Posted in Education

The National Policy Forum Annual Report 2017

The NPF Annual Report was quietly released on 3rd August by placing it on membersnet but making no announcement of the fact. Would it have been so hard to email members to tell them the document is now available?

Despite this publicity-shy approach (the report was not even available on the Policy Forum website at the time of writing) we are told in the opening pages: “We want as many people as possible to get involved … Together we can build a policy platform to tackle the challenges our country faces …”.

You can download the full annual report here. If you have not got time to read the whole thing but would like to focus on one or more of the policy areas covered by the eight policy commissions, then here are the separate reports for printing separately: Early Years, Education and Skills, Economy, Business and Trade, Environment, Energy and Culture, Health and Care, Housing, Local Government and Transport, International, Justice and Home Affairs, Work, Pensions and Equality. The text of the reports varies between four and six pages. Continue reading →

No houses, no lunches, no foreigners: Theresa May launches her vision for Britain

Only death and taxes

Theresa May’s shock announcement has been that her next government would make more people pay for their own social care at home. Under new means-testing rules, pensioners would start to pay for care at home as long as they had assets of more than £100,000, rather than the current £23,500, but the new calculation will include pensioners’ homes. This means that thousands more elderly people would be affected and have to pay for their own care. The policy would work by allowing people to run up the costs and pay for it out of their estate when they die. A “death tax”, as opponents have already labelled it. Continue reading →

What does a good early years care and education system look like?

The latest National Policy Forum consultation document on ‘Early Years, Education and Skills’ recognises there is much work to be done within the education sector yet seems to miss some key points. Our education system has taken quite a battering over the last few years and Labour must ensure that it addresses all crucial areas.

The consultation document starts by rightly acknowledging the need for quality early years provision. Since 2010 the Tories have closed 1,240 Sure Start Centres despite their promise to protect them. The Tories have also struggled to deliver on their 2015 election promise of 30 hours a week of free childcare. The NPF document asks:

What does a good early years care and education system look like? How can we ensure value for money but also that children have access to the best care possible?

How can we spread excellence in early years education so that every child, regardless of their background, is given the best possible start in life?

Continue reading →

NPF Responses: Education

The Consultation document for Early Years, Education and Skills says that this year’s task for the Commission was to to do

“further work on building a modern early years system, developing a schools system for the 21st century, modernising further education and adult skills and how we can improve children’s social care and safeguarding as priorities for this year”.

The opening section (Labour’s Vision) assures us that Labour wants to build a world-class early years, education and skills system system that serves all. But then, of course, everyone says that. Equally generally, we are also told that “Labour’s aim is to build a National Education Service which would be open to all throughout their lives”. The lack of clear specific ideas, on this and in the rest of the document, is disconcerting. Continue reading →

What’s in the NPF draft policy statements?

According to the Labour Party Rulebook:

“Party conference shall decide from time to time what specific proposals of legislative, financial or administrative reform shall be included in the Party programme. This shall be based on the rolling programme of work of the National Policy Forum.” (Emphasis added)

The results of that “rolling programme of work” emerge at this time of the year giving members a few weeks to read and discuss them and to get their party branches and CLP to respond. It’s a tight timetable and there is room to doubt the value of the consultation that this purports to be. Continue reading →