Another U-turn we hope!

Today there is a rumour that Caroline Spelman, Minister for the Environment and Rural Affairs will announce tomorrow a U-turn in the Government's plan to sell off large swathes of England's forests.  The rumour indicates that "heritage forests" will be retained and that public access will be protected. Only timber producing forests will be privatised. This story has been reported by Bloomberg as appearing in today's Mail, however it is not mentioned on the Mail website,

Around the  Mac that feeds this blog there are numerous pages of newsprint saved, not only for lighting the stove, but  because, in the distant past, a headline has grabbed attention. With too little time to read it  the page will have  been put aside, but not filed, for future reading.  This is how an article by Andy Wightman published in the Observer on January 16 comes to hand today. It is headlined "We can transform our countryside. Put forests in the hands of the people" It also appears on his blog www.andywightman.com/wordpress.

 If you are a Mail or Telegraph reader,  you may think such a headline is a call to rise up and nationalise our countryside, to enable leftish alternatives and their mates to build tepees and engage in communal jolities.  Well no.

He quite rightly compares our approach to woodlands to that of the French.  Luckily France had a revolution, well luckily it was some time ago, that re-ordered the ownership of national resources such as forests and rivers. Now, for example, for a small fee a young person can purchase a fishing licence to fish in any of France's rivers. Try that in England where fishing rights are fiercely protected.  And if you travel extensively through France you see that almost every Commune owns and tends public spaces, including forests,  for the benefit of the commune. Rivers and lakes are also sensitively managed as leisure areas for the local village or town.

The Tory led government is onto a loser. Over 80% of the population is strongly against any sell off. Go to the Haldon Forest website at http://www.eclipse.co.uk/exeter/haldon/  to find out what is happening locally with links to action happening all over the country,  In the meantime here is Andy Wightman's article.

The Future of English State Forestry

January 16th, 2011

 The following piece was published in the Observer on 16 January 2010 and is reproduced here with the addition of annotated footnotes and hyperlinks.
Last week, I received an email from the campaigning group 38 Degrees imploring me to sign a petition to “Save Our Forests”. I studied forestry at university and I love forests. I love the smell of thetrees after rain, and the lemon scent of Douglas fir needles.
In the early 1990s I was also an active campaigner in the Taiga Rescue Network, an alliance of NGOs across the northern boreal regions from
Siberia to Alaska which was set up partly to counter the hypocrisy ofnorthern governments’ demands that countries in the south such as
Brazil should stop deforestation in the Amazon. We labelled Canada the “Brazil of the North” due to its rate of temperate rainforest
destruction, annoying the hell out of the prime minister.
Forests provide clean air, carbon sinks [ie they absorb carbon dioxide], wildlife habitat, homes and shelter for people, fuel, timber, fruits, nuts, medicines, spiritual healing, recreational opportunities… Where to stop? I am a member and co-founder of Reforesting Scotland, a group dedicated to substantial reforestation. All of which is by way of pointing out that I don’t need much convincing to save our (or indeed anyone else’s) forests. In fact, I have a clear vision of the future.
Right across France and Scandinavia, for example, there are extensive community forests. In France, there are 11,000 forest communes – 30% of all communes in the country – and they own around 3 million hectares of forest which is about 20% of the total forest area of
France.
In Scotland, the Forestry Commission runs a National Forest Land Scheme which enables communities to take over ownership of state
forests. Land is now increasingly owned by the people whose lives are most affected by, dependent on and shaped by it. The state is not
benign and it can be as oppressive as any rapacious private landowner.
Years ago I asked a prominent historian of the Highlands and Islands, Dr James Hunter, to write an editorial for a magazine about the future
of forestry in Scotland. Contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy of the time, he observed: “The Forestry Commission is to Scottish forestry
what collectivisation was to Soviet agriculture.” He made a good point. Forest ownership should be spread more widely among communities
and individuals.
Instead, in Britain we still have a hugely skewed pattern of landownership where the predominance of large private estates and farms is mirrored in the public sector by large, rather distant and unaccountable bureaucracies with the title deeds held by government ministers.
Across Norway and Sweden towns and workplaces empty during holidays as people head out to the woods. There, in summer, they will pick
berries, relax in the sunshine and go swimming in the lake. In winter they will ski and have long debates in the sauna. But it’s not just
playtime. One community wood I visited in Norway last year generated £500,000 income and supported two sawmills and a high-quality timber house factory.
Imagine a Britain of small-scale forestry, of farm forestry, of small-scale rural businesses, of community forests. This is not a romantic dream – it’s the reality in France and Finland – but it is a million miles from the mean-spirited, shallow and nihilistic corporate land grab being hatched in Whitehall. To get there or anywhere near there, however, we can’t continue with the status quo.
If these are “our forests”, we need to make them so because the only reason they are under threat is precisely because we the public, unlike our friends in the French forest communes, have no stake whatsoever in their ownership.
Moving in this direction means challenging state power as well as corporate power. This was achieved in France by revolution. Here, we can do it more peacefully but it does mean we need to think more carefully about whose forests these are, why they need to be saved, from whom, and what we would like to see instead.
Which brings me back to the petition and the questions it appeared to pose. I asked myself whose forests I am being asked to save, why they
need to be saved, and what threats they are facing but could find no answers though I was told that the government is planning a massive sell-off of “our national forests” and that they “could be auctioned and fenced-off, run down, logged or turned into golf courses and holiday villages”. Yikes, better sign the petition! But then I remembered my questions.
First, “our forests” relate only to the forests in England. I live in Scotland and haven’t been into an English forest for a long time though the last time I was in the New Forest I was enchanted and such places are clearly worth saving.
Then there’s the fact that these forests are not “our” forests. Moreover, they don’t even belong to the Forestry Commission (FC). All land managed by the FC in Great Britain (Northern Ireland has its own separate Forest Service) is owned by government ministers – in England
that means secretary of state, Caroline Spelman.
So what then is the threat? Spelman stated in October (1) that she was proposing to include powers in the Public Bodies Bill (2) to “enable” Ministers to modernise forestry legislation. The Government then announced that it was looking to sell around 15% of the forestry estate (3) but the really worrying announcement was made by Minister of State Jim Paice on 24 November before a House of Lords Committee (4) when he stated that the government wished to proceed with “very substantial disposal of public forest estate [sic], which could go to the extent of it all”.
Cue the public outcry and rightly so. (I just wish 38 Degrees had explained all this so I didn’t need to do all this digging around.) But is the outcry focused on the right target? Clearly there is (and has long been) opposition to the sell-off of public forests. Even Mrs Thatcher only managed a limited disposal though she too wanted to flog the lot.
Ministers are clearly seeking powers to get round the legal obstacles placed in their way by existing forestry legislation which would limit any disposal to the 15% mentioned earlier. There are other obstacles. Much of the English forest estate (the Forest of Dean, for example) was transferred to the FC by the Crown which would be entitled to compensation if land were sold. But if the Public Bodies Bill is passed, Ministers will have a free hand to drive through their unsavoury proposals.
So there is something far more fundamental about this debate. Ownership by ministers is a precarious arrangement for any land which people regard (rightly) as public land. It means that sell-offs are always possible even without the enabling powers being sought under
the new bill. If citizens and communities want to follow through the logic of the “these are our forests” arguments then why not imagine a different future more along the lines of France or Sweden? Why not real community forestry? Anyone for another petition?
(1) See DEFRA website
(2) See Section 17-19 of Public Bodies Bill. Progress of the Bill can be tracked here.
(3) Written Question by Tim Farron, HC Deb 2 December 2010 c 960W
(4) See House of Lords Evidence (uncorrected transcript) at foot of page 6
A useful briefing SN/SC/5734 from the House of Commons library is available here.

