School build programme scrapped

13 July 2011 Last updated at 14:30 GMT Councils are now being asked to meet 50% of the costs of the projects The Welsh Government's national school building programme, 21st Century Schools, will not go ahead as planned.

Councils have been told to go back to the drawing board and re-submit plans for new schools, as well as to contribute significantly more funds.

Many school building and improvement projects are likely to be scrapped or delayed.

Education Minister Leighton Andrews told assembly members: "The environment has changed."

Each local authority submitted plans to transform their school stock, to the Welsh Government.

Councils were to contribute 30% of the costs of each project, with the remainder being paid by the Welsh Government.

However, BBC Wales revealed in December that a shortfall of hundreds of millions of pounds was expected.

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Authorities must be given the opportunity to review the timing and content of their planned investments so as to take the hard decisions early...”

End Quote Leighton Andrews Education Minister It came after a previous Welsh Government promise to ensure every school building was "fit for purpose" by 2010 was not met.

Local authorities have now been asked to review and re-submit their plans.

They will now be asked to contribute 50% of the projects' costs.

In a written statement to assembly members, Mr Andrews said: "There has been a sharp reduction in capital funding imposed on the Welsh Government - taken together a reduction of 40% will occur across the current funding period.

"Against that background, the board and the Welsh Government consider that authorities must be given the opportunity to review the timing and content of their planned investments so as to take the hard decisions early that will ensure funding goes to the delivery of excellence in education not the maintenance of buildings."

BBC Wales has obtained figures from 18 of Wales' 22 local authorities which show that they intended to build schools worth ?1.255bn between now and 2015.

Over 15 years, 16 authorities planned to spend ?3.953bn.

It is likely that a significant number of school building and improvement projects will now be scrapped, says BBC Wales education correspondent Ciaran Jenkins.

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Unions criticise school trip plan

2 July 2011 Last updated at 19:24 GMT Ministers say there is too much bureaucracy involved in organising school trips Teaching unions have criticised plans to make school trips easier to organise amid government fears about the over-zealous application of safety laws.

The Department for Education is publishing new guidance to help schools ditch "unnecessary paperwork", and has cut 150 pages of guidelines to eight.

But the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said it feared reducing best practice could lead to more accidents.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said it was a "more common sense" approach.

Amanda Brown, of the NUT, said: "What we wouldn't want to do is to see a reduction of guidance which could lead to a lot more accidents.

'Myths'

"What we want is advice which is very clear and straightforward but long enough to cover enough of the detail so that people do feel secure."

The NASUWT teachers' union said cutting back guidance could reduce parents' confidence and make teachers more nervous about school trips because it provided a safeguard.

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The dilution of guidance for schools is likely to reduce rather than increase the number of educational visits”

End Quote Chris Keates NASUWT teachers' union "The decision to scrap over 140 pages of guidance is potentially reckless and could increase litigation against schools and teachers," said general secretary Chris Keates.

"There is no evidence demonstrating the need for the previous guidance to be abandoned, and no educational reason for doing so.

"Schools and teachers organise educational visits when it is clear that there is an opportunity to enhance and enrich pupils' learning and when they assure themselves that children will be safe.

'Crazy situation'

"The dilution of guidance for schools is likely to reduce rather than increase the number of educational visits."

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it hoped the new guidelines would dispel legal "myths".

Chairman Judith Hackitt told the BBC it was "time to out those who hide behind red tape and procedures and often blame us and health and safety as the reason why they can't do these things".

She said guidelines had ended up being overly bureaucratic because of a fear of civil litigation, cost-cutting and because it was an easy way to avoid work that was regarded as more difficult.

Teachers were intelligent people and should be trusted to use their common sense, she added.

Ministers said school trips could broaden children's horizons but fear of prosecution was too often used as an excuse not to organise them.

In the past five years only two cases had been brought against schools for breaches of health and safety law on a visit, they said.

Employment minister Chris Grayling said: "We've got a crazy situation at the moment where, very often, headteachers and teachers think that actually the rules are such that it's not a good idea to plan school trips.

"There's too much bureaucracy, too many health and safety rules and a risk of prosecution if something goes wrong," he told the BBC.

"There is no reason - and never was - why children should be prevented from going on school trips by over-enthusiastic misinterpretation of rules," he said.

A Labour Party spokesman said health and safety rules needed to be applied sensibly.

The new guidelines clarify that written parental consent is not needed for each activity and encourage schools to use a new one-off consent form signed once when a child starts at a school.

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MSP in 'sectarian' school attack

23 June 2011 Last updated at 11:58 GMT John Lamont warned of problems in the west of Scotland school system The Scottish Tory justice spokesman has accused the west of Scotland school system of overseeing "state-sponsored conditioning of sectarian attitudes".

