Sadiq's Free School Meals

Yet another reason to Vote Labour in London on May 2 (and imagine if we had more Labour Mayors with similar Executive powers elsewhere). 

 

Newham Council Budget proposals 2019-2020 - London Living Wage; Cut Council Tax for Poor; Eat for Free & Support Children with SEN

I was really proud of the budget proposals announced today by our Labour Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, at Full Council tonight. In spite of further Government cuts and Austerity, we are proposing a London Living Wage for all our care staff (then rolled out to all other parts of the Council); cutting Council tax for the poorest; retaining free school meals ("Eat for Free") and supporting children with special educational needs (and other policies).

Nevermind all the transformational stuff we are doing on housing.

This makes politics worthwhile. 

UNISON Greater London Labour Regional Committee AGM 2018 (& Supporting free school meals!)

Today I was re-elected unopposed as the Chair of the UNISON political fund in London that supports the Labour Party for a 2 year term.

I was really pleased that long standing Committee member Yvonne Green was elected as the Vice Chair.

Yvonne is also our well respected Regional Convenor as well as a being a UNISON branch secretary and Chair of a Labour Party Local Campaign Forum.

UNISON is now the largest trade union in the UK and Greater London is one of our biggest regions.

At the AGM London Assembly member, Fiona   Twycross,  gave us an excellent report on the Greater London Assembly.

Her online petition
"Protect Free School Meals - hungry children do not learn" now has 280,000 signatures. Please click and sign (then share) 

Government cuts threaten Newham Free School Meals programme: Schools cannot afford to pay 60% of the cost

This letter below was sent to many primary school parents today in Newham by the union for Head Teachers. Due to Government cuts and Newham Council changes in the way they charge for meals, many primary schools have decided that they cannot pay 60% of the cost of "free" school meals.

I am a school governor and have been told that if implemented this cost will result in the school having to get rid of teaching staff in order to pay for it.

I hope that some sort of compromise is sorted out between the Mayor and primary schools asap. I will be contacting the Council about this matter.

"An open letter to Newham Parents

School Funding

You may have seen a number of stories in the press around school funding. There have been worrying headlines and we felt it important that we let you know, as far as we are able at this stage, how this will affect Newham schools.

School budgets across the country have been under pressure for some time leading to a number of tough decisions being made. Our schools are not alone. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has shown that more than half of school leaders felt that their budget would be untenable by 2018/19. The National Audit Office estimate a £3 billion real terms cut across all phases and in all schools.

The recent headlines have been caused by a proposed new funding formula for schools, designed to create a fairer allocation. However with increasing costs placed onto all schools the new formula will not bring the benefits that we had hoped to see. Indeed Newham schools will be significant losers under the new formula The School Cuts website, analysing DfE data, projects that schools in our local authority will lose over £30 million of funding in total by 2019.

As school leaders we will work hard to ensure that cuts have the least impact on teaching possible. However, rising costs and a frozen budget mean that tough decisions will have to be taken. We cannot guarantee that such cuts will not impact on teaching, despite doing our upmost to prevent this.

In the more immediate future these cuts are likely to impact upon some of the activities that broaden pupil experiences, and support their wider needs, such as our provision of after school clubs and educational visits. In recent years schools have partnered the mayor to deliver the 'eat for free' programme, at some costs to schools. Under a new more transparent arrangement from April 2017 schools are being asked to pay 60% of the cost of this scheme. This is unsustainable in the current climate and schools will not be able to continue to provide free meals for all junior aged pupils unless the national funding picture changes, or the mayor decides to fully fund his initiative.

Please be assured that we will take the utmost care with budgets, to ensure all the money we have is spent effectively on your children. We are also letting the local authority and government know just how serious the funding crisis has become.

Yours

Newham NAHT Branch Officials

Wednesday PM – Co-op, Education (Free School Meals), Royal Mail Pension

Gareth Thomas MP, chair of Co-op Party addressed conference. The Co-op movement is on a bit of a roll at the moment. It’s not just about the failure of the demutualised banks and building societies but new interest in co-operative provision of public services – housing, hospitals and even schools.

The Education debate saw a barn standing speech in favour of free school meals by Newham Councillor Unmesh Desai (see picture). Newham is part of a government pilot to offer free school meals to all primary schools. A commitment to roll this programme out nationally in the Labour manifesto next year is IMO a "no-brainer".

Next we had some alternative show business glamour with awards given out by the Labour Party supporter Eddie Izzard.

Billy Hayes the CWU General Secretary successfully moved the emergency motion on the Royal Mail pension deficit. This deficit is mostly due to contribution holidays by the state owned Post Office during most of the period of Tory rule and the Party will now be pressing the government to take responsibility for it.

Forest Gate (Labour) News – Free school diners!

This is our latest Labour Party ward newsletter (June). The main story was the launch by the Labour Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, of free school meals for all primary school children in the borough.

Excellent news - Clear red water. This should be a national Labour Party manifesto commitment for all. Hungry kids do not learn.

Also there was the successful launch of Newham Young Labour. Great news for the future of the Party in Newham.

On Thursday evening we had a successful West Ham CLP campaign meeting. Despite the national political backdrop our meeting was very positive and vibrant. Lots of positive and constructive ideas. We have agreed a schedule of campaign events across the summer and into the autumn.

We kick off with a telecanvass at the Party rooms next week in support of the Labour candidate, Chris Ostrowski, in the Norwich North by-election.

PS - Apparently we had Tories “canvassing” in Capel Road, Forest Gate recently! I wonder if the leaflet has stirred things up?

(click on picture to bring up detail)