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Thank you, Ann. I shall certainly be reading this during the break.

Ann Walker's avatarLifelong Learning Matters

Henry Benedict Tam is well-known in the WEA because of his extensive experience in supporting the development of inclusive communities. He has led previous government initiatives on delivering wider democratic empowerment, promoting civil renewal and improving community-based regeneration. He has also been a thought-provoking speaker at various WEA events and has challenged us constructively from time to time. A former civil servant in the Home Office and Department of Communities and Local Government, he is currently the Director of Cambridge University’s Forum for Youth Participation & Democracy.

Professor Tam has drawn on his expertise as a policy advisor, programme director and political theorist to write extensively on politics and society, but, in a rather surprising new project, he has now written his first novel, Kuan’s Wonderland. He describes the book as a fable to intrigue and prompt debate. “Some may find it subversive”, he told me, “but aren’t novels meant…

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“The government will not listen if we ask nicely…”

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

As we build towards the Tory conference demonstration on Sunday 7th October, and the TUC national demonstration in London on Saturday 20th October, there will be a public meeting, held at Birmingham City Council house, on Saturday 22nd September, from 2pm.

Speakers include Matt Wrack (President FBU firefighters union), Lee Barron (Chair Midlands TUC), Ian Hodson (President BWAFU bakers union) and Caroline Johnson (Birmingham Unison).
Birmingham City Council House, Victoria Square, B1 1BB. The council house is wheelchair accessible.

Unison will also hold a placard protest from 12 noon, marching to the rally. There will also be other events held in September to make these protests the largest yet in opposition to the Coalition’s failing austerity agenda. If you want to help make the events a success, come to the mobilising meeting on 20th August.

Last year, we wrote about why austerity will not work

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All Birmingham children should be brought up in a stable and safe environment. Ideally this should be in a family or family-like situation. For the small numbers for whom this is not possible, either in the short or in the longer term it seems reasonable to provide facilities to support and care for them. Of course, the history of such provision in Birmingham is a vexed and emotive subject, all the more reason why the provision should be adequately resourced.
I do wonder why Birmingham is maintaining resources outside Birmingham. I am not aware of the reasons for BCC running facilities in Dudley and I wonder why their continued operation is not secured by Dudley Council.
The cost of £3 million – what impact will that really have on the Budget? Set against the jobs lost with the direct and indirect, financial, social and human costs that will entail, set against the costs of failing the most vulnerable.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

Birmingham City Council have begun constulation over the possible closure of five childrens homes in Birmingham, as part of the cuts to the council’s 2012 budget.

The homes are Chamberlain Road in Billesley, Fountain Road in Harborne, Kings Lodge in Oscott and South Acre and Viscount House, which are both in Dudley. GMB say their closure will cost 170 jobs, and the council expect to save £3m.

However, the last time they closed children’s homes it ended up costing 41% more with some of the most vulnerable people in Birmingham being sent to care homes hundreds of miles away from their city.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, Coun Brigid Jones, cabinet member for children and family services, said:

For the vast majority of looked-after children, it is far better they grow up in a settled family environment as this improves their life chances, both emotionally and in terms…

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It does seem to be all about the money. And all about something for nothing.  That ‘something’ represents the collective expenditure of ourselves, our parents, their parents, their parents… right back to the 1870s when far-sighted, enterprising individuals with a social conscience and something missing from the new rich of today, a concept of ‘noblesse oblige,’ decided that the nation’s best interests would be served by educating all our children to a minimum standard. The best architects designed and built the schools to exacting standards. Many of these schools are still in use. Other land set aside for recreation and playing fields has already been disposed of at bargain-basement prices.
And these people who want to walk off with our public buildings, land and institutions with a sleight-of-hand are those who will tell you that you can’t have something for nothing.

askparentsfirst's avatarAsk Parents First

In a very welcome move Birmingham City Council has this week deferred decisions on academy conversion at 8 schools amid concerns about asset stripping and the practice of writing off debts for converting schools. This should come as a huge relief for the ordinary citizens of Birmingham, many of whom have probably been unaware that they have been haemorrhaging public assets and funds to the academies programme in this way over the past two years.

