Tag Archives: haringey council

Do parents have choice over Haringey schools?

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Met with Labour Council Leader George Meehan first thing. George says there shouldn’t be a problem for the 200 children without secondary school places as they will start to diminish as the choices get made and the places get filled. But only one in five children in Haringey got their first or second choice – and I remain concerned that not getting those choices mean that the Government’s ‘choice’ agenda is meaningless. Instead of getting the schools they have chosen, children and parents end up with schools that are far away across multiple bus journeys and which were put at or near the bottom of their list of choices. That’s not choice.

I remember one particular woman who came to see me at my surgery whose daughter had gone to a local primary school in Highgate. All the other kids from her block of flats had been accepted to one particular secondary school – and only this child had not. The girl instead had to go to a school that was near the bottom of the list of her choices and a difficult journey away; the girl was then (as the mother had feared) bullied and was now at home refusing to go to school through fear.

Perhaps if the schools published a map with dots on showing where all the children who get in come from (with an asterisk for special needs as they come from outside catchments) then we could all see for ourselves how ‘fair’ the system is and how far children are having to go if they don’t get their first or second choices. At the moment, there remains the suspicion that despite efforts to get it right, miscarriages of justice occur. The system needs to be fair and seen to be fair. Transparency and publication might help our confidence in the system.

Other topics I covered with George were on the use of the voluntary sector, the ‘restructuring’ of the library service; what Haringey Council is proposing to do following my discovery that both HIV infection and alcohol-related deaths in the borough are up substantially and also why my surgery poster is not allowed in schools!

Liz Santry and Haringey Council's website

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You may have seen in the local papers how Haringey Labour councillor Liz Santry (Haringey Council Executive Member for Young People) has had a go about a supposed mistake on this blog.

In brief – I said Haringey had failed to properly publicise an important public meeting through its website, and even now – as I write this and after she wrote to all and sundry saying I was wrong – the relevant web page doesn’t mention the meeting at all.

In more detail – I wrote on 6th February:

So – the second meeting of the ‘New School Bidders’ for the competition to take control and author a new secondary school in Haringey. If you remember, we kicked up at the first meeting because there were only six were members of the public.

This time it was a packed meeting – maybe a hundred people. I had put out an email to my lists as I am never convinced that a notice in a local paper – which is the standard Council approach – really reaches everyone. It’s a good thing that other people did promote this meeting as Haringey Council did not even get round to updating their website pages about the new school to mention the second meeting. But this time we didn’t leave it to just the Council – and got a far, far better attendance.

Haringey Council’s website pages about the new school is here and is found if you take the obvious (albeit long!) course through the menus from the council website front page: Home >> Children and Families >> Schools and Education >> Consultations >> New Secondary School

It only mentioned (and still mentions) the 16th January (poorly attended) meeting and not the one on 6th February. In fact, even as I write this now that meeting is still not mentioned – even though the page is noted as having been updated on 13th February.

Yet Liz Santry claimed in her letter that my blog entry was “Completely untrue. The appropriate web pages were updated on 17 January and will remain active at least until the consultation period closes.” All rather undermined by the absence of a mention about the second public meeting to go with the mentions of the first meeting – you’d have thought someone would at least have hurriedly added the information after she sent off her letter of complaint!

New Secondary School: how the meeting went

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So – the second meeting of the ‘New School Bidders’ for the competition to take control and author a new secondary school in in Haringey. If you remember, we kicked up at the first meeting because there were only six were members of the public.

This time it was a packed meeting – maybe a hundred people. I had put out an email to my lists as I am never convinced that a notice in a local paper – which is the standard Council approach – really reaches everyone. It’s a good thing that other people did promote this meeting as Haringey Council did not even get round to updating their website pages about the new school to mention the second meeting. But this time we didn’t leave it to just the Council – and got a far, far better attendance. And as a result the bidders did better and the questions were more testing.

Without going into the minutiae of the presentations – there are three outside bodies bidding and one from Haringey itself for a community school. What is so hard for everyone (outside of the fact we shouldn’t be having a competition at all) is how do you decide? They all say they will be part of the community. They all say they will abide by the code of admission and so on.

Of the bidders I thought the Haberdashers gave the best presentation – but that may be because their Chief Exec was the best presenter. She certainly gave it life and talking to a parent afterwards who has a child who may well attend the new school he certainly felt that out of the four this would be the best.

