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Academies are funded directly by central government, directly accountable to the Department for Education, and outside local authority control. They have greater financial freedoms than maintained schools. By September 2012 the number of open academies had increased tenfold, from 203 to 2,309. Academies are the Department's chosen vehicle for school reform, but increasing schools' autonomy and removing them from local authority control gives the Department responsibility for ensuring value for money. The Department has incurred significant costs from the complex and inefficient system it has used for funding the Academies Programme and its oversight of academies has had to play catch-up with...
Recent high-profile failures demonstrate that the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency's oversight arrangements for free schools are not yet working effectively. The Department and Agency have set up an approach to oversight which emphasises schools' autonomy, but standards of financial management and governance in some free schools are clearly not up to scratch. The Agency relies on high levels of compliance by schools, yet fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns for 2011-12 to the Agency on time. Whistleblowers played a major role in uncovering recent scandals when problems should have been identified through the Agency's monitoring p...
In October 2010 the Committee in response to a report by its predecessor committee began a trial exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory and late answers to written Parliamentary questions. With just over 50 complaints from Members in response to the exercise of which half were followed up. This resulted in answers for Members on a number of occasions in circumstances where they would otherwise have found difficult or impossible to follow up on an inadequate response. The exercise will now come to an end and be put on a more permanent footing.In consideration of a memorandum from the Leader of the House providing statistics on the time taken to respond to WPQs in 2010-12, the committee has sou...
Early action in public policy delivery involves the use of resources to tackle causes rather than symptoms. The Government spends nearly £400 billion each year on, for example, health, education, employment, justice and welfare, but huge numbers of people still suffer preventable health problems that are expensive to treat, too many young people leave school with too few qualifications and unable to get a job, too many young offenders commit further crimes when they leave prison, often because of drugs or alcohol addiction, and too many families get locked into benefit dependency. A concerted increase in effective early action could help to deal with the root causes of such problems, benefi...
The single theme that underlies this report on the performance of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is: delivery. The DCLG faces unusual challenges as a result of how it is structured and its reliance on the performance of other departments, agencies, local authorities for the achievement of its goals set by the Government. Most of the money for which DCLG is responsible is spent for it by someone else - by over 450 local authorities, 47 local fire brigades, by large government agencies such as the soon-to-exist Homes and Communities Agency with a £2.2 billion budget. The challenge of delivery is examined under several headings: the capability review carried out by ...
In 2014 the UK government launched an investigation into the "Trojan Horse" affair, an alleged plot to "Islamify" several state schools in Birmingham. In this book, John Holmwood, who was an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers in the school, and Therese O'Toole, who researches the government's counter-extremism agenda, challenge the accepted narrative, arguing that a major injustice was inflicted on the teachers, and they go on to show how the affair was used to criticize multiculturalism and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter-extremism agenda.
The true cost of anything is the price we pay for the alternative.David and Margaret’s story is, sadly, not unique. Margaret was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in early 2018. This is the real-life story of the husband and wife’s journey to seek support and care over the past few years. David shares their experience of dementia “care” so that anyone caring for – or living with – dementia can learn from what happened to them, and hopefully avoid the many obstacles, challenges and pitfalls that they had to overcome. One in every 14 people aged 65+ have dementia, that’s around 900,000 people, and the numbers are increasing rapidly every year. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone embarking on the journey to seek care and support for their loved one once symptoms of dementia set in. From getting a diagnosis to getting the right kind of support for them – and you – written with raw passion and from the heart, Mirror, Mirror is dedicated to the memory of Margaret. And to help every other person feeling lost right now.
*** THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*** *A FINANCIAL TIMES, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN AND TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR* 'Excellent... first class... both fair and damning.' Daniel Finkelstein, The Times 'Authoritative, gripping and often jaw-dropping' Andrew Rawnsley, Observer 'Invaluable' New Statesman 'Explosive' Isabel Hardman, The i After his dramatic rise to power in the summer of 2019 amid the Brexit deadlock, Boris Johnson presided over the most turbulent period of British history in living memory. Beginning with the controversial prorogation of Parliament in August and the historic landslide election victory later that year, Johnson was barely through the door of No. 10 when Britain was ...
"Being able to 'read' the landscape whilst on a walk makes a huge difference. It is like suddenly seeing the world in colour after being used to a lifetime of black and white. The Living Landscape looks in detail at landscape formation: from rocks, through soil to vegetation and the intricate web of interactions between plants, animals, climate and the people that makes the landscape around us. Each chapter is interspersed with diagrams, sketches and notes that Patrick has taken over two decades of living and working in the countryside. Patrick will inspire you to reconnect with the land as a living entity, not a collection of different scenery, and develop an active relationship with nature and the countryside. This book invites you to actively engage with nature and experience it first hand. Understanding how landscapes evolve is a useful skill for landscape designers, farmers, gardeners and smallholders but it is also a life-enhancing skill all of us can enjoy. Patrick offers us the enduring pleasure that costs nothing and yet offers everything." -- Publisher's description