• THERE is currently a  proposal to start charging schools for waste disposal from October this year. As with all other headteachers and governors in Islington, we always believed that we paid for waste disposal within our rates.

This year, Duncombe School’s rates have increased from £26,376 to £34,566. We have been informed that the council will charge us £13.80 every time they collect one of our bins. If you have five bins, like Duncombe School, collected twice weekly the council charge will be £138 a week.

We are amazed that, at a time when the government has been particularly vindictive towards schools in London, our council should impose another hidden cut on schools. We estimate that this would impose an additional annual cost of £5,000 for a typical primary school and up to £15,000 for a secondary school.

We would urge Islington Council to reconsider whether it is right for it effectively to transfer funds from the schools budget to another budget at a time when all schools are facing a major squeeze on resources. The fact that some other local authorities are taking a similar measure is no justification for Islington taking these measures.

Of course, we understand that all council services are under financial pressure at this time. But the proposal we face is not a necessary consequence of government cutbacks. It is within the council’s discretion. We would hope it could ensure that the children and young people of Islington are not adversely affected by council decisions of this kind.

You may be aware that this charge is equivalent to reducing a teaching assistant in our schools by two to three days in a primary or a whole week in a secondary. To look at it from this point of view certainly gives us and hopefully will give our council a moment to pause for thought.

One attractive feature of this proposal is that if we contract to the new service, waste for recycling will continue to be collected free of charge. If our council agreed to withdraw the charge for other waste, I’m sure schools would be happy to discuss ways in which recycling could nonetheless be incentivised within schools, leading towards giving Islington a much-desired lead role in this area, where London lags behind the rest of the country.

BARRIE O’SHEA
Headteacher, Duncombe School
N19