Academy or College? A letter to the QE Governors

Dear QE Governor

The decision to leave the Local Authority and become an entirely independent school funded directly by the government is a decision of major significance. It is a decision that cannot be reversed, other than by the Secretary of State closing the school down.  Are you taking the Principal’s recommendation on trust?

In recommending academy status, on what criteria has the Principal demonstrated clearly to you and stakeholder groups, that as a Governor you are acting in the best interests of the school, both for now and the long term, by supporting academy status? 

What educational reasons does the Principal have for proposing an academy?

If QE becomes an academy, you will take on a whole range of risks and responsibilities that are currently managed for you by the Local Authority. These include financial, technical, personnel and legal issues as well as responsibility for all the buildings and assets. Has the Principal made you fully aware of all these in detail?

Are you confident that as a Governor, you have the expertise and time to manage these new responsibilities adequately?

What control do you believe the governing body would be freeing itself from if the school becomes an academy?  In reality, accountability passes to the Government in Whitehall.

As an academy, QE will be funded, monitored and regulated by a government created quango run from London. Are you happy that the QE’s future will depend on a succession of Secretaries of State? Are you sure that this central control with little local knowledge will benefit the school?

Are you satisfied that you have fulfilled your responsibilities to the parents (current and future), teachers and local community, making them fully aware not only of the potential advantages of becoming an academy but also of the potential pitfalls?

The government does not expect schools converting to academies to have a financial advantage or disadvantage.  Has the principal produced a detailed Business Plan showing what extra costs will be incurred and how these will be met, not just in the short term but going forward into subsequent years?

Given that you will not be able to call on the Local Authority, there is a need for substantial contingency funding in reserves. Has the Principal carried out a full risk assessment in the context of likely scenarios and made a plan for how to set aside enough contingency to deal with a crisis? Is this a specific part of the Business Plan?

It has been calculated that the real winners in converting to academy status are:

Larger schools; With relatively few pupils who will need extra help; Few social problems requiring Educational Welfare Support; With recently refurbished buildings with low maintenance; In areas which are not facing demographic decline;

With staff who are male or beyond child-bearing age; But not too close to retirement

Are you satisfied these factors individually and collectively have been taken into account? Certainly QE’s buildings need high maintenance

Are you aware that funding for individual academies is based on the level of funding provided by their current local authority?  Devon is currently one of the worst funded local authorities Academies receive additional funding to take account of the central services previously provided by the Local Authority.  What method of accountability will be provided by the new Academy that best value is always achieved when buying in these services?  Will the cost of buying services on the open market be less than any additional funding? If not what is the gain from leaving the Local Authority?

Who will measure the performance of academies and by what mechanism?

As Academies are seen as flagships of the Governments aim to improve standards, are you confident that central government will not be prescriptive in setting targets to ensure that academies are seen to be producing results that conform to its preconceived view of standards. As an academy, QE will be freed from the national curriculum but at present pupils will still be tested according to the national regulations. Could this change?

Do you have sufficient financial information on issues of indemnity and pension scheme liabilities in order to fully understand and mitigate the risks? Academies remain subject to primary legislation with respect to employment law, health & safety and equalities. Getting it wrong in these areas, and because QE would be on its own, could lead to expensive tribunal cases. Have you considered what the implications are and how to avoid getting it wrong? Will there be a cost involved in preventing problems? If so, what could it be?

