7:49am Wednesday 1st September 2010
By Ben Barnett
Nine years ago, Bradford Council was stripped of its responsibility for running education services.
A critical inspection report by watchdog Ofsted meant the Department for Education intervened. Private firm Serco, trading locally as Education Bradford, signed a ten-year deal to run school support services as a result.
After almost a decade of generally steady improvement, but with Bradford largely lagging behind average attainment outcomes nationally, the Council is close to regaining full control of education services when the contract with Serco expires on July 29 next year.
A report by Kath Tunstall, the Council’s strategic director of services to children and young people, which recommends that the running of education services returns to City Hall, was due to be considered today by the executive.
Ahead of the meeting, she told the Telegraph & Argus why, after listening to headteachers, school staff, governors, parents and young people, this was the best option for the future of education in the district.
“It’s a chance for us to get rid of duplication of effort; it gets rid of confusion. It’s not a criticism of the staff at Education Bradford, it’s an organisational issue because of a contract that is outdated. It’s incredibly complicated and bureaucratic.”
Councillor Ralph Berry, the Council’s executive member for children’s services and education, insisted the local authority had learned from the mistakes of the past.
“We’re not rebuilding the Local Education Authority. This is a children’s department and schools are self-managing organisations. Our focus is the bigger picture.
“It is a clearer, more simple and more joined-up structure and it will help at a time of economic pressure when it’s important we get value for money from the taxpayer. Removing any duplication protects frontline services.
“We believe that children have a capacity to achieve regardless of their background and only a highly-focused education system can bring that out.”
He, too, welcomed the chance to reshape how education services are run.
“The Education Bradford contract is too narrow for our ambitions. It only deals with the services under the local authority’s control nearly ten years ago.”
He said schools had evolved into much more outward-looking organisations which worked together in local groups with the community, voluntary services and businesses.
Since 2001, the Extended Schools agenda had seen schools establish breakfast clubs, booster classes, Saturday morning activities and English as a second language classes for parents.
Mrs Tunstall said the Council, in partnership with Education Bradford, was supporting headteachers and school governors in a way that was absent in 2001. She said a five-year plan to improve the district’s attainment had been devised and would be considered by the children’s services scrutiny committee this month.
She said the document was focused on three key areas – language, learning and leadership.
“It is about ensuring we have the proper leaders in schools, the right kind of leadership throughout children’s services, and children are encouraged to learn in a way tailored to their needs,” she said.
It was before the General Election that the then- Secretary of State, Ed Balls, said he was minded to lift the restrictions on the Council, but Mrs Tunstall said there was no evidence the new coalition Government was taking a different view.
“We have been in very close liaison with officials in London from both the previous and the current administration. We have no reason to believe the change of government is in anyway changing the direction.”
Significant challenges facing the Council include something as simple as finding places for pupils at the district’s schools. Plans to relieve the problem by remodelling and rebuilding 21 schools as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme have stalled after spending freezes imposed by the Government.
Mrs Tunstall said the Council was making a submission to the Government’s school rebuilding programme review.
She said: “The number of places in secondary schools come 2018, if not before, won’t be enough. It’s not just about shiny new buildings – it’s about places. Some of our most popular schools are bursting at the seams and some of our schools are in a very poor physical state.”
She said it was also “absolutely vital” that Bradford’s special school reorganisation was completed. Two new schools, one for children with communication difficulties, the other for children with behavioural problems, were axed in the Building Schools for the Future cull.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/trade_directory/