FIGHT FOR THE FIVE - NO CONSULTATION, NO CLOSURE, NO COMPROMISE

After the announcement that Salford's five 'Oustanding' sure start nurseries have been earmarked for closure in the coming year, a meeting was quickly called to address the situation and what can be done about it.

In attendance at the packed out Hensley House venue were several of Salford's Labour councillors, City Mayor Paul Dennet and local MP for Salford & Eccles, Rebecca Long-Bailey, also in attendance was deselected Labour councillor Howard Balkind as well as hundreds of parents and staff who rely on and work in the nurseries.

In an impassioned speech, Unison treasurer Ameen Hadi started the meeting by telling the room that "At some point as a City we have to stand up and say enough is enough, we are not willing to take any more, we will all stand together", he then invited the Mayor and Councillors to join the cause and stand alongside the union and the people. Saying "We will all stand together if you're willing to fight the government we are willing to stand with you." to rapturous applause by those in the audience.

In a warning directed to the Mayor and Council, he proclaimed that if they are not willing to stand with them today and are unwilling to make that decision then "We (the people) will fight them every step of the way and we will win, as we are the many."

Ameen went on to say how they would petition every councillor, visit every precinct, collect as many signatures as they could and make sure that the city gets one message "That these nurseries will NOT close, over our dead bodies will they close", the room laughed as he told them he was not planning on dying soon.

Before finally taking his seat he once again called for both the council and the people to stand together to fight the government.

Up next was Stephen North, Unison Branch Secretary, who took to the floor, saying: "I think a gauntlet has been thrown down today" as he agreed with all that Ameen had said.

Stephen then threw the room open to those who had assembled so that they could have their say, prioritising on those who are most directly affected as in his words "It is their voice that matters most in this".

There were far too many speakers to cover in one article so we have mentioned a few and have included a copy of our live stream above for those who are interested, however, some of the notable speakers can be found below.

One lady told of how her son attends Belvedere Nursery as too did her older son, now 8, the room heard of the excellent care given to the children from the staff and managers, she asked why it was only now that the council have tried to save costs rather than when they first found out about the changes, apparently according to Cllr Stone, back in April 2017.

She asked why the council had waited until the last minute before asking the public for ideas on how to keep them open. Later in the meeting, another person asked the question why the consultation was set to end after the elections in May, with others suggesting that it was 'Well Timed".

There were many heartbreaking stories to be told by those affected, one of which came from a broken-hearted Carol Williamson Moores grandmother to a 2 and a half-year-old child suffering from down syndrome. She choked back her tears to tell the room how there is nothing in Salford to help the likes of her daughter and granddaughter other than the sure start nursery she attends.

After a pause to compose herself and with tears still in her eyes, she asked "What is to happen to her? where are they going to put her next?". She spoke of how the sure start nursery staff had become part of her family and how other children with downs in Salford are just as much in need.

A point was raised by one man in which he asked how could Mayor Dennet and Cllr Stone only last year run a fundraiser to keep babies born in Salford whilst this year closing down the very nurseries they would need, he vented his anger by claiming it was "abhorrent and disgusting". He made the suggestion that the council should stop paying private developers consultation fees (at a cost he proclaimed of around £10m) to carve up public services and sell them off to private developers, instead use that money to plug the gap and keep the nurseries open.

Former St Lukes CofE primary school headteacher Kath Partridge, was next up to tell the room how in her first-hand experience she had seen a huge difference between children coming into the school from private and local authority ran nurseries and that the latter was far more effective. She went on to say how they gave the children a very positive start which in turn allows the school to build upon that and produce in her words "The wonderful years 6 reports" before they go on to high school and then further education.

People spoke about how important the nurseries are but more importantly just how important the staff had become in their lives.

One upset Mother of a child who attends at Barton Moss told how the staff were far more concerned about the children and what is to happen to them than they are of their own jobs. Like others before her she asked how in a City that has Salford Quays, Media City and plays host to the BBC etc... "How have we got to this point when we have one side of Salford that has so much money yet in the other we are going to make cuts to nurseries that children need?" she asked.

Finishing by simply stating "It's not right".

Deselected Labour councillor Howard Balkind was next, jumping to his feet immediately claiming he could find over £650 thousand pounds straight away, revealing how he earns around £11 thousand pounds as a councillor and how that he would be happy to cut his pay down to £10 thousand pounds, adding “but the councillors would not shoot themselves in the foot and follow suit.”

Speaking on the matter of council reserves, he told the room that the council have approximately £12 million available. "I don't believe the decision has to be taken in the next 2 months" explaining that with the £650 thousand from councillors along with £1m taken from reserves to be able to delay the decision for as long as possible until an alternative form of funding can be found. Praising the Mayor and Cllr Lisa Stone for her tireless work he told of how due to the pressure of the cuts, the education department was about to explode, whilst pointing the finger of blame squarely at the Conservative government.

Looking around the room he pointed out that there were no Tory councillors present, comcluding that "They only care about themselves in the leafy suburbs of Worsley". He called for a campaign to delay the closure for a year that the council would accept so that the nursery schools can stay open.

Councillor Lisa Stone stood up to address some of the concerns and explain the council's position, she offered to help any parent that was affected by this on an individual basis and try and get the best outcome. 

Salford & Eccles MP, Rebecca Long Bailey, pledged her support for the campaign, saying that she would do anything she could to prevent the closure of the nurseries, going on to say that

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"Austerity is a political choice and not an economic necessity".

She spoke of how we have a government in power that do not believe in delivering public services to local communities and how they want to privatise and scale them back as much as possible.

Claiming it to be the reason why the Local Authorities, NHS and wider public services do not get the money they need to provide even the most basic things.

