Cheating parents aren’t the real problem

Good state schools are in theory free. But many parents in fact spend a significant amount of money to secure a place at the school of their choice. Academics from the Cranfield School of Management found that parents are paying up to £20,000 to live near a good school.

Some parents who can’t afford – or are unwilling – to move to their preferred catchment area bend the rules. In one high-profile example Harrow prosecuted Mrinal Patel for giving her mother’s address when applying to Pinner Park First School for her son.

The School Admissions adjudicator will today publish his report into this and other similar cases. His report will assess the scale of the problem, whether the powers authorities have to withdraw places are being used and if parents are sufficiently deterred from breaking the rules.

It seems that the report will take an uncompromising line. A DCSF spokesman said this morning that: “We’ve given the adjudicator far-reaching powers to deal with breaches of the code and send out a clear message that all admission authorities must comply – no ifs or buts.”

It’s right that the system is as fair as possible. But the DCSF must also be careful to avoid demonising well-intentioned parents who act out desperation and not malice.

Parents bend the rules on admissions because the gap between the best and worst performing schools is so great. Their actions are a symptom – not a cause – of the problems in the education system.

Until the disparity in the performance of schools is ironed out the Government should be careful about claiming the moral high-ground on this issue.

Forget allotments…get sheep

Several news outlets are covering the story from Brighton and Hove council that they will be extending the use of sheep to keep grass on public land mowed.  The council are recruiting volunteer shepherds to oversee the sheep.

Brighton and Hove have been using sheep as mowers for some time, and this lastest story reflects the decision to double sheep numbers.   But whether a new idea or not, it’s a hugely appealing concept.  In the -niche – world of allotment lovers, there has been ongoing concern about shortages (the Local Government Association has even issued guidance to developers on the topic).  Could this be a new way passtime for urban dwellers yearning for a taste of the countryside?  If space for gardens is short…have you tried being a shepherd?

In the age of austerity, it is hard to see the downside.  Carbon friendly, keeping costs down, getting people active, a taste of our pre-industrial heritage…the more I think about this the more urgent the need for sheep becomes.

An inspector calls

It was an early start on Day Three of the marathon Children and Adult Services conference in Harrogate this week, but the leaders of people services were still wide awake. 

And with good reason. Secretary of State for Children, Ed Balls was first up that morning and got short shrift for his refusal to reduce bureaucracy in the inspection and record keeping regime. 

Uncharacteristically, Balls looked visibly shaken as the Q & A session turned into a heated exchange. The audience loudly applauded a BASW delegate who asked pointedly why social workers have to use 80 percent of their time servicing a machine which has “nothing to do with social work and everything to do with keeping a really ineffective inspection regime operating in a way that does not support work with children and families”.

But this was a mere warm up for the most anticipated session of the conference, ominously entitled ‘Meet the Inspectors’. Just the day before, delegates at a meeting on safeguarding had been complaining that Ofsted had implemented a series of unannounced inspections, failed to inform local authorities of changes to their inspection criteria, and then condemned them all anyway for poor serious case review process. 

 At this point Hampshire DCS John Coughlan delighted members by addressing a couple of pertinent football terrace chants to Ofsted: “you don’t know what you’re doing” and “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”. 

 No wonder at the disco the night before delegates were seen practicing ninja turtle kung fu moves, perhaps in preparation for the next day’s session.

 But as Ofsted’s Christine Gilbert took to the stage, along with Steve Bundred (Audit Commission) and Cynthia Blower (Care Quality Commission), delegates’ anger turned to embarrassment.  

 Gilbert had a real opportunity to conduct a meaningful dialogue with the other inspectorates and leaders of children’s services. Instead she simply read out a selection of testimonials from directors of children’s services, each given at the conclusion of their respective inspections. The frustration of the audience was charitably attributed to nerves rather than cynicism. 

As for my colleagues at the LGiU, our call for a national college of social work to fight the profession’s corner has never seemed more timely or relevant.

If you want to participate in the timely debate on how to transform children’s services to improve the lives of children, young people and their families, then please attend the LGiU’s Children’s Services Network annual conference on 11^th November. For details please contact Jasmine.Ali@csn.info

Barnet or bust?