Amongst my concerns is that whilst I can understand inviting outside management in when schools are failing and they need someone to come in and take it on – this is a brand new school to be built. But regardless of what people locally might decide they want – power really still rests with Labour in Whitehall. Labour dictates that its rules and its preferences have to be followed and its hoops jumped through to have a chance of new money.

In fact, the Government laid a statutory instrument (an amendment to legislation) on 19th January which means that instead of our local Schools Organisation Committee taking the decision on who wins the bid – the decision is being taken out of local hands and will be given to the Schools Adjudicator appointed by the Secretary of State for Education. So even less local say courtesy of centralising Labour, again.

So – my offer to the meeting was to lay down some Parliamentary Questions to find out how transparent the process with the adjudicator will be. What are the criteria? Will we see the reasons for the final choice? Can there be access to the consultation submissions? And Cllr Gail Engert, my Lib Dem colleague, also got agreement (subject to confirmation) that the Schools Organisation Committee which will meet to decide its view will be open to the public. There may also now be the opportunity for a further public meeting with the Schools Adjudicator so that the local people can directly voice there opinions.

It is important that everyone submits there views to this process (it’s all we have). You can email your views to the council at bsd@haringey.gov.uk – though please also copy me in as it’s useful to get a wide spread of feedback. You can use my contact form or post comments on this blog.

Important meeting about our new secondary school

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Consultation is not Haringey Council’s strong suit and I was disappointed to say the least when I attended a (poorly publicised) public meeting to discuss the bids to run Haringey’s new secondary school and there were only six members of the public present.

Thankfully Councillor Engert, our local Lib Dem Education Spokesperson, with support from myself scored a mini victory and the Council have bowed to our pressure to organise a second meeting. This is to be held at 18:00 on Tuesday, February 6, at Alexandra Primary School in Western Road, N22 6UH. (For a map click here).

This bid process is a vital decision for our community. The new school will the biggest education investment in Haringey for a generation – so the local community must be right at the heart of the decision making process when it comes to the choice of who runs it. Obviously, I hope the Council will do a better job in letting local people know about this meeting, but I’m also publicising it too – such as with this blog entry! So please do pass the news on to other people – particularly anyone with primary school age kids.

If you won’t be able to make it there are more details online about the process, the bidders and how you can have your say on Haringey Council’s website.

Please feel free to copy me in on your comments – or make comments here on this blog – as I am interested to hear people’s opinions on the proposal.

Meeting with Haringey Council's Chief Exec

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Met with Haringey Council’s Chief Exec and raised a number of issues:

– the fact that the Noel Park Recreation Ground children’s play area was still unfinished and the contractors according to a local parent had not even been on site for three weeks. I can’t think of an excuse and if they were my contractors I would want to take action.

– the need for Haringey to gain two stars in their star rating assessment for housing. Residents were encouraged to vote to outsource housing from the Council to an ALMO (Arms’ Length Management Organisation) because then they would get lots of money for housing improvements – but only if the service also got a two star rating. So I asked for the action plan and was told I can get it from the new Chief Exec of the ALMO who used to be Director of Housing at the Council – which I will do. We need Haringey and ALMO to deliver that action plan (and I don’t care to distinguish between that revolving door) so that tenants don’t face the double whammy of outsourcing responsibility for housing in order to get repairs done only to find that they then don’t qualify for the dosh.

I have offered to help in any way I can to lobby the Government on this (or indeed if anyone ever was interested to tell them what I know from all those who come to me about housing issues).

– the long time it is taking to get a lorry ban in Dukes Avenue. I know there is a meeting to take place (not the first) soon between my colleague Cllr Susan Oatway (Lib Dem, Alexandra ward) and the appropriate officer – but I want to raise the slowness of the process (years) and indicate that waiting for the North Circular to be resolved is like waiting for Godot.

– the poor result in Ofsted on Youth Services – for which the response was an assurance was that the Labour Exec Member in charge of this area was a good and absolutely committed councillor. All well and good – but I had hoped for a somewhat more robust assurance about what the Council might be doing in terms of action and resource in this area – when we know that so much of the anti-social behaviour that is complained about stems from young people having nothing to do and nowhere to go etc.

– and a number of other issues, including provision of business recycling services (a must in my view), lobbying on the costs of asylum and the need to investigate what is and has been built behind the shop fronts on Myddleton Road.

