Yesterday at the Conservative Party Conference, George Osborne announced plans (should he be in a position to implement them) to cut public sector bureacracy – cutting Whitehall budgets by a third which will then lead to massive job cuts.
Well, good luck with that one George – I’m sure Sir Humphrey will tell you he needs to employ 10,000 more staff in order to implement the cuts.
In all, the Conservatives are planning about £7 billion of cuts every year of the next Parliament.
Hands up who thinks £350 million to change school system in Bedford is a good use of public funds then…
Save Middle Schools - The Blog 
And Michael Gove has made a speech – not sure quite what it adds up to except a lot of change – a committment to parent power – and smaller schools – more academies. Perhaps not a time for a new mayor and his councillors to make any bold decisions that result in instability on top of instability…
Click to access 07_10_09govespeech.pdf
All 3 major political parties are now “boasting” of the massive cuts that will have to be made in Public Spending. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats also intend to cap Council Tax. The most senior Civil Servant in the Department for Children, Families and Schools has warned the Bedford education hierarchy of the cuts to come. Milton Keynes, Northampton and Suffolk (all recent forced changes to 2-tier) have education systems in chaos. Still no recognition from the 2-tier advocates that the latest in a long line of LAs that had so called credible plans and finance have all yet again hit the buffers and are damaging their children’s futures. Now the word has changed, thanks to the prevarication of Council Officers and the Bedford education elite so much time was lost that we have missed the chance for all or some of that BSF money. Has this changed the 2-tier advocates – not one bit, they still prefer their “belief” to any facts.
The illusory £350 million was not going to supply a penny towards the cost of changing Lower Schools to Primary. The Council estimate was £60 million, and the Council Officer’s even said that it was “unwise” to give that estimate, whilst those with actual knowledge of the real cost of building just extra classrooms put it as nearer £110 million for Bedford Borough. So just where is all this money coming from. Oh, I forgot – only after the so called consultation it became apparent that any extra Bedford Borough Council borrowing would be funded out of annual school budgets over the next 25 years. So according to the 2-tier advocates it’s ok to cut 2%, or is that 4% or is that 10% ….. out of the school budgets for 25 years as long as they get their dream of 2-tier education in the Borough.
JamesD – totally correct but lets face it we are looking at funding the primary programme with no apparent rise in council tax, a cut in overall public spending from central government, barely any primary capital and then on top of all that an arbitrary cut in school budgets on top. How on earth that will raise standards is beyond me! If it wasn’t quite so sad it would be laughable.
Michael Gove, if I heard Radio 4 correctly, also said he would protect the £35 billion DCSF budget that went direct to schools but cut the £35+ billion that disappears into the National and Local Authority bureaucracy. So our wonderful Bedford Borough bureaucrats are going to cut the budget that a future government will protect. How many layers of management do we have in Bedford Borough Education Department? Start reading the Guardian from the back gentlemen/women.