Our members were distressed to learn last Friday that the Labour Group has approved a proposal to hand the responsibility for management of education services in Bradford over to a Board and for an undefined public 1 private partnership to take over the running of the LEA functions.
As this proposal is going to the Executive on Wednesday the 19th April with not even a pretence of consultation with Trade Unions, I would ask you to consider the following:
- All of the claimed benefits of privatisation could be achieved without privatisation. There is no evidence that the current structure has been an obstacle to achieving them.
- Private organisations have on the whole a bad record of running Council services, for example numerous CCT contracts placed in the private sector failed and the privatised housing benefits services are running into severe problems. Education is far more complex than these.
- The claim made that this is a requirement of Best Value is false. All services are subject to Best Value review but no attempt has yet been made to appraise Bradford's current performance against agreed Best Value Indicators, and no attempt has been made to correct identified failings.
- The argument used in the T & A interview by Councillor Greenwood and Ian Steward that 'people' want this is false. Everyone wants to raise levels of education achievement but there is no demand from parents, governors, heads, employers, colleges or the TEC for proposals of this nature.
- The Proposal undermines local democratic accountability. Bradford may well get a quickly forgotten pat on the back from Blunkett and Blair, but do you really want Bradford to go down in history as the Council which paved the way for the loss of local democratic accountability over education.
- The Leader of Council may see this as a vote winner - but can you be sure about that?
I would ask Labour Councillors to consider what your reaction would have been if this proposal had come from Councillor Pickles when he was the Leader of Council. In fact none of his proposals represented such an assault on local government as this.
I believe this proposal if implemented will have far reaching and ultimately damaging effects on education in Bradford. If you agree with any of the points I have made, I would be grateful if you could use your influence on the Executive to get this proposal dropped.
Yours faithfully
J A Payne / K Dale
Acting Branch Secretaries (jobshare)