Professionals send Brixton property prices surging by 15%

[Gramsci]

Vast amounts of it go to intermediaries, parasitic organisations existing between the state and recipients. Our volunteers were "placed" with us by A4E, which is another reason we won't be using the scheme again. We got a bit of free labour, they got paid. Our apprentices also came through a "learning provider" which got paid to place them with us. Why the jobcentre couldn't do it beats me, but no, we have to have these private-sector organisations paid almost entirely public money to do what the public sector could and should be doing. It's a nasty web of semi-official corruption. Same sort of scam that G4S pulled on the Olympic security and there are hundreds more of these shadowy parasitic organisations existing to suck the life out of every new initiative from every department of government. Because they're private sector they're practically unaccountable, immune to FOI etc and mostly run by mates of those in power. They're much more dangerous than the quangos they have largely replaced.

G4S business practises are standard ones in the security industry. Also getting more the norm elsewhere. It was not a scam. It was managerial failure. G4S , for a large business , employ few people on a permanent basis. They employ people on short term contracts. So if they get contract to do security for an office block for a year they employ people for a year. If contract rolls over u keep your job. If not its bye bye.

The Olympic fuck up meant that this became more widely known, I chat to security guards so none of this surprised me. If G4S had not messed up the workers would still have had the usual shit deal.

As a security guard told me security guards wardrobes are filled with different uniforms. As they have to go from firm to firm on different short term contracts.

Some security firms "employ" people on zero hours contracts. So u have to be available but they do not gaurentee u work. This means u get no sick pay etc.

Big and small business say they cannot pay the living wage. Pret a Manger for example will boost your wage with a bonus to just over £7 an hour. But this may be lost for a month if the "mystery shoppers" who visit stores find a fault.

Its how capitalism works in modern Britain. A lot of jobs are like this.

So lifes pretty shit for u if u sell your labour.

Good article here by economic journalist for the Guardian:

So what's happened? The first thing to note is that this is not a new phenomenon. Life has been getting tougher for labour for decades, with the real break coming in the 1980s. Over the past 35 years there has been a marked shift from wages to profits in the UK economy, with labour's share of national income falling from 59% in 1977 to 53% in 2008 and the share of profits up from 25% to 29% over the same period.
Over the same period, median earnings failed to keep pace with growth in the economy as measured by gross domestic product. Had they done so, median earnings for full-time workers would be £7,000 a year higher than they are.

A rising share of wages in national income would lead to stronger demand. Reed and Himmelweit say this could be achieved either by reform of the financial sector so it has a less pivotal role in the economy, a full-blooded campaign to raise skill levels or reforms to wage bargaining. A rising share of wages in national income would require either a prolonged period of full employment or a rethink of UK economic policy making over the past 30 years. Neither looks remotely probable.

"The UK is turning into an old-style third world country with low pay growth for most workers below managerial level, widening pay differentials and poor levels of capital investment," Chater says.

So low wages and increasing inequality might have been good for the City but its not for everyone else.

The problem with outfits like A4E is not that they milk the state for profits. The underlying problem would not change if the job centre took the role of A4E.

Getting back to the topic its hardly surprising given this that housing is getting more difficult to afford for many.

 

[Manter]

As long as you 'don't mention the war'. I didn't get away with it

could never get anyone in the middle east off the subject for long!

 

[Manter]

G4S business practises are standard ones in the security industry. Also getting more the norm elsewhere. It was not a scam. It was managerial failure. G4S , for a large business , employ few people on a permanent basis. They employ people on short term contracts. So if they get contract to do security for an office block for a year they employ people for a year. If contract rolls over u keep your job. If not its bye bye.

As a security guard told me security guards wardrobes are filled with different uniforms. As they have to go from firm to firm on different short term contracts.

Some security firms "employ" people on zero hours contracts. So u have to be available but they do not gaurentee u work. This means u get no sick pay etc.
.

