Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
I may have misremembered but I think Richard previously said that it was in this sector that he started off his career (he mentioned a few sites in England).
Welsh university graduates 'are at the back of the queue for best jobs,' says report
The findings by the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveal the students also earn less than their counterparts from other UK universities
Students from Welsh universities are the least likely of any in the UK to be employed in 'professional' roles after graduation, a new report has revealed.
And the salaries of graduates from Welsh universities also lag behind those of their counterparts from universities in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, the research found.
The difference in expected pay and career destinations for first degree graduates was revealed in a report on the destination of higher education (HE) leavers during 2011-12.
While graduates in Wales can expect to earn a mean wage of £19,500, those in Northern Ireland (£20,000), England (£21,000) and Scotland (£22,000) can all expect more.
The report – produced by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) with a range of collaborators including the Welsh Government – also shows that just 62% of those educated at higher education institutions in Wales are staying on to work here. Again, the figure is significantly lower than comparable statistics for the other home nations.
Last night Higher Education Wales, the body responsible for promoting higher education in Wales, blamed regional economies – rather than where students had studied – for the disparity in graduate pay.....
The report comes just days after figures reported in the Western Mail suggested a “brain drain” over the border of students achieving higher grades at A-level....
Higher Education Wales told The Western Mail a full-time first degree leaver graduating from a Welsh institution was less likely to be unemployed six months following graduation than across the UK as a whole.
A spokesman said: “Further analysis of this report suggests that the marginally lower mean wage of Welsh graduates is down to the regional economies in which our graduates are concentrated in as opposed to where they have studied.
“We welcome however a range of positive findings found in the report.
“The fact that the sector continues to hold the best track record for graduate mobility highlights that we continue to be successful at equipping our graduates for work no matter what part of the UK they ultimately decide to seek employment.”
The spokesman added a recent Higher Education, Business and Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) had found 9% of graduate start-ups in the UK came from Welsh institutions in 2011-12, creating 1,500 new jobs.
Their defence of the higher education sector in Wales came after it was revealed just 58% of graduates from Welsh universities were employed in professional roles – compared to 63.8% in England, 69% in Scotland and 59.1% in Northern Ireland.
Welsh graduates are most likely to be employed in caring roles (8.9%), with 8.5% employed in admin jobs and 14.5% in sales and customer service jobs.
But just 62% of those studying in Wales stayed here for work – compared to 98% of English-educated students who stayed in England, 83% of Scottish students staying in Scotland and 90% of Northern Irish students staying in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the figures reported earlier this week in the Western Mail showed that average tariff points – the system employed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) to calculate entry into higher education – revealed a marked difference in the grades students need in Wales and England.
Welsh-domiciled learners had accumulated, on average, 305 tariff points to study in Wales at the last count in 2011-12, compared to the 362 points required by those going to university in England.
It means that, on average, Welsh students needed 57 more points to study in England than they required in Wales.
Anyone got any thoughts on the Greens keeping their Brighton seat next election.
I have odds of 8/1 from Mark Senior!
I think there are plenty of cases of MPs running against the record of councils run by their own party so I wouldnt overly emphasise the ongoing issues with the council. Perhaps hold off on betting for a week or two until a by-election in a safe Green ward in the constituency is held (I doubt the bookies will immediately change their prices to reflect that outcome).
Attitudes have changed since 2010 - back then, the focus of debate was purely on cuts and many argued that the reduction in the deficit should be achieved wholly through cutting expenditure with no tax rises at all.
That really is nonsense. In the June 2010 emergency budget there were a whole series of tax increases central of which was the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% with effect from January 2011. In the early days, inevitably, tax increases played a much larger role in reducing the deficit than spending cuts.
The inability of the Coalition to address spending without complex legislation reducing the mountain of entitlements then in existence inevitably meant that discretionary spending (such as infrastructure) was disproportionately hit. This was unfortunate but we were where the worst government in my lifetime had left us.
Sorry not sure how I did this but the first paragraph was stodge's and the next 2 my reply.
I'm fairly ignorant on this issue - I appreciate how useful shale gas might be but can we produce oil from it? If not, it's a help but we'll still be dependent on oil supplies from elsewhere.
While looking through some long term stats on oil and gas production I noted that there was a fairly long run of shale oil production in the UK from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. It didn't compare in size to the offshore production rates from the mid 1970s but it was certainly enough to justify sustained private sector investment.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
IANAE, but the brilliant website linked to below has information on the shale oil at Kimmeridge, on the Dorset coast. The cliffs here actually spontaneously catch fire on occasion.
There was extensive mining of the the shale at Kimmeridge in Victorian times and there were plans in the 1890s to use Kimmeridge shale gas to light the streets of Paris, France. The Wareham Shale factory was adjacent to Wareham Railway Station
8/1 is a good price Neil ! not sure 4/5 is though , as you say maybe its best to wait for a by- election (I suspect the result would not be pretty at the moment)
I keep on meaning to go down and do some canvassing for that by-election but other things keep cropping up. I've been following the internal debate in the party about what's going on there and cant help but feeling that they'd be slightly better positioned if they hadnt done so well in 2011. As I said I dont think the council issues should be overstated (though the elections will coincide next time) and I think Caroline should be favourite to hold on.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
I may have misremembered but I think Richard previously said that it was in this sector that he started off his career (he mentioned a few sites in England).
I remember Richard talking about exploratory drilling in the South Downs.
About the only significant onshore oil-field in the UK is Wytch Farm near Poole which I believe is tapping into shale-oil reserves. Looking at the DECC field production statistics it has been producing at a stable rate for some thirty years.
It is indeed possible to produce oil products (but not crude) from gas. The Gas To Liquids process is well known and massive in the industry (for example there is a huge GTL plant in Qatar turning hard to export Qatari gas into easy to export diesel, grease, naphtha etc). This employs the Fischer Tropsch process - most famously used by the Germans during the war to produce their synthetic (ie non-crude sourced) fuels. But you do need an abundance of cheap gas feedstock to make it economically viable.
Note that many transport options can run on gas and LNG. Trucks, barges, cars can all be LNG fueled - so sometimes the need to make oil from gas may be unnecessary. In fact using gas in this way is a big thing in the industry. They call it GTX - Gas To Whatever!
Also worth noting that shale formations may be rich in oil as well as gas. In the USA the abundance of shale gas has cratered the gas proce and so the frackers are diverting as much effort as they can into multilateral drilling and fracking of shale oil plays. Shale oil production in the USA is soaring as shale gas flattens.
I'm afraid I don't know what the UK shale oil potential is as all the talk has been about gas. It will not be zero but it may not be economic - a resource is not a reserve until economically viable and developed.
Anyway the UK shale potential for both oil and gas is something we should not waste or delay on - we can't afford not to.
"Yet voters (and some MPs) can be forgiven for being increasingly perplexed as to why ministers can find an extra £10bn for HS2 while £11.5bn is cut from local public services." Not to mention spending £40bn on Afghanistan
Ed Miliband is talking the most ridiculous motherhood and apple pie save the children nonsense here. Why should anyone have to sign a 'porn charter' clause with an ISP just because Ed fucking Miliband can't keep his kids away from his tablets and phones ? I suppose he is going after the Daily Mail vote here so this kind of authoritarian garbage passes through readily.
That sounds like a spectacularly misjudged intervention. Everyone's first reaction is to ask why his 2 and 4 year olds would be using smartphones. It just makes Miliband look weird.
Well, most parents I know with iPhones have them fully loaded with games for 2 year olds up - watch how kids are entertained in restaurants these days. An iPhone and a new game buys you at least half an hour. They're scarily intuitive for small children, my daughter managed to unlock someone's iPhone when she was 10 months old, just by looking at the moving arrow and following it.
I guess you must be an Android user...
Accessing porn would be slightly more challenging for children who can't yet write, and therefore use Google. Do you think he's worrying about his search history...?
Attitudes have changed since 2010 - back then, the focus of debate was purely on cuts and many argued that the reduction in the deficit should be achieved wholly through cutting expenditure with no tax rises at all.
