Tony Janio: Chaotic administration of Brighton and Hove

Starting with school, of course, college in London was followed by a Ph.D. at Brighton Polytechnic.

After the Royal Navy, as an officer instructing ‘stuff’, I spent 28 years teaching the maintenance of flight simulators.

Only now, as the leader of Brighton and Hove Conservatives, have I ‘dropped out’ of education.

I have previously described how the Conservative Government required schools to use phonics, against instinctive scaremongering from Labour, and that those schoolchildren in England, wholly educated under a Conservative Government, now have the best reading skills in a generation.

Enlightened Conservative policies always receive a torrent of abuse from Labour, until they actually start to work: at this point Labour move onto another topic, trying to scare us once again.

Political parties elected on scaremongering are eventually caught out. Locally, Labour is playing a similar game: but the real problem across Brighton and Hove is their chaotic administration of the city.

A few weeks ago I noticed that, as a new secondary school for the city would no longer be required, the Labour administration had £15m of government money wallowing in the bank, available to deliver ‘basic need’ school places.

I submitted an amendment to a meeting of the finance committee, requesting the children’s committee spend the £15m on our schools as soon as possible: to address any future spikes in pupil numbers, fund a special educational needs (SEN) re-organisation and, crucially, solve the immediate problem of the ‘Misplaced 38’.

Labour, caught napping, came late to the party by attempting a ‘spoiler’ amendment at the last minute. This would have caused chaos across the education sector.

Conservatives members agreed to a compromise with Greens, and eventually Labour (who in a rather bizarre twist brought along a political manifesto to the debate), and the problems of funding are now being addressed.

It appears that in my new role I have not lost touch with providing a good education for those that need it most.

Tony Janio is the leader of the Conservative Group on Brighton and Hove City Council.