Lobby of Parliament - save our schools

19 July 2010

A lobby of Parliament will take place today Monday 19 July. The rally will be to protest against the proposed cuts to the Building Schools for the Future programme. It occurs on the same day as the second reading of the Academies Bill.

A recent analysis conducted for the NUT by independent consultant Martin Rogers (see below) has shown that the government has failed to calculate properly the funding impact of its Academies Bill. As a result of the government's Academies 'Ready Reckoner' Local Authorities (LA) will have to give large, excessive and unfair amounts of funding from other services as well as from education to Academies. This could mean that many LA will have to make major cuts on top of the 25% cuts demanded by government. Not only could LA be seriously damaged but also budgets to schools that either choose or have to remain in LA could be slashed. The paper analysing this potential consequence is attached.

Christine Blower general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers' union, said;

"Time and again we have told the government not to rush the Academies Bill. Consistency and fairness in school funding is absolutely vital. It is quite evident that Michael Gove, in his haste to railroad his Bill through has failed to consider its consequences for school funding. It would be entirely unacceptable for the Bill to discriminate against schools which remain in Local Authorities and to potentially wreck the other services they provide. I urge government to provide proper time for parliamentary scrutiny of this Bill. The NUT believes it will, if not significantly amended, damage the whole education service.

"It is extremely difficult to see what justification there can be for fast-tracking the Academies Bill through the Commons and by-passing the usual democratic processes. These are not matters of national security or economic melt-down. The coalition government can have very little faith in its own legislation if they have to resort to such demonstrably unreasonable tactics to pass a Bill that will change the face of education in this country.

"Cutting the budget to rebuild schools is a huge blow to those that have been promised the sort of facilities you would expect in a modern school. Poor learning environments have a negative impact on the education of children, young people and the morale of the community. School buildings were woefully run down prior to Labour coming to power in '97 and while much has been done to improve them there is still a lot more to do. We are in real danger of returning to the crumbling inadequate schools that were a signature of the last Tory government."

Martin Rogers' analysis: http://www.dodsmonitoring.com/downloads/Academy_funding_v3[1].doc

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