Ita (the Chief Exec) will get back to me on all of these in due course.

Looking after carers in Haringey

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I am giving the keynote speech at the Haringey Carers Week Conference. It’s a pleasure and an honour as carers are unsung heroes saving billions by caring for their loved ones and often sacrificing their own lives and careers. I give my speech. Cllr Bob Harris gives his on behalf of Haringey Council Social Services. And then the carers in the audience have the opportunity to ask questions. Well – all the warm words were blown out of the water as each care-worn, exhausted carer explained just how much Haringey Council had promised and how nothing had been delivered. Carers cannot even get assessments and have to wait for months and months – without which they cannot get even a meagre allowance or be eligible for respite etc. And we heard how they cannot get respite without a major fight. And many of them are ill – so worn by the existence.

Bob gets it in the neck – which is quite right as it is Haringey Council who don’t call back and who make these carers struggle to get what should be their support – but he is only in post a few weeks. There is clearly so much going on in each individual’s world that I say after this bit of the conference I will come outside and anyone who wants to can talk to me then. When I get outside there is literally a queue – so I take names, cases and contacts and when I go back to my office I pass the details to my assistant to contact each one to make an appointment to come to see me.

Just before I leave this subject – the day started with theatre. A theatre group did a role-play of a woman carer with no English coming to an appointment with a social worker. Within minutes the social worker is shouting with frustration at the woman. It made it so vivid and all could see that this was not the engagement that carers need.

Later in the afternoon, have an interesting meeting with a guy from Hackney CAB. The issue is the behaviour of bailiffs. Now – no-one is going to be pleased when they come knocking. It’s a bit like traffic wardens – not going to be loved. But the stories mount about intimidation, no prior notification, swearing and inappropriate behaviour. So I wonder – who monitors the standards. What is the recourse a resident has? Who can advise the resident? Who regulates the code of conduct. The security industry has now, or rather is now, becoming regulated and licensed. Doormen and bouncers now have some form of accountability. So – a bit of investigation is called for methinks.

I literally run to Millbank to do a News 24 live interview on sentencing – which as it was 30 minutes before England’s kick off would have had a viewing audience of about five I reckon!

Then sadly I watch the England match against Trinidad and Tobago in my office. I would love to have been able to go home and watch with my kids – but not possible. Parliament is pretty deserted but although business in the Chamber miraculously finishes before 5pm – I am stuck because we are having a drinks with all the Home Affairs journalists at 7pm. At least England won and I go to the drinks happier than I would have been. Interesting talking to various of them. We try and talk about the great matters of principle and policy – and the journos say: sod that, give us real story!

My understanding now – over the speculation that the Government may have over-ruled the police who did not want to go in on the Forrest Gate operation – is that this was not the case. So, although it is very easy to believe the worst of this Government – that is misplaced on this occasion. However, that’s in part the legacy of the non-existent WMD that the Government used as a reason to take us into an illegal war. Your credibility suffers for a long, long time.

Haringey Council

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Quite emotional for me – tonight’s Haringey Council Mayor Making is the first sitting of Haringey Council since the local elections. I remember what it was like when I was first elected to the Council in 1998 along with Julia and June (the first ever Lib Dem group on Haringey) and I became Leader of the Opposition. Then the layout of the chamber meant there were three rows each side, and we would sit in a little clutch at the front on one side – surrounded by Labour members on all sides (and long ago two Tories as well) who laid into us in the most bullying way you can imagine. Toby Harris was the then Leader of the Haringey Council and he and his cohorts spent much of each meeting just slagging me individually and the Lib Dems collectively off. I had to rise to speak on every item virtually. I often think how lucky I was to have such a rough start in politics. It certainly makes the Commons Chamber seem like a nursery by comparison!

Anyway – tonight and only eight years later, as I sit as the MP at the front of the guest seats, – there are still three rows of councillors each side of the chamber – but instead of 54 Labour and 3 LibDems – now it is 30 Labour and 27 LibDems. And how subdued and conciliatory Labour have suddenly become. It felt fantastic! To see how we have grown and to recognise that change is possible and hard work does reap rewards…

Some things don’t change, however, and all the important positions in the Council, as ever, are exclusively Labour – indicating that they are not yet willing to accept that the balance has changed in Haringey.