Andy, as you seem to know quite a bit about the whole Academy project, can you answer me a straight question (and this is not leading and not intended to prove a point). The last time I checked, which was some years ago I must admit, out of the entire education budget, only around 40% was actually spent on costs that actually directly related to the children it was spent on. The rest was lost on administration.
The being the case, surely it makes sense to remove a layer of bureaucracy by taking the local authorities out of the equation? That is not to say that Academies are the answer, because I have no idea if they are or not.

Yep, never mind the thin edge of the wedge, they've gone for the whole butt plug there!

Quite some thread drifting going on here....

It's a transition season.

Not only do fee paying schools select their entrants they have infinitely better facilities, smaller class sizes, generally better behaved pupils, parents with the money to contribute to the new swimming pool or trips to USA. My partner went to one of the above, the father in law was chair of governors. I know the differences.
I have worked in HE for 24 years, which is a much more balanced way of measuring achievement. Repeatedly, kids from non-fee paying schools or those coming in with bursaries out perform those from private schools.

Academies are funded in a very similar way to LA maintained schools. The difference is that their funding comes through central government in the form of grants, rather than out of the LA education budget. The formula used is very similar, so it's a similar amount of public money that goes into running them just out of a different pot. There's also start-up funding of £25,000 from central government which goes towards the cost of conversion to an Academy.

The Academy trust running the school and the Academy chain which runs that Academy trust will still have their own overheads to meet, so the amount of the funding that actually goes into education delivery will vary from school to school and chain to chain.

Re - Juan Cornetto

Others have picked up individual points. I never mentioned the Labour Party at any point in my post. I profoundly disagreed with the ideologically driven, private outsourcing of parts of the NHS under Tony Blair. It wasn't necessary nor was/is it economically efficient.
It was also different to privatising the whole thing.

The NHS regularly comes top or near the top in terms of efficiency.

The private education sector has shown what can be done with higher funding, selective intake, lower class sizes and free from the suffocating shackles of a ridiculous curriculum.
Give Eton the same intake, restrictions and resources as a state run school and you'll no doubt get similar results. Not to mention the monumentally harmful league tables and chasing of exam results.

The gold I don't give a toss about. If you're going to sell it I don't care when and just after the Tories had decimated the health and education sector seemed a good time for a windfall.
As for pensions, I agree it was a wrong move. But, like health, not the same as attempting to eliminate private pensions.

As for the rubbish about public spending, well I'm suprised you're so easily hoodwinked by the neoliberal press. Remind me again how the UK government spending more on hospitals caused Lehmann Brothers to collapse?
As for a narrow metropolitan elite, you do realise who the next Tory leader is going to be don't you? I'll give you a clue they went to the same narrow, ultra elite, university club as the current leader and the Chancellor.

I'm not here to defend Labour, they did daft things like the PPI contracts and academies. Which is why I didn't vote for them in 2005 or 2010. But I will defend them against the neoliberal, Murdoch-inspired lies about too much public spending. That's just utter sh/te.

What always gets missed by the propoganda on that one about the gold by people who just want to paint Brown in a bad light is what he did with the funds. Yes the value of gold went up after selling, therefore missing out on signficant money, but he used the money to buy Euros, which strengthened massively and offset the difference in the Gold sales.

Is it really as bad as selling off the postal service at a low price just to help mates get richer?

Alllerton Grange suck big balls. Roundhay by plenty

WTF is a "neoliberal". And if I have them how do I get rid of them?

Spot on.

The longer you hold on to the postal service the less its value - they sold it too cheap but there didn't seem a host of people wanting to take it off the government's hands.

Do you remember Eddie Rombo? He was one.

I remember Eddie, thought he was an existentialist?

Possibly he was both.

I recall signs of authentic promise and he was clearly a true free thinker in terms of tackling technique but ultimately a disappointingly limited right winger.