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The Privatisation of Education and Spending Cuts

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Connexions Closures and Spending Cuts

We welcome the support of community groups opposing the privatisation of education and spending cuts in services.

Claimant v Lewisham Council and Others

An unrepresented Black employee has brought a multi discrimination case against Lewisham Council, Babcock Education and Skills Limited, (a company which comes under the umbrella of the FTSE 100 Company Babcock International Group PLC) and 8 individual respondents.

A 20 day hearing involving an alleged sustained campaign of bullying, harassment and victimisation against a Black disabled employee by Babcock management, over a two year period is taking place from 9 January 2012 at Croydon Employment Tribunal. Lewisham Council is also a co-Respondent in the case.

The issues being dealt with are alleged bullying in the workplace, race and disability discrimination, failures to make 'reasonable adjustments', breaches of policies and procedures and whistleblowing detriments relating to numerous health and safety breaches, data protection breaches etc.

The claimant is unrepresented and conducting the entire case on her own. She is claiming that the respondents have caused severe and long-lasting damage to her health.

A reliable source has advised that the Claimant has submitted a 260 page witness statement and over 2500 pages of evidence supporting her case.

The Judge dealing with the case is Adenike Muinat Balogun. She previously served as a Judge at the Southampton Tribunal.

Solicitors firm Paris Smith based in Southampton and Barrister Martin Palmer are defending the respondents.

Click here to read the pre-hearing review judgment

The Claimant involved in the above case and her former colleagues will also be giving evidence at the PHR for a collective TUPE claim against Babcock and Lewisham Council. The pubic hearing is due to take place at Croydon Tribunal from 27 February 2012, lasting up to 5 days.

Lewisham Council ended it's contract with Babcock, a private company which provided the Connexions service for the local authority. The contract expired on 31 March 2011, after which point both Lewisham Council and Babcock refused to take responsibility for all the 37 staff who had been employed to work on the contract. Lewisham Council only agreed to transfer 4 staff.

On 1 April 2011 Nick French (Consultant for Lewisham Council) informed over 20 ex-Connexions staff who had turned up to petition the council for work, that the council would transfer only 4 staff.

Babcock refused to issue staff with redundancy notices and Lewisham Council refused to TUPE over the remaining staff. Staff have literally been left in limbo since 1 April 2011.

The transferred staff were not consulted over TUPE and the remaining staff were not consulted over a redundancy situation or a TUPE situation.
There are also a number of disabled employees involved.

This was a similar situation to which took place with Brighton Connexions in 2010 and Southwark Connexions last year. In both cases though, the dispute was resolved and the councils in question (Brighton and Hove and Southwark) agreed to TUPE back the staff into the council from the private company who had lost both contracts (Prospects).

It is utterly deplorable that the former Connexions staff are being treated in this way.

Companies with Shareholdings in Babcock

Standard Life Investment Limited

Cantillon Capital Management

Fidelity Management & Research Company

Blackrock, Inc

Ignis Investment Services Limited

Deutsche Bank AG

Legal & General Group Plc

Schroders plc

JPMorgan Chase & Co

Government Funding

Babcock hold contracts with government funding bodies:

Skills Funding Agency

Department for employment and learning

Scottish Enterprise

Skills Development Scotland

Welsh Assembly Government

Department for employment and learning Northern Ireland

Commercial Partners

Babcock also delivers training programmes to the following companies:

David Lloyd Leisure

Little Chef

Butlins

Marriott

Volkswagen

Nandos

Ann Summers

Travelodge

Accor Hospitality

Road Chef

De Vere

Park Inn

Sodexo

Marston's

Mitchells and Butlers

Shoe Zone

Legal Services Commission

Elior

John Deere

Babcock Education and Skills Limited is the UK's biggest provider of education and training.

BabcockEnterprise works with a wide range of adults and it delivers many Connexions contracts throughout the UK.

The parent company- Babcock International Groups PLC, also has partnerships with several Local authorities through a joint venture company Babcock 4S.

BSF is central to Babock’s education business. Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is a programme, running between 2005 and 2020, to rebuild or renew all of England’s 3,500 state secondary schools.

Babcock is intended to be one of the  partners in the proposed Trust of Lewisham Special Schools.

Babcock already co-sponsors four academies and has plans for more.

Click on the following links to see more information about the closure of Lewisham Connexions:

Mercury Today News Article

Newsshopper News Article

TES News Article

The Observer News Article

Unions Joint Briefing on Cuts to Careers Service

Update on Changes Taking Place

The Children and Young People Now Article

The Green Party Supports Petition to Save Connexions

The Guardian Newspaper's Coverage on the Closure of Lewisham Connexions and spending cuts

The Newsshopper's Coverage on Connexions Former Employee's Petitioning Lewishan Council for Work: The Council only transferred 5 out of the 35 staff

Other Connexions Closures in South London-July 2011

Lib Dem Article, July 2011- South London Connexions Closures and spending cuts

Connexions in Transistion

Freedom of Information Responses Relating to Lewisham Connexions

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Reference No: 133824

Thank you for your recent request. We are pleased to provide the following information:-

1 - How much has Lewisham got to spend for the Early Intervention Grant?

The government notified Lewisham that it had an Early Intervention Grant of £17.65m as part of the 13 December local government settlement.

2 - What is the Early Intervention Grant been used for currently?

The Early Intervention Grant only comes into existence 1 April 2011 so there is no spending under this heading in 2010/11 financial year.

3 - Where has this money been allocated?

The Early Intervention Grant is a new grant. The Mayor has not made a final decision on the allocation of the grant sum for the next financial year.

4 - What areas has Lewisham identified for early intervention?

The local authority is considering the following areas of allocation of the grant in 2011/12.

        Four areas to comprise a new Early Intervention Service:

        Four other key areas of activity:

5 - What was the decision making process and criteria?

The proposals are in draft at the moment until proposed formally to the Mayor. In making overall grant allocations to these areas consideration has been given to government statements about the long term future of services and the sums spent in the past on the services proposed to continue.  The services proposed are all targeted towards the most vulnerable pupils in the community of Lewisham in line with the purposes of the grant.

6 - What factors were taken into consideration?

See 5 above

7 - What LBL MI was used to make the decision?

As services are to be targeted rather than universal then management information on existing targeted services was considered to the extent that data indicated good performance in supporting targeted groups.

8 - What studies were commissioned & by who
None

9 - Why is the Mayors Scheme being funded from the Connexions Service?
The Mayor's NEET Trainee programme is funded from a number of grants, Connexions, the Mayor's budget, and Positive Activities for Young People. Connexions partly fund the Mayor's NEET trainee programme as the programme contributes to the Connexions primary target of NEET reduction. 

10 - How was this decision made and by who ?
This is a historical arrangement agreed between the Mayor of Lewisham and the Connexions and Youth Services managers in post in 2006. The decision was made because the Program contributed to aims of all these funding streams.

11 - Number of Full time, part time youth workers
25 Full-time and 185 part-time

12 - Minutes of your meeting regarding the Connexions Service, Youth Service that included the decision making process.
There are no minutes that fulfil the terms of this request.

As previously advised, we would need clarification from you in relation to your comment of "Youth Services, training, qualifications, professional practice and skill set". To enable us to respond, we would need you to be more specific in clarifying what your request is asking for and what information you would like to be provided with. Should we receive clarification from you, your request will be acknowledged and considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any statutory exemptions.

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Reference No: 133172

Thank you for your recent request to be provided with the minutes of all meetings within the Directorate for Children and Young People held since September 2010 (inclusive) to January 2011 (inclusive). As outlined within my email sent 17 January, we are unable to respond to your request based on the details you have provided and would need further information from you.

As there are many areas within the Directorate, we would need you to be specific about the issue that your request relates to and clarify what type of minutes within the Children & Young People's Directorate that you would like to be provided with.

I'm sorry I cannot assist you with all the information you require and hope that this prompt response is helpful. If we do receive clarification for you, your request will be acknowledged and considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any statutory exemptions.

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Reference No: 135624

Thank you for your recent request regarding the Council's Connexions contract. I can inform you that the performance against the Connexions contract is measured in a number of ways:

(i) A bi-monthly multi-agency IAG strategy meeting monitors NEET and EET figures and subcategories on NEET for example the number of young offenders in NEET. The meeting also advises on the required Connexions intervention need to further reduce NEET figures.

(ii). Quarterly performance reports are provided to and reviewed by, the Local Authority.

(iii) Regular one-to-one meetings between the Head of Integrated Youth support and the Babcock area manager.

If the Council finds that the contractor has not complied with its equality obligations, these issues would be raised in one-to-one meetings between the Head of Integrated Youth Support and the Babcock Area Manager.

It is Babcock's responsibility to comply with the Equal Opportunities legislation; it is not the Local Authorities responsibility to conduct an EIA.

To help the Mayor in his decision whether or not to renew or re-let the Connexions service contract with Babcock PLC, the Local Authority undertook a one-off EIA.

There are no minutes to provide that fulfil the terms of your request.
On 7 January 2011, Babcock was initially advised by the Council that Connexions would be closed and that their contract would not be renewed. A subsequent letter was sent on 3 February 2011 indicating that this would be subject to the Mayor's agreement on 17 February.

We hope you will find this information helpful.

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Reference No: 138846

Thank you for your recent request regarding the Council's Connexions contract. I can inform you that during the life of the contract, Careers Enterprise has been taken over by VT PLC who have subsequently been taken over by Babcock PLC; they are the same entity delivering on the same Connexions contract with the Council. The contract runs from August 2008 until March 2011. Lewisham Council rented the Connexions One-Stop-Shop on Lewisham High Street.

We hope you will find this information helpful.

**PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CONNEXIONS STAFF WERE DIRECTLY EMPLOYED BY CAREERS ENTERPRISE LIMITED BETWEEN AUGUST 2008 AND MARCH 2011. ACCORDING TO COMPANIES HOUSE RECORDS, BABCOCK INTERNATIONAL GROUP PLC AND CAREERS ENTERPRISE LIMITED ARE LISTED AS SEPARATE LEGAL ENTITIES (also see TUC's Website for further details of the company structure: under 'subsidiaries' )**

Protest Over The Privatisation Of Education In Lewisham

Other Cuts in Lewisham Borough