Rebecca said:

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"This campaign will be the first of many over the next few years"

Going on to explain that according to the budget projections that the local authority has shown her, the situation will get significantly worse. She called for the community to fight together and show that they will not take this lying down.

Addressing comments from the audience she took many of the points on board, saying that they (together) should be looking at giving the nurseries the best provisions to make the best of themselves, citing one suggestion from an audience member about the possibility of holiday clubs to raise funding.

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"There is a whole raft of things that we can look at which we can potentially addon to these nurseries to ensure they could become more financially viable in the future".

Acknowledging that all of those options need to be looked into.

Rebecca mentioned she had already spoken to Councillor Stone to put forward an idea for an urgent task force to look at the problem, assembled from Parents, Unions and Councillors along with anyone else with expertise that could help.

She went in to speak of the need to look at the wider economic impact of the nursery closures, not only on staff jobs but on those of parents who would have to give up work as a result.

After a brief interruption by a heckler who had quite literally entered the room demanding to speak, another lady took to the floor to tell just how much of an achievement it was to get an outstanding status from Ofsted. 

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"We should be proud that out 5 sure start nurseries have got outstanding."

A comment that was quickly echoed by another lady who pointed out that 60-day nurseries in Salford, 14 of which are outstanding, taking away the 5 sure start nurseries this leaves 9 private. She went on to say just how fantastic an achievement that was.

Stephen reminded the room that the meeting had to soon come to a close and so handed back over to Ameen to bring it to an end.

N his summing up, Ameen’s first points was:

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"I think the first thing we need to be clear on is the campaign, we can't have a situation in which we have a consultation with a time set on it for the closure of the nurseries and ask it to be a joint campaign with the council

"The two things can't happen, and I suppose that our demands in the campaign have to be that the council withdraws the consultation and fight with us against central government as suggested, to fight for the money.

"I don't know, there are ways, the council has a budget, I don't know what the outcomes are as they have not shared the figures with me either, I have been asking for them for the last week.

"But that is their problem, our problem is that I don't think we should have a joint campaign unless they withdraw the consultation."

 

Secondly, Ameen suggested that there should be a separate campaign for each of the five nurseries, brought together under the larger overarching campaign which in his words should be run democratically by those people in the room.

Thirdly he suggested that unless the council withdraw the threat of closure and the consultation that goes with it, the assembled should lobby the Labour group at the council meeting on Monday at 5pm and on Feb 28th at the budget meeting.

Bringing his speech to a close Ameen said:

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"That's what we want, and I suppose that's what we have to demand what the council does, we are the voters, we are the people that they represent, they have to listen to the people and they are our demands."

Salford Mayor Paul Dennett was asked if he wanted to stand and say a few words, something he seemed happy to do as he took to the floor to introduce himself:

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"Just to put things into perspective, thing are going to get worse and Rebecca is absolutely right.

"What's driving all of this is austerity and local government cuts.

"So going into this year's budget, just to be clear, we currently have a six million pound overspend in children's services within Salford City Council.

"Six million pounds we are spending on children's services that we didn't budget for last year.

"Why is that happening? Because we cutting services and cutting jobs and austerity and how it manifests itself in this city is creating more demand for services in the City of Salford.

"We have increasing numbers of kids moving into care as a consequence of government austerity.

"In addition to that £6million pounds overspend in children's services, we have also got a £1.7million overspend in the direct schools budget.

"The direct schools grant is the pot of money that deals with local authority nurseries.

"This year Salford City Council will be taking £11.2million pounds out of its budget, what I have managed to do this year is find £6million pounds worth of one of savings if you like, that we can put in to support some of this overspend in some of these jobs and services. That is not sustainable, why? because this is one-off money, once that money is spent, there is nowhere else we can go.

"We do have general reserves as a local authority but the auditor tells us that we need around £11.5millon in the event of a big accident, it could be a flood or a catastrophe or it could be because of a huge overspend."

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Paul went on to tell of his concerns as according to projections as they stand, it is looking like the year after this next financial year will see a further £15.5million removed from the local council budget.

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"There are no more one-offs, there really isn't, we are making representations to government.

"Last year I went down to Westminster and I spoke with the MP Martin Jones and I made it clear to him that austerity and cuts are not working, they are disproportionally impacting the vulnerable people in our city and we need a better deal out of this government.

"What the government's response to me was at the time was, get involved with the governments fair funding review, which won't really kick in until 2020, and we fear what is going to happen then as ultimately it will lead to more cuts, and all of this is happening at a time when central government resources are going to go up, the departments are spending even more money, Brexit is costing this country an absolute fortune and local government resources are doing the exact reverse. This is a political decision on the part of this Tory government and we need to get together and we need to fight it.

"This consultation we are getting together, this 90-day consultation with parents, with workers, with the trade unions, is about coming together to look for solutions, but its also about challenging the reality of austerity and local government cuts and how they are disproportionately impacting places like Salford and post-industrial places across the country."

 

Paul went on to say that he genuinely believes that the consultation is not a sham, it is a genuine consultation and no decision has yet been made and he is willing to look at options with anyone interested in saving the nurseries. He reiterated that there is no decision on the closure of the nurseries and that the decision lies solely with himself.

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"And I can tell everyone in this room today that I have not taken a decision to close these 5 local authority nurseries.

"What I have taken a decision to do is work through it with everyone and anyone to look at options to save these outstanding nurseries in this great City of Salford."

Before bringing the meeting to a close, Stephen North asked for a show of hands from those who believe the council should delay the consultation before they join together in a joint campaign.

The result was unanimous.

Obviously the most simple solution to all this would be to move the nurseries into local primary schools as this would more or less bypass the new ruling and allow funding to continue.