That really is nonsense. In the June 2010 emergency budget there were a whole series of tax increases central of which was the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% with effect from January 2011. In the early days, inevitably, tax increases played a much larger role in reducing the deficit than spending cuts.
The inability of the Coalition to address spending without complex legislation reducing the mountain of entitlements then in existence inevitably meant that discretionary spending (such as infrastructure) was disproportionately hit. This was unfortunate but we were where the worst government in my lifetime had left us.
Sorry not sure how I did this but the first paragraph was stodge's and the next 2 my reply.
I'm fairly ignorant on this issue - I appreciate how useful shale gas might be but can we produce oil from it? If not, it's a help but we'll still be dependent on oil supplies from elsewhere.
While looking through some long term stats on oil and gas production I noted that there was a fairly long run of shale oil production in the UK from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. It didn't compare in size to the offshore production rates from the mid 1970s but it was certainly enough to justify sustained private sector investment.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
IANAE, but the brilliant website linked to below has information on the shale oil at Kimmeridge, on the Dorset coast. The cliffs here actually spontaneously catch fire on occasion.
There was extensive mining of the the shale at Kimmeridge in Victorian times and there were plans in the 1890s to use Kimmeridge shale gas to light the streets of Paris, France. The Wareham Shale factory was adjacent to Wareham Railway Station
Attitudes have changed since 2010 - back then, the focus of debate was purely on cuts and many argued that the reduction in the deficit should be achieved wholly through cutting expenditure with no tax rises at all.
That really is nonsense. In the June 2010 emergency budget there were a whole series of tax increases central of which was the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% with effect from January 2011. In the early days, inevitably, tax increases played a much larger role in reducing the deficit than spending cuts.
The inability of the Coalition to address spending without complex legislation reducing the mountain of entitlements then in existence inevitably meant that discretionary spending (such as infrastructure) was disproportionately hit. This was unfortunate but we were where the worst government in my lifetime had left us.
Sorry not sure how I did this but the first paragraph was stodge's and the next 2 my reply.
I'm fairly ignorant on this issue - I appreciate how useful shale gas might be but can we produce oil from it? If not, it's a help but we'll still be dependent on oil supplies from elsewhere.
While looking through some long term stats on oil and gas production I noted that there was a fairly long run of shale oil production in the UK from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. It didn't compare in size to the offshore production rates from the mid 1970s but it was certainly enough to justify sustained private sector investment.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
IANAE, but the brilliant website linked to below has information on the shale oil at Kimmeridge, on the Dorset coast. The cliffs here actually spontaneously catch fire on occasion.
There was extensive mining of the the shale at Kimmeridge in Victorian times and there were plans in the 1890s to use Kimmeridge shale gas to light the streets of Paris, France. The Wareham Shale factory was adjacent to Wareham Railway Station
Nearby (in fact at the top of the cliffs) is a nodding donkey at the entrance to the bombing range, which has been producing oil for decades.
That is some webpage of information, Josias!
It's quite a website - he covers the whole stretch of coast between Southampton and Exeter, including the Isle of Wight. It's all fairly accessible as well.
I only wish there was a similar resource for the rest of the coast.
Whilst we are on energy, who knew that there was a geothermal power plant in the middle of Southampton?
Attitudes have changed since 2010 - back then, the focus of debate was purely on cuts and many argued that the reduction in the deficit should be achieved wholly through cutting expenditure with no tax rises at all.
That really is nonsense. In the June 2010 emergency budget there were a whole series of tax increases central of which was the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% with effect from January 2011. In the early days, inevitably, tax increases played a much larger role in reducing the deficit than spending cuts.
The inability of the Coalition to address spending without complex legislation reducing the mountain of entitlements then in existence inevitably meant that discretionary spending (such as infrastructure) was disproportionately hit. This was unfortunate but we were where the worst government in my lifetime had left us.
Sorry not sure how I did this but the first paragraph was stodge's and the next 2 my reply.
I'm fairly ignorant on this issue - I appreciate how useful shale gas might be but can we produce oil from it? If not, it's a help but we'll still be dependent on oil supplies from elsewhere.
While looking through some long term stats on oil and gas production I noted that there was a fairly long run of shale oil production in the UK from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. It didn't compare in size to the offshore production rates from the mid 1970s but it was certainly enough to justify sustained private sector investment.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
IANAE, but the brilliant website linked to below has information on the shale oil at Kimmeridge, on the Dorset coast. The cliffs here actually spontaneously catch fire on occasion.
There was extensive mining of the the shale at Kimmeridge in Victorian times and there were plans in the 1890s to use Kimmeridge shale gas to light the streets of Paris, France. The Wareham Shale factory was adjacent to Wareham Railway Station
Or to put it another way: shale gas is regular gas trapped in tight shales. Shale oil is pre-oil: it is organic material than needs another million years of cooking before it turns into regular crude oil.
It is indeed possible to produce oil products (but not crude) from gas. The Gas To Liquids process is well known and massive in the industry (for example there is a huge GTL plant in Qatar turning hard to export Qatari gas into easy to export diesel, grease, naphtha etc). This employs the Fischer Tropsch process - most famously used by the Germans during the war to produce their synthetic (ie non-crude sourced) fuels. But you do need an abundance of cheap gas feedstock to make it economically viable.
Note that many transport options can run on gas and LNG. Trucks, barges, cars can all be LNG fueled - so sometimes the need to make oil from gas may be unnecessary. In fact using gas in this way is a big thing in the industry. They call it GTX - Gas To Whatever!
Also worth noting that shale formations may be rich in oil as well as gas. In the USA the abundance of shale gas has cratered the gas proce and so the frackers are diverting as much effort as they can into multilateral drilling and fracking of shale oil plays. Shale oil production in the USA is soaring as shale gas flattens.
I'm afraid I don't know what the UK shale oil potential is as all the talk has been about gas. It will not be zero but it may not be economic - a resource is not a reserve until economically viable and developed.
Anyway the UK shale potential for both oil and gas is something we should not waste or delay on - we can't afford not to.
Many thanks for the informative reply, my friend, and thanks also to everyone else for their contributions to improving my knowledge.
While I'm well aware of the potential of shale for natural gas production, nothing I have read makes me convinced there is as much potential for oil or at least useable oil. I thought there had been many boreholes dug looking for oil in England in the 1960s and 1970s without much if any being found. Given today's technology, it may be time for another look.
My concern is that for all the euphoria about shale gas, the fact remains that while it may heat our homes and keep the lights on and keep our industry moving (all of which is laudable and desirable), oil is the key and if we remain dependent on other areas for the fuel to run our vehicles for example, we can hardly argue that we have achieved any kind of energy independence and events in the Middle East and the volatility of the oil futures market will continue to have a big say in our political and economic activities.
The spending review; Osborne show us the cuts but not the growth
This spending review has only come about because the government’s initial austerity plan did not reach its targets. Whilst we agree that spending had to be reduced, the government’s refusal to cut tax for the lowest paid workers has meant we’ve seen the cuts but not the growth.
The £11.5bn of cuts barely meets the £12bn we are borrowing per month. It’s also the near equivalent to the annual payments we will dish out in foreign aid by the end of the parliament.
In times of austerity, it is irresponsible and morally unjustifiable to take money from the pockets of struggling British families and send it abroad. UKIP believes this money would be better spent at home.
The government’s blank cheque for High Speed 2, as well as a determination to develop on the green belt, is completely misguided and will harm the nation’s finances. HS2 has not been proven as an environmental, economic or efficient project.
New large scale house building is a consequence of 16 years of uncontrolled, mass immigration that threatens our public services and green spaces.
By culling the quangos, challenging foreign aid and holding fake charities to account, we would seek to initially save tens of billions.
Whilst it is commendable that over a million private sector jobs have been created, these jobs must go to British workers first. Under the EU’s Job Mobility Portal, the UK advertises 250,000 jobs to unemployed EU workers. With the current number of people in the UK on job seekers allowance standing at over 1.5 million, it beggars belief to offer a quarter of a million jobs to overseas migrants. The EU offers grants for these workers to get interviews in the UK and to resettle using taxpayers’ money.
