The U.K. in 2019 -

Another area which directly affects most of our grandchildren is the state of our schools as a result of Tory austerity over the past nearly decade.

Just some figures

21% has been cut from 6th form colleges since 2010

£374990 was the average deficit of English maintained schools in 2016/7 rising from £292822 in 2010/11

£2.8bn has been cut from school budgets since 2015

91% of schools are facing billions of further budget cuts

8.9% will be spent on cumulative costs including pay, national insurance and pensions in 2019/20. Up from 3.4% in 2016/17

9000 schools will receive insufficient funding toncover the staff pay rises.

What does this all mean in practice. How does austerity impact on the staff.?

Here is some evidence from just 3 head teachers.

Emily Proffitt
As well as her full time responsibility as head teacher, she has also taken on the role of
Catering manager
Premises manager
Safeguarding lead and deputy as well as head
Cleans toilets
Tends the school garden
Gives up holidays to attend to various necessary stuff at her school. This means that her own children have to attend with her.
All her paperwork is now done in her own time.

Clem Coady
I have started doing every role that I can now in my school in order to avoid making my staff redundant.
I have ended our maintenance contract and have taken on that role
I have fixed cupboards, leaky taps, door handles,. I’ve painted the school twice inside and out
I maintain the garden
I’ve cleaned up sick and unblocked lavatories.
I’ve reformatted computers
Built the school website
Taken on all HR work
Spend 90 minutes a day working as classroom assistant.
In March there wasn’t enough money in the bank to pay the staff
Money for children with special needs hasn’t arrived

Jules White

Listen to the government who say that there is more money in education than ever before.

The government is completely disconnected from what is actually happening.

She listed the same issues as the other heads. This is happening throughout the country.

This will be having a direct impact on our grandchildren. Time given to unblocking toilets is time taken away from teaching. Multiply this throughout the country and the picture is grim.

How can this government not care about the young?

Figures taken from the Observer 28/4

How could any grandparent vote to make their grandchildren so much worse off?

not this grandparent varian, nor any grandparent I know and love

In a way what is so worrying is how easy it is to find disaster everywhere you look. It really is probably one of the worse periods we have lived through.

Do not despair WW. We are still in the EU and we may yet stay in the EU and move on from this dreadful part of our national history.

It is reported that a United Nations Committee against Torture is meeting in Geneva to look at the uks record on the treatment of immigrant detention, rendition and prison overcrowding.

We ratified the convention in 1988.

There has been evidence submitted to the UN, that the U.K. has broken this convention in a number of ways.
1. The U.K. is the only European country with no time limit on immigration detention. (My question- does habeas corpus not apply)
2. It is noted that torture survivors are amongst those detained immigrants.
3. The U.K. government has failed to establish an independent judge-led inquiry into allegations of torture overseas, despite there being “*strong and credible*” evidence of U.K. involvement in the torture and ill treatment if suspects held by other states in counter terrorism operations.
4. Alleged policy of outsourcing torture and ill treatment to avoid involving U.K. officials.
5 In England and Wales, prisons are extremely overcrowded.
6 Assaults in prison are at their highest ever levels
7 Deaths in prison are at highest for years.

We await the outcome of this report.

It doesn’t look good.

What a country we have become.

Whitewavemark2
It's unbelievable that in Belgium, the minimum hourly rate is 7 times more than we get in the UK.
Are you really saying that their hourly rate is roughly £56 ph?
If you mean unemployment benefit, are they receiving circa £1,005pm?
If you're talking about SP, is their basic pension circa £1165 pw?