Judge, not what they say, but what they do

I spoke and asked questions at tonight's Cabinet meeting against £1.6m of cuts to vulnerable Children's Services, such as the "Give it a Go" grant of £345.000 for activities for disadvantaged children, a reduction in the School Improvement Service that has assisted a large increase in pupil attainment. I asked a series of questions that went unanswered by the coalition. All I got in reply from Lead Councillor Mark Ralph was that we are not a "nanny state in helping disadvantaged kids have a day out". This is in direct contradiction to the Pupil Premium that is being triumphed by the coalition.

Below is a press release by Reading and District Labour Party

Labour: ConDem naivety cripples Reading’s school improvement and cuts frontline services in schools

The first round of service cuts for education in Reading – their response to the £1.5 Million the Government clawed back from the education budget in June - is due to be confirmed by the ConDem coalition at the Cabinet meeting today (27 September). And it means some very deep cuts to the School Improvement Service.
But, says Labour’s Jon Hartley, the way they have gone about the cuts shows the naivety of Reading’s ConDems, who could and should have sought to cause much less harm to our schools.
The ConDem plans include:
• Slashing the time that School Improvement Partners spend working with schools by over 60%. SIPs are the main link between the Council and schools, they provide support and advice to schools and can provide vital feedback to both the Council and schools themselves on potential problems, so that they can be caught early. Reading’s budget for external SIPs (most SIPs work as consultants) is being cut from £260,000 to £100,000.
• Cancelling the Give it a go funding that provides extra money to schools that support disadvantaged children. This funding was already built into many Reading school budgets, its removal will mean actual cuts in school budgets this year, and the more poor children a school serves, the bigger the cut! This money was allocated by the Labour Government to support the same children as the coalition’s much heralded but still unconfirmed Pupil Premium.
• Removing support and advice for schools across a wide range of areas and halving support for maths and literacy. When schools need advice on science, or on being a healthy school, or on working with gifted & talented children in the future, they will have to buy in consultants. Again, this money will have to come directly out of school budgets this year.
Despite hearing unequivocally from headteachers their concerns over these cuts and their suggestions from schools about other ways money could be saved, the ConDems made no change to their initial proposals.
Cllr Jon Hartley, Labour’s Education spokesman, has pointed out why this is all so unnecessary:
“The ConDem Cabinet is taking away vital support for one of our most important public services when other councils have managed to find smaller savings across the whole range of their services. In Bracknell, for instance, their more experienced councillors are spreading these in-year cuts to limit the damage.
“In Reading, our schools will be hit much harder and the impact over time on local children will be appalling. Reading’s schools have already told the coalition that these plans will cut to the bone services that have been key in helping our schools make such significant improvements in recent years. Even Cllr Ralph has expressed the view that these cuts should have been spread across all council services, but unfortunately he does not enjoy the support of his colleagues.
“In slashing the funding for disadvantaged children, the Tories and Lib Dems are showing their hypocrisy. Whilst they are happy to boast about their plans for a pupil premium, they’re stopping local schools from doing the work today that premium might fund in the future.
“Sadly, this bungled decision is just the first stage of the ConDem’s planned cuts. If they show the same level of incompetence when dealing with their Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review next mont, Reading’s schools and the families that rely on them face a very bleak future.”
//ENDS