This is yet another reason why we must leave the EU in order to give British workers the first crack at British jobs and return the £55m a day we send to the EU.
Good article as ever Henry. It's produced a thread which sounds very like two bald men fighting over a comb. Financier to the rescue wittering on about Welsh education (of which I am a product) and Sunil repeating for the umpteenth time his discovery that we are paying more into the EEC than....sorry I dropped off.
PS Can we all club together and fix Doddy up with a farmer in Cheshire?
Attitudes have changed since 2010 - back then, the focus of debate was purely on cuts and many argued that the reduction in the deficit should be achieved wholly through cutting expenditure with no tax rises at all.
That really is nonsense. In the June 2010 emergency budget there were a whole series of tax increases central of which was the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% with effect from January 2011. In the early days, inevitably, tax increases played a much larger role in reducing the deficit than spending cuts.
The inability of the Coalition to address spending without complex legislation reducing the mountain of entitlements then in existence inevitably meant that discretionary spending (such as infrastructure) was disproportionately hit. This was unfortunate but we were where the worst government in my lifetime had left us.
Sorry not sure how I did this but the first paragraph was stodge's and the next 2 my reply.
I'm fairly ignorant on this issue - I appreciate how useful shale gas might be but can we produce oil from it? If not, it's a help but we'll still be dependent on oil supplies from elsewhere.
While looking through some long term stats on oil and gas production I noted that there was a fairly long run of shale oil production in the UK from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. It didn't compare in size to the offshore production rates from the mid 1970s but it was certainly enough to justify sustained private sector investment.
Would be interesting to hear from Richard Tyndall on this as all I know about it is from the bare production statistics.
IANAE, but the brilliant website linked to below has information on the shale oil at Kimmeridge, on the Dorset coast. The cliffs here actually spontaneously catch fire on occasion.
There was extensive mining of the the shale at Kimmeridge in Victorian times and there were plans in the 1890s to use Kimmeridge shale gas to light the streets of Paris, France. The Wareham Shale factory was adjacent to Wareham Railway Station
Nearby (in fact at the top of the cliffs) is a nodding donkey at the entrance to the bombing range, which has been producing oil for decades.
That is some webpage of information, Josias!
Oil shale != shale oil
I bow to your superior knowledge.
Am I being idiotic, but does shale oil (the product) come out of (some) oil shale (the geological formation)? Or is the distinction far more complex than that?
So we have established that Gove abolished all the programmes set up to deal with school places on coming to office.
Can one of the Gove worshippers please tell us what he did to replace them and plan for primary school needs. Or did he get so fixated on setting up tiny Free Schools in areas of surplus places that he did nothing?
And the tragedy is that the projects scrapped would not only have dealt with the issue of need for increased numbers of places in reception classes from now but were also a whole bunch of shovel ready infrastructure projects which would have supported the economy, and in particular private construction firms, who would of course been the people who would have built the new schools and renovated others to provide more capacity.
So this would have helped to stimulate growth in the economy at just the time it needed a helping hand and also ensured that kids starting school in 2013 actually had a place to go to. But what did Gove do - scrap it in favour of his ideologically-driven pet project of free schools which hasn't provided enough new places, is not focussed on providing places where they are needed, and doesn't even seem to be creating good schools as I gather not a single one has received an 'outstanding' from ofsted.
Financier to the rescue wittering on about Welsh education (of which I am a product)
That explains a lot!
It was a follow on from a discussion on the previous thread of 'why has devolution worked fine in Scotland while Wales appears to have made a complete horlicks of it?'
Good article as ever Henry. It's produced a thread which sounds very like two bald men fighting over a comb. Financier to the rescue wittering on about Welsh education (of which I am a product) and Sunil repeating for the umpteenth time his discovery that we are paying more into the EEC than....sorry I dropped off.
PS Can we all club together and fix Doddy up with a farmer in Cheshire?
I never realised Millfield was in Wales, Roger.
Or did you go to the University of Aberystwyth with Prince Charles?
So we have established that Gove abolished all the programmes set up to deal with school places on coming to office.
Can one of the Gove worshippers please tell us what he did to replace them and plan for primary school needs. Or did he get so fixated on setting up tiny Free Schools in areas of surplus places that he did nothing?
And the tragedy is that the projects scrapped would not only have dealt with the issue of need for increased numbers of places
Would it?
The IFS said:
"Labour did not announce departmental spending plans beyond April 2011, but as part of its strategy to reduce the deficit, it did announce a planned reduction in overall investment spending. This reduction, from 2.7% to 1.3% of national income between 2010-11 and 2014-15, represents a cut of roughly 50% in real terms.
I must say, Labour's Retrospective Spending Review is a rather nifty wheeze.
I wonder if I can apply the same wheeze to my pension fund? "I really meant to buy EasyJet a year ago, honest, so could you credit the 150% gain to my account please".
"'why has devolution worked fine in Scotland while Wales appears to have made a complete horlicks of it?'"
It has something to do with history. Every time a civilizing influence crossed the border the Welsh simply retreated to the hills. What chance did they have?
So we have established that Gove abolished all the programmes set up to deal with school places on coming to office.
Can one of the Gove worshippers please tell us what he did to replace them and plan for primary school needs. Or did he get so fixated on setting up tiny Free Schools in areas of surplus places that he did nothing?
And the tragedy is that the projects scrapped would not only have dealt with the issue of need for increased numbers of places
Would it?
Well as Gove scrapped it we will never know, but remember these projects weren't planned for implementation years ahead, no they were ready to go, ready for the bulldozers and construction companies to move in within weeks - until Gove pulled the plug.
And of course many of the Primary school projects were specifically designed to increase capacity to deal with additional need for places.
What do we have instead - a tiny number of free schools, many in places already with over-capacity, many with very few pupils, and none considered by ofsted to be on a par with the best existing schools.
What a numpty - and to suggest the problem of a missing quarter of a million school places lies at anyone's door but his is, frankly, an insult. Man up an accept your man has made a huge botch of this and remember the primary responsibility of a secretary of state for education (by statute) is to ensure provision of places for all children that require them. And he can't even achieve that basic aim.
Today I have published the Spending Round, which sets out our spending priorities and choices for 2015/16.
Labour left us with the largest deficit since the Second World War. We borrowed £1 in every £4 that we spent. We had to take tough decisions to bring our economy back from the brink of bankruptcy.
While recovery from such a deep recession is never straightforward, Britain is moving out of intensive care - from rescue to recovery. The Spending Round sets out how we will secure that recovery.
Of course the choices are difficult, and there is no easy route out of a mess as big as the one Labour created. The departmental settlements I have announced today will reduce current spending by £11.5 billion in 2015-16. But every decision we have taken is based on three principles: delivering reform, prioritising growth and ensuring fairness.
Through reform, we are determined to get more from every pound we spend. We are clamping down on waste across Whitehall - £5 billion of the savings today come from efficiency savings. By reforming elsewhere, we are able to announce that we will not cut the number of soldiers, sailors or airmen. By homing in on efficiency and driving through public service reform, we are delivering better services and bringing down Government spending.
To deliver growth, we are investing in education, enterprise and the economic infrastructure we need so that we can win the global race. Today I have announced there will be over £300 billion in capital spending guaranteed over the next decade. We are setting out long-term funding to science and schools, boosting apprenticeship funding, and prioritising education – we will provide for 180 new Free Schools in 2015-16. I know that Government spending alone cannot create growth. Enterprise does. We need to provide the schools, science, transport links and reliable energy that enable business to grow.
To ensure fairness, we are making sure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. We are also reforming welfare so that it is fair to both those who need it and those who pay for it. That is why we have announced an overall cap on welfare spending from April 2015 and have set out a package of reforms that will put in place new conditions on people claiming out-of-work benefits: half of jobseekers will have to go to a jobcentre once a week, claimants must do an Upfront Job Search and wait 7 days before claiming benefits, and claimants will be required to learn English if they don’t already speak it.
The decisions we take are not easy, and I know that times are difficult.
