Utilities linked to crashed enviro company (May 18, 2000)
Unions to fight school privatisation plans (May 12, 2000)
First Green councillor for Bradford (May 5, 2000)
May Day protest takes on banks (May 1, 2000)
May 18, 2000
Both Yorkshire Water and BT had senior managers on the board of NCEEM - the Keighley based national environmental company that crashed last November with debts of £400,000. It's fall led to the collapse of Keighley Business Forum weeks later.
Yorkshire Water in particular played a significant role in NCEEM - and it's predecessor, the Keighley Business Forum's Waste Minimisation Project. It was the major sponsor for KBF's "Trans Atlantic Environmental Conference", at which it's Chief Executive Kevin Bond was one of the main speakers. Bond "resigned by mutual agreement" from Yorkshire Water in April.
But the company said it didn't provide any money for NCEEM:
"Yorkshire Water supported the principle behind the setting up of the organisation but did not provide any financial support to it. One of our senior managers did act as a director of NCEEM, but that was the extent of our involvement."
Full story:
The Regional PartnersMay 12, 2000
Angry council education workers voted overwhelmingly yesterday to oppose "by whatever means necessary" the council's plans to privatise the district's education service.
Members of Unison gathered in St Georges Hall to express outrage at Labour's proposals, which were pushed through a council Executive meeting last month.
A Unison branch rep said: "Our members are angry and frightened both by what is proposed and the secretive way it has been hatched up by the Chief Executive and Labour Leadership.
"We now see what modernising Bradford Council really means - secrecy, rule by dictat, and the utmost cynicism towards staff".
As part of the process of building a cross-union alliance, the meeting was also addressed by Ian Murch of the NUT. Murch recalled the previous attempts to privatise council services undertaken by former Tory leader Eric Pickles 12 years ago. The current Labour leader, Ian Greenwood, was then a union official representing these very same workers and had helped organise mass rallies and strikes against the plans.
"It is clear to me that there were people around at the time who thought Pickles was ahead of his time. Now they're simply taking Pickles' ideas to their logical conclusion", Murch said.
Labour's disastrous performance in the recent local elections - largely as a result of their schools reorganisation fiasco - has given the unions a window of opportunity. The Lib Dems hold the balance of power and publicly oppose the plans. Lib Dem councillor David Ward has said: "I have spent most of my political career fighting one Tory party and now find myself fighting two".
See:
Labour's proposals to the Council
Update 25/5/2000:
Government announces Bradford LEA will be privatised as shock Ofsted report published: The worst ever Ofsted report on a Local Education Authority condemns Bradford: "The LEA serves the district very poorly. There are many factors, but first and foremost among them is poor leadership, political and professional, across the whole authority over many years."Education minister Estelle Morris said: "The Ofsted report makes clear that the education services in Bradford are failing children and not supporting schools. The Council is performing many of its responsibilities unsatisfactorily.
"We need a solution that will best serve the needs of Bradford’s pupils and schools, no matter how radical."
See the
DfEE Press ReleaseMay 5, 2000
David Ford became the first Green local councillor last night when he won Shipley West by 250 votes. Former Labour education chief Jim Flood was pushed into third place in the drawn-out nail-biting count.
Afterwards Ford said: "I'll be the only Green councillor, I expect, at least for a while." He said his strategy was to act simply as "a good ward councillor." Indeed, the fact that he has acted as such, unelected, for the last 10 years is largely responsible for his personal triumph.
In a disasterous night Labour lost 13 seats, 11 to the Tories. Tory gains included Wyke, Odsal and Clayton, which saw the departure of top Labour councillors Tony Niland, Jim O'Neil and Gill Whitfield. Labour chief Susanne Rooney lost out to Lib Dem Alun Griffiths.
Labour remain the largest single party on a now "hung" council, with 41 seats to the Tories 37 and Lib Dems 11.
See the
Local results in detailUpdate 24/5/2000:
At the Annual Meeting of the council yesterday, Tories and Lib-Dems united to vote Labour from the leadership and elect Tories' Margaret Eaton and Richard Wightman as new leader and deputy. The new council structure was also changed to reduce the number of Executive committee places to 14 and cut the portfolios of "super councillors" from 8 to 5. A new "education" scrutiny committee was formed. Also a group of new all-party "select committees" was formed, which will apparently meet in secret....See also previous posting:
Labour unveils new Council "cabinet" structure.May 1, 2000
Bradford's May Day celebrations this year took on the big banks with an anti-globalisation message. Local banks were left sporting banners condemning their role in promoting third world debt. In Bradford City Centre members of the Trades Council collected signatures on a cheque for £5.4 billion, to be presented to Barclays bank later this week.
The event marked the culmination of a week of events by the Trades Council which included a gathering on Friday to commemorate Workers Memorial Day; a gathering at the Cenotaph for Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday; and the annual Reuben Goldberg Anti-fascist Memorial Lecture which was addressed by Guardian journalist Martin Wainwright.
The anti-globalisation theme was reflected in May Day celebrations across the country, which have grown since Bradford launched it's "Reclaim May Day" campaign 4 years ago.
Meanwhile, a large number of Bradford delegates headed down to London to support the MayDay 2000 events there....
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