Special budget meeting with councillors this WED, 16th 6.30pm @ BHS

Dear Parents and Carers

We are meeting with a (handful) of our local councillors on WED (6.30pm) to talk about the Council’s draft budget proposal — given our own interest, obviously with an eye on education items.

To give you an idea of the scale of things: for the coming financial year (from April 2013), the Council is seeking to save £3.8m. This rises to £31m in 2014/15 and £95m in 2017/18. Given that education accounts for 33% of the total Council budget, a lot of these savings could translate as cuts into a more poorly resourced education budget.

The format of the meeting will be relatively informal, seminar style: rather than lobbying the councillors present, the emphasis will be on gathering as much information and rehearsing arguments as possible to make the maximum impact at a special budget meeting for PC chairs in the following week with the convenor of the Council’s finance committee.

The aim of the meeting will be to identify any weaknesses in the draft budget and to outline any alternative ideas/priorities that benefit BHS either immediately or longer term (through better education budget husbandry). The ideal outcome of the meeting would be three to five well-tested points and arguments that I can take to the meeting with the finance committee convenor.

In addition to MSG members and local councillors, any BHS parent or carer interested in this is welcome to contribute.

Harald Tobermann
Chair, BHS Parent Council