that these excellence targets should include an expectation that all schools in the authority will be good or better within three years and that outcomes at key stages 2 and 4 will be at least 2% above the London average within three years.
6.     The Leader of the Council and the Lead Member for Education should establish a forum for meeting on a termly basis with a group of representative head teachers to ensure the education strategy is being taken forward and to reinforce the importance of education as part of the political agenda of the council. 
 

Planning School Places 

7.     The local authority should produce an agreed strategy for place planning. The quality of education and the potential for school improvement in any expansions should be the foremost priority when determining the programme of expansion.
8.     The Council should appoint one head of service to be responsible for drawing up and implementing all aspects of the place planning strategy across the two departments that currently have responsibilities for place planning.
9.     The new Director of Children and Young People should urgently review the authority’s arrangements for projecting the future school population and the geographical spread across the Borough to ensure they are rigorous and fit for purpose.
10. The local authority should be proactive in encouraging the best schools in Brent and free school providers to set up new schools in areas where extra places are needed. The Council should encourage open competition in order to establish new schools.
11. The place planning strategy, and future updates about its progress, should be kept under review and progress should be discussed with school leaders, chairs of governors, academies, and faith and community groups, on a regular basis. 


Knowing Brent Schools
 
12. To support school improvement, the local authority should put in place a system to provide each school with a picture of how they perform against both local and national indicators. These would be a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators. The process for designing this system, in particular the evidence used, should be co-produced with schools, both head teachers and governors.
13. To support their role as champions and guardians of the needs and interest of children, the local authority should produce an annual report that should be easily accessible to parents and the local community. This should set out achievements and progress in education in Brent, as well as highlighting challenges and areas for development. It should be sent to the governing bodies of all schools in Brent as well as academy trusts, Ofsted and the Secretary of State.
14. The local authority should urgently investigate, with schools, the introduction of a data tracking system that can be used to risk assess the progress and performance of schools within the school year as well as at the end of the year. This system should be co-produced with head teachers and school governors.
15. Through the new strategic group, an agreed programme of peer reviews should be established between schools, drawing on best practice in models elsewhere. The peer review model should influence Brent’s current Rapid Improvement Groups (RIG) process. Regular development opportunities should be provided for teachers to observe good practice in other schools.
16. The local authority and schools should devise a programme of activities to showcase excellence and interesting practice in education in Brent
17. The local authority, in conjunction with the Brent Schools Partnership and teaching schools, should publish case studies of good practice in local schools, before the end of 2014. This should give a clear picture of what good and outstanding schools look like in practice.
18. An annual schools awards scheme should be established in 2014/15 to recognise and celebrate practice in Brent schools. 
 

Promoting and supporting school - to - school networks 

19. As part of its changing role, the local authority should work together with all education partners to build the capacity and effectiveness of the Brent School Partnership. This should include its ability to commission teaching schools and other excellent providers in Brent.
20. The Brent School Partnership and the local authority should be encouraged to learn lessons for school partnerships from other authorities and from families of schools, such as chains, federations and trusts.
21. Mechanisms should be put in place across all schools in the borough for school-to- school challenge and support in order to improve practice and build shared ownership for the education of all children in Brent schools. The local authority should play a key role, encouraging schools to consider the benefits of cluster and other partnership arrangements and to break down any barriers that may prevent such collaboration.
22. The local authority should provide funding to the Brent School Partnership to appoint a full time Director, or coordinator, for two years with a formal review built into the end of year 1.
23. The new strategic group (see recommendation 2) should work with the Brent School Partnership steering group to agree a set of priorities and a costed programme for action in the school year, 2014-2015, for all schools. The local education authority should provide financial support to incentivise collaboration and work in clusters or networks. It should also agree a process for how the Brent School Partnership and teaching schools might be commissioned to provide and broker support for schools causing concern, including use of the Rapid Improvement Group process.