Are you aware that currently the Governing Body has corporate liability i.e. no one member of it is accountable in law. If QE becomes an academy, overnight, corporate liability ceases and the governors become individual proprietors. As proprietors, will there be limited liability or will individuals have full liability for finance, employment issues etc?  Do you know the answer?

How will capital projects be funded There will be no capital funding available for projects, as the Building Schools for the Future programme has been shelved.

To become an academy, the Governing Body will have to form a Trust. Who will be the Trustees? The Trust has to form a governing body.  Who will be on that governing body?

Does the governing body believe it can influence the new Academy Trust and its governing body into making watertight assurances and guarantees and if so on what evidence is this belief based?

Who will conduct the legally required equalities impact assessment?

Are you fully aware that if the school goes the academy route, it is on its own financially and legally whatever happens and that the decision is irreversible.

Key Questions

    * What difference would converting make to students in the classroom and their opportunities?

    * What freedoms would QE want to use and how? And are you sure that this cannot be done as a maintained college?

    * What additional responsibilities would the governing body take on?    

    * What local authority services would QE lose and how would QE commission replacements?

    * What additional potential liabilities would the governing body have if they took on academy status?

    * What would the Trust Body look like?

    * How would the governing body be made up?

    * What are the financial implications of academy status, including the approximate costs of the additional services the governing body would have to provide for QE?

    * Does QE currently have the capacity and capabilities within the staff group to commission and manage services effectively (for example, the Government is recommending that staff should include a qualified accountant), and if not, how is this to be rectified and what would be the cost?

    * What other colleges or schools would QE support and in what way  

    * What were the results of the consultations carried out with the key stakeholders?

Yours sincerely

.

Here's some nonsense I read today

Here’s a good one.  John Rentoul in today’s Independent on Sunday has written an article suggesting…”a well executed U-turn can enhance a premier’s reputation, as David Cameron proves.”

Really!  So PRDave a master of deceit, a prime minister whose poor knowledge and, more crucially, lack of interest in detail, is clearly apparent, who seems only interested in protecting “his self-image as decent person” is doing more than OK.  Rentoul summarises that..” Cameron’s willingness to drop policies at the first whiff of cordite made him look flaky in opposition, but makes him a formidable prime minister.”

What nonsense.  Rentoul paints a picture of PRDave, descending when required “from Mount Olympus when he needs to, to sort out problems that escape from the control of departmental ministers and threaten to make him personally look bad.”  However what are these U turns?  Mostly relatively minor compared to the wholesale ransacking of the health, education and local government programmes.

PRDave is a fraud because the protection of his self-image is his driving force. He is not interested in the effects his government’s policies have on women, children, the disadvantaged, the less well off, the young or the old whether they are students or the elderly (unless the latter are Tory voters).

His image of a future England is modelled on some imagined rural shire that his parents told him about and its  well off towns, the remnants of which can be seen in certain postcodes with an outanding rated school.  He prefers to speculate on social and economic models created in the Big Society think-tank to be administered by the affluent for the good of the rest of the country, although nobody dare tell him that like John Major’s Victorian values they never existed. Furthermore let us not forget that the majority of his “reforms” will only affect England because Wales and Scotland have administrations that represent in one way or another real people. 

So really PRDave is not interested in policies he just wants to be Prime Minister, because, well because, a sort of modern day patriarch but smooth faced without the beard.  But he also needs to be liked, to be thought of as a decent human being.  In this he is rather like those god fearing Victorian worthies, who if not bearded were nether smooth faced, whose memorials can be found in every county town They founded or bankrolled libraries, museums, dispensaries for the sick and schools.  Except PRDave needs to smash up their successor foundations and institutions to achieve a year zero, simply because the vehicle that now supports them is the State, which of course gets in the way of choice, choice of what? Individual freedom, for what? 

But the unkindly cut of all is the way the Tory led government is redirecting complaints that draconian cuts in local government funding has nothing to do with loss of services, its your council not me, he says over and over again.  PRDave so much needs to be thought of as “a decent person” that he is washing his hands of responsibility. So much so that when seeking election, he can sympathise (and publicise) with the mother of a disabled child, yet in power he can only point when faced with the reality his accusing finger at the local council.

Shame on you.  Your misdeeds are far greater than those of Gordon Brown whose “bigoted woman” remark cost votes and maybe seats. Yours are of vanity and deceit and ultimately they will bring you down.

Britain 2015?

This article in  yesterdays Guardian indulges in  futurology. The introduction is reprinted here just follow the link to read the whole article.  It's an excellent summary of where we are now and what the future may hold.

Cut to Britain 2015

What will the UK look like by the next general election? Mass unemployment, disaffected students, decaying buildings and a vast north-south divide? Or a proud nation where green industries and libertarian values flourish?

Cameron visits Tyneside David Cameron on a visit to Tyneside. What will the UK look like by 2015 when his coalition government has cut the deficit?

Twenty-seven years ago, a cocky, combative man called Roger Douglas became finance minister of New Zealand. The country had a large deficit, slow economic growth, and a state many considered too profligate. Douglas responded boldly: privatising, abolishing state subsidies, and introducing fees for university students.

"Define your objectives clearly, and move towards them in quantum leaps, otherwise the interest groups will have time to mobilise," he wrote later. His attempt to transform a previously sedate country in little more than a parliamentary term fascinated political anoraks across the globe.

