I am grateful to the Salford Star for once again being “ahead of the curve” and exclusively revealing that the University of Salford, located on the border of Langworthy and Irwell Riverside wards in Salford, is planning to remove the famous lion logo (opposite) and replace it with the word “Manchester”.

The current lion logo proudly states “The University of Salford” although some of their letterheads do also state “A Greater Manchester University” – which I do not have a problem with.

If the proposed logo does, as the Salford Star mockup below suggests, simply say University of Salford Manchester, then this is a backward step and they should quickly re-think the idea.

The University of Salford has proudly stated it’s home in it’s logo since it became a fully-fledged University in 1967 (in fact, Salford University can trace it’s origins back to 1896, when it was the Royal Technical Institute, Salford).

So why does The University of Salford think now is a good time to suggest they are in Manchester when their new MediaCity:UK building at Salford Quays is on the brink of opening? Perhaps it may have something to do with the fact that a recent survey of students in a poll for accomodationforstudents.com showed Salford University to be the worst university in the country in which to study. Manchester University was voted the joint second best place to study.

The University of Salford management board should think again, reverse this terrible decision before it is too late, and stick with the traditional logo.

Lastly, I call on Salford Council and all 60 of the city’s ward councillors (including all 6 from both Langworthy and Irwell Riverside wards) to denounce the decision to change the logo to “University of Salford Mancheter” and call on them to support me in arguing for return to the traditional logo we know and love.

I’ve just finished reading the latest Ofsted report on Salford’s Childrens Services and it doesn’t make pleasant reading. Regular viewers of my blog (or even those willing to try a casual search here for either ofsted or childrens services), will know that I’ve written often about this subject, none of it flattering to Salford Council.

As the last few years have gone by, Salfords Childrens Services has fallen from good, to adequate, inadequate and now poor (the lowest possible rating). We are at rock-bottom. Whilst it’s not all doom and gloom in the Ofsted report (for example it points out that the majority of our secondary schools are good or better at helping young people develop the knowledge and skills necessary to gain a job, that achievement of three to five year-olds has been above the average[s] for similar areas, the large majority of schools have good or better behaviour and more children and young people taking part in physical activities and sport), the ‘poor’ areas make difficult reading.

The Manchester Evening News reports that this year’s rating is worse than 2009, when it was rated ‘adequate’. But in fact, my blog readers may remember in June I wrote here about a scathing report from Ofsted which branded safeguarding services ‘inadequate’ for the second time in four years. This time, Inspectors said the council had still not taken ‘sufficiently robust action’ to improve its safeguarding services.  Safeguarding services monitor and provide support for children living in the community and deemed to be at risk from neglect or abuse.

In the June report, Ofsted found child-protection concerns were not properly identified or responded to quickly ‘leaving some children at potential risk’.  Caseloads of some social workers in the court and child protection team were too high.

And, as the Evening News reports, since August the department has been subject to a notice ordering it to improve – the government says it could take over running the department if there isn’t significant improvement by next month. I urged the government to step in and take control in my last blog post in June and today I repeat that call again.

Salford Council have had enough time to improve and have failed to do so.

Dear Steve,

Today’s vote on Higher Education funding was one of the hardest things we have had to do in politics. I know that there are strong and passionately held views on all sides of the debate, which I very much respect.

And of course I understand why many in our party wish we could have pursued a different policy. I wish that too; but we simply were not in that position, we did not win the General Election but went into a coalition and had to tackle the greatest economic crisis in decades.

Within those constraints, Vince Cable and his team have put together a highly progressive package. We are ending the upfront fees for part-time students, increasing the repayment threshold from £15,000 to £21,000 – lowering every graduate’s monthly repayments, guaranteeing that poorer graduates pay less than they currently do and richer graduates more. Added to those progressive changes, a national scholarship fund has been setup to give further support to students from the poorest backgrounds as part of our fairness premium.

Taking all things into consideration, this is a package which is fairer than the existing situation, fairer than Lord Browne’s original review, fairer than the NUS proposals and fairer than the policies that both Labour and the Conservatives would have implemented had they been in government alone. And at the same time we are delivering on our front page manifesto commitment for a fully funded pupil premium – which will act as a huge driver of social mobility. That is something we can all take pride in.

Best Wishes

Nick Clegg MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

Back in late 2007 an idea was muted by council officers that Salford needed a shiny new “gateway” into the city that looked appealing, instead of the drab entrance to Salford that the M602 roundabout offered. With the news that MediaCity:UK was to happen, a £3m funding application was submitted to the North West Development Agency and the idea was born.

The programme was split into two phases, the first involving updates to lighting, subways, plaques and pedestrian crossings at the M602 and Broadway roundabouts, which many considered necessary due to the complete lack of maintenance by the council.

The second phase involved the relocation of the Quays Cargo Cranes from their current location at the head of Ontario Basin to the M602 Roundabout. Many Salfordians have often complained about the way the cranes have been allowed to rust and rot and a lot of people wanted to see them saved and restored. However, phase two came at the astronomical cost of £750,000. Personally, I was quite vocal about the plans, and many shared my view that £3m spent on prettying up a roundabout, carrying out repairs that should have been done anyway and moving 2 huge lumps of metal up Trafford Road did not present value for money. That money could have been better spent saving Hope Hospital’s Maternity Unit, our NHS drop-in centres, building schools big enough for the number of children or repairing our dilapidated roads and council-owned buildings.

Yesterday I learned that funding for phase 2 has been withdrawn. The official word is that phase 2 has not been “scrapped”, but essentially (other than what work has already started) the rest of the plans are very unlikely to go ahead.