2 things spring to mind.

fristly, zero hours contracts are, in my opinion, to work of the devil. And not in a good way. I fundamentally think they are immoral, and have spent a fair amount of time looking for annualised hours solutions for a couple of clients to prevent their introduction. Which is one of the reasons I think they are so despicable- there are better, equally cost effective solutions, that offer both sides a win. I know annualised hours are more complicated to introduce and manage, but employers can manage it if they apply their brains, and it is too important not to. So zero hours is utterly indefensible on any grounds IMHO

secondly, on the short term contracts- I have ranted before about a 2 tier employment model developing, and short term contracts are a real example of that. Friends from professional services take on short term contracts to turbocharge their income- many have doubled their income moving away from salaried work- they are paid extra for uncertainty and flexibility. The staff you are talking about are paid less on short term contracts as they don't acrue rights and just have to manage uncertainty of income.

It is a very strange hole we have got ourselves into and is unsustainable IMO

 

[ymu]

no one seems to like them (except the Iranians, sporadically) but everyone seems to want their money

no one seems v keen on the palestinians either, ime

For rather different reasons than they hate the Saudi monarchs!

The 1948 and1967 wars drove a lot of Palestinians into neighbouring countries, where most have been living in miserable refugee camps ever since. Palestine, at the time, was the most secular country in the ME and the refugees were considered a threat to the theocratic dictatorships who hosted them. The treatment of Palestinian refugees living on the borders of Palestine/Israel is often no better than the treatment of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation - Jordan are a little better than the others, Syria and especially Lebanon the worst, with armed guards on the gates of the camps and restricted occupations.

G4S business practises are standard ones in the security industry. Also getting more the norm elsewhere. It was not a scam. It was managerial failure. G4S , for a large business , employ few people on a permanent basis. They employ people on short term contracts.

Crapita have been in charge of every DoH project I've been involved in over the last ten years. They have no internal expertise - they buy it in at consultancy rates. So, the DoH gets them in to do a project and they employ people like me - already on the public sector pay role - at eye-watering consultancy rates to do the job or to train up people with fuck all experience to do it badly.

They throw their hands up in horror at the idea of a senior civil servant being paid 6 figures, but it's fuck all compared to the millions the bosses of these companies take home. Fucking con artists. It's ridiculous - and dangerous, given that we're talking about money-grubbing amateurs taking over important roles in the health service.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Crapita took over the IT systems at my last school. What a nightmare. Also, you'd think that they'd know that in a large premises that there are staff and kids who just might have disabilities. This struck them as a big surprise on the first day of term. It took them months to sort out the ability to increase text size for me

We weren't initially allowed to directly ask the IT people on site for anything but had to email somewhere hundreds of miles away to raise a job. This meant that where previously there was a problem in a lesson with IT stuff you'd ask a kid to fetch the technician from just along the corridor and chances were it would be sorted in 5 minutes and the lesson could continue. That level of speed and efficiency became a thing of the past.

 

[ViolentPanda]

no one seems to like them (except the Iranians, sporadically) but everyone seems to want their money

no one seems v keen on the palestinians either, ime

The Iranians try to diplomatically and economically rub along with the Saudis purely on the basis of there being a significant Shia minority in Saudi who could very much come in for a lot of bother if things got frosty between the two nation-states.
In all other spheres they're pretty much absolutely opposed, though.

 

[Orang Utan]

I can be more precise.

Free school meals is a proxy for 'poverty'.

These are the approximate free school meal ratios for four neighbouring Brixton schools:

Jubilee: 50%
King's Avenue: 50%
Sudbourne: 30%
Corpus Christi: 10%

Statistically, they should have quite similar percentages.

Sudbourne's lower rate is explained, in part, by the more expensive housing.

Corpus Christi's is explained by Roman Catholic selection policies.

do you have a link for those figures for other schools in the borough?

 

[leanderman]

On the DfE website there is a tool that allows for such comparisons. Individual Ofsted reports carry the figures. They suggest that school results correlate pretty efficiently with 'poverty' rates.

 

[Orang Utan]

cheers. i want to find out %s of SEN too, so i'll guess i'll find them there too.

 

[leanderman]

Just look under statistics. Then postcode search. The most egregious example is Richard Atkins with 56.3pc free school meals and Corpus Christi a few yards down Brixton Hill at 10.8pc.

 

[leanderman]

Yep. The same suspicious discrepancies are seen in SEN ratios.

 

[leanderman]

Yep. The same suspicious discrepancies are seen in SEN ratios.