John Lamont's comments came as MSPs debated emergency laws to increase jail terms for sectarian-related behaviour connected to football.

He said sending children to Catholic and non-denominational schools contributed to the problem.

Minister Roseanna Cunningham said the remarks were "astonishing".

The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill was introduced to parliament last week.

The bill aims to stamp out abusive behaviour from football fans whether they are watching matches in a stadium, in the pub or commenting online.

It would raise the maximum jail term from six months to five years.

First Minister Alex Salmond said on Thursday that the timetable for the legislation would be delayed by six months after concerns were raised about the pace of change.

Speaking during the debate, Mr Lamont told MSPs that segregating children into Catholic and non-denominational schools had produced many, if not all, of those responsible for the problems seen in recent months.

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Two new offences on football-related behaviour regarded as offensive and threatening.

One deals with disorder around football matches inside the ground, and extends to those travelling to and from stadiums - as well as fans watching games elsewhere, for example in pubs or on big screens outdoors.

The second offence deals with serious threats - including murder - made on the internet.

That would take in posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as specific websites.

Both offences would become indictable, with a maximum punishment of five years in jail.

The maximum jail term for sectarian hate crimes is currently six months.

Decisions on sentencing in each case are a matter for the courts.

Commenting on the schools system in west central Scotland, he said: "The education system in this part of Scotland is effectively the state-sponsored conditioning of these sectarian attitudes.

"And I say this as someone who believes, as a Christian country, we should do more to promote Christian values in our young people and support religious education in schools.

"Clearly these attitudes are being entrenched at home and the wider community in these small pockets of west central Scotland."

Responding to the comments, Ms Cunningham, the community safety minister, said: "After listening to John Lamont's astonishing diversion into a diatribe against Scottish education, I really do think that perhaps they (the Scottish Conservatives) need to reconsider how they are going to approach the whole issue of sectarianism in Scotland.

"Because that would suggest to me that they are reckless as to whether or not actually it gets stirred up even further."

The new legislation comes in the wake of several high-profile football-related incidents.

These include trouble at Rangers/Celtic games and the sending of suspected bombs to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two other high-profile supporters of the club.

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Gove denies U-turn on school cuts

11 June 2011 Last updated at 15:43 GMT Michael Gove said he wanted to be sure services were providing value for money

The education secretary has denied making a U-turn after agreeing to review funding cuts for councils.

Michael Gove said they were "accelerating the pace of reform" and the review was needed because of the growth in academies.

Councils provide support services such as special needs education for state schools, but not academy schools.

Ministers had said the grant to provide such services would be cut by ?148m this year and ?265m next year.

In May, 23 councils threatened legal action saying the method used to calculate the cut breached guidelines.

'U-turn'

Mr Gove told the BBC some Labour local authorities were "a bit unhappy" about the pace of reform, but "the truth is at the moment we're actually providing funding to local authorities and to schools for the same service".

The education secretary said they had to make sure the taxpayer "is not paying twice".

Labour says the decision shows changes are being pushed through too quickly.

"This is the third time in a year that Michael Gove has had to U-turn under the threat of legal action," shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said.

"And the reason that it keeps happening is that he is railroading his policies through without proper consultation, without listening to parents, to teachers, to local councillors."

'Hideously complicated'

National Association of Head Teachers General Secretary Russell Hobby says funding formulas for schools are "hideously complicated".

"I think if we were charitable we'd be calling it a refinement of the policy here. The government's been moving at pace, in some cases rushing into things and I think then you find out that implementation is not as clear as you thought," he said.

"They've found that it's not as simple as cutting out the money that would have been spent on those schools when they become an academy."

But a spokesman for the Department of Education said it welcomed the opportunity to re-enter discussions with local authorities.

He said the need to review funding reflected the popularity of the academy programme.

According to the Department of Education website, 1,244 schools have applied to be an academy since June 2010 and 704 academies are in operation.

Reduced grant

Academies are outside of the local authority support structure, and receive no services from councils. Instead, they receive their funding directly from the government.

Once operating as an academy, the school receives the same per pupil funding as other state schools. However, it also gains control of a portion - up to 10% - of its budget which would previously have been held back by the local authority and used to provide services across the borough.

The Department for Education, through the local government settlement, said it was reducing the grant available to councils for support to schools to compensate for this.

The councils claim this cut has been calculated by deducting the amount it will cost individual academies to run those services themselves, rather than by the amount that councils will save by not providing them.

This, they argue, will leave them out of pocket and is against the government's own guidelines, known as the New Burdens Rules, on such matters.

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