There was a further pleasant surprise in today's Evening Standard:
From the Red Corner: Schools in central London could be left with "ghost classrooms" with no pupils because of a crackdown on housing benefit. Shadow work and pensions minister, Karen Buck [a woman who actually looks like her own caricature], warned [sic] schools in Westminster and other inner London boroughs could face funding crises if pupil numbers slump. Westminster council admits that its primary schools could lose 1,540 pupils or nearly 260 per school year.
Yadda, yadda, blah, shroud, wave etc.
Housing Benefit is one of the most horrendous benefits, being a subsidy to land ownership (i.e. more or less the opposite of LVT*), but even assuming we need to have it, for political reasons, why does everybody assume that the status quo is 'normal'? What if twenty years ago the government had simply capped it at £50 per person per week or something and not indexed it for inflation? Then the 'hard pressed families' who are now being 'ethnically cleansed' wouldn't be where they are in the first place.
Luckily, there's a breath of fresh air from the Blue Corner: Cllr Philippa Roe, Westminster's strategic finance chief said the figures were based on all pupils whose families would be affected by the caps - not those expected to have to move. She said the higher figures did not take into account other families who could move into properties vacated because of the caps, pupils who would move home but stay at the same school and outer-borough pupils. "It does not mean we are going to have lots of empty desks," she said.
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Labour leader on Westminster council, claimed some schools could see cuts in funding, which is based on pupil numbers, and be forced to sack teachers*. But Cllr Roe said many schools were already oversubscribed. The limits of £400-a-week for a four-bedroom home, £340 for a three-bedroom home, £290 for a two-bedroom home and £250 for a one-bedroom home already apply to new housing benefit claimants and will come into force for families already receiving the payments in January.
* As a Land Value Taxer, I've had it up to here with tales of Poor Widows In Mansions Being Forced To Downsize (none of them would be forced to actually sell up, by very definition, as the LVT on any home would always be less than the potential rental income therefrom) and all this wailing about 'ethnic cleansing' and 'mixed communities' is water off a duck's back, frankly. The result of caps on Housing Benefit will be that overall rent levels for non-HB claimants fall slightly, which is surely A Good Thing?
** Presumably, if there is a mass upheaval and pupils really shift to schools in cheaper suburbs, the better teachers will have no prob's moving jobs? They might even find it more convenient for travel.
What have we wrought in the UK?
7 hours ago
7 comments:
** Presumably, if there is a mass upheaval and pupils really shift to schools in cheaper suburbs, the better teachers will have no prob's moving jobs? They might even find it more convenient for travel.
You absolute unfeeling Fascist bahastard. How dare you even hint that the status quo might change over time? What abaht the right of public servants not to have reality intrude on their lives, innit?
Next you know it'll be their pensions............ oh.
What abaht the right of private servants* not to have reality intrude on their lives too?
Dont you guys get it yet. Both the private and welfare state are fleecing us all. Picking out civil servants for blame is ignoring half the problem, for your own benefit.
* Slaves, aka homeownerists and renters.
One thing highlighted by this sort of situation is the absurdity of having funding for state schools laid down from on high.
"On High" is a wonderful place stuffed to the gills with people who know how to run everything despite never having had to run anything themselves.
The number of children in any area is bound to fluctuate year-by-year. The village primary might have a new intake of 6 this year and 15 next, well - it just has to cope. It would be able to cope a lot better if: (i) every child had a voucher for £X per year and (ii) teachers were employed on annual contracts with break clauses so that schools have an appropriate level of funding for the number of pupils and are not weighed down with unnecessary staff.
FT, "unfeeling" is my middle name, according to the small minority who'd be worse off if I were in charge.
RS, picking out civil servants is ignoring about 4/5 of the problem, actually.
TFB: "It would be able to cope a lot better if: (i) every child had a voucher for £X per year" Yes of course, but now you are dragging 'sensible policies' into this.
I like this bit:
"Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Labour leader on Westminster council, claimed some schools could see cuts in funding, which is based on pupil numbers, and be forced to sack teachers"
Well, they'll be staring at an empty classroom, according to the dodgy report. Kinda hard to justify keeping them on.
This was on the news at 10 t'other night (I forget whether ITV or BBC; presumably the latter).
Obligatory talking head wheeled out (single mum in Westminster, natch): "They should really think hard about this otherwise there'll be no poor people left living in Central London".
Of course, that's paraphrased but the gist of it.
Who says the BBC no longer produce great comedy?
TT, if I were a Tory councillor in Westminster, I'd be tempted to change my name to Mark Smartyoungenberg just to p- him off.
Anon, if they gave these 'poor' people in central London their Housing Benefit as non-earmarked cash and told them to sort themselves out, they'd all leave central London like a shot and live the life of princes out in the shires.
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