Why blog about this? Well a small, almost insignificant part of phase 2 was the construction of three “super crossings”, aka wide pedestrian crossings at key locations on Trafford Road and Broadway, which would make it a bit safer for pupils to cross these busy roads when the new Oasis Academy at Media City opens. With phase 2 being in doubt (read cancelled), the super crossings are unlikely to go ahead without the funds being found elsewhere.

One proposal put forward has been for the Ordsall & Langworthy Community Committee to exhaust it’s entire budget for the year to pay for these 2 super crossings. It’s worth noting that when the plans were submitted  by Oasis Academy for planning permission, they did so on the basis that these extra crossings would be in place by the time the new school opened. Their plans included the bare minimum needed (in terms of pupil travel plans) to allow for planning to be passed.

So, what’s the cost of these super crossings going to be to the community?

The answer is circa £160,000-£170,000 – and the reason I am blogging about this is to ask what you, the Langworthy community, think about this. I’d love to hear your thoughts, either by leaving a comment below or emailing me at steve@stevemiddleton.info

There will be further discussion on this at the next community committee meeting on January 11^th (6.45pm). I urge as many Langworthy residents and groups as possible to attend to ensure you get your voice heard. If you cannot make it, I will do my best to get as many responses heard by the committee as possible.

Whilst browsing through recent planning applications/decisions today (sad, I know), I was disappointed to come across an application from Lark Hill Primary School on Liverpool street. The headmaster of Lark Hill (Liam Fry) proposes to build a new extension to the school (presumably to cope with the extra pupils the school is due to receive thanks to the incompetence of Salford’s Labour Council and their barmy decision to build a replacement school too small for the 2010/11 intake).

Why am I disappointed? Well, one word: Consultation.

Lark Hill have failed to consult it’s neighbours on this building plan which directly affects hundreds of Langworthy/Pendleton/Clarendon residents.

I’m sure the local community would have had very little problem with the proposal to expand Lark Hill Primary School, but common courtesy would be to behave a tad better and talk about the plans with your neighbours.

For those interested, the plans can be viewed here (but the application has been permitted, so no further comment can be made).

Shame on you Mr Fry, be a bit more neighbourly in future.

While reading The Daily Mail the other day I was disturbed to read that Britain’s Information Commissioner (Richard Thomas) has said he has serious concerns about a system being launched in October for the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

The database will record criminal convictions of the 11 million adults who work with children, but also any so-called “soft intelligence” on individuals – which could include unfounded allegations, rumours or gossip passed to the police or social services.

The ISA computer will contain detailed files on all the adults who work with children, whether professionally or as volunteers. That includes me, as for the past two years I have been manager of an Under-13s Junior Football Team, Unsworth Dragons.

In the past few years I have been CRB-checked twice, an Enhanced Disclosure in order that I can volunteer with Unsworth Junior Football Club and a basic disclosure for my work as a Heatseeker Surveyor (working with the elderly and vulnerable, in their homes). Further in to the dim and distant past, I had to endure a positive vetting process, as part of the UK’s  security clearance system – so I feel that I am eminently qualified to discuss the merits and drawbacks of the need for background checks.

Nobody can deny the need to ensure that the people who work with our children (either in a professional or voluntary capacity) must be properly checked to ensure that we provide a safe and secure environment for our kids to learn and compete – however, there are problems with the time it takes to perform some CRB checks and real concerns about the data that might be used to make a decision.

The Information Commissioner has said the database would contain ‘allegations, some rumour, some speculation’.

He added: ‘If (officials) start making wrong decisions or allows the data to get into the wrong hands the scope for damage to be done both to individuals and the system as a whole is quite considerable.’

Mr Thomas said the combination of treating rumours as relevant and the power to ban an individual from a job had the capacity to damage an innocent person in their ‘career, financially and socially’

Once an application is made, an official working for the ISA will look at all the “information” on file and then decide whether or not someone is fit to work with children – without that person knowing what he or she is accused of.

Michael Barnes, national secretary for Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (Fact) said, following the Soham murders, more information was now disclosed on CRB checks.

“Issues that previously wouldn’t have appeared on an enhanced CRB now routinely do appear because of the Huntley situation at Soham,” he told the cross-party committee of MPs.

“There needs to be some sort of appeals process against information that is put on the CRB, because, at the present time, it is entirely a matter for the chief constable.”

Amanda Brown, head of Employment, Conditions and Rights at the National Union of Teachers said teachers often did not know that details of a previous minor incident, where no blame was found, were on their records until they applied for a new job.

She said: “We have absolutely no objection to employers seeing convictions, what we have a real objection to is the soft, unproven, malicious – potentially – allegation which have been made… being disclosed.”

Paul Kaufman, partner at law firm Wiseman Lee LLP, said teachers who applied for a new job several years after an allegation was made could have difficultly in exonerating themselves to a new employer, because solicitors files can be destroyed after seven years and court transcripts may also be destroyed.

Obviously the safety and well being of children and young people is absolutely paramount but the Criminal Records Bureau, which will provide intelligence to ISA, makes thousands of mistakes every year, with only about 5% of complaints found to be true.

Additional problems with the system lies around the matter of security of the data held, since the HMRC lost the details of 25million people little over a year ago, there have been 500 further significant data losses – two-thirds of them by the public sector. The NHS is the worst offender.

We need a fair, open and transparent system that works and can be trusted by both sides but serious concerns about projects such as the CRB system, National ID cards and the continued loss of sensitive personal data by both the public and private sectors does not help instil confidence in any Big Brother-like system.

The ISA database must only contain accurate information and individuals should be able to view their file at any time, with a system in place to challenge incorrect information – very similar to the way a person’s credit file can be checked and updated.