But with today’s Spending Round, we make more progress towards an economy that prospers, a state we can afford, a deficit coming down and a Britain that is on the rise.
So we have established that Gove abolished all the programmes set up to deal with school places on coming to office.
Can one of the Gove worshippers please tell us what he did to replace them and plan for primary school needs. Or did he get so fixated on setting up tiny Free Schools in areas of surplus places that he did nothing?
And the tragedy is that the projects scrapped would not only have dealt with the issue of need for increased numbers of places in reception classes from now but were also a whole bunch of shovel ready infrastructure projects which would have supported the economy, and in particular private construction firms, who would of course been the people who would have built the new schools and renovated others to provide more capacity.
So this would have helped to stimulate growth in the economy at just the time it needed a helping hand and also ensured that kids starting school in 2013 actually had a place to go to. But what did Gove do - scrap it in favour of his ideologically-driven pet project of free schools which hasn't provided enough new places, is not focussed on providing places where they are needed, and doesn't even seem to be creating good schools as I gather not a single one has received an 'outstanding' from ofsted.
It has something to do with history. Every time a civilizing influence crossed the border the Welsh simply retreated to the hills. What chance did they have?
Good point - Scotland was never conquered but voluntarily entered into a Union (I know some of our friends in the north will quibble...) - and retained its own institutions - Church & Legal System - and for many years a widely regarded superior education system (tho that may no longer be the case) - so 'here you are - run more stuff' may well have been something they could take to with alacrity.
Wales on the other hand became a resource farm for coal & water for England - and latterly became dependent on Westminster's teat..
One thing I was often reminded of in New Zealand was that the native people were not subjegated (in theory), but signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Queen Victoria - maybe more in theory than in practice - but their fate has been happier (or less unhappy) than the Aborigines of Australia.....
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education, and the absolute number 1 priority - arguably the top priority for the entire nation apart from getting the deficit down - was correcting Labour's disastrous legacy of educational failure for the bottom 25% by income, which is truly shameful for an advanced economy. That Labour (and the teaching unions) just shrug their shoulders about this, and seem completely uninterested in it, is one of the most amazing features of UK politics.
So we have established that Gove abolished all the programmes set up to deal with school places on coming to office.
Can one of the Gove worshippers please tell us what he did to replace them and plan for primary school needs. Or did he get so fixated on setting up tiny Free Schools in areas of surplus places that he did nothing?
And the tragedy is that the projects scrapped would not only have dealt with the issue of need for increased numbers of places
Would it?
Well as Gove scrapped it we will never know, but remember these projects weren't planned for implementation years ahead, no they were ready to go, ready for the bulldozers and construction companies to move in within weeks - until Gove pulled the plug.
And of course many of the Primary school projects were specifically designed to increase capacity to deal with additional need for places.
What do we have instead - a tiny number of free schools, many in places already with over-capacity, many with very few pupils, and none considered by ofsted to be on a par with the best existing schools.
What a numpty - and to suggest the problem of a missing quarter of a million school places lies at anyone's door but his is, frankly, an insult. Man up an accept your man has made a huge botch of this and remember the primary responsibility of a secretary of state for education (by statute) is to ensure provision of places for all children that require them. And he can't even achieve that basic aim.
Just guessing here but what percentage of these scrapped projects were primary schools in London (where most of the shortfall is i think?) Given that they were lying about what was happening in London it seems a bit unlikely they would have provided proof they were lying in the form of openly planning for 100,000s of *extra* primary places rather than just replacing existing capacity.
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education, and the absolute number 1 priority - arguably the top priority for the entire nation apart from getting the deficit down - was correcting Labour's disastrous legacy of educational failure for the bottom 25% by income, which is truly shameful for an advanced economy. That Labour (and the teaching unions) just shrug their shoulders about this, and seem completely uninterested in it, is one of the most amazing features of UK politics.
It is clear to me that the solution to our country's education problems is to re-open Roger's prep school and to reclassify the Bullingdon Club as a think tank.
Call me old fashioned but shouldn't an education secretary ensure enough places are available before he starts messing around with tiny schools of seven per class which unsurprisingly end up in special measures despite having one member of staff for every three pupils?
Well done, tim, you found one example of a free school which, in its first year, has few pupils and isn't very good. Oddly enough, you don't seem to have noticed the massive success Gove has had in actually achieving, with Academy Schools, what your heroes Blair and Adonis knew should be done, but couldn't or wouldn't carry through.
May 2010, after ten years of Labour pushing this policy: 203 May 2012, after two years of Gove: 1807
To be fair, one of the more welcome Labour U-turns is that they do seem to be following Gove's lead on this now, finally getting round to a realisation that the vested interests do need to be faced down:
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
So where are they, in David Laws' well funded spare room? Why this last minute panic and shortage of places?
Because it takes more than a couple of years to build hundreds of new schools, and there are severe limits to expanding existing ones. That's why this should all have been started earlier, but Labour were obsessed with the vanity money-wasting BSF programme.
""This government has more than doubled spending on new school places compared to the previous government. We are investing £5 billion in new school places up to 2015 and we expect 190,000 extra places will have been created by this September, with many more to come. The Coalition is clearing up the mess left by Ed Balls and Labour when they were in government."
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom? I haven't seen a single argument worthy of the name, except from ProfessorDavey who seems to think babies appear spontaneously and that therefore Balls couldn't have been expected to start planning in time for them.
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
Like you did over the Rennard "non-story"?
And did your hundreds of posts on that matter help Maria Hutchings in Eastleigh . How many posts have you made on the Nigel Evans story ?
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom?
By Professor Davey's magical Labour Restrospective Spending Review - which can magic places out of thin air and blithely dismiss an IFS report pointing out that Labour were planning to halve spending.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
Like you did over the Rennard "non-story"?
How many posts have you made on the Nigel Evans story ?
More than you made on Rennard - and along the lines of "this needs to be investigated" - not its "a non story got up by the Tory stooges at C4"
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom?
By Professor Davey's magical Labour Restrospective Spending Review - which can magic places out of thin air and blithely dismiss an IFS report pointing out that Labour were planning to halve spending.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Who to believe ? the blustering Carlotta Vance or Professor Davey who provided detailed evidence in support of his argument ?
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Sorry , I don't know , I suggest you ask Prof . Davey rather than Carlotta as she will make up some completely fictional figures or repeat her inane comment that the number of places is not important .
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Glad to see you think I'm magical.
If you can complete the rest of Labour's Restrospective Spending Review covering all departments, not just Education, I will cheerfully add "Amazing" to the list!!
So where are they, in David Laws' well funded spare room? Why this last minute panic and shortage of places?
Because it takes more than a couple of years to build hundreds of new schools, and there are severe limits to expanding existing ones. That's why this should all have been started earlier, but Labour were obsessed with the vanity money-wasting BSF programme.
To be fair, every Government since the year dot, has, it seems to me, hav been caught out by a rising birthrate.
Jim Callaghan had a sceptical view of economists and "social planners" and he has yet to be proved wrong! His one mistake was to hang on until Spring 79. If he'd gone to the country the previous autumn he'd have scraped home, there would have been a Lib-Lab government and we'd have been spared both Thatcher and the potential Falklands sellout, and the consequential war!
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
I suggest you ask Prof . Davey
Prof Davey is bound to know - tho I wonder how he'll account for the 50% cuts?
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Sorry , I don't know , I suggest you ask Prof . Davey rather than Carlotta as she will make up some completely fictional figures or repeat her inane comment that the number of places is not important .
Well the idea that Gove scrapped *extra* school places (rather than replacement places) that Labour had planned for is pretty critical to the argument.
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom?
By Professor Davey's magical Labour Restrospective Spending Review - which can magic places out of thin air and blithely dismiss an IFS report pointing out that Labour were planning to halve spending.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom? I haven't seen a single argument worthy of the name, except from ProfessorDavey who seems to think babies appear spontaneously and that therefore Balls couldn't have been expected to start planning in time for them.
