Frank Little

Councillor for East Central ward on Coedffranc Town Council Learn more

More money for education

by franklittle on 9 December, 2011

At the end of last Wednesday’s Council agenda, Karl Napieralla, director of education, slipped in as an emergency item (thus giving no time for members to prepare for or even comment on it)  the announcement that the Welsh Government would part-fund a schools rebuilding programme. It was churlish and partisan of the cabinet to suppress the other good news from the Welsh Government, that disadvantaged children in the county borough would benefit from a pupil deprivation grant, presumably because this was the result of a Welsh Liberal Democrat initiative. £1.71m will be coming to Neath Port Talbot.

Mind you, Neath Port Talbot did not go as far as Manchester City Council (you know, the one that pays its chief executive more than the prime minister) which will benefit from the pupil premium (the English original of the pupil deprivation grant) to the tune of £11million, rising to £20million in a full year. There the Council’s ruling Labour group has passed a motion declaring the pupil premium a “sham” and calling for the policy to be scrapped.

We in Neath Port Talbot will have to find 50% of the cost of the seven new school building projects. That will almost certainly require increased borrowing, but at least Welsh Government has set its face against PPI, which is what Welsh Conservatives were pitching for.

   Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>