Redundancies in Swansea schools as Labour education cuts bite

According to the Post, NUT workplace reps and officers are facing a busy time as the reality of what Council schools funding cuts mean starts to become clear. They are holding 22 meetings over likely redundancies as schools start identifying how many staff they need to lose because of Swansea Labour's cuts.

Swansea Cabinet member for education, Cllr Raynor is saying that it is 'only' 1 or 2 staff per school but unions and heads seem to think some schools are facing much bigger cuts than that. And the bad news is that this is only year 1 of a projected 3 years of 5%, year on year, cuts to funding for schools and education. That's  £24 million Labour councillors voted to cut from our children's schools over the next 3 years

When TUSC supporters challenged Labour councillors over these devastating cuts to schools at the Council budget-setting meeting, Council Leader, Rob Stewart, said he didn't recognise the picture we painted of redundancies for teaching and other staff and increased class sizes.

But when primary school heads were asked, by the Council, to predict the likely consequences of these cuts, they forecast that they would not be able to meet the statutory requirement  to teach 5-7 year olds in classes of 30 or less and that, in some cases, older primary school students could end up in classes of 42+!

And still Labour councillors claim to be "protecting education", although they do sometimes qualify it with the word 'relatively'. In other words, they're making deep cuts in education but they're cutting deeper elsewhere.

If you're feed up with Welsh Labour representatives passing on Con-Dem cuts then what can you do to help TUSC in the General Election?

Press Release: Defend Council Jobs & Services!

Lobby City & County of Swansea Budget Meeting

Tuesday, 24 February, from 4pm, Civic Centre

Swansea Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) supporters will join trades unionists, including the Council UNISON branch and Swansea Trades Council, in lobbying councillors to reconsider potentially devastating cuts to jobs and services on Tuesday. Swansea's Labour councillors will be voting on proposals to make £80 million + of cuts over the next 3 years at the Council budget-setting meeting.

The Cabinet made some minor concessions to public opinion and reduced cuts in a handful of areas but instead will propose ordinary people in Swansea pay for these changes with a 4.8% increase in Council Tax. So, for instance, the Council has retreated on charging for residents' parking (for now) but people will end up paying as much or more in increased Council Tax.

Ronnie Job, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) prospective parliamentary candidate for Swansea West, like all TUSC candidates, is committed to fighting against and voting against, all cuts to jobs and services.

Also, like a lot of parents in Swansea, he has good reason to fear for his children's education, with the Council voting on a £24 million, 15% cut in funding over 3 years. The Cabinet will recommend this level of cuts to schools despite warnings from primary heads in Swansea, of the number of teaching and other jobs that will be lost and the likelihood that this will result in class sizes of 42+ in a number of schools.

Ronnie said..

"The Council want to sell off my son's school playing as 'surplus land' but the threat to school playing fields is only the tip of the iceberg as far as council cuts to education in Swansea are concerned. When primary heads were asked what budget cuts of this level would mean in Swansea schools, they predicted job losses of teachers and other school staff. This, they said, would lead to a failure to meet the statutory requirement for 5-7 year olds to be taught in classes with a maximum class size of 30 and older pupils being taught in classes of 42+ in a number of schools."

"The Council's only response seems to have been - other areas, like social services, face bigger cuts."

"A Labour Council is devastating education and taking risks with our children's futures. It's not acceptable!"

"Remember councillors are voting on cuts for the next 3 years, when they hope and expect to have a Labour Government in 3 months' time. They obviously expect no noticeable improvement from a government of their own party."

"If you care for the future of services like education then join TUSC, trade unionists and campaigners, on Tuesday, in demanding Labour councillors reconsider these devastating cuts."

Labour council cuts make election pledges meaningless

The news this morning is full of Labour Education spokesman, Tristram 'aggressively pro-business' Hunt's pledge that Labour will cap infant class sizes at a maximum of 30.

In Wales there is already a statutory requirement for 5-7 year-olds to be taught in maximum class size of 30.

But this is made meaningless by the Labour Welsh Government and Labour councils passing on Con-Dem cuts.

Swansea primary heads were asked to respond to the draft budget proposals in education, agreed by our Labour Council Cabinet on Tuesday. To a woman and man they stated that the level of cuts proposed, £24 million or 15% of the current budget, over the next 3 years, would mean that they would be unable to meet this statutory obligation.

They went further, with several heads predicting, due to numbers of teaching and other jobs that would be lost if these cuts are made, those pupils not covered by this obligation, 8-11 year olds, would end up being taught in classes of 42+!

Words are one thing but as long as Labour remains committed to austerity that's all they'll remain, hollow, windy, meaningless words.

Swansea TUSC joined trade unionists and worried service users on a lobby of the Council  Cabinet meeting which agreed to recommend these cuts to the full Council.

We will be demanding that so-called 'left' Labour councillors vote against these devastating proposals on February 24. Come along and add your voice to those demanding elected representatives stop making Con-Dem cuts and fight instead. Help us to build TUSC as an alternative to the cuts-consensus.

