Easy does it

[Keaney Michael <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Private funding for schools but not hospitals yet

 The Queen's Speech: Health and Education

 By Richard Garner, Education Editor and Michael
 Durham, Health Correspondent

 The Independent, 21 June 2001

 A concerted drive towards private
 takeovers of state schools will be
 outlined in the Education Bill.

 The Bill will introduce "fixed term
 standards contracts" to allow
 private companies  and voluntary
 organisations like churches  to
 take over schools and agree
 deadlines to raise standards.

 The contracts will not only cover
 attempts to turn round failing
 schools but will also be open to
 successful state schools to
 negotiate if they feel such a deal
 could help them to raise
 standards even further.

 However, plans to give the private
 sector a greater role in the
 National Health Service were
 absent from the Queen's Speech.
 Instead the main thrust of NHS
 reform will be legislation to hand more power and resources to
 frontline doctors and nurses.

 The Prime Minister has strongly hinted that partnership with
 the private sector will be a key means of achieving NHS targets
 for treating patients in future. The absence of references to his
 plans suggests such changes may not require legislation. Dr
 Ian Bogle, chairman of the British Medical Association, said:
 "We will want to study the detail of government plans to involve
 the private sector more closely in the delivery of health care to
 ensure it provides value for money to the taxpayer and high
 quality services to the patient."

 Decentralisation will instead be the centrepiece of a NHS
 Reform Bill aimed at encouraging local decision-making.
 Rather than going to health authorities, up to 75 per cent of
 spending power will pass directly to local NHS staff. Patients
 will be given more power, and regulation of doctors will be
 strengthened.

 The NHS Reform Bill, which will build on the recent Health And
 Social Care Act, will mark a significant blow to health
 authorities. Three-quarters of government money will be
 allocated through local Primary Care Trusts of GPs, nurses
 and other health professionals

 Ministers believe local doctors and nurses are best informed
 about patients' needs, and in the best position to decide how
 NHS money should be spent. Responsibility for family doctor
 services, NHS dentists, opticians and pharmacists will all be
 devolved from health authorities to the new Primary Care
 Trusts.

 Patients will be given more influence on the running of the
 health service through democratically elected local bodies set
 up to scrutinise the local health service. Community Health
 Councils, the existing patients' watchdog, will be abolished.

 The move towards private takeovers of state schools has
 caused an outcry from teachers' union leaders who claim
 ministers are ignoring teacher shortages to pursue a relentless
 "privatisation" drive.

 They have urged the Government to defer the reforms until the
 teacher shortages are solved. The decision is one of a series of
 measures aimed at fulfilling Tony Blair's election pledge for
 radical changes to secondary schooling.

 Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills,
 said: "This Bill will help free up the school system, remove
 barriers to change and introduce new ways for private, voluntary
 and faith organisations to become involved in supporting
 schools."

 Other measures include allowing further takeovers of
 underperforming local education authority services by private
 companies and an expansion in the number of City Academies
 set up in areas of urban deprivation to raise standards in the
 inner cities. These will also be sponsored by private companies
 or voluntary groups. The Church of England has already agreed
 to sponsor two.

 A shake-up of the secondary school curriculum will allow more
 14-year-olds to go to college or out on work experience so they
 can take up an apprenticeship at the age of 16. Ministers hope
 to quadruple the number of youngsters taking new vocational
 courses to 200,000.

 The Government argues it is tackling teacher shortages. As
 part of the measures outlined yesterday, the country's top
 performing specialist secondary schools will get "advanced
 status" to allow them to become teacher training schools
 where graduates can earn a salary while training on the
 job.Teachers' union leaders fiercely opposed the plans last
 night.

 Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of
 Teachers, said: "Privatisation is irrelevant to the fundamental
 issue of teacher shortages.

 "The Education Secretary appears to have no problem with
 private companies making a profit out of education. Teachers
 and parents do."

 However, David Hart, general secretary of the National
 Association of Head Teachers, said it had "no difficulty with
 much of the Government's reforming agenda providing this is
 not used as a smokescreen to avoid dealing urgently with the
 crucial and urgent need to resolve teacher shortages and
 excessive workload".

Full article at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=79347

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx