Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on September 01, 2023, 08:56:26 AM
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Seems incredible that this has been being warned about for 5 years, and now this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66673971
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Seems incredible that this has been being warned about for 5 years, and now this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66673971
One more Tory failure. I hope Labour exploit it like hell in the election campaign.
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One more Tory failure. I hope Labour exploit it like hell in the election campaign.
Dependent on the outcome in the survey in Wales, it might be difficult to portray as a specifically Tory issue.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-66674268
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There is a fault in the British governmental system which emphasises efficiency over effectiveness, and it is strongly associated with the concept of "spending taxpayers' money". It is more apparent during times of Conservative rule - but is still a feature of Labour government.
To adjust Oscar Wilde's celebrated maxim - it is a system which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing ... and the price of RAAC ...
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Seems incredible that this has been being warned about for 5 years, and now this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66673971
These surveys were completed months ago. So why on earth wasn't action for the affected schools taken through the 6 week summer holidays to ensure that remedial action and/or temporary accommodation was in place for the new school term. Giving schools just 4 days to sort this out beggars belief.
Nick Gibbs, the schools minister, was completely evasive about when the 'new' information he claimed had come to light. He kept being pushed but just said it came to light in the summer.
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These surveys were completed months ago. So why on earth wasn't action for the affected schools taken through the 6 week summer holidays to ensure that remedial action and/or temporary accommodation was in place for the new school term. Giving schools just 4 days to sort this out beggars belief.
Nick Gibbs, the schools minister, was completely evasive about when the 'new' information he claimed had come to light. He kept being pushed but just said it came to light in the summer.
That is obviously deception on his part. The issue has been known about for many years, certainly since the mid 1990's. It is not the fault of this particular government, but as HH rightly highlights, it is a failure of the system.
The only thing you can hold this government responsible for is not acting sooner. But then did anyone expect anything more than this shambles from them?
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That is obviously deception on his part. The issue has been known about for many years, certainly since the mid 1990's. It is not the fault of this particular government, but as HH rightly highlights, it is a failure of the system.
The only thing you can hold this government responsible for is not acting sooner. But then did anyone expect anything more than this shambles from them?
In fairness I think there has been some new evidence that has come to light relatively recently which has shifted the risk profile, so that some instances that weren't thought to be immediately risky are now considered to be the case. But answering the question about when this came to light as 'the summer' rather than perhaps 'last week' implies they have known about this new information for weeks and could therefore have been taking action over the 6 weeks that the schools have been closed.
But they didn't.
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These surveys were completed months ago. So why on earth wasn't action for the affected schools taken through the 6 week summer holidays to ensure that remedial action and/or temporary accommodation was in place for the new school term. Giving schools just 4 days to sort this out beggars belief.
Nick Gibbs, the schools minister, was completely evasive about when the 'new' information he claimed had come to light. He kept being pushed but just said it came to light in the summer.
I work in management of schools, so some insight here.
We were all, well over two years ago, sent notification that some projects had been suffering premature deterioration of RAAC i structures, and to conduct inspections and surveys to find out who had it, and where it was found to see what condition it was in. This was repeated a few times, and got serious around Christmas of last year when there were two formal reporting deadlines sent out: 1 (around February, if i recall) to confirm where RAAC was present, and then a later one for the end of Summer to confirm that condition surveys of the RAAC found had been completed. (I get a little vague here, as none of our schools have any so I wasn't paying as much attention after that first reporting deadline).
What appears to have happened is that the government has suddenly implemented requirements late in the day on schools where it's present. In principle, of course, schools with RAAC and surveys showing problems should have remedied them over the summer, but the combination of public sector procurement rules (which MASSIVELY delays the implementation of even moderately sized projects) and the lack of any funding provision meant that with those deadlines schools were never going to have fixed this.
My guess is that the schools which have been pinged are the ones where their proposed mitigation measures weren't deemed adequate - we've not been involved in that end of things because, as I say, we're not directly affected.
O.
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And now asbestos
https://archive.vn/96q4w
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And now asbestos
https://archive.vn/96q4w
That's not a new problem. Asbestos can be quite safe as long as you don't disturb by doing (just as an example off the top of my head) extensive rebuilding work because of aerated concrete.
Asbestos will compound the difficulty of fixing the concrete problems because of the difficulty of removing it without killing your workers.
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Good old Rishi
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/rishi-sunak-was-warned-of-critical-risk-to-life-in-school-concrete-crisis-two-years-ago/ar-AA1gcHJz
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Coincidentally I was watching Nicky Campbell's programme this morning and was astonished at some of the views expressed.
"Over-reacting." "Can't afford to fix unless everyone is prepared to pay a lot more in taxes." And on.
