Let's pause and consider an alternative vision for education before the system imprisons us for another year

Children and teachers returned to school this week with both facing the narrow concept of education now embodied in the high stakes testing regime imposed by successive governments.

Before they and parents are captured by the system for another year I recommend viewing this Al Jazeera interview with Sir Ken Robinson. Wide ranging and at time very personal it gives much food for thought.

Another education system is possible.

Cricklewood Green Space pulled from Monday's Barnet Committee Agenda

Following a request from Cllrs Shimon Ryde and Peter Zinkin (Conservatives, Childs Hill) Deputy Barnet Council Leader Daniel Thomas has announced that the item will no longer be discussed at Monday's Assets, Regeneration and Growth Committee.

This is likely to be a delay, rather than abandonment of the scheme.

One resident commented that this gave councillors more time to 'pretend to care', but protesters are likely to make the most of the delay to step up their campaign.

Meanwhile the proposal to build on the green space outside B&Q received front page treatment  today in the Brent and Kilburn Times.

See full story on Kilburn Times website LINK

UPDATED: Support Refugees Welcome Here National Day of Action September 12th

Please note now assembling at 12 and marching to Downing Street

National Day of Action, Called by Stand up to Racism, BARAC, Stop the War Coalition, Migrant Rights Network

This event has been called in response to various reports of refugees fleeing war, persecution, torture and poverty losing their lives or struggling to find a safe haven. This includes the death of 200 refugees off the coast of Libya, around 70 refugees in a truck in Austria and on going reports of refugees drowning crossing the Mediterranean, stranded in Hungary and prohibited from moving around the EU, and those in Calais struggling to find sanctuary.

The government response to this has been disgraceful. Unlike Germany, Italy and Greece, Britain has not offered a safe haven for these people.

On Monday 14 September Home Secretary Theresa May will be meeting with EU leaders about the refugee crisis. We must learn the lessons of history and call on the government to take a humanitarian and compassionate response to refugees.

We are calling on the British government to meet its share of the responsibility for providing protection. Let's send a strong message: we say refugees are welcome here.

We are also calling for a national day of action on Saturday 12 September, organise local events at places of worship or unveil a "Refugees Welcome Here" banner at football matches, use your imagination!

Join us on Saturday 12 September 2015 12 noon at Marble Arch anf marching to Downing Street, London FACEBOOK

Caroline Lucas writing in the Independent today LINK said:

 “The heart wrenching scenes we’re seeing– of children being washed up dead on beaches, of people being detained en masse on trains, of thousands upon thousands risking their lives to come to Europe – serve as a reminder of our duty to help those in peril however we can.

“We have the capacity to take more refugees in Britain, but the Government lacks the will to do what’s right. Indeed David Cameron’s reluctance to give a home to those in need is a damning indictment of his administration’s pernicious attitude to those fleeing atrocities in other countries. When our Prime Minister’s only real action of note is to fund higher fences in Calais, it’s clear he’s lost all perspective of the gravity of the situation.

Britain can and must do more – it’s time for the Government to wake up to the cruelty of its current stance and give many more refugees the chance to settle here.”

 

Natalie Bennett puts the Green Mayoral and Assembly Campaign in Context

MORE BRENT COUNCIL SCANDAL! Now they ban opposition motion seeking the truth

On top of the denial of a deputation to Philip Grant (see posting below) Brent Council has now advised that a  motion for Monday's Council Meeting from the Brent Conservative Group should not be moved or accepted as drafted:

This is the message received by Cllr John Warren: 

Dear Councillor Warren

I have reviewed the Motion selected by the Brent Conservative Group.  My advice would be that it is not appropriate for individual, current employees or former employees of the Council to be named in this context in a Council motion and that the Motion should not be moved or accepted as drafted.

Kind regards,  

Fiona Alderman Chief Legal Officer Chief Operating Officer’s Department

Wembley Matters won't be silenced so here is the motion:

This Council agrees to an independent inquiry into all aspects of the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case.

This Council agrees that the inquiry shall commence at the conclusion of the Tribunal remedy hearing. We further agree that the inquiry costs shall be funded from reserves ,and that the new Chief Executive shall be charged with setting up the inquiry panel.

The new Chief Executive will have overall responsibility for setting the terms of reference, but this Council agrees that the following questions will be included in the terms of reference...........

1. What was the rationale behind the Council initially bringing disciplinary action against M/ s Clarke.... and was it fair and reasonable?

2.Why did the Council pursue this matter so vigorously through the Tribunal ......and was it fair and reasonable?

3. What part, if any, did this case figure in the departure of Fiona Ledden from Brent?

4.What part, if any, did this case figure in the departure of Cara Davani from Brent?

5. What were the financial arrangements behind Ms Davani ‘s departure from Brent, including any Brent  indemnity given to Ms Davani in respect of Tribunal costs awarded against her personally?