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
When the need for reception places began to kick in from 2008 onward that could be comfortable dealt with using under-capacity in existing reception classes (as numbers of children per class had fallen well below the 30 nominal limit). Once that capacity had been reached (in 2010) a new plan was needed and the previous government had one - the Primary Capital Programme which was due to be building new capacity in the system through the summer of 2010 and beyond. But Gove scrapped it, so there was no plan to deal with the problem. He then wasted years before developing a new plan - but apparently that has only completed work in a single school. Had Gove continued with the original planned there would have been hundreds of schools with increased capacity.
The result - quarter of a million new places needed in a few weeks - fault - squarely with Gove.
Does that mean you are a member of the Tory Party?
I get a weekly email from Nick Clegg. I have never so much as signed a Lib Dem petition. I have no idea where they got my (work!) email address from. Though I suspect the tone of my reply to their latest missive may see me removed from their list.
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Sorry , I don't know , I suggest you ask Prof . Davey rather than Carlotta as she will make up some completely fictional figures or repeat her inane comment that the number of places is not important .
Well the idea that Gove scrapped *extra* school places (rather than replacement places) that Labour had planned for is pretty critical to the argument.
Agreed , unless like Carlotta you have moved your position in one thread to one where the number of places is not important .
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom? I haven't seen a single argument worthy of the name, except from ProfessorDavey who seems to think babies appear spontaneously and that therefore Balls couldn't have been expected to start planning in time for them.
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
When the need for reception places began to kick in from 2008 onward that could be comfortable dealt with using under-capacity in existing reception classes (as numbers of children per class had fallen well below the 30 nominal limit). Once that capacity had been reached (in 2010) a new plan was needed and the previous government had one - the Primary Capital Programme which was due to be building new capacity in the system through the summer of 2010 and beyond. But Gove scrapped it, so there was no plan to deal with the problem. He then wasted years before developing a new plan - but apparently that has only completed work in a single school. Had Gove continued with the original planned there would have been hundreds of schools with increased capacity.
The result - quarter of a million new places needed in a few weeks - fault - squarely with Gove.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Glad to see you think I'm magical.
If you can complete the rest of Labour's Restrospective Spending Review covering all departments, not just Education, I will cheerfully add "Amazing" to the list!!
50% cuts across the board mind.....
Can you show me any evidence to suggest that Labour would have pulled the plug on the shovel ready building schools for the future proposals all set to go in May 2010, which included a large chunk on increasing capacity in primary schools.
Unless you can provide any evidence that they would have done then you are simply talking non-sense. Labour had a plan to deal with the problem, Gove scrapped the plan and failed to put in place any alternative plan to create places in anything like the numbers needed. And now we are seeing the consequences of Gove's error.
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
Far be it from me, as a humble thicko to point out, but surely the number of school places should be decided by those about to enter school, rather than those already in school. If the birthrate increases, it takes a few years to feed through to school numbers.
The numbers of school places should be predictable from the birthrate, or even better from pre-birth, since in most cases we have a clue of the expected births a few months prior to that.
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom? I haven't seen a single argument worthy of the name, except from ProfessorDavey who seems to think babies appear spontaneously and that therefore Balls couldn't have been expected to start planning in time for them.
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
When the need for reception places began to kick in from 2008 onward that could be comfortable dealt with using under-capacity in existing reception classes (as numbers of children per class had fallen well below the 30 nominal limit). Once that capacity had been reached (in 2010) a new plan was needed and the previous government had one - the Primary Capital Programme which was due to be building new capacity in the system through the summer of 2010 and beyond. But Gove scrapped it, so there was no plan to deal with the problem. He then wasted years before developing a new plan - but apparently that has only completed work in a single school. Had Gove continued with the original planned there would have been hundreds of schools with increased capacity.
The result - quarter of a million new places needed in a few weeks - fault - squarely with Gove.
Extra capacity or just new replacement capacity?
Extra capacity (where needed) - one of the key objectives from the Primary Capital Programme was to 'Respond to population changes' - direct quote.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Glad to see you think I'm magical.
If you can complete the rest of Labour's Restrospective Spending Review covering all departments, not just Education, I will cheerfully add "Amazing" to the list!!
50% cuts across the board mind.....
Can you show me any evidence to suggest that Labour would have pulled the plug on the shovel ready building schools for the future proposals all set to go in May 2010, which included a large chunk on increasing capacity in primary schools.
Unless you can provide any evidence that they would have done then you are simply talking non-sense. Labour had a plan to deal with the problem, Gove scrapped the plan and failed to put in place any alternative plan to create places in anything like the numbers needed. And now we are seeing the consequences of Gove's error.
Doesn't Labour having a plan to deal with the problem depend a bit on exactly how large (or small) a chunk it was?
Sorry Richard the Gove worshippers arguments on this have been demolished, your hero has spent over three years obsessing about his tiny Free Schools and ignoring the primary school places issue.
Demolished by whom? I haven't seen a single argument worthy of the name, except from ProfessorDavey who seems to think babies appear spontaneously and that therefore Balls couldn't have been expected to start planning in time for them.
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
When the need for reception places began to kick in from 2008 onward that could be comfortable dealt with using under-capacity in existing reception classes (as numbers of children per class had fallen well below the 30 nominal limit). Once that capacity had been reached (in 2010) a new plan was needed and the previous government had one - the Primary Capital Programme which was due to be building new capacity in the system through the summer of 2010 and beyond. But Gove scrapped it, so there was no plan to deal with the problem. He then wasted years before developing a new plan - but apparently that has only completed work in a single school. Had Gove continued with the original planned there would have been hundreds of schools with increased capacity.
The result - quarter of a million new places needed in a few weeks - fault - squarely with Gove.
Extra capacity or just new replacement capacity?
Extra capacity (where needed) - one of the key objectives from the Primary Capital Programme was to 'Respond to population changes' - direct quote.
So this argument would hinge on the actual numbers. If they had a plan for adding 1000 new places in London when the shortfall was 200,000 then it wouldn't be much of a plan.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Glad to see you think I'm magical.
If you can complete the rest of Labour's Restrospective Spending Review covering all departments, not just Education, I will cheerfully add "Amazing" to the list!!
50% cuts across the board mind.....
a large chunk on increasing capacity in primary schools.
Numbers? You are the one writing Labours Restrospective Spending Review - not me. I linked to the IFS report earlier, if you need any help....
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Sorry , I don't know , I suggest you ask Prof . Davey rather than Carlotta as she will make up some completely fictional figures or repeat her inane comment that the number of places is not important .
Well the idea that Gove scrapped *extra* school places (rather than replacement places) that Labour had planned for is pretty critical to the argument.
Agreed , unless like Carlotta you have moved your position in one thread to one where the number of places is not important .
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
Far be it from me, as a humble thicko to point out, but surely the number of school places should be decided by those about to enter school, rather than those already in school. If the birthrate increases, it takes a few years to feed through to school numbers.
The numbers of school places should be predictable from the birthrate, or even better from pre-birth, since in most cases we have a clue of the expected births a few months prior to that.
Well actually you need to deal with both.
Through the noughties we had overall falling school population with declining numbers of kids entering the system, linked to reducing birth rates in the late 90s and 2001-3. So the reduced capacity was in the primary sector, secondary remained relatively constant.
As increase in birth rate kicking in, in the late noughties capacity in the system was OK (because class sizes were smaller) and only from 2010 was there a need for reception capacity greater than in 2003 and earlier. At that point the capital programme would have kicked in creating more capacity in line with its objective to 'Respond to population changes'.
But Gove scrapped and failed to replace it with anything driven by creating new places where they are needed in sufficient numbers to respond to population change - result, quarter of a million missing school places. Labour knew about the problem and had a plan (even though the critical phase was years away), Gove also know about the problem and has no plan (even though the critical phase is just weeks away).
Absolutely spot on and is it any wonder he polls so badly.
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
So you think the job of an Education Secretary is about buildings?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education
As ever, our friends on the left are focussing on inputs (school places, number of nurses, bobbies on the beat) rather than outcomes - ( educational attainment, longevity, crime) - but then they are captives of the producer interests, the Labour Party's paymasters.
Why am I not surprised?
