Council’s education chief to face grilling over school funding

Deputy Mayor Anntoinette Bramble. Photograph: Hackney Council.

The future of Hackney’s schools will be on the agenda when Deputy Mayor Anntoinette Bramble sits down for a Question Time-style cross-examination on Monday.

Cllr Bramble, the borough’s cabinet member for education, children, young people and children’s social care, will be quizzed about school funding at the 14 January Town Hall meeting.

The education boss is expected to reveal whether schools have been given extra cash to smoothen the introduction in 2017 of new funding arrangements put in place by then Education Secretary Justine Greening.

Greening said at the time that she was increasing the basic level of per-pupil funding, with a minimum of £3,500 for primary schools by 2019/20, after an earlier proposal was met with widespread protests and warnings that the borough’s schools could be “devastated”.

Labour has also stated that funding levels amounted to a real-terms cut when taking inflation into account.

The Deputy Mayor will also be answering questions on the timeframe for the establishment of the Hackney Schools Group, an independent body led by the borough’s educators but maintained by and accountable to the council.

Speaking on the unveiling of the schools “supergroup” in December 2017, Cllr Bramble said: “Hackney has gone from having some of the worst schools in the country to now having the best schools in the country.

“Looking at all those legislative changes from the government, it is a time to pause and reflect and think about how we shape the educational climate going forward locally.”