I am used to being a lone voice fighting against the odds and I’ll admit I wondered whether a change of leadership would change anything. Well, the change in position on this subject pre and post May has already exceeded my expectations. It looks as if the neglect and dereliction of office by the previous administration will go to scrutiny. Perhaps now the questions some have been asking for the past two years will receive answers. Perhaps some of the public assets so egregiously ceded from Birmingham council tax payers might be, if not recovered, at least challenged by our elected members.
Tweets from observers at today’s Birmingham cabinet meeting suggest that Birmingham City Council intends to protect public assets from being transferred to private ownership as part of the academy conversion process, and that it intends to protect Birmingham schools from the profit-motive.
Birmingham cabinet was told that council land leased to academies won’t revert to council ownership if academies fold. There was reportedly a lot of concern that this amounts to an invitation to asset-strip, that Academies could be robbing public assets for future development;
The case of academy conversion for George Dixon School was discussed;
A blogpost from The Chamberlain Files today reports that this resulted in the cabinet deferring a decision on turning George Dixon School into an academy because of concerns about the freehold being handed over to private sponsors;
The Birmingham cabinet today deferred a decision on turning George Dixon Foundation School into an academy after…
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