So having comprehensively lost your argument that it is Ed Balls' fault that there are not enough primary school places and it has been shown by Professor Davey that it is Gove's fault . you are now going to try to argue that the number of school places is not important . Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
What percentage of Labour's actual or projected school building involved *extra* school places and not just replacing existing places?
Sorry , I don't know , I suggest you ask Prof . Davey rather than Carlotta as she will make up some completely fictional figures or repeat her inane comment that the number of places is not important .
Well the idea that Gove scrapped *extra* school places (rather than replacement places) that Labour had planned for is pretty critical to the argument.
Agreed , unless like Carlotta you have moved your position in one thread to one where the number of places is not important .
Still sore over mis-calling Rennard are we?
I know it is hard to do but you will feel better of yourself if you simply put your hand up and confess to making an incredibly stupid statement that the number of school places is unimportant simply because you had failed to show that it was Balls' fault and not Gove's
The Primary Capital Programme which the good Professor is retrospectively so keen on seems to have been a vanity project mainly for rebuilding existing schools with a timetable extending to 2023, not one focussed on creating new places ready for 2013 or 2014:
But Richard, the school population was falling between 2004 and 2008, so why on earth would any government create more places.
Far be it from me, as a humble thicko to point out, but surely the number of school places should be decided by those about to enter school, rather than those already in school. If the birthrate increases, it takes a few years to feed through to school numbers.
The numbers of school places should be predictable from the birthrate, or even better from pre-birth, since in most cases we have a clue of the expected births a few months prior to that.
But Gove scrapped and failed to replace it with anything driven by creating new places where they are needed in sufficient numbers to respond to population change .... Gove also know about the problem and has no plan (even though the critical phase is just weeks away).
lol, you're just making stuff up. According to the DoE they have a 190,000 more school places available this September than they did in September 2010 which suggests they've been hard at work creating extra capacity.
You can't come up with any figures for how many extra places were going to be created by BFS - and if there was such data out there you can be sure Labour would have been trumpeting it by now.
The Primary Capital Programme which the good Professor is so keen on seems to have been a vanity project mainly for rebuilding existing schools with a timetable extending to 2023, not one focussed on creating new places ready for 2013 or 2014:
Then why was one of its 'headline' objectives to 'Respond to population changes' - you will see this clearly in your linked document. And the peak in funding planned for 2010-11 (also in your linked document. Hmm sounds a bit like investing in providing new places where needed, and when do you think those places generated via the investment in 2010-11 would be ready ... hmm, maybe about now.
But Gove scrapped it and is now up sh*t creek without out a paddle, needing quarter of a million new places in weeks and without a plan.
Could you tell me how much per pupil Free School places cost, since you are interested in vanity projects. And why are some of them so tiny that they can't ever succeed?
Some may not succeed. You know what? Bog-standard comprehensive schools very often don't succeed either. In fact, for the bottom 25% by income (especially for the top and bottom ability bands within that group), it's not very much of an exaggeration to say that every single comprehensive school is a disaster.
The importance of free schools is of course to act as a catalyst to improve standards in other schools. The fact that the vested interests hate them so much demonstrates that that is going to work very well. Why else do you think there is so much hostility from the unions and the Guardianistas?
According to the DoE they have a 190,000 more school places available this September than they did in September 2010
But they still need a further 250,000 - so their 'plans' have abjectly failed if they have only created 40% of the new places they need. And remember that the very first priority for an education secretary is to ensure sufficient places for all children that need them.
I don't suppose the 250,000 kids without places will be particularly impressed that he might have created some other places, somewhere else. And remember many of those places may be free school places which are ofter in areas with existing over capacity, rather than in need of places.
Just accept it - he's failed in his number one duty as education minister.
Comments
Welsh university graduates 'are at the back of the queue for best jobs,' says report
The findings by the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveal the students also earn less than their counterparts from other UK universities
Students from Welsh universities are the least likely of any in the UK to be employed in 'professional' roles after graduation, a new report has revealed.
And the salaries of graduates from Welsh universities also lag behind those of their counterparts from universities in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, the research found.
The difference in expected pay and career destinations for first degree graduates was revealed in a report on the destination of higher education (HE) leavers during 2011-12.
While graduates in Wales can expect to earn a mean wage of £19,500, those in Northern Ireland (£20,000), England (£21,000) and Scotland (£22,000) can all expect more.
The report – produced by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) with a range of collaborators including the Welsh Government – also shows that just 62% of those educated at higher education institutions in Wales are staying on to work here. Again, the figure is significantly lower than comparable statistics for the other home nations.
Last night Higher Education Wales, the body responsible for promoting higher education in Wales, blamed regional economies – rather than where students had studied – for the disparity in graduate pay.....
The report comes just days after figures reported in the Western Mail suggested a “brain drain” over the border of students achieving higher grades at A-level....
Higher Education Wales told The Western Mail a full-time first degree leaver graduating from a Welsh institution was less likely to be unemployed six months following graduation than across the UK as a whole.
A spokesman said: “Further analysis of this report suggests that the marginally lower mean wage of Welsh graduates is down to the regional economies in which our graduates are concentrated in as opposed to where they have studied.
“We welcome however a range of positive findings found in the report.
“The fact that the sector continues to hold the best track record for graduate mobility highlights that we continue to be successful at equipping our graduates for work no matter what part of the UK they ultimately decide to seek employment.”
The spokesman added a recent Higher Education, Business and Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) had found 9% of graduate start-ups in the UK came from Welsh institutions in 2011-12, creating 1,500 new jobs.
Their defence of the higher education sector in Wales came after it was revealed just 58% of graduates from Welsh universities were employed in professional roles – compared to 63.8% in England, 69% in Scotland and 59.1% in Northern Ireland.
Welsh graduates are most likely to be employed in caring roles (8.9%), with 8.5% employed in admin jobs and 14.5% in sales and customer service jobs.
But just 62% of those studying in Wales stayed here for work – compared to 98% of English-educated students who stayed in England, 83% of Scottish students staying in Scotland and 90% of Northern Irish students staying in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the figures reported earlier this week in the Western Mail showed that average tariff points – the system employed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) to calculate entry into higher education – revealed a marked difference in the grades students need in Wales and England.
Welsh-domiciled learners had accumulated, on average, 305 tariff points to study in Wales at the last count in 2011-12, compared to the 362 points required by those going to university in England.
It means that, on average, Welsh students needed 57 more points to study in England than they required in Wales.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-university-graduates-are-back-4728296
I think there are plenty of cases of MPs running against the record of councils run by their own party so I wouldnt overly emphasise the ongoing issues with the council. Perhaps hold off on betting for a week or two until a by-election in a safe Green ward in the constituency is held (I doubt the bookies will immediately change their prices to reflect that outcome).
Nearby (in fact at the top of the cliffs) is a nodding donkey at the entrance to the bombing range, which has been producing oil for decades.
I keep on meaning to go down and do some canvassing for that by-election but other things keep cropping up. I've been following the internal debate in the party about what's going on there and cant help but feeling that they'd be slightly better positioned if they hadnt done so well in 2011. As I said I dont think the council issues should be overstated (though the elections will coincide next time) and I think Caroline should be favourite to hold on.
About the only significant onshore oil-field in the UK is Wytch Farm near Poole which I believe is tapping into shale-oil reserves. Looking at the DECC field production statistics it has been producing at a stable rate for some thirty years.
It is indeed possible to produce oil products (but not crude) from gas. The Gas To Liquids process is well known and massive in the industry (for example there is a huge GTL plant in Qatar turning hard to export Qatari gas into easy to export diesel, grease, naphtha etc). This employs the Fischer Tropsch process - most famously used by the Germans during the war to produce their synthetic (ie non-crude sourced) fuels. But you do need an abundance of cheap gas feedstock to make it economically viable.
Note that many transport options can run on gas and LNG. Trucks, barges, cars can all be LNG fueled - so sometimes the need to make oil from gas may be unnecessary. In fact using gas in this way is a big thing in the industry. They call it GTX - Gas To Whatever!