In 1988, as this revolution was reaching its climax, I spent some of a gap year in New Zealand. People I met, whether politically minded or not, were quick to bring up "Rogernomics", as the Douglas experiment was known. Some told me with satisfaction that he had toughened up a country where, they said, young benefit claimants used to look for good surf rather than work. Other people were unsettled: an elderly relation shook her head at all the change Douglas was unleashing. But the person I remember best was a nurse I met in Christchurch, then a tree-lined, comfortable-looking place, like a kind of southern hemisphere Cheltenham. As Rogernomics had taken effect and unemployment had risen, she had developed a sideline dealing heroin. From what I saw, business was really taking off.

Yet in rightwing circles around the world, Douglas has remained a name to conjure with, or invite to conferences, whenever the time seems ripe again for innovative government. Since the coalition took power, Rogernomics has become a fashionable topic again for British free-market thinktanks.

So will Britain in May 2015, when the next general election is due, resemble the New Zealand of the late 80s? Both coalition critics and supporters agree the next four and a bit years will certainly be dramatic. "For the first time since Margaret Thatcher handbagged the world in 1979, Britain looks like the west's test tube," commented an excited Economist editorial last August.

Other observers, even on the right, are less sanguine. "I call it the breakneck coalition," says the Conservative blogger Tim Montgomerie. "The government has so many plates in the air. Some will come crashing down."

Read on, the complete article is at 

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/19/uk-look-like-by-2015/

Little cakes and oven cleaning

In the Guardian today there is a report of the debate in parliament ahead of an attempt by Labour to keep the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA).  Tories of course are saying they think it could be better targeted to less well off students.  They would say that wouldn't they, as their proposal is to reduce the cost to the government by 90%, and even then they have no discernible plans how this would work.  Considering that you get £30 per week if your family income is less than £20000 a year , its difficult to discern how little income a family would have to be in order  to receive a slice of the new coalition cake, the ingredients of which are unknown, let alone its shape, texture and taste, however, nothing will make it easier to swallow.

However what caught the eye was a remark during the debate by Andy Burnham the shadow education secretary.

In the debate Gove reacted angrily when Burnham quoted an article by his wife, the Times journalist Sarah Vine, to show the Tories were out of touch.

She wrote last week: "Like all angst-ridden working mothers I live in terror of upsetting my cleaner." Burnham, MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester, said: "Now, I can tell you, angst-ridden mums in Leigh talk of little else. I do sympathise with Mrs Gove's predicament. But I wonder if the secretary of state might pass on a bit of advice to all the wives of cabinet colleagues who fret about the same curses of modern living.

"Can I respectfully suggest that the best way to stay on the right side of the cleaner might not be to clean the oven oneself, but instead to press one's other half not to remove the cleaner's kids' EMA."

Devon's Rural bus cuts

To add to yesterdays list of cuts proposed by Devon County Council the BBC reports today  as follows

Devon

Fears over £1.3m cut to rural bus services in Devon

Rural bus services in Devon are facing a cut of £1.3m raising fears by campaign groups that "life-line" services will be lost.

The county council has unveiled a £54m package of cuts which includes cutting the £7.7m spent on rural services.
Sarah Allen, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said areas would be left without "socially necessary services" of no interest to commercial firms.
The council has blamed central government for the cuts to its grant.
'Short-term' "There's a real danger that we could see some serious damage done," said Ms Allen.
Many authorities around England were making deep cuts in their provision for rural bus subsidies viewing it as "a short-term, easy saving", she told BBC Radio Devon.
"In some counties in England 50% of council-supported services could be lost," she added.
The Campaign for Better Transport has also criticised the authority, accusing it of spending £5m on the Kingkerswell bypass, a controversial project that was subsequently abandoned by central government.
The detail of the services that will bear the brunt of the £1.3m cut have not yet been revealed.

Devon's cuts revealed

More details of Devon County Council’s cuts have just been revealed

Spending by Devon County Council will be cut by £54.6m in the next financial year, following a 27 per cent cut in its financial support from the Tory led Coalition.

The Tory-controlled council, which has a total budget of £865m, said in 2010 that 900 jobs would be axed.  Liz French regional organiser of the union Unison, said: "I am not sure how some of the departments are going to function effectively and deliver services in the way they should. "I think staff are already terribly demoralised. They are facing cut after cut after cut."

Also signposted is a major cultural shift in local government that will see local councils commissioning many more services from a range of providers rather than doing it all themselves. This change will see a reduction by well over the 25 per cent in the number of top managers that will be in place by September.

.

Children and young people's services will lose more than £14m, with early years services down by nearly £3m. Child in nursery school children and young people's services face the biggest cuts.

There will be reductions in school transport, youth work, information, advice and guidance services and the Learning and Development Partnership, which works with schools, but Grants to schools will increase

Adult and community services will be cut by £10m.

The highways budget will be cut by £8m

None of the county’s 50 libraries would be closed although opening hours at some branches may be changed.

Waste disposal is being cut by £2.1m, which will mean new charges at recycling centres and the closure of recycling centres at Dawlish and Buckfastleigh.

Devon would retain a county farms estate to provide starter farms for people seeking a career in agriculture.

There will be increases in spending on social care for older people and people with disabilities, children in care and children with special needs.

Opening hours at children's centres will be reduced but the council says no children's centres will be shut.

The proposals will be presented to a committee meeting on 24 January.

The final details of the budget won’t be finalised until February.

.

We have to be vocal for local schools

Here is a snippet that mirrors the problems that local communities all over the country are  having because of Gove the Minister of Education  who wants to free schools from local authorities, turn them into Academies, which are pseudo independent but in reality get their direct funding from central government. He also wants to encourage Free Schools on an American model, schools that are also outside local authority control but set up by parents.  Both schemes are in fact  potentially open doors to the involvement of private companies, either in the form of sponsorship, or with the direct participation of private education providers. Every initiative of  this government (The Wrecking Crew) can  be directly related to an ideology that extols the virtues (and profitability ) of the private sector,  You name it, health, education, local services etc. Anyway the following is a letter sent to the local paper for )Crediton.