Read the newspaper report here  http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2012/08/02/eight-birmingham-academy-schools-on-hold-as-1-3-million-debts-loom-65233-31528483/#ixzz22T3NXabk

Matters had been set to get even worse with Michael Gove targeting the city’s primary schools for forced academy conversion. A plethora of new sponsors – many with little or no experience of running schools – has emerged in response to the Government’s forced academy programme, and they have been hovering like vultures over Birmingham schools. Meanwhile, the more established sponsors have been digging in. ARK announced in March…

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As Holland and Barrett and Pizza Hut, amongst other well known high street names, can attest, there really is no need, nor stomach, for Workfare here. It is a doctrinaire attempt to inject alien ideology into the British body-politic and as with many poorly thought through xenografts, being vigorously rejected by the host.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

Youth Fight For Jobs are holding a Protest against workfare profiteers, ESG at 1pm on Friday (3rd August), at their offices on Galbraith House, Great Charles street in Birmingham city centre.

ESG group currently hold a contract worth £4m over four years, for the government’s “work experience” schemes in the West Midlands. In reality, this represents yet another stick for the government to beat the unemployed with, as those who have been claiming Job Seeker’s for over six months are forced into working for free for companies such as Tesco, WH Smith and McDonald’s.

The government have recently announced that the Community Action Program will be expanded, pushing 1 million people into 6 months of forced unpaid work. This will involve an individual doing 780 hours of community service – over twice as much as the maximum sentence of 300 hours allowed for community service when convicted of breaking…

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125 Years is a Long, Long Time.

The term ‘125 Year Lease’ is thrown around like confetti at a wedding so allow me put 125 years into context.

125 years ago, in 1887, when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, County Councils had yet to be established (Local Government Act 1888) and Local Education Authorities would not be created for another 14 years. (Education Act 1902)

125 years ago there were no LEAs and most of us couldn’t vote – no woman could anyway.

There were no cars as we would know them, few bicycles, no planes, gas and electricity were novelties few enjoyed.

No radio or television, telephones had existed for around a decade – few had them, and you had to pay to see the Doctor…

I could go on but the point I’m trying to make is that 125 years is a long, long, long time.

A lot will change over such a period.
The world will be a different place by the 2130s and 2140s.

It is very unlikely that anybody signing a 125 year lease will be around at its surrender yet public property is being ceded on these terms. The community that a school serves may no longer exist in 125 years time – the lease may well still have force of law.

So next time the phrase ‘125 Year Lease’ is glibly trotted out, perhaps bear in mind what I have set out here.

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.

askparentsfirst's avatarAsk Parents First

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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We live in strange times. Address disengagement in young adults by closing services supportive of their social, educational and employment needs. Address poverty in the sick and disabled by certifying them fit to work and pretending they don’t exist. Address the growing numbers of children requiring education by slashing school building programmes, axing child care, and driving teachers out of the profession. Address a perceived fall in academic standards by allowing removing the standards for teaching.
These actions are inverse, adverse and perverse.

Ann Walker's avatarLifelong Learning Matters

The Department for Education announced on Friday that it was removing requirements for teachers working in academies to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Danny Boyle provided an Olympic distraction from this news.

A spokesman for the Department for Education told the BBC (who had little time to broadcast or analyse it):

“This policy will free up academies to employ professionals – like scientists, engineers, musicians, university professors, and experienced teachers and heads from overseas and the independent sector – who may be extremely well-qualified and are excellent teachers, but do not have QTS status.”

A teacher’s role is likely to include preparing young people for academic and /or vocational qualifications yet this move exempts them from having to take part in work-related professional preparation and assessment themselves. We might infer from the announcement that teaching doesn’t require specific expertise, knowledge or understanding or that subject specialists don’t value the relevant…

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Anybody care to remind me what happened the last time a tax like this was introduced. For example, just what was the level of compliance for paying the Community Charge? And can anyone tell me how much was left uncollected when it was dismantled.
So, if this is not about a workable system for funding local government, what is it?
Did I hear someone shout: “Just another bloody big stick to beat the poorest with, yet another means to criminalise those without the means to meet the cost?”
Of course, it is also there to demonise the evil Councillors – many of whom are of a leftish persuasion since May this year.

Birmingham Against The Cuts's avatarBirmingham Against The Cuts

Birmingham City Council yesterday said that due to cuts in central government funding for council tax benefit, it would have to find nearly £12m. Their preferred proposal for this would be to make claimants pay 20% of the council tax due on their property except disabled people and families with children under the age of 6. The ConDem coalition have already said that pensioners cannot have their council tax benefit cut.

This means that anyone who is unemployed or in low paid work will have to find £224 / year on an average property from April 2013. This will raise the £12m necessary to cover the shortfall. Unfortunately, the cuts are being implemented (and hidden) as part of a change to council tax benefit, localising the handling of payments. This new system will cost Birmingham City Council an additional £15m to administer, which wipes out any savings…

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