The Conservative Party

[bluethrunthru]

the top civil servant in the Dept of Education from 2016-2020 has thrown a grenade.

Ten year old survey - 300-400 schools.
Treasury - offer for funds to rebuild 100 schools/year
Dept Ed - make it 200?
Treasury - 50 it is then.

Chancellor at the time? R Sunak.

Please Mr Chancellor can we have £2.00?

Sunak "what do you need £1.00 for? Here's the 50p you really need "

 

[Fred_Quimby]

She got really rattled on R4 this morning. Fair play to Robinson he kept holding her feet to the flames. My favourite was ‘we are going to build 238(?) new schools’. Nick ‘really when?’ ‘As soon as possible’. He kept on saying basically as she didn’t put a time line on it, it was drivel.

 

[BrianW]

The last Labour Government, trust me, spent ££££££s remedying years of neglect to school buildings. They had a plan to rebuild/replace all unsuitable schools over X years, but as has been noted above, Gove scrapped it. The pre-1997 Tory Government was parsimonious, to put it mildly.

Another problem has been the tendency to devolve more or all of what money there is to schools. School Governors tend to prioritise tarting up the foyer, or the staff room, above stuff that can't be seen but which needs to be done. When all schools were under local authority management, the spending was prioritised, with most spent on the most decrepit schools and on the most essential work. This is no longer the case and hasn't been for about 25-30 years.

As a side issue, many of these schools will still have asbestos in them. It's safe while it's sealed in, but the minute you start knocking the building about with major works it adds all manner of complications and extra costs. It's a fucking minefield.

At some point this country needs to face a hard fact - you cannot run essential public services on the cheap and so-called 'savings' are almost always a deferral of expenditure, the equivalent of not having your car serviced for five years and then being surprised when you get a big bill when it eventually breaks down.

The current fragmented education system, with various tin pot 'academy chains' and 'free schools' is a recipe for unorganised chaos, and will make this problem much harder to solve than it would have been 35 years ago.

 

[metalblue]

It’s only you who keeps banging on about Brexit. I haven’t mentioned it in this discussion whereas you seem to be intent on turning it into an argument about Brexit, and making out I’m blaming Brexit for something.

As for rabbit holes, it’s been a week since my last post on this and you still haven’t found your way out. Good luck and hope you manage to get out eventually.

You didn’t but you decided to stick your oar in to the conversation.…

 

[bluethrunthru]

Big question is - where has the money gone? We are paying the highest levels of taxation since WW2. So with all that cash why is there no money to fix school and hospital buildings?

 

[Kirkstall Blue]

I know of teachers who voted to reject their pay rise because it was coming out of their own budget and regularly give food to kids that cannot concentrate due to hunger.

Can anybody defend what the Conservative Party have done to this country?

I can’t defend what has been done since the 1980’s
A teacher I know who works with social services assessing children goes round homes some of their homes are unimaginable they have nothing.
The budgets don’t stretch anymore to essential items like food and clothes, a safe place to grow up strong they are the next generation! what will they grow up like? I dread to think where this country is heading

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

Big question is - where has the money gone? We are paying the highest levels of taxation since WW2. So with all that cash why is there no money to fix school and hospital buildings?

I’ve been asking for many years now and nobody has been able to answer it. I revert back to the Independence Day quote of ‘You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?‘.

 

[inbetween]

The last Labour Government, trust me, spent ££££££s remedying years of neglect to school buildings. They had a plan to rebuild/replace all unsuitable schools over X years, but as has been noted above, Gove scrapped it. The pre-1997 Tory Government was parsimonious, to put it mildly.

Another problem has been the tendency to devolve more or all of what money there is to schools. School Governors tend to prioritise tarting up the foyer, or the staff room, above stuff that can't be seen but which needs to be done. When all schools were under local authority management, the spending was prioritised, with most spent on the most decrepit schools and on the most essential work. This is no longer the case and hasn't been for about 25-30 years.

As a side issue, many of these schools will still have asbestos in them. It's safe while it's sealed in, but the minute you start knocking the building about with major works it adds all manner of complications and extra costs. It's a fucking minefield.

At some point this country needs to face a hard fact - you cannot run essential public services on the cheap and so-called 'savings' are almost always a deferral of expenditure, the equivalent of not having your car serviced for five years and then being surprised when you get a big bill when it eventually breaks down.

The current fragmented education system, with various tin pot 'academy chains' and 'free schools' is a recipe for unorganised chaos, and will make this problem much harder to solve than it would have been 35 years ago.

The last Labour government started with 40% GDP debt but that's now 105% so the two periods of time are difficult to compare. It all really depends on your perspective on that debt, do we increase it vastly with increased spending or not? It isn't going to come from growth so borrowing is the only solution to increase spending.

A lot of people will quote austerity but the government is spending now more than ever in history. The bigger question for me is how are we taxed more than ever whilst the government spends so much yet we get so little back?

How can schools be falling apart in a country that spends £1.2tn annually on public spending?

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I can’t defend what has been done since the 1980’s
A teacher I know who works with social services assessing children goes round homes some of their homes are unimaginable they have nothing.
The budgets don’t stretch anymore to essential items like food and clothes, a safe place to grow up strong they are the next generation! what will they grow up like? I dread to think where this country is heading

I don’t want to think what these children will be like in 10 - 20 yrs time.

 

[BrianW]

The last Labour government started with 40% GDP debt but that's now 105% so the two periods of time are difficult to compare. It all really depends on your perspective on that debt, do we increase it vastly with increased spending or not? It isn't going to come from growth so borrowing is the only solution to increase spending.

A lot of people will quote austerity but the government is spending now more than ever in history. The bigger question for me is how are we taxed more than ever whilst the government spends so much yet we get so little back?

How can schools be falling apart in a country that spends £1.2tn annually on public spending?

What is the 'proper' level of public spending for a (supposedly) rich country with about 60 million people?

I can quote you some figures. We spend more of our GDP on defence than Germany, but less on Education and Health. (Needless to say, Germany's GDP is higher than ours.) We have a lower average standard of living than the Czech Republic.

It ain't pretty is it? Of course, this Tory Government has wasted billions on useless protective equipment for the NHS and giving bungs to the likes of Dido Harding. We don't have to do that going forward, but we still have the debt.