Also worth noting that shale formations may be rich in oil as well as gas. In the USA the abundance of shale gas has cratered the gas proce and so the frackers are diverting as much effort as they can into multilateral drilling and fracking of shale oil plays. Shale oil production in the USA is soaring as shale gas flattens.
I'm afraid I don't know what the UK shale oil potential is as all the talk has been about gas. It will not be zero but it may not be economic - a resource is not a reserve until economically viable and developed.
Anyway the UK shale potential for both oil and gas is something we should not waste or delay on - we can't afford not to.
I suppose he is going after the Daily Mail vote here so this kind of authoritarian garbage passes through readily.
Nearby (in fact at the top of the cliffs) is a nodding donkey at the entrance to the bombing range, which has been producing oil for decades.
That is some webpage of information, Josias!
It's quite a website - he covers the whole stretch of coast between Southampton and Exeter, including the Isle of Wight. It's all fairly accessible as well.
I only wish there was a similar resource for the rest of the coast.
Whilst we are on energy, who knew that there was a geothermal power plant in the middle of Southampton?
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/s-environment/energy/Geothermal/
Oil shale != shale oil
This is different to 'tight' oil (such as the Bakken or the Eagle Ford or the Permian, etc.). The shale oil we have is 'pre-oil', similar to the Green River shale oil in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Formation#Oil_shale)
While I'm well aware of the potential of shale for natural gas production, nothing I have read makes me convinced there is as much potential for oil or at least useable oil. I thought there had been many boreholes dug looking for oil in England in the 1960s and 1970s without much if any being found. Given today's technology, it may be time for another look.
My concern is that for all the euphoria about shale gas, the fact remains that while it may heat our homes and keep the lights on and keep our industry moving (all of which is laudable and desirable), oil is the key and if we remain dependent on other areas for the fuel to run our vehicles for example, we can hardly argue that we have achieved any kind of energy independence and events in the Middle East and the volatility of the oil futures market will continue to have a big say in our political and economic activities.
The spending review; Osborne show us the cuts but not the growth
This spending review has only come about because the government’s initial austerity plan did not reach its targets. Whilst we agree that spending had to be reduced, the government’s refusal to cut tax for the lowest paid workers has meant we’ve seen the cuts but not the growth.
The £11.5bn of cuts barely meets the £12bn we are borrowing per month. It’s also the near equivalent to the annual payments we will dish out in foreign aid by the end of the parliament.
In times of austerity, it is irresponsible and morally unjustifiable to take money from the pockets of struggling British families and send it abroad. UKIP believes this money would be better spent at home.
The government’s blank cheque for High Speed 2, as well as a determination to develop on the green belt, is completely misguided and will harm the nation’s finances. HS2 has not been proven as an environmental, economic or efficient project.
New large scale house building is a consequence of 16 years of uncontrolled, mass immigration that threatens our public services and green spaces.
By culling the quangos, challenging foreign aid and holding fake charities to account, we would seek to initially save tens of billions.
Whilst it is commendable that over a million private sector jobs have been created, these jobs must go to British workers first. Under the EU’s Job Mobility Portal, the UK advertises 250,000 jobs to unemployed EU workers. With the current number of people in the UK on job seekers allowance standing at over 1.5 million, it beggars belief to offer a quarter of a million jobs to overseas migrants. The EU offers grants for these workers to get interviews in the UK and to resettle using taxpayers’ money.
This is yet another reason why we must leave the EU in order to give British workers the first crack at British jobs and return the £55m a day we send to the EU.
Note:
Link to our borrowing rate per month: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/psa/public-sector-finances/may-2013/stb---may-2013.html#tab-Public-sector-net-borrowing
Link to EU Job Mobility Portal Story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304298/As-jobs-werent-hard-come-250-000-UK-jobs-advertises-EU-compared-Frances-14-000.html
PS Can we all club together and fix Doddy up with a farmer in Cheshire?
Why can ministers find £18bn for our annual contribution to Europe while £11.5bn is cut from local public services?
I bow to your superior knowledge.
Am I being idiotic, but does shale oil (the product) come out of (some) oil shale (the geological formation)? Or is the distinction far more complex than that?
So this would have helped to stimulate growth in the economy at just the time it needed a helping hand and also ensured that kids starting school in 2013 actually had a place to go to. But what did Gove do - scrap it in favour of his ideologically-driven pet project of free schools which hasn't provided enough new places, is not focussed on providing places where they are needed, and doesn't even seem to be creating good schools as I gather not a single one has received an 'outstanding' from ofsted.
It was a follow on from a discussion on the previous thread of 'why has devolution worked fine in Scotland while Wales appears to have made a complete horlicks of it?'
Any thoughts?
Or did you go to the University of Aberystwyth with Prince Charles?
"Whilst we are on energy, who knew that there was a geothermal power plant in the middle of Southampton?"
As I live in Southampton I did, it provides all the heating to a council estate, various shops and leisure facilities.
I think in a hundred years geothermal or something similar involving the earths hot core will be the main natural power source for the earth
The IFS said:
"Labour did not announce departmental spending plans beyond April 2011, but as part of its strategy to reduce the deficit, it did announce a planned reduction in overall investment spending. This reduction, from 2.7% to 1.3% of national income between 2010-11 and 2014-15, represents a cut of roughly 50% in real terms.
http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4998
Of course, as Labour never conducted a Comprehensive Spending Review.....we'll never know....
" I never realised Millfield was in Wales, Roger."
It was my prep school in Penmaenmawr that had more than a passing resemblance to Bates's Mother's house in Psycho.
http://www.thingsinmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/psycho-house.jpg
Imagine being dropped of there as an 8 year old!
I wonder if I can apply the same wheeze to my pension fund? "I really meant to buy EasyJet a year ago, honest, so could you credit the 150% gain to my account please".
"'why has devolution worked fine in Scotland while Wales appears to have made a complete horlicks of it?'"
It has something to do with history. Every time a civilizing influence crossed the border the Welsh simply retreated to the hills. What chance did they have?
And of course many of the Primary school projects were specifically designed to increase capacity to deal with additional need for places.
What do we have instead - a tiny number of free schools, many in places already with over-capacity, many with very few pupils, and none considered by ofsted to be on a par with the best existing schools.
What a numpty - and to suggest the problem of a missing quarter of a million school places lies at anyone's door but his is, frankly, an insult. Man up an accept your man has made a huge botch of this and remember the primary responsibility of a secretary of state for education (by statute) is to ensure provision of places for all children that require them. And he can't even achieve that basic aim.
Dear Carlotta,
Today I have published the Spending Round, which sets out our spending priorities and choices for 2015/16.
Labour left us with the largest deficit since the Second World War. We borrowed £1 in every £4 that we spent. We had to take tough decisions to bring our economy back from the brink of bankruptcy.
While recovery from such a deep recession is never straightforward, Britain is moving out of intensive care - from rescue to recovery. The Spending Round sets out how we will secure that recovery.
Of course the choices are difficult, and there is no easy route out of a mess as big as the one Labour created. The departmental settlements I have announced today will reduce current spending by £11.5 billion in 2015-16. But every decision we have taken is based on three principles: delivering reform, prioritising growth and ensuring fairness.
Through reform, we are determined to get more from every pound we spend. We are clamping down on waste across Whitehall - £5 billion of the savings today come from efficiency savings. By reforming elsewhere, we are able to announce that we will not cut the number of soldiers, sailors or airmen. By homing in on efficiency and driving through public service reform, we are delivering better services and bringing down Government spending.
To deliver growth, we are investing in education, enterprise and the economic infrastructure we need so that we can win the global race. Today I have announced there will be over £300 billion in capital spending guaranteed over the next decade. We are setting out long-term funding to science and schools, boosting apprenticeship funding, and prioritising education – we will provide for 180 new Free Schools in 2015-16. I know that Government spending alone cannot create growth. Enterprise does. We need to provide the schools, science, transport links and reliable energy that enable business to grow.
