Havering’s Elections and the Budget, 2022-23

In the good-old-days voters knew where they stood. Conservatives were heartless; Labour were warm-hearted; Resident Associations (RA) loved pavements. Happy days!

Rishi Sunak’s Stately Home in Yorkshire: Council Tax Band H

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, set Havering’s Council Tax at 3%. He imposed the principal budget item, Adult Social Care, without funding it. This budget is demand led so no-one knows how much it will eventually cost. Councillors do know Havering has the oldest population in London and dozens of Care Homes. Central government has imposed Stealth Taxes on Havering for 12 years.

A £150 million budget¹ was nodded through with passionate debate about £70,000 ‘savings’ from Councillors Allowances. This would be allocated to street cleaning. An RA policy!

The 3% Council Tax increase is inadequate. Inflation is 7% rising to 10% by December. The in-coming Administration will have to make some grim decisions in October.

Council officers wrote an analysis of ‘risk’ factors for the budget.²Item C4 refers to business rates losses, “it is hoped that the Government will fully recognise this in future settlements”. Interest rates have increased twice in three months. C8 says, “An increase in interest rates will have a direct impact on the Council’s treasury strategy.” Each 1% increase equals £1 million of additional expenditure. C19 notes a potential loss of “several million pounds” and C22 says government alteration in charging for ‘Green Waste’ will cost £800,000.

The Administration’s 400 job losses will save £7 million.³They are, “Staffing Reductions Through Efficiency”. Achieved by removing, “activities that do not benefit residents.” Technology [has] “moved on significantly… [and] efficiencies through modernising work processes and improving service offers to our customers and partners.” A budget based on a ‘wish and prayer’.

Jeff Tucker declared he hadn’t read the budget before speaking for 25 minutes. But it was Rishi Sunak’s Stealth Taxes which needed discussing and he wasn’t present.⁴So perhaps Jeff got it right.

Notes

1 Issue – items at meetings – 2022/23 Budget and 2022-2026 Medium Term Financial Strategy | The London Borough Of Havering

2 Microsoft Word – Appendix D – Risk Register (003) (havering.gov.uk)

3 Appendix A Budget Savings.pdf (havering.gov.uk)

4 Havering Council Tax Meeting, 2nd March 2022 – Politics in Havering

Havering’s Academies’ GCSE Results, 2021

“The government…announced that it would not publish school or college level results data on Compare school and college performance (also commonly referred to as school and college performance tables) in autumn 2020 or autumn 2021, and that this data would not be used to hold schools and colleges to account” (my emphasis)¹

Havering’s academies awarded GCSEs in 2020 and 2021 through teacher assessment. Most of them interpreted the government’s position to mean they shouldn’t publish detailed GCSE results. As a consequence there’s no celebration of achievement or any accountability to students, parents and the people of Havering.

Abbs Cross: their most recent data for 2021 is devoid of content. The summary statement for 2021 is an obfuscation. What does “9-4 English and Maths 78%” mean? This entirely undifferentiated statement is meaningless. Likewise, “9-4 Best English.”² They do say Pupil Premium students achieve significantly less well than the rest.

Marshalls Park: their most recent data is from 2019.³They’ve published a subject list and grades without saying how many students sat each subject. This makes the data ambiguous. Bizarrely the Romford Recorder published a report on Marshall Park’s 2021 results even though the academy didn’t. The most successful students were female in a ratio of 9:4.

Coopers Coburn: is Havering’s Gold Standard for transparency in publishing their 2021 GCSE results.⁴Their data is intelligible and unambiguous. Each subject is listed with the numbers of students and the outcome grade-by-grade.

Coopers Coburn demonstrate how the 2021 exam results should be published. They are the template and inspiration for the other 17 academies.

Conclusion

Havering’s Academies ‘coast’ by dodging scrutiny.⁵ They specialise in misinformation and fluffy generalisations. Positive and negative feedback is avoided by concealing GCSE results. Havering’s academies are excellent at bombastic drivel. Harris Academy Rainham said this 2020, “We are….immensely proud of our students for the results they achieved and wish them well with the next stage of their education.”⁶ Needless to relate there wasn’t any data supporting this statement.

Havering’s academies are doomed to repeat the same failed teaching strategies each year as they don’t engage with the actuality of their performance. Public accountability is an essential part of the learning process that all organisations must undertake as part of constant improvement.

Addendum: research note

Research for this blog was done on October 10^th 2021. Eleven Academy websites were reviewed and there was a consistent theme of shifty evasion about GCSE results.

Notes

1 Coronavirus (COVID-19): school and college accountability 2021/22 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

2 Achievement and Performance | Abbs Cross The academy costs £5.14 million per year Abbs Cross Academy and Arts College – Schools Financial Benchmarking – GOV.UK (schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk)

3 Subject-breakdown.pdf (marshallspark.org.uk) Surprisingly there was a press release which sort-of summarised the 2021 results GCSE Results 2021: Romford school shares students results | Romford Recorder The academy costs £6.24 million per year Marshalls Park Academy – Schools Financial Benchmarking – GOV.UK (schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk)

4 GCSE-Results-2021.pdf (cooperscoborn.org.uk) The academy costs £9.39 million per year The Coopers’ Company and Coborn School – Schools Financial Benchmarking – GOV.UK (schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk)

5 Havering and Redbridge: A Tale of Two Boroughs – Politics in Havering

6 Examinations Results (Not Current) – Harris Academy Rainham (harrisrainham.org.uk) The academy costs £6.16 million per year Harris Academy Rainham – Schools Financial Benchmarking – GOV.UK (schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk)

Havering’s Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 21st July, 2021

Havering’s councillors are getting livelier. All five councillors, who were present, spoke. The energetic Darren Wise and Michael Deon Burton made five contributions each. Michael tends to be more conversational than Darren but, let’s not quibble. Darren set the Gold Standard. His first query cited a page reference (p39: appendix ‘A’ if you’re interested). There were also contributions from councillors Carole Beth and Matt Sutton along with the Chair, which is sort-of-obligatory so isn’t noteworthy. Nic Dodin was absent and I don’t think he was missed.

Item 7 was interesting. The funding of LBH’s traffic schemes turns out to be complex. There haven’t been any schemes completed since May because of funding issues with Transport for London. They in their turn can’t approve anything because the funding stream from the government has dried up. So LBH have green lighted injury reduction schemes and they can’t commence. Darren was disappointed that his pet scheme in Cambourne Avenue has failed at this funding hurdle. Interestingly no-one complained about this new wave Austerity programme which has been introduced by stealth.

There was a similar sub-text to the Rainham Creek item, Item 8. On this occasion it was the Environment Agency who haven’t coughed up. There will be a Topic Group on this issue, which will start after contractors have costed the clean up and remediation works. The wider point about flooding in the borough was touched on by the Chair, Carole, who described her personal experiences of flooding, and Darren.

Zoom continues its challenge. I don’t understand why senior officers were presenting items from home and in one case from her garden. The presentation of supporting documents was abysmal. Surely if councillors can attend in person so can officers.

Note

For the agenda see (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Environment Overview & Scrutiny Sub-Committee, 21/07/2021 19:00 (havering.gov.uk)