Thursday 29 July 2010

Schools delegation to London

Yesterday I was part of the cross-party delegation that went down to London to lobby Lord Hill of the education department about schools funding in Liverpool.

When I say cross party, I was the only non Labour politician there but there's not a lot I can do about the fact that all the Liverpool MPs are currently Labour! (Well not till 2015 anyway)

I don't have a lot of experience of lobbying ministers (well none actually) but it seemed to go well. We got a hearing and some commitments to let us input into the Government's capital spending review.

The Council has an alternative funding plan. It still needs public money but it also includes some borrowing and some private sector investment. I haven't actually seen this plan but the Lib Dems have committed to working to take the ideas forward in a cross party way.

There are two new academies - one in South Liverpool - waiting for news about their building funding situation. They are in a slightly different situation as they weren't included in the earlier BSF announcement. The minister said we should hear about this very soon. So watch this space.


UPDATE:

A rather belated update. The news earlier this month (I mean August not July) was that the funding is coming through for the South Liverpool Academy (the one that effectively combines New Heys and St Benedicts).

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