6. What part, if any, did this case figure in the departure of Christine Gilbert from Brent?

7. What part did Cllr. Butt play in this case throughout its course?

8. What were the total costs in this case.......and was it a fair and reasonable way to spend Council taxpayer monies?

This Council believes this  is an important independent inquiry, and that both Brent Council staff and Brent residents would support such an inquiry

BRENT SCANDAL: Cara Davani and Christine Gilbert – Yet another Deputation the Council won’t be allowed to hear! (or, “The Cover-up Continues”)

The cover-up at Brent Council is fast becoming a scandal and surely should at least be taken up by our local and London  press and TV. Here in a Guest Blog  Philip Grant shares the latest twist in the sordid tale:
 

In a guest blog last week LINK  I  let readers know that I had given notice to Brent’s Chief Legal Officer that I wished to present a Deputation to the Full Council meeting on 7 September. One element of that Deputation was to be asking, in open Council, for answers to the “two questions” I had put to Christine Gilbert on 9 July about the possible “pay off” by Brent to Cara Davani, its Director of HR until June 2015. 

I was promised a reply to my notice on Tuesday, but it actually came today, at 08:47am. In the interests of transparency, I am setting out the full text of the reply from the Chief Legal Officer, and my response to it:-

Dear Mr Grant

I apologise that I was not able to respond yesterday.

I have carefully considered the constituent parts of your deputation request and I have also considered it as a whole and in the context of your previous correspondence on related matters.

The purpose of the deputation procedure is to allow members of the public to address all Members of the Council in relation to Council services or policies etc. The deputation procedure is not intended to be used as a continuation of an on-going complaint or grievance about decisions made by the Council. Further, any attempt to use the deputation procedure in such a way would not be appropriate.

That being the case, it appears to me that your deputation is, in reality, a complaint about how the Council has handled your request for greater transparency. As you remain dissatisfied with the Council’s response to date, I will formally deal with this via our procedures in relation to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  You will receive a formal response within 20 working days and thereafter you have a route for taking the matter further via the Internal Review process and, ultimately, the Information Commissioner.  This is the appropriate statutory procedure for pursuing your objectives and not the Council’s deputation procedure.

Neither would it be appropriate to use the deputation procedure to complain about the conduct of individual members of staff or other matters relating to their employment, irrespective of their seniority. Consideration of such matters at a Full Council meeting would not achieve your desired objective and would only undermine the obligation of trust and confidence that staff can reasonably expect of the Council as an employer and would be contrary to the Data Protection Act 1998.

Best wishes

Fiona Alderman
Chief Legal Officer, Chief Operating Officer’s Department

I replied to Ms Alderman at 11:03 this morning, as follows:

Dear Ms Alderman,

Thank you for your email this morning. I am disappointed that you have used your discretionary power under Standing Order 39(b) to prevent me from making my Deputation to Full Council on Monday 7 September. I believe you have mis-used that power, in part, at least, because you have allowed previous correspondence on one aspect of my proposed Deputation to cloud your judgement. 
I would ask you to reconsider your decision. Please let me know by close of business tomorrow, Thursday 3 September, whether you will allow my Deputation to go ahead, so that I have ample time to prepare my final text for it.

When the provision for Deputations was introduced into Brent’s Constitution by Full Council, at its meeting on 4 June 2014, the report from your predecessor, Fiona Ledden, said:

‘3.6 (ii) Deputations - It is proposed that Deputations by members of the public be included in the agenda. A maximum period of 15 minutes will be provided in total, with 5 minutes maximum being provided for each speaker. Criteria are established requiring that such deputations relate to a significant matter concerning the borough

 The title of my proposed Deputation is “The importance of high standards of conduct in carrying out the functions of Brent Council”, and it can hardly be claimed that this is not ‘a significant matter concerning the borough’. You are wrong to suggest that this is, ‘in reality’, just an attempt to pursue a single ‘complaint’. I first spoke publicly about concerns which I, and other residents, have had about the conduct of Senior Council Officers in a “soapbox slot” at the Kingsbury & Kenton “Brent Connects” forum in February 2014.

 

The timing of my request to make this Deputation now is because of the arrival of a new Chief Executive, Carolyn Downs, and the window this opens for improvements to be made. I accept that I am also taking the opportunity to use, as an example of the main point I wish to make, the failure by her predecessor to comply with her duty to show openness and accountability in response to my “two questions”. This gives the Council, and its new Chief Executive, the chance to re-commit to high standards of conduct, by answering those questions and by investigating, if necessary, whether there has been a misuse of Council funds.

You have referred several times to my continuing attempts to get answers over the possible “pay off” to Cara Davani as being a ‘complaint’. If I were making a complaint, I would have said so. Neither you nor Christine Gilbert has previously responded to my correspondence on this matter by saying that it would be treated as a complaint under the Council’s complaints procedures, so there is no reason why you should refer to it in that way now. 