Firstly, not over reacting when a school rooof collapsed as a result of this in 2018. Secondly, Sunak cuts the number of schools to receive funding to fix this from 100 to 50 despite being warned of a risk to life. That this is happenning with the shift of wealth from the poorest to the richest suggests to me that taxation is not really the issue.
Priorities are the issue.
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Certain stories really cut through and I think this will be one of them.
To cut through it needs to be a big enough story of itself, but also to nod to a bigger narrative. This does both. On the specifics the notion that the government has known about this for years and cut funding rather than deal with it in a timely (and likely less expensive) manner is hugely damaging for the government - even more so given that Sunak was chancellor at the time the budgets were slashed.
But the story also resonates with a broader narrative - that the country is (literally in the case of these schools) falling apart under this government.
On another site I visit there is piece today about how little the polls have moved since the beginning of the year. I think this issue has the potential to shift opinion.
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Oh dear, oh dear. Schools having to close because warnings were ignored and budgets slashed.
Yet Education secretary things they should be praised for doing a good job - beyond belief.
https://twitter.com/ShehabKhan/status/1698675650096251294
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She's certainly playing her part in getting "The Thick of It" recommisioned. Or maybe there is no need for it anymore!
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She's certainly playing her part in getting "The Thick of It" recommisioned. Or maybe there is no need for it anymore!
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a850775/armando-iannucci-the-thick-of-it-wont-be-return-reason-why/
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She's certainly playing her part in getting "The Thick of It" recommisioned. Or maybe there is no need for it anymore!
Gets worse:
https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1698612486176489729?s=46
£34m to refurbish her own offices, while schools were crumbing.
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A big boy did it and ran away
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66705175
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If the connection between cutbacks and the current situation really does cut through, can see a lot of high profile Tories losing their seats.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66710706
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Once upon a time, all the non-private schools within a county were operated, managed and maintained by a branch of the county council called the Local Education Authority. The LEA was funded partly by a payment from central government and partly by a portion of the locally-collected rates.
One consequence of this was that the LEA usually had a flexible and competent building maintenance team to deal with structural and maintenance problems. There is the possibility that problems like RAAC would be tackled in a coherent and competent fashion (or possibly RAAC would never have been used).
Now many, perhaps most, non-private schools are run by Educational Trusts, a divide-and-rule device which ensured that (by a sleight of hand) central government, by making grants directly to the individual trusts, had greater control of much school management and operations than had been the case with LEAs.
The trusts, most of which had little experience of running schools, were stuck in the claws of the DfE. This problem is going to take a long time to resolve.
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New school building material
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Quite extraordinary
'The government announced in May that it was adding five Raac-affected sites to its hospital building programme, promising they would be rebuilt by 2030. Two other hospitals containing the materials were already part of the programme.
One of those added to the roster in May, Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire, confirmed that since 2020 it had had to confine treatment of some heavier people to the ground floor owing to concerns about the state of the building.
“Conditions for managing patients over 19 stones continue to remain in place at Hinchingbrooke Hospital. This is due to the cumulative weight of patients, staff and equipment being more of a risk in some of our first floor clinical areas,” the trust said.'
https://archive.vn/y1fQD
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66723054
Someone was bound to have found a link.
Regardless of the ongoing legacy of Gove scrapping the Building Schools for the Future scheme still resurfacing 13 years on, I always considered this to be an absolutely catastrophic decision at the time.
Gove cancelled projects where contractors had been appointed and were expected to be in site in days or weeks. Not only did this mean these schools did not get the work they needed (see effects 13 years on) but also the Government had to pay compensation to those firms to get out of the contracts - so money was being spent on literally delivering nothing. Moreover the cancellation created a chill through the construction industry leading to downturn in the sector, loss of confidence etc which exacerbated the slowdown in growth and impacted the government tax revenues.
When you are in a potential slump, you want to grow your way out and major government infrastructure projects, particularly when money was almost free (interest rates were pretty negligible) should alway be maintained as not only do they help sure up the economy they also pay dividend in terms of enhanced infrastructure and/or reduced maintenance/replacement costs later.
But Gove cancelled them for political reasons!!!
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“We asked 100 people to name an item of school uniform. You said - hard hat. Our survey said:”
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... Secondly, Sunak cuts the number of schools to receive funding to fix this from 100 to 50 despite being warned of a risk to life.
During PQMs he claimed he'd increased funding by 20% ( on the year before) . So 50% + 20%(of50%)=...60%.Priorities are the issue.
With hindsight, maybe getting more Maths teachers won't help him..?
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.
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'But I won't let the show
Oh, won't let the show go on'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66738806
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.
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More than half NHS Scotland buildings not inspected for Raac
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66900470
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This seems to have been quietly shuffled under the carpet
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67450470
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'West Lothian Council 'can't afford' school's £35m Raac rebuild'
After the initial runaround, this seems to have been something all governments in the UK seem happy to have let slip down the attention chart.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-67671951