Harrow education missing top positions

None of the Harrow schools are within the top 100 schools in England with the best results at GCSE, according to the recent release of the school league tables.
All or the vast majority of their pupils attained the benchmark of five A*-C grades in GCSEs or equivalent qualifications, including maths and English GCSEs.
These top 100 schools include schools in Barnet, Enfield and Redbridge.
The situation regarding A-Level results is no different. With the exception of the independent Harrow School and North London Collegiate School, no other Harrow schools are in the lists of 100 schools and colleges in England with the best A-level results.
Schools in Haringey, Barnet, Redbridge, Southwark, Camden, Ealing and Enfield are included in this top list.
Harrow’s absence in the top ten of a series of Department for Education tables on higher education, in some cases more than Brent, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, is a further let down for parents who expect best education opportunities and results for their children in Harrow.
Harrow’s position in the top leagues is disappointing and becomes more concerning considering that Harrow has a thriving private tutoring.
It was not very long ago that Harrow stayed at the top in many education areas.

Hall using bins for point scoring

In circulation petition to drop plans for £75 Brown Bin Charge appears to be less impressive as it has been heavily signed by Tories, including by the party members, the leader of the Harrow opposition Cllr Hall, chairman of the Harrow East Conservative Association as well as past and present Tory councillors.
Harrow Council proposes to charge £75 a year for the collection of the brown waste bins as it has to save £25million this year, as a part of the £75million of savings over the next four years because of the government cuts.
As usual there is no sign of a shadow budget by Councillor Hall to suggest how the required savings could be made – such is the quality of her council budgeting that when she presented her budget during her short lived council administration, it was heavily defeated.
Furthermore, her group has shown no apparent interest in demanding appropriate government funding for the borough – so much so that the Tories were nowhere near the recent Harrow protest against cuts and austerity measures.
While we expect the council to reconsider the proposed bin collection charges, we deplore such point scoring by the Tory group on the council.

Hall missing from Blackman campaigns

Worrying to hear that the Conservative opposition group leader Councillor Hall has been conspicuously missing from the Conservative campaigns and fundraising events in the Harrow East constituency.
Given such relationships with his group on the council, can Mr Blackman effectively serve his constituents, especially as many resident issues relate to the work of the council. But then the political suitability and effectiveness of Mr Blackman, sitting MP and MP candidate for Harrow East, has been a matter of concern for long.
A recently released public opinion snapshot shows a five per cent drop in Harrow East Conservative popularity since 2010, narrowing the gap between them and the Labour to only three per cent.
Now he has not only been investigated about his claimed expenses, but he comes out as extremist and divisive in that he shows a lack of democratic sense to represent all his constituents and uses sensitive international situations to generate political support from the selected communities by siding with them in an unbalanced way.

How well your GP practice doing – update

We reported about the Intelligent Monitoring of GP practices by the Care Quality Commission where the inspecting and rating NHS GP practices help to anticipate, identify and respond more quickly to providers at risk of providing poor quality care – Band1 represents the highest risk and Band6 the lowest risk.
Click here for Harrow GP practices or here for GP practices in your area – click here to find out more about an individual practice.
There are further opportunities to know more about a GP practice and how it intends to improve its services (some practices encourage patient participation as part of their process to improve provisions):
In responding to our inquiry, Professor Nigel Sparrow of the Care Quality Commission has informed that “we do expect individual GP practices to respond to areas of concern that we have identified and to make the recommended improvements” and “We also encourage CCGs (Clinical commissioning groups), NHS England Area Teams and individual practices to publish their action plans on their own website”.
Therefore, it would be appropriate to ask the local CCG and GP practices to make public their action plan, following an inspection (MPs/ MEPs/ councillors, please ask your council to encourage this).
In Harrow, click here to access your GP practice website (would be quite revealing to see the huge difference in the quantity and quality of the information provided).
It would also be appropriate to ask the practice for its total funding per patient against the patient satisfaction score (Harrow has very interesting situation where some higher funding per patient has much lower satisfaction rating compared with moderate funding but higher satisfaction score).