Much has been said and written about Barnet councils emerging new approach, officially the ‘ Future Shape’ project, better known as ‘Easy Council’.     I have talked to the Chief Executive, Nick Walkley, and the lead Director, Max Wide, about it and I agree with much of their analysis of both the scale of change needed in the years ahead, and the importance of a new relationship with citizens.   I don’t believe that all councils are going to have to say ‘Barnet or bust’ in the way they approach the challenge, the great thing about localism is that council’s get to do it their way, to suit the needs of their own community.  Learning from what others are doing is really important though, especially the councils like Barnet who are prepared to challenge the orthodoxy.   To that end, here is the latest report on the project that went to the council this week and I would urge people to read it.   I think these two key passages provide a quick insight into the thinking:

One of the key principles guiding the Future Shape Programme is to create a new relationship with citizens. This is to address the fact that satisfaction with local government is declining and citizens are expecting more personalised services and different forms of dialogue and involvement in public issues. Just continuing to do what we have always done is no longer an option; we have to do things differently to meet these challenges while at the same time ensuring that Council Tax stays at an acceptable level. Personalising and customising services in the future may therefore mean offering customers options to pay for additional value added services above and beyond the basic provision. It will also mean ensuring that the relationship between public services and citizens is one where they play an active part in helping one another to access the information and support they need rather than always relying on the state. Any future proposals to change the Council’s charging policies for services

Core to the new relationship with citizens will be giving our residents more involvement in public sector service delivery and delivering a more personalised response. To do this it is recommended that we utilise new technologies and tailor communications to increase the level of citizen engagement in issues affecting their local area and find ways to ensure that citizens can actively participate in the debates about the changes they want to see. We also need to be more effective in influencing people’s behaviours (for example in reducing waste) so they can play a more active role in helping us to deliver these changes. However, if we are really committed to personalising and customising services, we also need to be prepared to have conversations with customers about the kinds of additional services they would like to see and the value they would put on such services to see where there are opportunities for charging for services above and beyond basic provision.

Why Ministers won’t play along with the Cambridge Review

The most eye-catching items in the Cambridge Review of the Primary Curriculum are the proposals that children should not start formal learning until they are six and that testing at 11 should be scrapped. It argues that the early imposition of academic strictures results in permanent alienation from learning.

Instead the Cambridge Review argues that the kind of play-based learning featured in nurseries and reception classes should go on for another year. “This would give sufficient time for children to establish positive attitudes to learning and begin to develop the language and study skills which are essential to their later progress”.

Ministers, however, have already dismissed the findings. Schools Minister Vernon Coaker responded with a robust defence of early academic learning and testing in English and Mathematics at 11.

So – despite this heavyweight contribution to the debate which took six years to research – it looks like Ministers will require further persuasion before they drop the belief that only learning that can be measured matters.

This is a shame because the Government had showed signs of recognising that good schools are about so much more than tests. The proposed School Report Card, for instance, will aim to measure the performance of schools across a broader range of outcomes than raw exam results. It should not turn its back on this work.

The Government should instead investagate how school performance metrics can value informal learning. The LGIU will make its contribution to this debate in a paper that will explore how outcome-based accountability could reward secondary schools for providing practical learning that does not necessarily result in a qualification.

As always, your thoughts on this work would be appreciated.

‘It’s twitter wot won it’

‘It’s twitter wot won it’ – well , not on its own maybe, but the new social media certainly paid a huge role in the Guardian’s victory over Carter-Ruck and their attempt to gag the newspaper from reporting a parliamentary question about their client, Trafigura. Prominent bloggers tracked down and published the likely question; twitters in their thousands expressed outrage about suppressing press freedom and the right to report Parliament. MPs took notice and took up the cause. A holy alliance of the mainstream and new media was very effective very quickly – Carter Ruck caved in and withdrew their injunction.

Are there lessons for councils? The obvious one is institutions are finding it increasingly difficult to hide behind the legal system to stop adverse publicity getting out.

But councils are pretty transparent anyway, so what else can we learn here? What seems clear is that the political power of online media is growing all the time – remember Obama, remember Iran? Social networking can help shape opinion, promote debate, campaigns can take on a new life. So councils and councillors need to be on board, however uncomfortable that can sometimes be.

Of course, we are not talking about global politics here, but there are still serious issues locally that need engaging with at different levels. Social media can be a potent vehicle for opening up debate – strengthening democracy. Yes, there are risks and hard questions, but the biggest risk is surely to ignore the world as it now is.

