Teather Defends Herself

The Willesden and Brent Times carries Sarah Teather's defence of her cancellation of Building Schools for the Future, which I find less than convincing.

The main argument appears to be that having been awarded money under the programme that she and her Tory Boss have cancelled we can now reapply for funding under a new scheme. Thanks a lot.

Her two main arguments against Building Schools for the Future don't stack up. Firstly, she points out that it took us a long time to be awarded the money because Building Schools for Future was specifically aimed at improving academic standards and despite all Brent's problems our schools were doing quite well academically. Well, that sounds like an argument about the past (and by they way does she really think it unreasonable to target education spend at improving academic standards?) rather than the present. It certainly does not explain why having been awarded the money last year, it is better to cancel the whole thing and set up a new bidding process that will inevitably lead to more delay. Her second argument is that the BSF programme was too bureaucratic. As far as I know neither Ms Teather nor her Tory boss Michael Gove have had much practical experience of building projects. Had they had some, I expect they would know that planning considerations, design, procurement for multi million pound projects are actually quite complicated.

The final argument she makes towards the end of the piece is that the money simply isn't there. This seems to be directly contrary to a letter I have seen from David Bell, the Permanent Secretary in her own department. To suggest that the Permanent Secretary of your department went along with irresponsible and unfunded spending is quite a bold accusation.

It also raises the question of how much money is actually in the Building Fund that Ms Teather is now forcing Brent Council to reapply to. If Building Schools for the Future had too little funding, I take it that Ms Teather is proposing a cut in spending, in line with her Tory masters' ideology. If the money is the same what was the point of cutting the funding Brent Council had already been given?