Yet again, Education Secretary Michael Gove's grandiose, some might say delusional, claims about the uptake of new "free Schools" and Academies are exposed as a sham as only 20 "free schools" are on track to open by Sept '11. This despite his claims that 700 were due to open by that time.

Labour has, rightly, accused Gove of presiding over a "chaotic shambles" in the Dept of Education. Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, said: "This is another embarrassment for the education secretary's flawed, unfair and unpopular school reforms. Michael Gove took over a successful department which has helped to deliver record improvements in school standards over more than a decade, but in just a few months he has managed to turn it into a chaotic shambles."

Gove said in June that he had been inundated with expressions of interest from establish a new tier of free schools. "More than 700 expressions of interest in opening new free schools have been received by the charitable group the New Schools Network," he told MPs. The announcement next week will echo Gove's claim in the summer that more than 1,000 schools had applied to become academies. In the end just 32 are opening this term.

Guardian online

Responding to the CIPD's call for the government to consider banning walk outs of workers in essential public services, Thomas Player, partner at international law firm Eversheds comments:

"In limited circumstances, there is already a ban on strikes in some essential services, for example, in the armed forces and the police. In addition, public sector prison officers have entered into an agreement with the Prisons Service not to strike.

"Putting to one side the obvious employee relations ramifications of extending a no-strike ban to other essential public services, there are legal risks associated with such a move. The European Convention of Human Rights provides for a right to freedom of association, including the right to join a trade union. Recent decisions from the European Court of Human Rights suggest that freedom of assembly may extend to include the right to strike. However, it should be noted that the right to freedom of assembly is not absolute; the Convention provides that the right can be restricted, for example, in the interests of public safety and health. In addition, the armed forces, police and some civil servants are excluded altogether. Unfortunately, very little guidance exists as to how these rights can be lawfully restricted, such as curtailing the right to strike. Therefore if the government were to seek to introduce further restrictions to the right to strike in essential public services, in light of the Convention rights that apply in the UK, it is probable that such changes would be vehemently opposed by the major public sector trade unions and would be likely to come up against legal pitfalls, including a European legal challenge."

Eversheds website

UNISON North West believes that we should use every opportunity to challenge the prevailing mythology that the only way forward is massive cuts and unemployment on an unprecedented scale. Lots of information is available on the UNISON North West website. The country faced a tougher financial crisis in 1946 and the government created the NHS!

An Alternative to Cuts:  

• At least £1.5bn could be raised this year by bringing back the windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses.
• £30bn could be raised every year by introducing a major financial transactions tax on Britain’s financial institutions – the Robin Hood tax.   
• £4bn could be saved just this year by cancelling Trident.   
• £500m could be saved every year by eradicating health-care-acquired infections from the NHS.  The extra cleaners necessary would cost half this amount.   
• £5bn could be raised every year with a tax on vacant dwellings.   
• £2.8bn could be saved every year by ending the central government use of private management consultants.   
• £3bn could be saved in user fees and interest charges every year if PFI schemes were replaced with conventional public procurement.   
• £10bn could be raised every year by reforming tax havens and residence rules to reduce tax avoidance by corporations and non-domiciled residents.   
• £4.7bn could be raised every year by introducing a 50% tax rate on incomes over £100,000.

……….and the list goes on.We need to challenge the assumption that there is nothing we can do about the threats to our members and our communities.  The cuts are being delivered by a flaky coalition with no electoral mandate which might not last 18 months never mind 5 years and it has to be attacked at every level and using all methods we can bring to bear.