To ensure fairness, we are making sure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. We are also reforming welfare so that it is fair to both those who need it and those who pay for it. That is why we have announced an overall cap on welfare spending from April 2015 and have set out a package of reforms that will put in place new conditions on people claiming out-of-work benefits: half of jobseekers will have to go to a jobcentre once a week, claimants must do an Upfront Job Search and wait 7 days before claiming benefits, and claimants will be required to learn English if they don’t already speak it.
The decisions we take are not easy, and I know that times are difficult.
But with today’s Spending Round, we make more progress towards an economy that prospers, a state we can afford, a deficit coming down and a Britain that is on the rise.
George Osborne
Chancellor of the Exchequer
"Why can ministers find £18bn for our annual contribution to Europe while £11.5bn is cut from local public services?"
Because we agreed it as part of our treaty of membership-or is it a trick question?
At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.
If I tactically vote at GE2015 in the super marginal where I live, which I've never done before, it will be to stop Gove.
Ooops! Silly me, wrong sport!
I mean Come on, Andy!!!
Wales on the other hand became a resource farm for coal & water for England - and latterly became dependent on Westminster's teat..
One thing I was often reminded of in New Zealand was that the native people were not subjegated (in theory), but signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Queen Victoria - maybe more in theory than in practice - but their fate has been happier (or less unhappy) than the Aborigines of Australia.....
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought it was something to do with Education, and the absolute number 1 priority - arguably the top priority for the entire nation apart from getting the deficit down - was correcting Labour's disastrous legacy of educational failure for the bottom 25% by income, which is truly shameful for an advanced economy. That Labour (and the teaching unions) just shrug their shoulders about this, and seem completely uninterested in it, is one of the most amazing features of UK politics.
Just a guess though so could be wrong.
May 2010, after ten years of Labour pushing this policy: 203
May 2012, after two years of Gove: 1807
To be fair, one of the more welcome Labour U-turns is that they do seem to be following Gove's lead on this now, finally getting round to a realisation that the vested interests do need to be faced down:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jun/17/schools-freedoms-academies-labour
Gove's won this argument completely, hasn't he? The days of the dead hands of the LEA bureaucrats wrecking education are over.
'At some stage he should be accoutable for his actions.'
And of course the coalition partners that endorsed his policies.
The same accountability for the Lib Dem's pledging to scrap tuition fees and then giving their full support to tripling them?
.
Why am I not surprised?
They didn't need to . They knew they were going to lose, so everything is planned for blaming the other lot.
Cease now , you are making yourself look a fool .
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/80902/department_for_education_david_laws_responds_to_margaret_hodge_on_school_places.html
Edit: The root cause of the problem is described in the Select Committee report:
The Department relies on ONS population projections to monitor changing demographic patterns.[8] Despite the birth rate beginning to increase in 2001, it was not until 2008 that the ONS reflected the rising birth rate in its population projections.[9] In the meantime, local authorities were still removing surplus places in the schools system, with a 5% reduction in places between 2004 and 2010.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/359/35905.htm
One has to admire Labour's chutzpah in cutting the number of school places at a time of rising population and unprecedented immigration, doing nothing to plan for additional places, forgetting to take the rising birth rate into account, managing to do all this whilst spending humoungous amounts of money, leaving office with the biggest deficit in Europe bar Greece, and then blaming Michael Gove for the mess.
'Gove worshippers are in awe of the structures, yet Free Schools inspected so far are underwhelming,'
Naturally New Labour's Academy schools were producing excellent results two years after they had been set up.
Who to believe? Magical Professor Davey, or Lib Dem David Laws?
Still proud of your response on Rennard?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/29/david-laws-quits-expenses-scandal
Glad to see you think I'm magical.
'That nice Mr Osborne has written to me:"
Does that mean you are a member of the Tory Party?
Has the stigma finally passed or are you just thick skinned?
50% cuts across the board mind.....
Jim Callaghan had a sceptical view of economists and "social planners" and he has yet to be proved wrong!
His one mistake was to hang on until Spring 79. If he'd gone to the country the previous autumn he'd have scraped home, there would have been a Lib-Lab government and we'd have been spared both Thatcher and the potential Falklands sellout, and the consequential war!
Let alone what other horrors!
•Rand Paul 21%
•Jeb Bush 13%
•Chris Christie 12%
•Ted Cruz 12%
•Marco Rubio 10%
•Paul Ryan 9%
•Bobby Jindal 6%
•Susana Martinez 3%
•Rick Santorum 1%
•Someone else/Not sure 13%
Montana 2016 Democratic
•Hillary Clinton 52%
•Brian Schweitzer 17%
•Joe Biden 9%
•Cory Booker 3%
•Elizabeth Warren 3%
•Kirsten Gillibrand 1%
•Andrew Cuomo 1%
•Mark Warner 0%
•Martin O’Malley 0%
•Someone else/Not sure 13%
When the need for reception places began to kick in from 2008 onward that could be comfortable dealt with using under-capacity in existing reception classes (as numbers of children per class had fallen well below the 30 nominal limit). Once that capacity had been reached (in 2010) a new plan was needed and the previous government had one - the Primary Capital Programme which was due to be building new capacity in the system through the summer of 2010 and beyond. But Gove scrapped it, so there was no plan to deal with the problem. He then wasted years before developing a new plan - but apparently that has only completed work in a single school. Had Gove continued with the original planned there would have been hundreds of schools with increased capacity.
The result - quarter of a million new places needed in a few weeks - fault - squarely with Gove.
Unless you can provide any evidence that they would have done then you are simply talking non-sense. Labour had a plan to deal with the problem, Gove scrapped the plan and failed to put in place any alternative plan to create places in anything like the numbers needed. And now we are seeing the consequences of Gove's error.
Far be it from me, as a humble thicko to point out, but surely the number of school places should be decided by those about to enter school, rather than those already in school. If the birthrate increases, it takes a few years to feed through to school numbers.
The numbers of school places should be predictable from the birthrate, or even better from pre-birth, since in most cases we have a clue of the expected births a few months prior to that.
Through the noughties we had overall falling school population with declining numbers of kids entering the system, linked to reducing birth rates in the late 90s and 2001-3. So the reduced capacity was in the primary sector, secondary remained relatively constant.
As increase in birth rate kicking in, in the late noughties capacity in the system was OK (because class sizes were smaller) and only from 2010 was there a need for reception capacity greater than in 2003 and earlier. At that point the capital programme would have kicked in creating more capacity in line with its objective to 'Respond to population changes'.
But Gove scrapped and failed to replace it with anything driven by creating new places where they are needed in sufficient numbers to respond to population change - result, quarter of a million missing school places. Labour knew about the problem and had a plan (even though the critical phase was years away), Gove also know about the problem and has no plan (even though the critical phase is just weeks away).
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/salmond-to-miss-open-over-muirfield-men-only-rule-1-2980595
When will this end ?
Then say, oh well, we would have done it better.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3443547/Government-announces-3.5bn-school-building-programme.html
http://www.rm.com/_RMVirtual/Media/Downloads/RM_PCP_White_Paper.pdf
No wonder it was scrapped. Quite right too.
You are aware that the "Prof" is a vested interest in the pre-school business, no...?
:greece-is-the-word:
lol, you're just making stuff up. According to the DoE they have a 190,000 more school places available this September than they did in September 2010 which suggests they've been hard at work creating extra capacity.
You can't come up with any figures for how many extra places were going to be created by BFS - and if there was such data out there you can be sure Labour would have been trumpeting it by now.
But Gove scrapped it and is now up sh*t creek without out a paddle, needing quarter of a million new places in weeks and without a plan.
"But Gove scrapped it and is now up sh*t creek without out a paddle, needing quarter of a million new places in weeks and without a plan."
How much are you betting that at the start of next academic year there are not 250,000 school pupils without places?
The importance of free schools is of course to act as a catalyst to improve standards in other schools. The fact that the vested interests hate them so much demonstrates that that is going to work very well. Why else do you think there is so much hostility from the unions and the Guardianistas?
I don't suppose the 250,000 kids without places will be particularly impressed that he might have created some other places, somewhere else. And remember many of those places may be free school places which are ofter in areas with existing over capacity, rather than in need of places.
Just accept it - he's failed in his number one duty as education minister.