Providing challenge to address weaknesses
24. There should be more forensic examination of the schools that are assessed as being at risk or requiring improvement through investigation of teaching and its impact on learning in the classroom.
25. There is a need for more effective support for schools that are struggling, drawing on the wider capacity and expertise of other Brent schools.
26. The local authority should be bolder in deploying executive heads, NLEs, LLEs, teaching schools, federations and academy sponsors to ensure that schools judged inadequate or requiring improvement have the necessary leadership and governance expertise to drive improvement.
27. The local authority needs to identify underperformance at an early stage and to be prepared to be more robust in how it addresses concerns, including issues relating to underperformance in leadership. 

Improving school governance 

28. All schools in Brent should review their governance arrangements and consider reconstituting their governing body in line with the new regulations.
29. The local authority should complete and implement its review for nominating local authority governors with a view to speeding up the process, drawing in a wider pool of talent and making the skills and capacity of nominees the primary criteria for nomination.
30. The local authority should produce guidance for schools on conducting audits of governor skills.
31. The local authority should give greater priority within the governor development programme to understanding and using data and to supporting the role of governors in school improvement.
32. The local authority should broker collaborations between pairs of governing bodies to scrutinise each other’s performance data and to engender confidence and skill in providing constructive challenge.
33. The local authority should look at opportunities for governors to observe how each other works, perhaps on a cluster or network basis, and through developing contacts in other boroughs to observe and learn about good practice.
34. The best chairs of governors should be encouraged to seek accreditation as National Leaders of Governance and be deployed to support other chairs.

THE FULL REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE



Great line up for Willesden Green Garden party on Sunday - book now!

Ahmed Dickinson
 
This is the  lineup for the Brent Stop the War and Palestine Solidarity Campaign garden party to be held in Willesden Green  on Sunday 15th June. 
The performers are:

Rachel Rose Reid - story teller and performance artist
Archetype - rapper and poet
Farhad Khalid - asian/easten folk jazz guitarist, singer song writer
Finistere - guitar, Irish whistle and songs
Ahmed Dickinson - Cuban virtuoso guitarist
Ian Saville, Socialist Magician and our MC

We also have the most amazing raffle prizes donated by organisations. They are:

Vouchers for comedy nights at The Good Ship in Kilburn
3 x vouchers for 2 tickets to the BFI (British Film Institute)
1 x voucher for 2 tickets to a main feature at the Lexi Cinema
2 x vouchers for a meal for 2 at Maramia Palestinian Cafe In Golborne Road
1 x fairtrade recycled bag from Ganesha fairtrade shop
1 x book "The Blood Never Dried" by John Newsinger from Bookmarks

Order tickets by emailing brentstopthewar@gmail.com or phoning Sarah on 07951 084 101. 

Tickets bought in advance cost £15 waged/solidarity, £12 pensioners /low waged and £8 students/benefit claimants.  On the door prices: £20, £15,  £10

Sunday June 15th  5pm onwards
In Kate & Jamie’s beautiful garden close to Willesden Green station.
We will tell you the address when you buy your ticket.
BRENT STW and PSC Summer Fundraising Garden Party

Please spread the word by joining the Facebook event and inviting all your friends – see here. https://www.facebook.com/events/1427576110826752/?fref=ts

Wednesday 11 June 2014

COPLAND IS GETTING GOVE’S ‘REVERSE -TROJAN -HORSE’ TREATMENT

Guest blog by Will Shaw

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the bizarre events surrounding the Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ schools should have finally made clear that Ofsted exists to give the government the inspection reports it requires to support whatever its  schools strategy happens to be at any particular time. If the inspectors don’t come up with the right report they can be sent back into schools until they do. This is not usually necessary as the inspectors know what is expected of them and they dutifully supply it. Their lack of integrity or principled independence of thought can be measured by their deafening silence in objecting to this role over the years  and the extreme rarity of any individual resignations.

Ofsted inspections are a key weapon in the government’s overriding aim of ultimately turning  all (state) schools into centrally-run academies and  taking them out of local democratic accountability.  Once Ofsted supplies the government with the ‘appropriate’ inspection report on a school, the next stage is special measures, the imposition from outside of a non-accountable IEB  and forced academisation. This is the stage Copland has been at since last September. 