 

[leanderman]

Damned Tapatalk double phone posts!

 

[snadge]

Notorious arseholes more like it. Not a fan of Saudis I have to say.

Saudis are the most obnoxious of the M eastern cauldron, Persians are fabulous though.


I will add this to the discussion.

I am a northerner, made redundant at 21yrs old in '81 with an unfinished apprenticeship, '83 was living in a squat in Shoreditch with people looking to scam the system for profit, even then it was happening before Thatcher made it obvious.

I moved back North, festered on the Dole for 3 years, started working in ME.

Nowadays I am single, 50 years old, no pension, no savings, have a lovely house with views but got it as a bargain, I have worked sporadically around the globe for extremely good money, haven't signed on for 20 years now and haven't paid tax/NI in this country for about the same amount of time.

There are thousands of people that have become disjointed from the normalised existence, in my line of work 80% of people are in the same situation as me, we are non existent to the HMRC and DWP.

Couple of years time this sector of society that actully are not on records are going to explode, further wrecking the economy, it's not about gentrification in Brixton, the Whole country is going to realise the rash decisions that where formulated in the Thatcher years.


Monetary worth is irrelevant when the overseas workers like myself want their pensions.


BTW Manter, your posts have been enlightening, I have really enjoyed reading them and if we ever meet, the sparkling wine is on me.

 

[cesare]

Did you pay voluntary NICs for the years you were working abroad, snadge? If not, you may want to consider getting a state pension forecast.

 

[newbie]

He's growing older and grumpier...it's a growing trend with many posters here, me included.

obviously. there's no other explanation.

 

[newbie]

I remember when his tagline was 'part of the problem' cos I think that was on a thread like this at least 8 years ago) but that's still how I think of his name in my head... "Newbie: part of the problem" .

you've got a better memory that me, but it's as true now as then. Everybody is. Apart from the utterly self absorbed, anyone who claims they're not is trying to sell you something, most likely religion.

 

[snowy_again]

Something I've learnt in the last few years is that SEN statementing happens too late for most early years children; which will have a knock on effect for funding for early years schools and then primary etc. If the borough won't put funding into it, its the schools or parents who can afford extra SEN tuition who will have fuller class sizes in January (when actual class sizes affects the amount of funding received in the year) and consequently will be more successful in getting their childs needs supported.

A system which supports the networked, and educated and adversely affects those who aren't.

 

[Orang Utan]

It also seems to me that there are many more children who need more help in the classroom than those officially statemented as having SEN. This is from very limited experience so ignore me if this is bullshit but there are probably plenty of floundering children receiving little to no extra help.

 

[nagapie]

There are tons of students who need statements that don't get them, for a number of reasons. But statements are going, part of the government's drive to get rid of special needs funding. They will be replaced by health care plans. No one knows what this really means but we're thinking more work for no additional funding so up to the school to fund, thus disproportionately affecting schools with higher need.
Also these days you have to have less than a level 1 to get a statement for literacy. This means you have to have P levels and then you will be eligible for a special school. So tons of pupils who really can't read or write are not entitled and just expected to get on in the mainstream. A Southwark insider also told me they are moving to no statements for autism. As the autistic population is growing, it's going to be considered normal; I really can't imagine a lot of my ASD students managing without statements. And this term in Lambeth, the Speech and Language service have discharged almost their entire caseload. So now only schools that can afford/prioritise spending for SEN will be buying SALT in. It's pretty fucked up.

 

[snowy_again]

It also seems to me that there are many more children who need more help in the classroom than those officially statemented as having SEN.

Very true, but it's not going to be addressed in state funded (ie. non academy / private) schools. Budgets are set against that Jan. admission figures; whilst the LA wants to maintain and improve OFSTED results, they don't have the funding to increase staff to pupil ratios.

Lambeth might be currently very interested in addressing early years prevention to address that key stage of support in both child development and support to parents, but they don't half have a bad way of dealing with it. I know they're looking for a big (£1.5 I guess) grant from the Big Lottery Fund to support early years development in the borough, which I would entirely support; the Coldharbour Ward alone has something like 1600 children at risk of social exclusion with a long term consequence on later educational and employment prospects, with very few services to support them at present, and at the same time cannot provide land or resources for sites or people to address it.

