camden-news-leak

camden-news-leak

This story from the Camden New Journal should not surprise any of us. The story is that a Lib Dem leader of Camden council wrote a briefing note about the plans for the UCL academy in Camden that suggested that the project could be used to curry favour with voters, and worried that the CofE and other religious groups might predominate if the academy were up for an open bid. It also expressed concerned that an open process would not have the school open in time for the next election.

So far, so local politics.

The worry is that the academy scheme has politicised the provision of education. Now there are worries about the timing of schools, their sponsors, and what effects these will have on local elections. In a move that appeared, ostensibly, to be a challenge to the powers of local government, the powers of local governments has been enhanced in the same way that the planning process does. This opens it to the same sorts of abuses, and does not serve the interests of those who wish to educate children.

Labour leader Theo Blackwell said: "The public interest has taken second place to rather crude political jockeying.” The tragedy is that that is the effect this scheme was bound to have, opening the schooling of pupils up to the highest (or, as we have seen, sometimes lowest) bidder.