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WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 108 (Welsh Grand Committee (Sittings)),
That the Welsh Grand Committee shall meet at Westminster on Tuesday 16th December at half-past Ten o'clock to take questions under Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)), and to consider the matter of government expenditure in Wales in 1998-99 under Standing Order No. 107 (Welsh Grand Committee (matters relating exclusively to Wales)).--[Mr. Pope.]
Question agreed to.
Education (Hackney)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Pope.]
10.14 pm
Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Hackney, South and Shoreditch) rose--
Madam Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members please move away from the Bar as there is an hon. Member who wishes to speak.
Mr. Sedgemore: I should like to begin this debate by congratulating children and teachers in Hackney on their sustained and steady improvement in achievement in the 1990s. Whereas in 1990 only 14 per cent. of pupils obtained more than five GCSE grades A to C, in 1996 that figure had risen to 31 per cent. This year, the improvement in the grades was one of the best in the country. Better still, The Observer showed in a comprehensive survey that two Hackney schools, Clapton school and Haggerston school, were in the top 10 schools when value added was measured. I say well done to everyone concerned.
There is no contradiction between praise for those achievements and a recognition that the Office for Standards in Education report earlier this year was right to say that there were too many schools in Hackney that were performing badly--after all, one badly performing school is one too many. The Ofsted report was also right to say that the administration of education in Hackney was in a state of turmoil that could only be characterised as chaos. It was also right to report that things had become much more chaotic since the Liberal Democrats and Tories had taken control of the council, 18 months earlier. The blame lies with Councillor Kevin Daws, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Councillor Joe Lobenstein, the leader of the Tories. Those two councillors are living proof of George Villiers's aphorism:
The improvement team that was sent in came up with some good suggestions. One of its members, Pat Collarbone, the former head teacher of Haggerston school for girls, is known to me, and I have the greatest respect for her ability. The team produced an education structure that valued the work of teachers and recognised that providing a service for education cannot be carried out in the same way as providing a service for refuse collection--there is a qualitative difference.
However, the alarm bells rang in Hackney, Whitehall and Westminster when Tony Elliston, Hackney council's chief executive, announced on the radio that he was
prepared to go to war with the Government over the future of Hackney's education services. Tony Elliston is an unelected bureaucrat, yet here he was entering the political arena and declaring war on the most popular Government in history, without consulting the council's education committee or the full council.
In acting as a politician and usurping the role of elected politicians, he made a mockery of the notion of the public service ethos; he was also clearly in breach of the express and/or implied terms of his contract and in breach of the Widdecombe rules, which forbid senior local government officers to enter the political arena publicly. He let the people of Hackney down and lost their confidence. In his startling broadcast, he sounded like a man who had just had electro-shock therapy that had gone wrong--as though his brain was about to explode.
Ministers were right to respond by insisting that, whatever the chief executive thought, the council should employ a new director of education on the salary recommended by the improvement team. However, that still leaves open two questions: why did the chief executive allow chaos to develop in the education department and why was he unwilling to put it right? Why did the first, second and third-tier officers leave the education department during Elliston's reign of chaos? Was it only because he became obsessed with vacuous sociological jargon that was described by the National Union of Teachers' representative, Mark Lushington, as
Or was it because Tony Elliston, Hackney's chief executive, is a public school bully masquerading as an East End barrow boy who has nowhere to go but Hackney because he has exposed himself as unemployable elsewhere? He seems to believe that he can bully and threaten people into accepting his crude solutions to problems. Chief executives from other boroughs have told me that he has not tried to adapt his new management structure to Hackney's needs. I have written to him about Hackney's education services, but all I get in reply is that sinful pride which Alexander Pope characterised as
It is deeply regrettable that when talking about education the chief executive should have demonstrated a vulgar streak which debased and demeaned our borough and brought it into hatred, ridicule and contempt. You probably will not believe this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but last week I was browsing in the Library through a magazine called "PR Week", of which I have a copy with me. Speaking of what he described as "maverick teachers" in Hackney, Tony Elliston, at a meeting of the Institute of Public Relations, said:
When the chaos was at its height in Hackney's education department I went to see one of the officers, Mohamed Mehmet. By then, the director of education, Gus John, had been driven out of his post, all the second-tier officers had gone, and Mohamed, who was about to leave, was the last of the third tier officers. It was like being on a beachhead where the battle plan had gone wrong. All around was desolation, and as the bright Byronic sun of the beachhead disappeared behind the clouds, the wind withered in the stagnant air, the waves died, the tides returned to their graves, and darkness became the universe. A whole department had been destroyed, morale had been sapped and Mohamed was getting out before he took the hit for everything that was wrong.
The new management structure prepared for Hackney by the chief executive is based on the dumbing down of intelligence, professionalism and specialist expertise. It was rejected by head teachers, governors, the National Union of Teachers and Labour councillors. Amazingly, for the first time in history the head teachers and the NUT found themselves on the same side of an industrial dispute--between the chief executive and the Government.
The great virtue of the work of the improvement team was that, for the first time in the history of Hackney education, everyone was consulted and everyone agreed--except for the chief executive and a couple of political parties motivated by malice.
I ask the Minister of State to make it clear in the immediate future that the work of the improvement team has his full confidence, and that it should not be deflected from its task of doing the best that it can for the future of Hackney's children. Everything that the local education authority does must be geared to that end, and that end only. Any help and resources that the Government can give to meeting that goal will be much appreciated. More resources really are needed.
Unfortunately, some of the administrative and political problems will not be overcome until the local elections in May 1998, when Labour will be returned to power. Political stability combined with common sense will then return. I suspect that, come May 1998, the advice of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions will be sought on the proper method of getting rid of a recalcitrant chief executive.
"The world is made up for the most part of fools and knaves."
Faced with that situation, I have no hesitation in saying that the only course open to the Government was to intervene directly, despite their limited legal powers, to help Hackney's schoolchildren. The Government's intervention was welcomed by teachers, parents and school governors. It is the considered view of most people--myself included--that the Minister for School Standards, who will reply to the debate, handled the intervention with great skill and sensitivity. I was present when he met head teachers in Hackney and can therefore pay tribute to his understanding, knowledge and professionalism. We were all impressed.
"the toxic waste of American management theory circa 1975"
which
"reads like a menu for a Harvester restaurant"
and which was viewed by head teachers as plain idiotic?
"the never failing vice of fools".
It is my considered view that bullies and fools such as Mr. Elliston have to be faced down. Just as the bully boy in the playground has to be excluded if he does not mend his ways, so the bully boy in charge of Hackney council should, if he does not change his ways, be excluded from public life.
"Hackney is always in the shit. It's just a question of how deep it is".
1 Dec 1997 : Column 132
Speaking, furthermore, about Ms Lorraine Langham, an executive director of the council, he said:
Where else in Britain is there a chief executive who refers to his council staff as shit? Does his executive director really use the schoolboy language of bodily functions when she speaks to the chief executive? And how does any of this help our schoolchildren who get only one chance in life? Perhaps Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Daws and Tory leader Joe Lobenstein, who support the chief executive in his filth, can tell us.
"Lorraine's approach to the media is that you can't polish a turd."
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