Attended the Erdington District Committee last night, which was an unusually short meeting. The devolved Districts are still getting organised in Birmingham, and it's quite difficult to explain what they are to people at the moment. Coming onto the Council in June last year, I missed the first wave of the organisation process, so I'm not part of any of the Theme Groups looking at different areas of delivery. I feel like I've yet to see the full picture as regards the way the District will work eventually; as with so many things I've more questions than I have answers at the moment.

I'm off to a Governor's meeting shortly. The school where I am a governor is, I'm told, one of the worst nineteen schools in the country. The pedant in me wonders how that statistic came about - why is quoted as the worst nineteen, rather than the worst twenty? Anyway, as an outcome of the last lot of results, a partnership has been established with another local school to work on achievment, attendance and behaviour, and to try to get extra resources and staff in to improve the school in the long term. It's still early days, but it is starting to have a positive effect I think. I'll see what sort of an update we get later..