And these complex issues will be debated at our conference on the new social media on 5 November, fireworks expected

Democratise the House of Lords

A list of names of potential Tory peers is floating around the web today following a story on the PR Week website.   If the Conservatives win the next election, or perhaps even more significantly (in terms of the Lords role) in the event of a hung parliament in which the Conservatives are the largest party, David Cameron will have the traditional powers of privilidge to start stuffing the Lords full of cronies.    The 20 names currently being suggested are detailed below.   The Conservatives are committed to a fully elected House of Lords.   In the transition towards this, which will take several years in all likely hood, why not demonstrate commitment to the democratic principle by only nominating Councillors to become Lords.   Whilst their mandate would not of course be to serve as Lords, they at least have some democratic legitimacy, and direct accountability to citizens, through their local mandate.   Appointing Councillors would not mean compromising the breadth of experience of  the Lords as there are Councillors with backgrounds in every walk of life.   This would have the added benefit of further demonstrating the Conservative’s commitment to localism by directly empowering the new Cllr Lords to come into the heart of Westminster and Whitehall to bring a localist challenge to government’s centralist tendency.     If there is any interest, I could draft up a list of 20 Conservative Councillors who could be put forward, or maybe ask the Conservative Home blog to consider doing this.   In the meantime, here is the list circulating today:

Local Democracy Bill passed

After a marathon third reading debate in the Commons yesterday the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill was passed.  It now goes briefly back to the House of Lords, which should be a formality, and is due to receive Royal Assent before the end of the month.   The Bill includes the new duty to promote democracy and the duty to involve, new powers to strengthen overview and scrutiny functions, a duty on local authorities to respond to petitions; and a duty on local authorities to prepare local economic assessments in partnership with statutory partners. The impetus for the Bill comes from Hazel Blears’ empowerment agenda, and the sub national review. The new duties will come into force next April and the government will be issuing guidelines. The LGiU’s Centre for Local Democracy is involved in drawing up some of these guidelines in consultation with local authorities. I will be urging that these should be light touch, and that as with any new duties, they should not lead to unnecessary bureaucracy or costs, or constrain the freedoms of local authorities. The Conservatives have been critical of the Bill and Caroline Spelman has indicated that should her party win the next election, they may reverse or repeal some elements, however any such changes would require a further legislative process and take some time. A full briefing on the Bill is available to councillors and staff in LGiU member councils or other associate members.

The end of the Oil Age?

The peak oil debate is back on the table, with alarm bells ringing about the possibility of oil depletion before 2030. A report released yesterday by the UK Energy Research Centre found that easy-to-access oil is running out and the new reserves will be more difficult and expensive to extract. This debate is not new. It has been on and off the agenda partly because the data needed to make a more informed analysis is still unreliable, as pointed out in the report, but also because people are reluctant to come to terms with giving up oil because of our heavy reliance on it. Local government for one is very dependent on carbon-based energy to fuel its operation, such as powering council buildings and properties and ensuring the smooth running of public transport.

Whether oil is depleting or not, we know for a fact that oil is a limited resource. The focus perhaps should be on diversifying our energy sources to more reliable, cost effective, clean and renewable options, such as solar, wind and wave energy, which we know are unlimited resources. Moreover, the costs of renewable energy should decrease over time in the form of paybacks from initial investments, but the cost of oil will only increase over time (with a limited supply). For example, more alarm bells are ringing today with the release of Ofgem’s review that shows volatile world energy prices and Britain’s increasing dependence on gas imports could push UK domestic energy bill up by 60% by 2016.

As Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former oil minister for Saudi Arabia said, “The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones”. We don’t need to wait until oil runs out. We can move onto new technology because it’s better and available now.

ADCS president misjudgement

At the height of the Baby Peter case last year following the Sun Newspaper’s mass petition and vilification of public servant Sharon Shoesmith and her subsequent dismissal by Secretary of State Ed Balls the ADCS remained quiet. So it was with surprise that I learned that, on the eve of Shoesmith’s High Court Case against the Cabinet minister’s decision, Association President Kim Bromley–Derry criticised Shoesmith. He went on to say that the government decision to remove the then DCS was “perfectly legitimate”. How can he possibly know the details of the case yet to be presented in court and concluded what the results should be?

The point is that social workers must be recognised for their high levels of skill and courage; they should be instilled with the confidence and respect so necessary for anyone supporting children in often desperate conditions. This is why the LGiU Children’s Services Network was the first to call for a Royal College of Social Work to promote and maintain the highest professional standards and to help promote broader public appreciation of the role of professional social work. The president’s comments have hindered the goal of improving the public profile of social work.