The Governors of Queen Elizabeth Community College (QE)in Crediton, Devon  are being asked to decide whether to apply for Academy status. There are a number of reasons why the move to academy status would be detrimental to the community of Crediton and surrounding areas.

Unfortunately the consultation is being conducted in haste, and although on the QE website there is some information for parents this only supports the case for Academy status, and there is no mention of opposing arguments.

The governors can decide to apply for academy status by a simple majority vote, irrespective of the wishes of the local community. As an Academy QE will be independent of Devon County Council, which plays a key role in the strategic, planning and management of education provision across the county.

It is understood that the prime reason given for moving to Academy status is that the College for 2011/12 may have a deficit, and that this would be resolved by a one-off financial inducement for moving to Academy status.

However, the financial argument doesn’t hold up because funding for each pupil in Devon has now been increased by nearly £600, which means the College is projected to receive additional funds. These are double the possible deficit and substantially more than the Government’s one-off financial inducement,

As an Academy there are no firm guarantees of future levels of funding. Neither is there any provision in law for returning to Local Authority control should the governing body have a change of heart, or, for example, the proposed academy became bankrupt. The matter would rest entirely with the government.

As an independent Academy QE would be funded directly by the Department for Education meaning direct Government control of QE, or indirectly through a new quango. As such QE would not be accountable to parents and the community through the elected county council.

Academy status for QE would have a detrimental impact on other schools in the area.  Devon County Council has a key role in identifying Special Educational Needs and coordinating provision, and crucially ensuring equitable funding for all schools. It is entirely possible that other schools may lose funding.  Families would no longer have the local authority to turn to if they are dissatisfied with the schooling their child is receiving. There is no evidence that Academies have higher levels of pupil attainment. The evidence is that, as with schools as a whole, some Academies are doing well while others are struggling.

There are high exclusion rates in current Academies, which raises concerns over whether they are discriminating against some disadvantaged groups of children and whether some Academies are using exclusion to remove young people who might depress exam results.

The QE

Furthermore If QE becomes an Academy its assets, including all its land, building and contents transfer from the local authority to an Academy Trust or other independent body under a leasehold arrangement, usually for 125 years. Academies can also set their own pay, conditions and working time arrangements for new teachers, support and admin staff.

The Governing Body of QE should agree to a full consultation, which would include publishing as much information as possible regarding the arguments for and against Academy status, ensuring the opinion of the people of Crediton is fully and publicly taken into account. This is too important a decision to be taken by a small minority behind closed doors without the support of the wider community.

Labour comes top twice in one day

Of particular interest to those in Devon and Cornwall  (for those of you living in far flung places its the bit of southern England that sticks out into the Atlantic)  there was another election last night and the following report was published at www.bbc.co.uk

Labour wins Cornwall Council seat in by-election

Jude Robinson said she worked hard for the victory

Labour has secured its only seat on Cornwall Council after winning a by-election.

Labour soared from fifth place at the last by-election in 2009 to win Camborne North.
Jude Robinson, who stood as a Labour candidate in the general election in 2010, won 230 votes, a 15% swing from the Conservatives who came second.
She called it a "turning point" for Labour, which also won Oldham East and Saddleworth parliamentary by-election.

By-election result

• Labour: 230
• Conservatives 203
• Lib Dems: 152
• Liberal Party: 61
• Mebyon Kernow: 32
• Green: 31
  

Ms Robinson said: "I am very pleased.

"I worked hard and people have been told for a long time they can't vote Labour here because that would let the Conservatives in.
"But this has proved Labour is the opposition to the Conservatives.
"This is a turning point for us."
The Conservative and independent-controlled council now consists of one Labour councillor, 48 Conservatives, 39 Liberal Democrats, 32 independents and three Mebyon Kernow councillors.
Exeter's Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, a former minister for the South West, said: "We have come from fifth place to win with a massive 25% swing.
"It shows that it is not just in our heartlands in the north of England that we can win, but even in places like Cornwall where a lot of people had written off Labour some time ago."
In the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, Labour's Debbie Abrahams held off the challenge of Lib Dem Elwyn Watkins, while the Conservatives' vote fell by more than 7,000 as they came a distant third.

So far so good.  However, What does this result mean? It is always  a good idea to do a little research before coming to a conclusion. In the Western Morning News July 21 2010 the following news item appeared:

Camborne Councillor to face sex attacks on two women charges

A 79-year-old Cornwall councillor has been charged with sex attacks on two women.

Conservative councillor Bill Jenkin, who represents Camborne North on the unitary authority, was arrested at his home on June 18 on suspicion of indecent assault.

I won't go on as this is not the News of the World
So, both the parliamentary and the district by- elections have taken place under a cloud. The former because of the disqualification of the previously elected  Phil Woolas,  the latter  because of  the incumbents arrest for alleged sexual offences.  OK, so Phil Woolas' conviction doesn't seem to have done Labour any harm.  However, we can only guess at the impact to the result of the Camborne by-election because of the circumstances of the Conservative's resignation.

