Privatising Schools in Leicester

“Leicester Miller Education Company Ltd is the Public Private Partnership delivering the circa £300m Building Schools Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in Leicester… Respect for people, communities and the environment is embedded in our culture.” Leicester Miller Education Company Web Site, 2012.

All corporations must by law place profit before all other considerations; which is exactly why they spend vast amounts of money paying spin masters to shield their inhumane growth prerogatives behind a veil of self-serving propaganda. Thus the Leicester Miller Education Company, which is currently working in partnership with G4S (a corporation not known for their commitment to life), have the cheek to boast that “Respect for people, communities and the environment is embedded in our culture.” This is certainly debatable, but not in the mainstream corporate-owned media.

So who exactly are the Leicester Miller Education Company? Well, they are the chosen public-private partnership “provider” currently delivering the £300m Building Schools Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in Leicester. Or rather, they are the chosen “exploiter” to deliver our schools into the grasping hands of of corporate profiteers like G4S – with the Leicester Miller Education Company itself now assuming responsibility for the management and maintenance of schools on behalf of Leicester City Council.

So far the Leicester Miller Education Company have completed BSF work in five city secondary schools; these being Fullhurst College, in Braunstone, Soar Valley School, in Rushey Mead, Judgemeadow College, in Evington, Beaumont Leys School, and most recently Rushey Mead School. But earlier this year they reached financial closure on a further two schools as part of their commitment to the Leicester BSF, these are the City of Leicester College and Crown Hills Community College, both in Evington. Thus redevelopment work is now moving ahead on these sites at full speed. [1]

Needless to say our schools would not be in need of urgent redevelopment in the first place if tax-payers money had been used to support public need not corporate greed: something that has clearly happened under both Conservative and Labour governments. Nevertheless, the main two corporations placed to profit handsomely from the refurbishment of our schools through the Leicester Miller Education Company’s partnership are G4S and Miller Construction. Miller Construction being owned by their parent company, the Miller Group, which says it is “UK’s largest privately owned housebuilding, property development and construction business.”

A couple of years ago Simon Burton was appointed as Miller Construction’s regional director for the Midlands and South West region, coming to this position after serving as the regional managing director of the notorious NHS profiteer Carillion. Around the same time Chris Webster likewise became the CEO of Miller Construction, arriving at this position after retiring as the chief operating officer at Amey plc. One might add that in April 2012, Webster was appointed to the board room of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership – a group whose deputy chair, Steve Hollis, is a member of the secretive Midlands Industrial Council. To give you a sense of Hollis’ warped capitalist mindset, in a recent newspaper interview he actually describes himself ”as a steel fist, under a very generous velvet glove…”

In December 2011 the rapacious private equity company Blackstone acquired a stake of about 50% in the Miller Group. [2] A coming together of financial interests that was overseen by the Miller Group’s chairman, the powerful media magnate, Tim Bowdler. Earlier this year Bowdler was subsequently replaced by Philip Bowman, the current CEO of the global technology company, Smiths Group. Two of Bowman’s fellow ruling class board members at the Smiths Group include Anglo American board member David Challen, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, the chairman of the fourth largest defence manufacturer in Europe, Finmeccanica. [3]

Another current Miller board member worth introducing is Brian Wallace, who recently retired from the board of Ladbrokes where he resided alongside press baron, Sly Bailey — who is the just retired CEO of Trinity Mirror, one of the UK’s largest newspaper publishers. In the wake of Bailey’s departure from Trinity Mirror, the media group’s newly appointed chairman has been David Grigson – an individual who is also a board member of Standard Life, an insurance group that used to be chaired by Miller Group board member, Sir Brian Stewart.

One final notable board member of the Miller Group worth highlighting is Andrew Huntley, who serves on the advisory board of private equity company Melford Capital along with the likes of Guardian Media Group board member, Brent Hoberman. More significantly however, Huntley is a board member of Capco where he sits alongside Henry Staunton – a long-serving board member of Standard Bank Group, who until his retirement earlier this year sat on their board alongside infamous Lonmin board member, Cyril Ramaphosa.

Boardroom connections between the ruling class are indeed incestuous. Which of course is why it is so vital that workers across the country become just as connected and show a united front on the 20^th October In London. In this way we can demonstrate to the bosses that they are redundant and that we refuse to take their violent profiteering any longer.

Notes

[1] “LMEC has also commenced design and development work in conjunction with Miller Construction and Leicester City Council on the remaining 16 schools in the Leicester BSF programme.” Partnerships for Schools (PfS) was the Government body responsible for delivering the BSF programme, but when the Con-Dems came to power PfS was soon shut down as part of their “educational reforms.” (The responsibilities of PfS have now been transferred to the Education Funding Agency.)

The former chief executive of PfS (between 2006 and 2011) was a man called Tim Byles, who is involved in the ongoing privatisation of former public services as he is the current CEO of a social investment company called Cornerstone – a group whose current chairman is the former CEO of Carillion, John McDonough (2001-12).

[2] In a stand-out case Blackstone bought Southern Cross Healthcare in 2004 “for £162 million and sold its stake in the company in 2007 for £770 million.” Southern Cross staff and patients were then left to face the tragic aftermath caused by Blackstone’s brutal profiteering: in Leicestershire this is affecting the following three care homes, Leacroft Care Home, Magna Care Home, and Markfield Court Care Home.

Note: Baroness Morgan has been a board member of Southern Cross since 2006 and was appointed by Michael Gove to become the chairwoman of the school regulatory agency, Ofsted. Baroness Morgan is also an advisor to an educational charity called Absolute Return for Kids or ARK — a charity led by powerful bankers intent on privatising the British education system.

[3] The current CEO of Finmeccanica subsidiary SELEX Galileo is Steve Mogford who is also a board member of the aforementioned NHS profiteer Carillion and former board member of BSkyB. For the record, SELEX Galileo manufacture a wide variety of drones ready to drop “wide suite of payloads” on unwitting targets of imperial aggression all over the world, and of course, aren’t adverse to exploiting their own workers to boot.