Monday, August 28, 2006

Science in Schools

As I mentioned in my previous post I will be chairing a working group of the Education Committee to see how we can improve science in Barnet's schools.

As the recent news coverage has shown, a lack of teenagers are taking science options at A-Level and then university. This is an important issue because without more science graduates our science industries will suffer and we will have a lack of science teachers in the future therefore making the isssue worse.

This issue was actually brought to my attention about six years ago when I was on the Executive of the University of Birmingham's Guild of Students. I was speaking to the then Vice-Chancellor who mentioned this issue to me. Since then I have considered it an important issue and I wanted to try and find some possible solution to it as a councillor.

Therefore I hope as a Council we can help to make a difference in Barnet and show that Councils can make real differences on issues like this.

In Barnet we have excellent schools and high achieving pupils, therefore if pupils here are not being taught science as well as it could be, and so that it is not enjoyed thus encouraging more students to study it further, what chance has Britain got. Therefore, we really need to sort this issue out in Barnet not just for the sake of Barnet but for the country as a whole.

End of Summer

With it being the August Bank Holiday, I hope I am not being too pesimistic by suggesting that the summer might be over. Hopefully, the weather will stay warm, but from this week the Councill gets busy again.

People often complain that MP's have too long a holiday. As a Councillor I can say I definitely needed the break after a hard working year , but maybe MPs holidays could be shorter and they could come back to work in September like the rest of us.

Tomorrow afternoon I and my colleagues have our monthly surgery at Edgware Library between 5:30 and 6:30. Come along if u want.

Wednesday is the Planning and Environment meeting,the seems to be lots of the agenda so it could be a long evening. The Sternberg TREES are back on the agenda which should be another interesting discussion, whats more important a new centre or ten trees? We will have to decide.
If you are interested you can see the agenda here Planning Meeting

Then on Thursday I am chairing a working group as part of the Education Scrutiny Committee, where we will be looking at how we can improve the level of science in Barnet's schools.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Parking

A few people have contacted me regarding the issue of Parking Tickets. Therefore please some information regarding the tickets.

Barnet Council lost an appeal against Mr Moses over whether parking tickets were invalid.
However, this only refers to parking tickets which were issued prior to the original court decision in May 2006. Since that decision Barnet Council has been issuing Penalty Charge Notices with both the date and time of 'issue' and the 'offence' and has therefore since May been complying with the Court's decision.While you are able to appeal against parking tickets issued prior to May 2006,the court decision did not make a judgement on whether or not you can use thisjudgement as an argument if you did not use this judgement as a reason at anearlier stage of your appeal.The information I have provided here is not a legal opinion.

This is just information I hope people will find useful. Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with on this issue or any other.