Forum Topic

Hounslow Job Centre to close or is it to merge with Council services?

Acton - retainEaling - retainTwickenham - retainHammersmith - DivestSouthall - DivestHounslow - DivestTaken from http://qna.files.parliament.uk/ws-attachments/678953/original/DWP%20Estates%20Proposals.pdfCheers

Sarah Felstead ● 3119d14 Comments

Like that's going to happen!

Vanessa Smith ● 3109d

Somebody (the Department for Employment) bought some land from the Earl of Jersey (apparently for £9.5M) and made the land available to a Free School with a 'Sikh ethos'. 50% of the places will be on the basis of distance (like 'normal' non-faith schools) and 50% on the basis of faith (unlike non-faith schools)

Guy Lambert ● 3109d

Because all this government are interested in is Free Schools which starve existing state schools of much needed funding, and which that school is. This is the thin end of the wedge - the ultimate privatisation of our education system following on from the NHS.

Vanessa Smith ● 3109d

Why cant you arrange a Sixth form college?  Somebody has arranged for a school on Wood Lane, on Hounslow land, without a Hounslow catchment area.  That could have been a sixth form college for Hounslow.  Osterley library around the corner.

Sarah Felstead ● 3110d

Sorry I thought you were suggesting moving the Job centre into Council buildings, I just thought that they could be better made use of.

Sarah Felstead ● 3110d

Or the other alternative is the odious little sh*t Toby Young who seems to be able to do just as he pleases.

Vanessa Smith ● 3110d

Plus of course it is no longer in the council's gift to start sixth form colleges or any other school. Perhaps Sarah would like to propose a free school - there doesn't seem to be any problem finding money from the Department for Education to pay for those. It would be a good plan to get a Tory donor or Lord on board though, to oil the wheels.

Guy Lambert ● 3110d

Just a slight problem - the JC+ building doesn't belong to the council nor I believe - the government. Its future is in the hands of the landlord who will in all likelihood want to maximise its value.

Vanessa Smith ● 3110d

It would be lovely to see a six form college being formed in a Central council building.  It would free up loads of classrooms around the borough and think of all the computer, training and meeting rooms that would be available for several months of the year during school holidays! There would be a pool of work experience candidates available and if the library was located nearby they could use that too....

Sarah Felstead ● 3110d

Hounslow job centre will move into the treaty centre post the library moving temporarily moving to the civic centreJ

John Todd ● 3111d

Hounslow Job centre Plus personnel are already working in the Civic Centre

Bernard Allen ● 3117d

Nearest MCs  - at the moment - Ealing and Uxbridge - but Ealing is looking decidedly iffy, so there's West London and Willesden. Quite how people are supposed to be able to get to these places by public transport does not seem to bother the government overmuch. Some Justices are also not happy bunnies at this turn of events, courts are being shut and benches merged all over the country, in rural areas it is much, much worse.

Vanessa Smith ● 3118d

Vanessa, have they expanded the other magistrates courts or extended opening hours?  Where is the nearest?As far as the jobs on offer in the Job centre, have employers lost confidence in them?  Seems like they could sell the name on if it is just Job services going.

Sarah Felstead ● 3118d

Don't know why they even call them 'Job Centres' anymore, what jobs they do have are pretty dire, seem to be more interested in penalising people on benefits for pathetic reasons.Of concern is also the fact that there is no longer one Magistrate's Court remaining in either Hounslow or Richmond boroughs, so much for local justice.

Vanessa Smith ● 3119d