The unusual site banners are to bring attention to the fact that Labour activists in Bexley are manipulating Facebook Groups with fictional posters. They deny it, threaten police action for ‘harassing’ a fictitious character and then demonstrate their willingness to impersonate by creating a false Administrator account in my name. The banner on display is chosen randomly from a selection of three, with a fourth bearing the familiar Bexley Council is Bonkers logo.
Councillor
Caroline Newton’s Children’s Services and Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee may have been a less tedious listen than
Chris Taylor’s Adults’
Services meeting held a day earlier, but if so it was a close run thing.
Apart from the formalities there was only one item on the Agenda and
Mr. Stephen Kitchman (Director of Children’s Services) and his team illustrated their report with slide presentations which
may be seen here and
Part 2 here.
There were no particular highlights to report, Bexley Council claimed to have
better practices than other boroughs and emphasised the importance of nurturing
and retaining good staff with Covid inevitably blamed for its negative impact on some children in care.
Currently only 80% of Bexley Social Workers are on the permanent payroll which
is less good than has been the case in the recent past.
Some isolated statistics relating to education were 83 schools in Bexley (59
Primary, eleven Secondary plus four Grammar, one “All-Through”, seven “Specials” and
one Pupil Referral Unit) with a total of 44,000 pupils. They employ 4,931 professional staff and 200 child minders.
51 pupils are permanently excluded from Bexley schools which is a figure that is slowly reducing.