NOTEBOOK: LABOUR SUPPORTERS ARE NOT GETTING WHAT THEY VOTED FOR (UPDATED midnight on Tuesday)

Lomond School

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NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY

Above is an advert for Lomond School. It all sounds wonderful and it usually is. Miles away from the whiteboard jungle of anti-social behaviour and poor exam results that we hear detailed by MSPs in the Scottish Parliament but denied by West Dunbartonshire Council who would have us believe that everything in the education garden is rosy.

Unhappy, over-worked teachers who have to take to the streets on strike to wring a decent pay rise out of the local authorities they work hard for. Not to mention the escalating number of assaults on teachers which spill on to school transport.

And it is not just during times when pupils are travelling to and from school.

The violence and verbals have increased exponentially since travel by train became FREE for people under the age of 22.

Private schools, love them or loathe them. Here in Dunbartonshire, we only have Lomond School in Helensburgh, but parents do send their children to private schools such as St Aloysius College and Glasgow Academy.

You see them on the train in the morning, smartly dressed in their school uniform usually with their noses in a book. There may be a few missing faces come January, however. That’s when the new Labour government plans to introduce VAT of 20 per cent on private schools.

This imposition, along with winter fuel payment withdrawal from needy pensioners and the two child benefit cap, was not anticipated when we (at least I) went down to the Braehead School polling booth to vote for Labour a few short months ago.

Sir Keith Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and West Dunbartonshire MP Douglas McAllister.

However, the party which they would have you believe is the rightful political home of the working class but is now run and led by millionaires such as Prime MInister Sir Keith Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is now telling us that we will have to tighten our belts.

For the next ten years.

That we will have to suffer gladly the fools who run our local public services – they may have resigned as Labour have done in Dumbarton – afraid to have to answer of all the budget cuts that are coming down the line.

But they haven’t left the building, you know.

These cuts are said to be so frightening that in West Dunbartonshire our Labour councillors have resigned, two of them have been thrown out the party for this, and one has gone off to the green benches at Westminster to be our Member of Parliament. Aren’t we fortunate?

To a man and a woman, they will be picking up public money for nothing.

But back to the schools. The BBC tells us that Government plans to make private schools pay VAT could push more children, especially those with special educational needs (SEND), into mainstream schools, according to opponents of the tax hike.

Conservatives are already saying councils will be struggling to reach the rising costs of SEND provision, as it forecasted a £115m budget deficit by March.

Jane James, cabinet member for corporate services, said that “many” private schools catering for SEND were “in a fragile state” and “the worst-case scenario” was they may close, adding “pressure to our mainstream schools”.

Councillor Jane James said “the wider implications this will have on independent schools that cater for SEND” had not been fully considered.

So, what’s new there then?

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said the VAT plans will generate roughly £1.5 billion a year, which the government said it will invest in state education, including in recruiting more teachers, as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The council agreed to top-up the amount of funding it provides to schools to support children with SEND from £30m to £35m. It has also writen to the government calling for an overhaul of SEND in schools and the way it is funded.

Andrew Jamieson, a county council deputy leader, said: “This is causing a financial cliff edge for many councils.

“[Funding pressures] are leading to responsibility shifting between public bodies, inadvertently creating adversarial relationships between parents, local authorities and schools.”

His council has spent £900,000 on legal fees defending legal cases involving children with SEND, but has also spent £120 million to create 2,000 extra specialist places in newly-built schools.

Mike Smith-Clare, deputy leader of the council’s Labour group, said a “safety valve” agreement the council made with the former government in March 2023 had exacerbated problems.

It received £70 million for education services and support for SEND children up until 2029.

The bailout was to cover the deficit accrued through providing SEND support, but is now “off track” and the council is renegotiating with the Department for Education.

In England, five multi-academy trusts have warned they may have to slash up to £1 million from their budgets after getting less than expected from the “safety valve”.

Mr Smith-Clare said the agreement was made “without the involvement of those with lived experience” and criticised the council for spending “hundreds of thousands of pounds on lawyers fees to deny [families] what they are entitled to for as long as possible”.

This sounds like the councils, run by their elected members, unlike West Dunbartonshire where the unelected members have been running the council for years, aren’t giving precedence to the wishes of the people who voted them into office.

And that Labour will be putting money before the wellbeing and education of children by driving up the cost of a good education for their parents.

This isn’t what the country voted for.

Declaration of interest: My granddaughter attends a private school in Edinburgh.

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I was glad to see the sun with its hat on in Dumbarton over the past week or so. Hopefully it brought a boost to business for the brave young woman who has taken on the lease of the Pavilion Cafe in Levengrove Park.

That’s the one so many people thought was terrific but the Council didn’t have the acumen amid their long list of highly paid officials to keep it going.

Does anyone know why the OK Cafe in the Napier Hall in the village continued to flourish when Levengrove didn’t and had to close the place and look for new owners?

There is no point in me asking the Council for the detail of what happened. They don’t talk to The Democrat, which means they don’t talk to you either, dear reader.

However, take it from me this was yet another blunder to add to their extensive portfolio of cock-ups.

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Imagine having the brass neck to tell the UK Parliament that his priority during his highly paid period at Westminster is going to be regenerating town centres.

Well, that’s what Douglas McAllister, our recently elected MP did, ignoring completely the bourach he has left behind in Dumbarton and Alexandria town centres.

Douglas, has now resigned from two of his three jobs (Provost and Councillor to name but two of them) and jetted off to London with your blessing, approval, support or whatever to represent West Dunbartonshire in the House of Commons. You get what you vote for.

Let’s hope Douglas found his way to Westminster and didn’t get himself as mixed up as the caption writer did for the picture of him (below), making his maiden speech.

Well, not really making it but reading it out.

It seems from this evidence that Douglas is not going to be one of the great orators orators of our time.

He appears to have found time though to vote with his Labour colleagues to scrap the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners. What a man!

It’s a great way to begin a parliamentry career though, is it not?

Voting for something you don’t really believe in because you’ll be in trouble with the Prime Minister for failing to tow the party line.

You never know though. There may be as much truth in what he said in parliament as there was in his local government election material (see paicture above).

And that bringing back grass cutting and repairing the potholes in local roads is just a load of old cobblers that isn’t happening and is never likely to.

How was it though? The speech that is. That MP sitting behind Douglas in the green benches looks totally riveted by it. Not.