Listen to the people!

That’s the message Swansea TUSC will be taking to the lobby of the Special Cabinet Meeting of the Council, Tuesday (10 February) from 4pm at the Civic Centre.

For any Labour councillors willing to listen, the Swansea Trades Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) street ballot today (7-2-2015) sent a clear message: The people of Swansea want their representatives to stop voting for Tory cuts and start fighting them.

 

188 people participated in our ballot. Not one of them wanted their Labour councillors to make Tory cuts; 100% of them voted that they want “representatives who will fight the cuts”.

Unfortunately it appears that they won’t get that from their elected Labour representatives. Just like in the run-up to last year’s cuts budget, not one Labour councillor has spoken out against, let alone indicated a willingness to vote against, projected cuts of £80 million+ over the next 3 years.

The only defence they can offer for their failure to fight Con-Dem cuts is to claim that it is better that they make the cuts than somebody else does. People we spoke to today were furious that all Labour councillors are getting paid to vote for £millions of cuts to our jobs and services.

We asked people we balloted which of the proposed cuts that will be considered by Swansea’s Special Cabinet Meeting next week, most concerned them and invited them to write down a message to send to Swansea councillors.

There are a whole range of proposals that are worrying people we spoke to and making them angry, including the outsourcing and cuts in leisure and social services, threats to close youth centres and Plantasia, increases in charges for a number of council services and cuts in funding for supported organisations like West Glamorgan Youth Theatre.

Time and again though, the issue that seemed to most anger people is the proposed cuts to education. That’s no surprise; many had read the report in the local paper predicting that primary-age pupils could end up being taught in classes of 40 if these cuts to funding go ahead. In fact a number of heads of primary schools, including the one my youngest son attends, have predicted to the Council that 15% reduction in funding being proposed over the next 3 years could lead to classes of 42+ for some primary school pupils.

The people of Swansea have spoken today and told their councillors that they expect them to vote against Con-Dem cuts at the Special Budget Meeting on Tuesday and the full council meeting on February 24. It was summed up in a message one woman wrote to councillors: “No more cuts! We’ve had too many already!”

That’s what Swansea TUSC supporters will be demanding when we join the lobby of the Council Special Cabinet Meeting on Tuesday, from 4pm, Civic Centre.

Ronnie Job

TUSC Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Swansea West

Swansea Labour Council's Bad News for School Pupils

I've been studying the papers for City & County of Swansea's Special Cabinet Meeting next Tuesday (February 10). As a parent of two school-age children, I have to say it's enough to keep you awake at night with worry.

This meeting will decide which proposals go through to the Council budget-setting meeting on February 24. The agenda, for a Labour-led Council remember, is all about parcelling out Con-Dem cuts.

For months parents, governors, pupils at my younger son's school have been opposing the proposed sell-off of school playing fields for house-building, along with residents from the local community.

We have serious concerns that the Council has barely paid lip-service to the democratic process. Reading the papers reveals that my son's school is one of 14, just in the first tranche of sell-offs of school land. Labour councillors claim this is "surplus land" but the beautifully maintained ground where my son plays, learns and evacuates to in an emergency, is a school playing field and not surplus land!

You can check this out for yourself  - follow @ParklandsField on Twitter or look up the Save Parklands Field Facebook group. Watch the wonderful video, starring pupils themselves, which demonstrates why a number of Welsh sports stars are now backing the campaign to save the playing field.

How many of the other parcels of school "surplus land" are also green spaces valuable to our children's education and development?

I knew about this proposal from studying the Council's budget papers last year. Some Labour councillors who voted for the proposals obviously hadn't checked what they were voting for because they told me, when I challenged them on it, that there were no plans to sell school playing fields. The only alternative, that they did know and lied to me, would be even worse!

School playing fields are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to schools and education cuts. Up to now, the Welsh Labour Government and our Council claim to have protected education. In fact, there have been cuts in areas like 'education other than at school' and transport for faith and other schools but education has seen far fewer cuts than many other services. Now however, education will face severe cuts from the Council - £24 million in the next 3 years, 15% of the current budget.

In the papers that Cabinet members have received there's a section where head teachers identify what cuts of this scale will mean for their schools. They all predict that it will be impossible to meet the statutory requirement to teach 5-7 year olds in maximum class sizes of 30. Many schools predict class sizes of 42+ for older pupils. All of them will see job losses, which will affect teachers, classroom assistant and support staff.

The only response of the Council leadership to these concerns seems to be that schools are 'relatively protected' and other services have it worse.

If you work in education or are a parent who's worried about their children's education, join TUSC representatives on the lobby of the Council Cabinet on February 10 and the full Council on February 24 (both from 4pm at Civic Centre).

Meet TUSC representatives this Saturday in Oxford Street, from 1.30pm, holding a ballot on whether Swansea people expect our representatives to fight Con-Dem cuts.