It's simple community development work; you create networks and support systems and places to enable people to access services they can afford and can understand. However it's currently being structured through passing on sites to make profit not just to provide good services at cost. In balance there is will from the LA to support the more effective local schools, but uncertainty from them to take on new services which they need to generate increased turnover to cover increased costs not met by LA funding.

Lastly you employ educational staff for their skills to teach children, not necessarily to run a profit making social enterprise. That skill development isn't supported, and goes back to that situation of 'those who know how to run business' and not those who know how to do community development through education.

Big Society bollocks excuse for funding cuts and they (Lambeth) haven't yet worked out how to manage it.

 

[snowy_again]

There are tons of students who need statements that don't get them, /quote] is there a ;like your comments, but not the consequence' option?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Big Society bollocks excuse for funding cuts and they (Lambeth) haven't yet worked out how to manage it.

Lambeth have an appalling record on statements. From 1982 to 1996 I worked on a project based in Lambeth and some things they did (and didn't do) was a constant strain. I knew of a severely autistic child who didn't get a statement for EIGHT years

 

[snadge]

Did you pay voluntary NICs for the years you were working abroad, snadge? If not, you may want to consider getting a state pension forecast.

Bugger that a lot of us just decided that it wasn't worth the effort.

Being able to commando some benefits because you have to account for yourselves and getting screwed by agencies who are supposed to cover your contributions, everyone else working the state line of accountability and getting screwed also, when this type of crap happens, screwing the state becomes more attractive the older you get.

There is a lot of people like me that have stayed off the radar for years.


Onto the Brixton thing, it is not only Brixton that has become unaffordable, everywhere in the country has also followed suit, I bought my bungalow for 85k 10 yrs ago, now a neighbor is renting his for 1200 a month and we are miles away from a tube station and I mean miles, it is not just London this is happening, it is all over the country, I expect interest rates to be going up in the next 8 months, just so the elite can wrangle some more land/properties of us plebs.

 

[gaijingirl]

There are tons of students who need statements that don't get them, for a number of reasons. But statements are going, part of the government's drive to get rid of special needs funding. They will be replaced by health care plans. No one knows what this really means but we're thinking more work for no additional funding so up to the school to fund, thus disproportionately affecting schools with higher need.
Also these days you have to have less than a level 1 to get a statement for literacy. This means you have to have P levels and then you will be eligible for a special school. So tons of pupils who really can't read or write are not entitled and just expected to get on in the mainstream. A Southwark insider also told me they are moving to no statements for autism. As the autistic population is growing, it's going to be considered normal; I really can't imagine a lot of my ASD students managing without statements. And this term in Lambeth, the Speech and Language service have discharged almost their entire caseload. So now only schools that can afford/prioritise spending for SEN will be buying SALT in. It's pretty fucked up.

I can't tell you how much this upsets me. Every day I feel more and more saddened about what is happening to our education system. I thought I would retire as a teacher and now I wonder if I'll make it through 2013. I love teaching too - really love it. I just can't believe how rapidly it's all falling (or being torn) apart.

 

[Orang Utan]

what have I let myself in for?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I can't tell you how much this upsets me. Every day I feel more and more saddened about what is happening to our education system. I thought I would retire as a teacher and now I wonder if I'll make it through 2013. I love teaching too - really love it. I just can't believe how rapidly it's all falling (or being torn) apart.

I've jumped ship already which makes me feel bad, but something had to give and it was me

 

[gaijingirl]

what have I let myself in for?

I suppose the answer is to just focus on your actual students and the teaching. That's what makes it such an amazing job. It truly is brilliant. The problem is all the other stuff - the politics, the endless endless changes, pointless paperwork, box ticking, bureaucracy and bullshit that surrounds it.

I might not have a job to go back to after my maternity leave anyway.

 

[gaijingirl]

I've jumped ship already which makes me feel bad, but something had to give and it was me

 

[nagapie]

what have I let myself in for?

I think that you'll enjoy it, like gg says focus on your kids. But you may find after x amount of years, you've had enough. That's ok too, nothing's forever any more. You can always change career again or go part-time. You might be one of those people that never wants to leave. Or find a sexy assistant head to hook up with and become a stay at home dad