Today has been a busy day, both for me personally and for the Square Mile itself. Trains are busy, restaurants and bars are booming, people are shopping and the Guildhall Yard has a very popular beer festival.
Today I’ve attended an Education Board meeting. It was 26 items of business across 186 pages. We discussed the how the return to school plan is going, given the issues around Covid-19 and vaccinations. We had an update on some pilot schemes addressed at tackling racism which had been driven by students with some brilliant outcomes. We discussed budgets and Governor appointments and vacancies across the extensive family of schools. We talked about the huge success of the London Careers Festival and the Open Spaces learning programme, which has facilities learning opportunities for 45,000 young people in our forests over the last 2 years! We received an update on the 4 ‘Social’ Strategies the Board had set: Responsible Business, Social Mobility, Digital Skills and Climate Action Strategies. The pandemic over the past 2 years have shone a bright light on the link between digital skills and social inclusion. Many students across the country without access to computers or the internet means learning simply wasn’t possible. We also discussed the invalidated exam results, financial scrutiny for sponsored academies and a need to improve upon the Sixth Form strategies across the family of schools.
Today we also had a meeting of the full Court of Common Council, which brings together all 125 Members in the Great Hall. As the most senior body in the City of London, Court meetings are often subject to hearty debate and lengthy voting, but today the business was conducted in a record 27 minutes! At the start the Lord Mayor requested a minutes’ silence to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The deep-rooted relationships between London and New York made this terrorist attack personal. It will be a day we will never forget and a day we must all pledge to never be allowed to happen again.
The Lord Mayor also have an update on his virtual tours with financial and professional service leaders across the world to strengthen trade and business ties.
The Policy and Resources Chair (de facto Leader of the Council) provided an update on the City of London’s role in housing a number of families from Afghanistan in hotels whilst permanent solutions are identified. The Chairman of the Police Authority Board (de facto Police and Crime Commissioner) also updated on the progress being made against the agreed key priorities for the City Police Force. The Force is also the UK’s national lead force with responsibility for economic (fraud) and cyber crime and he spoke about the need to better resource police forces to tackle cyber enabled crimes, which now account for more than 80% of all fraud. Fraud is the biggest single crime type in the UK accounting for one third of all crimes and it damages the international reputation of the City as a global financial hub. He has called on the Security Minister to better regulate online platforms through the Online Safety Bill.