Similarly, I see no reason why you should now treat my request for simple “yes” or “no” answers to two questions, which I first put to Brent’s interim Chief Executive on 9 July 2015, as a Freedom of Information Act request. If it was such a request, I would have said so. If you or Christine Gilbert saw it as such a request, then the 20 working days for a response to it has already passed! 

It is as if you have tried to find excuses not to accept my, perfectly valid, notice to make a Deputation to the Full Council meeting on 7 September, rather than accept, at face value, my request to bring a matter of real and serious concern publicly to the attention of the Council, so that it can be discussed and resolved. This matter has been “swept under the carpet” for too long, and it needs to be aired, so that it can be properly dealt with. Brent Council needs to deal with this stain from the past, so that it can move forward, and the arrival of a new Chief Executive is the ideal time to do that. 

I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.

On past experience, it is unlikely that I will be allowed to present my Deputation to the Full Council meeting at 7pm next Monday evening, 7 September. However, if “Wembley Matters” readers still support my efforts to get the “two questions” about a possible “pay off” to Cara Davani, I would ask again, please, that they email their Ward Councillors, as soon as possible, this time with copies to: chief.executive@brent.gov.uk  and fiona.alderman@brent.gov.uk , to say so. Thank you.

London Green Party selects Sian Berry as their Mayoral candidate and name their GLA list

The candidiates book-ended by Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett

The London Green Party announced this afternoon that Sian Berry will be their candidate for the London Mayoral election in 2015.

She declared,  "London and its land belongs to all of us."

This is what she said in her campaigning statement:
 

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For too long our city has been run for the powerful and privileged. But people are refusing to sit quietly. London is full of amazing communities and campaigns building a new kind of politics. In Europe’s other great cities, citizens are voting for real change on the crest of this wave of activism. Why should London miss out?

I ran for Mayor in 2008 taking us from 7th to 4th, winning endorsements from the Independent and Observer. Back then, London Green Party had around 1,000 members – now we have the talent of 12,000. I’m determined we give Londoners the big, open, inspiring campaign they deserve.

As Green candidate for Mayor, I’ll stand up for the 99%

I want Londoners to shape our manifesto, holding open meetings with communities and campaigners on:

• Making housing and rents affordable – brutally neglected by the current Mayor
• Rethinking policing – do we want officers spying on campaigners or investigating tax fraud?
• Reinventing the City – our international finance experts should be creating new ways of doing business that don’t exploit the majority
• Getting to grips with killer air pollution – cutting traffic, reducing fares, and making cycling safe

The Green Party List as voted by members was also announced. Seats are allocated on the position on the list and the overall number of vote for the Green Party in the GLA election. The more votes we get the more canadidiates from the list become Assembly Members,  In the last GLA election the top two, Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson, were elected to the Assembly.

List in order:

1. Sian Berrry
2. Caroline Russell
3. .Jonathan Bartley
4. Noel Lynch
5. Shahar Ali
6. Rashid Nix
7. Tom Chance
8. Benali Hamdache
9. Dee Searle
10. Andrea Carey Fuller
11. Rosemay Warrington

London needs £1.5bn to provide additional school places

This report is published today.  It is a pity that London Councils' press release does  not include a demand for the restoration of local authorities powers to plan and build new schools where they arte needed.
 

London will need to create 113,000 new school places over the next five years, requiring investment of at least £1.5 billion as the capital’s school population rises by 12 per cent, according to a new report published today.

‘Do The Maths 2015’ from London Councils, which represents the 32 London boroughs and the City of London, reveals that the Department for Education is not funding London boroughs sufficiently to meet the cost of providing new school places between 2015 and 2020.

Over the next five years London is set to experience pressure on both primary and secondary school places, with secondary in greatest need by the end of this parliament. London faces a shortfall of 78,275 primary school places and 34,835 secondary school places short by 2020.

With many London primary schools already expanded and secondary school expansions costing as much as 50 per cent more than primary, the straightforward options for increasing school capacity are disappearing.

Cllr Peter John, London Councils’ Executive Member for Children, Skills and Employment, said:

“At a time when budgets are under pressure across the board, boroughs cannot continue to subsidise the cost of school places in London. Time is running out for the Government to fully support councils’ efforts to provide primary and secondary school places in the capital over the next five years.

“Councils in London have worked exceptionally hard with school heads and governors since 2010. But without sufficient resources it will be extremely difficult to manage complex primary expansions and meet the rising demand for secondary school places in the future.”

London Councils is calling on the Department for Education to recognise the unprecedented challenge of creating almost 35,000 new secondary places in the capital and the associated site acquisition and building costs.

It is also asking for Government to fully fund the expansion of school places in London by allocating at least an additional £1.5 billion of Basic Need funding for the two-year period 2018/19 to 2019/20.

A commitment to increasing the funding offered per school place to ensure this matches the actual costs, as well as adequate funding to secure places in special schools and provision in mainstream schools for children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND), are the other main asks in the report.