Brexit vote WAS biggest in UK

Martin Roche [Letters, Gazette, February 7] states that Graham Beckett (that’s me, I lurrve seeing my name in print!) has repeated an untruth concerning the 2016 referendum results.

He points out that the general election of 1950 had a turnout of 83.9% against the 2016 referendum turnout of 72.2%. These figures are correct but do not reflect the size of the turnout.

He uses these figures to reduce the referendum result to 14th in the scale of election results.

He must have presented his letter to his Canterbury and Coastal Liberal Democrat committee for approval before he sent it. They would have closely inspected and approved the contents in detail.

They would not want to be accused of allowing transparently deceptive statements to be made, or that they are clumsily confused at a lower level than the common voter.

The ordinary voter who is obviously unable to read or count properly or even have his own opinion.

Even less would they like to be accused of selectively using statistics to justify their programme of stopping Brexit, against the majority democratic vote of Britain.

The facts remain that the 1950 general election stimulated a total of 28.21 million voters into action, and the 2016 referendum vote had a voter turnout of 33.55 million.

Let’s have it right. Academies and free schools, of themselves, don’t make any difference to standards or education.

They are just a different structural, business and financial model which can be seen as a policy of centralising power, denuding local authorities, bringing ‘the market’ to education and remodelling of the public sector.

Academies, it could be argued, are as much ideological representations as they are educational organisations. They are independent of the local authority (LA) and are funded directly by government.

Many of the early converter academies benefited significantly in financial terms, receiving that sum of money local authorities otherwise would have top-sliced to provide their services. Thus, the early single academy trusts were undeniably financially better off than LA schools.

The more schools that converted, the less the LA had to provide services to their remaining schools. This in turn was an encouragement for more LA schools to convert, either on their own or with other schools to form multi-academy trusts (Mats). This left LAS largely impotent.

Academies are legally under the control of the secretary of state through the Office of the Regional Commission, an organisation many people are unaware of and managed by people most parents have never heard of.

This organisation also promotes academisation and, if a school is deemed not to be of the required standard, encourages it to join a Mat.

In this process, parents and local communities are marginalised as both the Office of the Regional Commission and academies are fundamentally unaccountable.

When joining a Mat a school’s financial surplus goes to that Mat; however, a deficit is picked up by the LA. Thus, a Mat ‘supporting’ a LA school prior to its conversion to an academy could, somewhat cynically, run up a huge deficit knowing that the LA would have to pick up the tab.

So, the LA and the taxpayer lose out but no academy ever started with a deficit.

Mats can come in varying sizes. The very large Mats, in effect, replace LAS and offer support to their schools, bring economies of scale and thus ‘save’ money.

But if they are geographically scattered they also may do nothing to serve the local community since they are not based in, or part of, it.

Irrespective of what one may have thought about the efficiency and effectiveness of local education authorities they did at least have a commitment to their communities and were, however imperfectly, accountable to them.

In one sense, academy chains are quasi-businesses; they do not, as yet, operate for profit and most still seek to provide a quality service to children but a few leaders seem to have succumbed to the temptations of the market and appear to have exploited the freedoms of the academy model for personal, or family, gain.

It is hard to see how the public will be sympathetic to claims about underfunding when some academies are accused of misdirecting their funds into excessive pay awards for CEOS and company BMWS.

One hopes the alleged pecuniary excesses of the few will not detract from the actual genuine service of the many.

The reality is that despite the flannel, and highly dubious use of figures by the Department for Education, schools have experienced funding ‘cuts’ if only because whilst costs have increased, income has not.

To be fair, in a period of austerity, schools may have fared less badly than other parts of the public sector but many schools have found it challenging.

The new funding formula, changes to sixth form funding, changes to SEN (special educational needs) funding and increasing national insurance, pension and salary costs have all taken their toll.

Some schools have been hit harder than others. Unpopular schools that have fewer and fewer children joining will be hit the hardest of all since ‘bums on seats’ is still the principal determinant of funding.

Some schools will be living off a previous surplus. Some schools will generate a surplus, some schools won’t.

A small primary with high levels of SEN, or an unpopular secondary school with a falling roll and small sixth form are likely to feel the greatest pain.

Small schools may also not be able to afford a bursar leav-

When academies and free schools were first launched, a key selling point was the ability to handle their own budgets. The picture now, however, is a little murky, with concerns raised over the soaring salaries of those in charge. Former Canterbury Academy executive principal Phil Karnavas explains the impact it is having on pupils.

www.kentonline.co.uk Thursday, February 21, 2019 Kentish Gazette (KG)