Obviously, this stage in the process has to appear  to be both necessary and beneficial and it’s Ofsted again which is used to show how much schools like Copland  improve as a result of the government’s wise policies. At Copland, if the inspectors are to be believed, the beneficial results of government policy were almost instantaneous. Their report after last November’s visit spoke of  the school having ‘turned a corner’ and ‘students making better progress’. It continued ‘ teaching …..attendance and punctuality are improving’, ‘students are keen to learn’, ‘ there has been a sea-change in the pace of improvement’, ‘the interim headteacher and associate headteacher and very strong governance of the IEB are driving this change well’ and so on; and all this after only 6 weeks! The nature of the narrative had been set. 

March 2014’s Copland report took the hagiography to the next level:  ‘… the  headteacher of St Paul’s Way is an astute Chair of the Interim Executive Board….. IEB members are asking the right questions about the school’s performance.. balanced in the rigour of challenge and in the quality of their support. Senior leaders are ‘stepping up to the plate’ more …. having greater impact on the work of the school ……... responding well to the high level of challenge being laid down by school leaders and the IEB... ……more accurate understanding of students’ needs  ……..higher expectations for students……  behaviour is much improved and the school is a more respectful place…… zero tolerance to poor behaviour … ….. an attitude of respect between and among students and staff……more confident and articulate learners. …….a richer quality of teaching…..teaching is better… lessons are more structured’. Clearly carried away with the spirit of the thing, the reporting inspector at one point came over all Mills and Boon and, revealing  a bureaucrat’s tin ear for the speech patterns of 21st century London youth,   wrote this:

 ‘One student, capturing the views of many, said, ‘We can see hope now.’ This new-found optimism is palpable’.  

 (I like to imagine the inspector considering whether to  attribute the final 6 words to this ‘student’ as well, but wisely deciding that this might be pushing it a bit). 

It’s difficult not to laugh (if only at the writers’ belief that they could get away with this tosh) but many teachers and pupils have worked very hard at Copland this year and it’s a pity that any truth which these Ofsted reports might contain is tarnished by the relentless gung-ho bollocks  of the rest of it. But then, establishing  the truth is not at all what these inspections are about. How could they be when 2 inspectors come in for a day and a half and watch 10 or 15 minutes of a few lessons?  No, as in Birmingham their function is to provide bogus supporting evidence for actions already decided on. In the case of Copland, we are being provided with the  narrative of the ‘saving’ of a school by Gove, forced academisation, ‘tough’ but necessary action, (60 staff and half the curriculum axed), and finally the salvation that is The Ark Rescue.  

It’s a satisfying narrative  so far and it will be interesting to see how far the Ofsted inspectors think they can push it when the report on their imminent final visit comes out in a few weeks time.  As the purpose of the report is pre-determined and as the inspectors know what is expected of them (and  also know that their continuing employment depends on their coming up with the goods), the report  might as well have been written last September. If it was, I hope they don’t change anything if they , by chance, should come across this blog. And if they’re looking for further fictional inspiration, what better place than in the sort of book that, if he’d ever read it, Michael Gove would surely have banned, if only for the fact that it isn’t even really a decent, proper, stout English novel but rather some thin, poncey, foreign-sounding thing called a ‘novella’: Animal Farm.

“It has become usual in Wembley to give Mr Gove, Michael Pavey, the IEB, the Interim Headteacher and the Associate Headteacher  the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune at the school. You will often hear one pupil remark to another, “Under the guidance of our Senior Leadership Team  I have progressed  five levels in six months” or two teachers, enjoying a drink at the staffroom water-cooler, will exclaim, “thanks to the leadership of Headteacher  Marshall and  Associate Headteacher John, how excellent this water tastes!”...” (With apologies to  George Orwell).
The next Copland Ofsted visit is ‘imminent’  and the inspector’s report will be published in a few week’s time. But please remember, and thanks to Martin, you read it here first.