Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: PM Speech/Education, Pay, Berlin Meeting and Immigration/Morecambe Bay.
PM Speech/Education
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister would be making a speech this afternoon at the new Capital City Academy in Willesden. The key theme was the launch of the Building Schools for the Future initiative through which the Government planned to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England over the next fifteen years, as part of a capital spending programme which due to reach £5.1bn 2005. The first wave of the programme would involve fourteen LEAs sharing over £2bn (from the £5.1bn). Each one would be asked to come up with a systematic ‘renewal plan’ to overhaul their school buildings, moving away from the ’sticking plaster’ approach of the past - fixing of a roof here or a broken window there - to a thorough going review of the size, character and number of schools locality by locality. In the plans, the LEAs would be asked to consider the scope for City Academies above the fifty three we wanted to see by 2007.
In his speech, the Prime Minister was expected to say:
"Where the challenge is greatest, the reform must be boldest - and academies embody that principle.
"This will be the greatest school renewal programme in British history, reversing a generation of under-investment in our schools.
"It is made possible by capital spending rising to £5.1bn by 2005 - over seven times the £700m inherited in 1997. This is a massive investment in our nation’s future."
Asked if the money would be spent on PFI/PPP contracts, the PMOS said that the first wave of the programme would involve fourteen LEAs who would share £2bn of the £5.1bn. Those LEAs would be: Bradford, Bristol, Gateshead and South Tyneside, Knowsley, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Newham, Sheffield, Solihull, Southwark, Greenwich and Lewisham, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Waltham Forest. Eventually, the programme would be rolled out to every secondary school across England and Wales. In the past, repairs to schools had meant patch and repair. The Building Schools for the Future initiative was about systematic renewal, whether rebuilding or refurbishment. Asked if the purpose of the programme was to encourage LEAs to look at PPPs, the PMOS pointed out that City Academies, by their very nature, involved sponsorship as the scheme was all about businesses working with local communities. These were specialist schools. For example, the Capital City Academy in Willesden, which the Prime Minister was visiting today, specialised in sport.
Asked if schools were going to have to bid for the money, the PMOS said no. It was up to the LEAs to come up with a ‘renewal plan’ in which they would need to consider seriously the scope for City Academies which, as was well known, were independently managed. This was investment and reform, hand-in hand. The key point was the focus on the management, governors, teaching and curriculum. They would need to consider not only the size, but the character and number of schools locality by locality. Asked if the money being allocated was new money, the PMOS said no. It was coming out of the Department’s budget which had been allocated in last year’s Budget. Today’s announcement was outlining details about how the money was going to be spent. It was a systematic way of making up for the under-investment of previous years.
Asked if schools could be knocked down and rebuilt under the initiative, the PMOS said that at the moment, the programme was focussing in particular on deprived areas. Eventually, it would be rolled out to every secondary school in England and Wales. In order to deliver a personalised education service for each child, we were asking LEAs to provide a proper assessment of whether a school building needed to be replaced or refurbished - in other words, to come up with a building that was new, or as new, and was therefore fit for the next generation. Asked if it was fair to ask schools to wait for the national rollout, the PMOS said that the point of today’s announcement was to underline that LEAs should move away from the ‘mend as you go’ option and examine rationally instead what needed to be done. If a school was in a very bad state, then of course it would be considered in the first wave of the programme if it was one of the fourteen LEA areas. Asked what the school should do if it wasn’t in one of the initial fourteen LEA areas, the PMOS pointed out that this was not the only money being spent on schools. It was part of a plan to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England over the next fifteen years, as part of a capital spending programme which due to reach £5.1bn 2005.
Asked if today’s announcement was an indication that the Government’s education policy had slipped, the PMOS said no. He noted that the only reason why this sort of rational, systematic approach was possible was because of the work that had been done in the past. In the same way - and in the light of the recent debate about Government targets - it was only possible to refine the policy down because of the work that had been done before. This applied both to hospitals and schools. People were already recognising that changes were taking place in our public services. What they wanted to know, however, was that the process of change was going to be carried through in a way that delivered to every area. Today’s announcement was a strong indication of the Government’s commitment that that would happen.
Asked if headteachers had been consulted about the Government’s Building Schools for the Future initiative or whether the policy was being imposed on them, the PMOS said that anyone who had seen the reaction of the teachers, pupils and community leaders at Bexley Business Academy last September would recognise that this was what schools, teachers and parents wanted because it provided the location, building, skills and equipment they needed for a personalised education. The purpose of the programme was not only to make up for a lack of investment in the past, but to go beyond that by providing the equipment they needed for the future. That was the important thing.
Pay
The PMOS advised journalists that the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) had submitted its recommendations on pay, to which the Prime Minister had published his response this morning. Simultaneous Written Ministerial Statement were also being made today by Geoff Hoon (Armed Forces), David Blunkett (Prison Service) and Paul Murphy (Prison Service, Northern Ireland). The main recommendations, which the Government accepted, were: an increase, from April 1 2004, of 2% to the pay ranges for each of the SCS pay bands; a range of performance related base pay awards from 0 to 9% - a minimum bonus payment of 3% of salary or £2,500, whichever was the higher, for those who qualified; an uplift to the Permanent Secretaries pay ranges resulting in a new range of £121,100 to £256,550; low performance would also be recognised with the bottom 5-10% of performers receiving awards of between 0% and 2% - i.e. a real terms pay cut.
Asked by how much MPs’ salaries would rise, the PMOS said that they would increase by 2%. Asked about Prime Minister’s salary, the PMOS said that it would go up from £175,414 to £178,922. The PMOS took the opportunity to point out that a three-year review into parliamentary salaries was due to report later on in the year. Asked if the Prime Minister would take his entire salary, the PMOS said yes. Questioned about Cabinet Ministers’ pay, the PMOS said that their salaries would rise from £127,791 to £130,347. Asked about the Lord Chancellor, the PMOS said that, as Lord Falconer had already set out, he would receive the pay of a Secretary of State in the House of Lords - i.e. around £98,000. Asked if judges were included in the SSRB recommendations, the PMOS said yes.
In answer to questions about bonuses and performance-related pay, the PMOS said that we expected bonuses to be awarded to just over half of the SCS - about 1,900 out of a total of around 3,700. Asked if Cabinet Ministers could also receive bonuses, the PMOS said no. The scheme only applied to the Senior Civil Service.
Berlin Meeting
The PMOS informed journalists that the Prime Minister would be having a dinner/meeting with Chancellor Schroeder in Berlin later today. They would take the opportunity to discuss the IGC and foreign policy issues such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. They would also look ahead to next week’s Trilateral summit in Berlin on 18 February, which would focus on EU economic reform in preparation for the EU Spring Summit in Brussels next month. The PMOS reminded journalists that the UK, France and Germany had also produced a joint paper ahead of the Spring Summit last year. Asked if the Prime Minister was also intending to hold a bilateral with President Chirac in Paris, the PMOS said that he was not aware of any plans for him to do so at this stage.
Immigration/Morecambe Bay
Questioned about the warning the Home Office had received last year about the cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay, the PMOS said that as the Immigration Service had made clear, it had referred only to one operation. Both the Immigration Service and the police had been involved in other operations in the Morecambe Bay area, including one in August 2003. Consequently, the assumption that they had been ignoring the problem was false.
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