Still, we would like to think that the announcement by the Conservative controlled Cornwall Council of massive cuts this week because of Tory led government's cuts in funding to local authorities was the decisive factor in Labour's victory. To appreciate the  context it's worth reading a Western Morning News article and readers comments the day before the election at: http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/coalition-Partners-face-Camborne-fight/article-3090307-detail/article.html


For those who like to play with statistics here are the results for 2009:


 Conservative 346

 Liberal Democrat 182

 Independent 149

 Mebyon Kernow 139

 Labour 100

 Liberal Party 21

Firstly, the swing, so beloved of TV pundits, from Tory to Labour is 17.5%  not 25% as Ben Bradshaw claims. Secondly Labour has increased its share of the vote by nearly 20% and the Tories have lost over 15%.  The LibDem share is slightly down at 1.6%, but they broadly maintain their share. What might be deduced? In both elections LibDem vote has held up, it is the  Conservative vote that has suffered. It will be interesting to monitor other elections because it could be that national polling, as evidenced  in the last election, isn't necessarily a guide as to what happens in individual seats.


 

How to be a banker, part 1

With all the discussion in the media and Parliament about bankers' bonus payments it may be the time to scout about to see what  £1m will buy. However this is small change for some bankers, for example Stuart Gulliver of HSBC pocketed £10m in 2009 and will probably receive the same for his last year's efforts. Bob Diamond of Barclays (it has been suggested that he should change his name to Diamonte to give him the common touch he so obviously lacks if his performance before the Treasury Select Committee is anything to go by) will probably be offered £8.5m, although he says he hasn't been offered anything yet, and would consult with his family before accepting anything.  Lucky guy. Just imagine the conversation. "Hi Honey, I'm home." Yes, you dear reader, use your imagination, have fun. 

To give you all a sense of perspective  the following is reproduced from http://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/blog/2010/05/09/what-does-one-million-pounds-look-like/      a blog found while surfing the net in order to compile a shopping list for a busy banker (or his family).

If you’ve ever wondered what a million pounds (£1,000,000) looks like this post may help. Unfortunately I don’t have a million pounds, but I do have one single twenty pound note. Here it is:

I also have a ruler, a calculator, and a copy of Paint Shop Pro. I’m therefore going to create a million pounds out of £20 notes. To do this I need to know the dimensions of the £20 bank note. Each one is 149x80mm with a thickness of 0.113mm. A stack of 100 notes with a value of £2000 will therefore be just 11.3mm high. Or 1.13cm if you prefer.

Here is £2000 with some mystery legs to give you a sense of scale.

Of course your £2000 stack will only look like this if you use fresh new banknotes straight off the printing press. If you build the stack out of used banknotes it won’t look so neat because of all the crinkles and folds.

What does one hundred thousand pounds look like?

Next what might one hundred thousand pounds (£100,000) look like? A bit like this photo, 9 stacks, each with a bit over eleven thousand pounds in it. A nice block of money I’m sure you’ll agree.

What does one million pounds look like?

So what does a million pounds look like? I’ve built my million pounds out of 25 blocks of £40,000. Each of these blocks is 22.6cm high. So my million is about 45.2cm high with a single block of £40,000 at the front. One million is made of 50,000 £20 notes.

What if instead of being in a big block, all the notes were in a single pile? If that were done we’d have a stack of notes 5.65m high. To put that in perspective I put the stack next to a London double-decker bus. You can see that one million is a bit higher than a bus.

There are a few more all important questions to answer.

Would one million pounds fit in a brief case?

If we imagine a film or crime drama where the villain brings a brief case full of bank notes to a meeting how much would fit in there? If it is filled with £20 notes then we could fit about £100,000 in a brief case.

If we are dealing with £50 notes then we could fit about £250,000 in a slightly bigger brief case.

As for bringing a million pounds in a brief case – it isn’t going to work.

Would one million pounds fit in a suit case?

With a suitcase you can transport much more serious money. You can definitely fit a million in a suitcase using £20 notes. And using £50 notes you can easily lug two million pounds around.

What would one million pounds weigh?

One million pounds using £20 notes would weigh about 50kg! You’d have to be pretty strong to be able to carry it. If you put it in a suitcase and tried to check it on to an aircraft you’d be racking up some serious excess baggage charges. Luckily you’d have to cash on hand to pay for it!

Using £50 notes your million would weigh about 22kg. This would almost fit into your usual 20kg airline allowance. And if you put some of the notes in your hand luggage you’d completely escape any excess baggage charge.

If we go back to the suitcase example £100,000 of £20 bank notes in a briefcase would weigh about 5kg. If you add in the weight of the briefcase you still have a fairly portable brief case of cash.

What are the bank note dimensions?

For reference:

£20 – A twenty pound note is about 149x80mm, 0.113mm thick. About 1g in weight.

£50 – A fifty pound note is about 156x85mm, 0.113mm thick. And about 1.1g in wei

Criticising the police is easy, but who has cut their funds?

In the Independent on Wednesday 5 January 2011 Joan Smith a regular contributor, wrote an article on the police investigation of Joanna Yeates' murder in Bristol, headed “Police must reassure not issue advice.”

The subject of her piece was  “that it's incredible, in the 21st century, that the police are still issuing … thoughtless and insulting advice” to women not to go out after dark. “Sadly”, she continues, “it's easier to impose an unofficial curfew than to think about how the streets can be made safer, even if that means accepting the astonishing proposition that our cities and towns are no-go areas for women during the hours of darkness. Could there be a more damning indictment of the police in this country?”

Everyone wants more officers on the streets,” she writes, “ but they're especially needed at night when women are leaving restaurants, waiting for buses and walking home from bus stops. Last year, when I reported a spate of car crime in my street, a PC let slip that there are no routine patrols after 6pm, even though it's a popular late-night cut-through for pedestrians from one main road to another.”

She then makes the comment that,  “Such advice is more than an imposition; it's an outrage.”….