‘Tory sacking comes back to bite them’

In response to a Tory councillor letter ‘Does Harrow need a chief executive’, Harrow Observer has published our letter ‘Tory sacking comes back to bite them’ (5/12/14) which articulates that the councillor’s letter simply shows the frustration about the return of the chief executive’s post, mostly felt by the leader of his group.
Good that popular council chief executive Michael Lockwood, forced out by the short-lived Cllr Hall administration, has been re-appointed, but of course bad for the opposition leader Ms Hall who now has to work with the same Mr Lockwood.
Not only this embarrassment but also another defeat for the opposition leader who has been repeatedly leading her Conservative group to defeats (Councils in 2010 & 2014 – five sitting Tory councillors were defeated – and 2 by-elections in 2013).
Regarding the consultation about the CEO position, such was the level of consultation and consideration by Cllr Hall when she abolished the post that the councillors, including many in her group, learnt about her decision indirectly.
Note:
In separate moves, councillor Hall is under increased pressure to step down because of her disrespectful tweets that have resulted in petitions against her behaviour and Standards complaints!

Petition against Hall exceeds 500 mark

The lead petitioner Leigh Pickett informs that the petition asking the LFEPA (London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority) and Harrow Council to hold Councillor Hall accountable for the offensive and inexcusable comments made on Twitter (below) about Gemma Collins during her appearance on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity, has now passed the 500 signature mark.
test2
Councillor Hall is bound by at least two codes of conduct in her professional capacities; one for Harrow Council the other for the LFEPA.
Official complaints have now been submitted to both the LFEPA and Harrow Council with recommendations that Councillor Hall is sacked for significantly breaching the Codes of Conducts to which she should be adhering.
Following our article, we reported Cllr Hall to the Standards (Harrow Council monitoring officer and Fire Authority monitoring officer) under the provisions of the code of conduct.
Also 150 Harrow council employees in UNISON union petitions have demanded Cllr Hall’s resignation over her “offensive and inexcusable Tweets”, and have called upon the monitoring officer “to take this matter forward in order to avoid Harrow Council and its staff facing any further reputational damage which has the real potential to impact on all staff representing Harrow Council”.
Notes:
Nothing new about Cllr Hall being disrespectful or unprofessional – for example, sometime back, the Harrow Council Standards suggested: “Councillor Hall may benefit from training in media and interpersonal training and training in holding voluntary groups and public bodies to account” Decision Notice gov 008-039/ 442202”.
And, during an industrial action by the Fire Brigades Union, Cllr Hall, a member of London’s fire authority, said the union was taking the capital back to “the dark days of Arthur Scargill””.

How well your GP practice doing

Following the Ofsted success in evaluating and league-tabling the performance of the providers for children’s welfare, care and education, now some NHS providers are inspected and their performance being made public to set competition for ‘customers’ (patients).
Recent is the Intelligent Monitoring of GP practices by the Care Quality Commission – click for Harrow GP practices here or for national GP practices here.
To find out more about an individual practice click here.
Intelligent Monitoring isn’t a judgement on GPs but helps to anticipate, identify and respond more quickly to providers at risk of providing poor quality care.
A ‘risk’ or ‘elevated risk’ in Intelligent Monitoring does not necessarily mean that people using the practice are at risk. It is for inspections to determine whether GP practices are providing safe care and whether patients may be at risk. Band 1 represents the highest risk and Band 6 the lowest risk.
Comparing with some neighbouring boroughs (like Barnet, Brent or Ealing), Harrow has more GP practices in Band 1 risk. This is concerning.