And her solution.” What’s needed is the reassurance of extra patrols, police travelling on buses at night, and a much greater readiness on the part of officers to look out for and challenge men on dark streets. And if you think that's a breach of civil liberties, it's no more so than expecting half the population to stay at home after dark.

She says she understands “why the murder of Joanna Yeates has gripped the nation, and I want her killer or killers to be caught. In the meantime, local women are right to be anxious – and entitled to advice that recognises how they live and work. If Avon and Somerset police can't provide that, I hope women in Bristol will come on to the streets and once again Reclaim the Night.”

You may ask why this article?

Without in any way questioning Ms Smith’s concerns about women’s safety, it seems quite extraordinary that when all police forces are being forced to make decisions to cut their numbers, she hasn’t mentioned that these cuts are going to make it even less likely that additional police will be available for the duties she is advocating.

Furthermore, the police are putting vast resources into catching Joanna Yeates killer, the successful outcome of which is surely the best way to reassure women in the area that the police are doing their job, and are protecting the public. If the only reassurance she seeks is a return to more bobbies on the beat 24/7 it is a pity that she hasn’t used her legitimate concerns to highlight and campaigned for more police and fewer economies that inevitably must deplete front line policing.

Her damning indictment should have been directed not at the police, but at a Tory led government and the minister responsible, who cannot see, and will not admit, that less police will mean more opportunities for criminals of all kinds.

PRDave's broken promises

Polly Toynbee lists PRDave's broken promises at

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/politicians-lie-david-cameron-mendacity-expenses

How not to be fair to poor students, or better off ones either

Yet another example of PRDave’s last minute creation of policy on the hoof in order to gloss over the ineptitude of his ministers and to pacify rebel MPs, has been revealed as an unthought out sham.

Just days before the tuition fees vote, it was announced that the Tory led government were going to use a £150m fund to provide a year's free tuition for poorer students.  This was clearly a ruse to persuade some Lib Dem MPs, who were under intense pressure after each publicly pledged to abolish tuition fees, to vote for higher fees.

The last minute proposal was that students from poorer backgrounds, i.e. those who had been eligible for free schools meals, would have one year’s fees paid by the state, matched by another from their university, as long as it was charging a fee of more than £6,000 a year

However Universities UK chief executive Nicola Dandridge says the scheme would hit newer universities, because up to 25% of their students were from poorer backgrounds, and was therefore 'not workable' and counterproductive" because these universities would have to pay out millions of pounds to provide free tuition.

Nearly 20,000 students could benefit, although free school meals, which are available to families claiming benefits, are available to around 80,000 pupils each year.

Of course the repercussions didn’t matter to PRDave when the “concession” was announced as long as the LibDems were kept in tow.  And anything that gives those new universities a hard time and leads to them getting rid of Mickey Mouse courses, and eventually amalgamation or bankruptcy, so that a shaken up university sector can be privatised, must be a good thing, don’t you think!

Shadow Business Secretary John Denham said the government's scheme was falling apart.  The understatement of the week.

At the same time Simon Hughes is telling readers of the Observer that universities should recruit “on the basis of no more people coming from the private sector than there are in the public as a whole”, i.e. universities must cut their intake from private schools.

What a mess. On the one hand the Tory led government are potentially crippling newer universities, those that have a record of admitting students from disadvantaged backgrounds, with the requirement to provide free tuition, on the other it wants to limit well qualified potential students just because they have had a private education, so that more poorer students can have the privilege of graduating from university with up to £40,000 of debt.

Bad journalism and what makes a good school

Lighting the fire this morning with the help of old newspapers including a copy of the Observer dated 12 December,  an article headed Education Scores "UK brought to book over teenagers lack of literacy skills" looked worthy of saving for a further read.  At first glance the gist of the article was that the UK had slipped down a league table of literacy, wasn't much better at maths, and generally the results  placed the UK in the dock over educational attainment.

The survey was conducted by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for the Paris based OECD.  So it seemed a good idea to go to the source report. 

Skipping to the Executive summary,  it soon became clear that Jessica Shepherd, the Observer's Education correspondent, while intent on developing a fashionable narrative of educational failure, her summary had distorted the findings, maybe only a little in statistical terms, but significantly  in terms of what would be gleaned by the typical reader glancing through  the many tightly packed pages of a Sunday paper

For example, although the article mentioned that  around 470,000 15-year-olds across the world sat numeracy, literacy and science tests in order to compile the results, the fact that the UK was well above the average for science was not mentioned. And the survey was very clear that  the UK was comparable with the United States and Germany, each considered statistically average.

If you are interested go to 
 http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_32252351_32235731_46567613_1_1_1_1,00.html
for the full results.  

However one of the interesting sections in the Executive Summary is the following section which is reproduced below.

Yes, sit back, take a deep breath and you will be as wise as Michael Gove !

What makes A School Successful? Resources, Policies And Practices

Since school is where most learning happens, what happens in school has a direct impact on learning. In turn, what happens in school is influenced by the resources, policies and practices approved at higher administrative levels in a country’s education system.

Successful school systems – those that perform above average and show below-average socio-economic inequalities –provide all students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, with similar opportunities to learn.

Systems that show high performance and an equitable distribution of learning outcomes tend to be comprehensive, requiring teachers and schools to embrace diverse student populations through personalised educational pathways.

In contrast, school systems that assume that students have different destinations with different expectations and differentiation in terms of how they are placed in schools, classes and grades often show less equitable outcomes without an overall performance advantage. Earlier PISA assessments showed these expectations to be mirrored in how students perceived their own educational future. The results of these differences can also be seen in the distribution of student performance within countries

and in the impact that socio-economic background has on learning outcomes:

• In countries, and in schools within countries, where more students repeat grades, overall results tend to be worse.

• In countries where more students repeat grades, socio-economic differences in performance tend to be wider, suggesting that people from lower socio-economic groups are more likely to be negatively affected by grade repetition.

• In countries where 15-year-olds are divided into more tracks based on their abilities, overall performance is not enhanced, and the younger the age at which selection for such tracks first occurs, the greater the differences in student performance, by socio-economic background, by age 15, without improved overall performance.

• In school systems where it is more common to transfer weak or disruptive students out of a school, performance and equity both tend to be lower. Individual schools that make more use of transfers also perform worse in some countries. These associations account for a substantial amount of the differences in the outcomes of schooling systems. For

example, the frequency with which students are transferred across schools is associated with a third of the variation in country performance. This does not necessarily mean that if transfer policies were changed, a third of country differences in reading performance would disappear, since PISA does not measure cause and effect. Transferring pupils who do badly may be partly a symptom, rather than a cause, of schools and school systems that are not producing satisfactory results, especially for lower-achieving students. It is worth noting that the schools with lower transfer rates tend to have greater autonomy and other means of addressing these challenges. The cluster of results listed above suggests that, in general, school systems that seek to cater to different students’ needs through a high level of differentiation in the institutions, grade levels and classes have not succeeded in producing superior overall results, and in some respects they have lower-than-average and more socially unequal performance.

Most successful school systems grant greater autonomy to individual schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies, but these school systems do not necessarily allow schools to compete for enrolment.

The incentive to deliver good results for all students is not just a matter of how a school’s student body is defined. It also depends on the ways in which schools are held accountable for their results and what forms of

autonomy they are allowed to have – and how that could help influence their performance.

PISA has looked at accountability both in terms of the information that is made available about performance and in terms of the use made of that information – whether by administrative authorities through rewards or control systems, or by parents, for example through their choice of school. Thus the issues of autonomy, evaluation, governance and choice interact in providing a framework in which schools are given the incentives and the capacity to improve.

PISA 2009 finds that:

• In countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.

• Within countries where schools are held to account for their results through posting achievement data publicly, schools that enjoy greater autonomy in resource allocation tend to do better than those with less autonomy. However, in countries where there are no such accountability arrangements, the reverse is true.

• Countries that create a more competitive environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results.

• Within many countries, schools that compete more for students tend to have higher performance, but this is often accounted for by the higher socio-economic status of students in these schools. Parents with a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to take academic performance into consideration when choosing schools.

• In countries that use standards-based external examinations, students tend to do better overall, but there is no clear relationship between performance and the use of standardised tests or the public posting of results at the

school level. However, performance differences between schools with students of different social backgrounds are, on average, lower in countries that use standardised tests.

After accounting for the socio-economic and demographic profiles of students and schools, students in OECD countries who attend private schools show performance that is similar to that of students enrolled in public schools.

On average, socio-economically disadvantaged parents are over 13 percentage points more likely than socioeconomically advantaged parents to report that they consider “low expenses” and “financial aid” as very important determinants in choosing a school. If children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds cannot attend high-performing schools because of financial constraints, then school systems that offer parents more choice of schools for their children will necessarily be less effective in improving the performance of all students.

School systems considered successful tend to prioritise teachers’ pay over smaller classes.

School systems differ in the amount of time, human, material and financial resources they invest in education. Equally important, school systems also vary in how these resources are spent:

• At the level of the school system and net of the level of national income, PISA shows that higher teachers’ salaries, but not smaller class sizes, are associated with better student performance. Teachers’ salaries are related to class size in that if spending levels are similar, school systems often make trade-offs between smaller classes and higher salaries for teachers. The findings from PISA suggest that systems prioritising higher teachers’ salaries over smaller classes tend to perform better, which corresponds with research showing that raising teacher quality is a more effective route to improved student outcomes than creating smaller classes.

• Within countries, schools with better resources tend to do better only to the extent that they also tend to have more socio-economically advantaged students. Some countries show a strong relationship between schools’

Resources and their socio-economic and demographic background, which indicates that resources are inequitably distributed according to schools’ socio-economic and demographic profiles.

• In other respects, the overall lack of a relationship between resources and outcomes does not show that resources are not important, but that their level does not have a systematic impact within the prevailing range. If most or all schools have the minimum resource requirements to allow effective teaching, additional material resources may make little difference to outcomes.

In more than half of all OECD countries, over 94% of 15-year-old students reported that they had attended pre-primary school for at least some time.

Students who had attended pre-primary school tend to perform better than students who have not. This advantage is greater in school systems where pre-primary education lasts longer, where there are smaller pupil-to-teacher ratios at the pre-primary level and where there is higher public expenditure per pupil at that level of education. Across all participating countries, school systems with a higher proportion of students who had attended pre-primary

education tend to perform better.

Schools with better disciplinary climates, more positive behaviour among teachers and better teacher-student relations tend to achieve higher scores in reading.

Across OecD countries, 81% of students report that they feel they can work well in class most of the time, 71% report that they never, or only in some classes, feel that other students don’t listen, and 72% say that their teacher never, or only in some lessons, has to wait a long time before students settle down to learn. Meanwhile, 28% of students in OecD countries are enrolled in schools whose principals report that their teaching

staff’s resistance to change negatively affects students or that students’ needs are not met; 23% attends schools whose principals report that students are not encouraged by teachers in the school; 22% attend schools whose principals believe that learning is hindered by low teacher expectations; and 17% of students attend schools whose principals say that teacher absenteeism hampers learning.