Another blow for Hall

Good that the Labour administration has decided to restore the role of chief executive and are to reappoint the popular council chief executive Michael Lockwood, forced out by the short-lived Tory administration.
This is yet another defeat for the Harrow opposition leader who has been repeatedly leading her Tory group to defeats (Councils in 2010 & 2014 – five sitting Tory councillors were defeated – and 2 by-elections in 2013).
Michael knows Harrow well and was much liked for his resident-friendly approach.
However, during councillor Hall’s elected-mayor style Tory administration, grabbed through a highly controversial process*, many noticed a tense ‘culture of fear’ at the civic centre, marked by the resignation of the chief executive, followed by some key directors leaving – seemingly Hall-style administration was not possible with a strong chief executive in place.
Responding to the invitation to Mr Lockwood’s farewell event last December, Husain Akhtar, then a councillor, said, “Michael is a gentleman, wish him best and will be delighted to say ‘’bye for now’ to him privately, but I don’t intend to attend a show directed by those who axed his position in the first place”.
Such was the nature of the ‘show’ that the members of the Tory group were seemingly instructed not to attend the event in number to demonstrate that the leaving chief executive is not popular and would not be missed.
This personalisation is likely to continue at the council meeting next week where the opposition group led by Cllr Hall is to vote against approving the appointment of Mr Lockwood, despite some reservation within her group, as it appears.

    • Like in 2014, voters also voted in Labour administration to run the council in 2010
    • In mid-2013, a breakaway Independent Labour Group, snatched the council administration from Labour with the support of and encouragement from the Tory group leadership – the ILG seemingly had personal grudge against some in the Labour group which became highly toxic with the time
    • Few months later, the Tory group grabbed the council administration with the support of the well groomed Independent Labour Group who voted in the Tory group leader as the leader of the council through a highly controversial process which created the political mess i.e. a hung council where both the Labour and Tory groups had 25 councillors each, putting Tory minority administration in place by the 8 ILG councillors
    • Harrow finished up with an elected-mayor style short-lived Tory administration and three different council cabinets and administrations within a short period

Blackman investigated!

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has opened an investigation into the expenses claimed by MP for Harrow East Blackman.
Out of the total of £178,771.14 expenses, the MP had spent £149,054.13 on staffing, including the salary of £30,000-34,999.99 for his wife, the office manager of unknown formal qualification for the post.
Mr Blackman is well to do and owns six buy-to-let properties in Welwyn Garden City jointly with his wife.
There is a serious question about the cost effectiveness of the public money enjoyed by the MP, given the concerns that:

    • Mr Blackman shows a lack of democratic sense to represent the interests and wellbeing of all his constituents in a balanced way
    • The highly diverse Harrow East can’t afford divisive approaches like the use of sensitive international situations to generate political support from the selected communities by siding with them and their interests – for example, Blackman’s recent anti Gaza position and his disproportionate attitudes towards Kashmir – a place that is another legacy of the British Empire and a longstanding divide line between India and Pakistan relationships – Harrow East has substantial number of residents from both Indian and Pakistani backgrounds
    • While 274 MPs voted for the recent Common’s motion regarding Palestinian statehood, Mr Blackman was one of the 12 MPs who voted against the motion – out of all those voted against the motion, his constituency is most diverse with quite significant support for Palestinian statehood

Sour grapes!

Sad that Tory opposition shows no sense that they have failed to gain legitimate control of the Council, and also their leader fails to demonstrate that she accepts the will of the people who did not want Cllr Hall to be leader of the Council.
Instead of the above, there is a trail of sour grapes comments and actions by her and some of her little group of supporters – latest is to Call-In the recent cabinet decision to restore council chief executive post, deleted by the short-lived Tory administration last year.
The Call-In notice by Cllr Hall and her handful Tory faithful councillors, asks the Call-In Sub-Committee to challenge the cabinet decision on key ground of ‘inadequate consultation with stakeholders prior to the decision’.
While in October 2013 the Tory leader of the Council launched a consultation with stakeholders on proposals to delete the post of Chief Executive of the Council but did not include the councillors, essential stakeholders*, in the consultation that led to the controversial deletion of the post of chief executive.
This serious omission constituted ‘inadequate consultation with stakeholders prior to the decision’, key basis for the Tory call-in notice now – what a contradiction!
Very concerning that those calling-in on the basis of ‘inadequate consultation’ failed in seeking adequate consultation regarding the matter concerned themselves.
Not only this but by calling-in the sub-committee meeting (2/10/14) on such a thin ground is a waste of council resource and public money.
* A person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization –- councillors are persons and Harrow Council is an organisation!