You have to respect the Argyll Rural Schools Network (ARSN) for its achievement in being recognised as a major force after 24 days of existence with a bizarre council attack on them yesterday.
You also have to envy their skills in press relations. They have a gift for the attractive, light touch, accurate attack that commands attention. This has been shown in their success rate to date in getting national print media interest in their campaign to save a swathe of Argyll’s mainland and island rural primary schools.
These currently threatened with closure by council proposals proven to be fundamentally flawed.
Now they’re back with this headline (above) and you ust have to read it. So here they are speaking for themselves.
‘Councillor Ellen Morton, appointed Argyll & Bute’s Spokesperson for Education, after she and her LibDem colleagues voted to continue the schools closure plan, has attacked the Argyll Rural Schools Network for having the temerity to defend rural schools and communities.
‘She complains about the “mammoth number of enquiries” triggered by the closure proposals without seeming to realise that any attempt to close twenty-five village schools is bound to create an avalanche of interest.
‘The decision to attack so many schools all at once was made by the council and it is ludicrous to blame ARSN for the resultant volume of enquiries.
‘She also suggests that ARSN has been “unsuccessful in trying to find fault in the process.” She clearly has not been paying much attention. As the umbrella group for all rural schools in Argyll ARSN, in conjunction with campaigners at individual schools, has been:
- successful in having the original proposals withdrawn because they were so inaccurate
- successful in getting Luing Primary School removed from the closure list
- successful in exposing the community impact misinformation in Argyll & Bute’s “dodgy dossier”
- successful in outlining the manipulation of the process suggested by the now departed consultant
- successful in challenging the many errors and omissions in the Proposal Documents.
‘It is noticeable that, rather than addressing any of these points, Councillor Morton tries to “shoot the messenger.”
‘Having recently stated that she “would not close any school which she had not visited,” it is unsurprising that so few of the threatened schools have rushed to invite her.
‘Argyll Rural Schools Network Convener, Murdo MacDonald commented, “Councillor Morton accuses us of being “negative.”
‘In fact ARSN will support the closure of any school where it can be shown to be of educational benefit to the children involved.
‘Where no educational benefit can be shown we will positively campaign to protect our children and our communities. That is in accordance with the law as given in the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010. We will continue to follow the law rather than take instruction from Ellen Morton.”
It is interesting that Councillor Morton suggests that ARSN has been ‘unsuccessful in trying to find fault in the process’ since her now close colleague, the council’s Exeecutive Director of Community Services and Education Director, Cleland Sneddon, chose ARSN as the target of his first – and strange - public response to the criticism finding its targets on these discredit proposals.
The evidence is powerfully on ARSN’s side here. It has not only found fault in the proposals, it has made its discoveries stick – hence Councillor Morton’s and Cleland Sneddon’s various attempts to undermine them.
Councillor Morton and her LibDem colleagues are fighting for their political lives after their conduct in betraying their schools by selling for power votes know to have been intended to go the opposite way.
ARSN is to be congratulated for its independent spirit, its resourcefulness and its sheer ability.
Is that Ellen Morton’s way of saying, “Its not our fault we’re rubbish, its ARSN’s for pointing it out”?
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The Council’s press release, for me, emphaises how desperate the Council are becoming to try and bury the idea that they have breached the Schools Consultation Act. These cries for the public to come up with viable alternatives are preposterous. In essence the Council are asking parents, and other members of the community, to develop, in a matter of weeks, something the Council has failed to do in a matter of months.
Furthermore they expect communities to do it in their spare time whilst they are still committed to working, caring for families and trying to find the time to research evidence to build the case to secure their schools futures. Let us not forget that Council officers had the luxury of the working day, with public money, to honour their responsibility to look at alternatives to closure.
The Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 is not ambiguous on this – Section 12 clearly states that the education authority must have special regard to the factors mentioned in subsection (3) with one of those factors being any viable alternative to the closure proposal.
At no point does it state that the education authority must go running cap in hand to the public and ask them to do their job for them.
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For Integrity? Not in the Independents: You are quite right.
It’s important for everybody to be absolutely clear on this.
The 2010 Act requires the local authority to consider viable alternatives to closure before publishing the proposals.
Doing work for them that legally they must do themselves – and unsurprisingly appear to have no confidence in their own ability to do so – would be akin to Stockholm syndrome. (And this is a set up for Dr Mackenzie to have fun explaining.)
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“In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness” (Wikipedia)
Though I’m not really grasping the analogy. Looks more like being lazy tumshies to me.
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For Dr Douglas Mackenzie: Sorry to dump this one on you, Douglas – but we knew you’d rise to it.
Stockholm Syndrome can be used to explain all sorts of daft reactions we all have – like being grateful to dentists for not hurting us when we should be mad if they do.
In a way the council has taken the parent councils hostage by tying them up in these proposals – and it’s so easy for people in this position to try to win the favour of the abuser and even to start imagining that they have a special relationship.
One to watch.
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I think the analogy stands up to scrutiny. Stockholm Syndrome is often associated with a scenario where the hostage can’t escape and feels the fear of death hanging over them. The captor then demonstrates acts of ‘compassion’, possibly showing them a small light at the end of the tunnel despite never really being inclined to deliver on their promises. It is more designed to bring about the psychological shift and reduce any resistance.
However A&B should beware the sword of Damocles for, as the moral of the story goes ‘”Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.”
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ARSN are great aren’t they? Remember this classic from them in November*?
“In the light of the recent Scottish Budget, why is the Education service being asked to find such savings in the first place?”
How come ARSN have not yet asked the obvious question now that the budget cut at 4.9% is almost twice what they and For argyll claimed it would be? The obvious question of course is how much additional pressure does this cut of £15million place on the education budget?
*read it here before it’s edited – http://forargyll.com/2010/11/argyll-rural-schools-network-asks-four-simple-questions-of-council-and-councillors/
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Newsroom & Integrity etc: I can assure you I don’t feel any gratitude to my “captors”! And since we are on all sorts of metaphors and sayings I would employ the (slightly altered) caution “beware Kilmorons bearing gifts”
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Assuming that the council should have found and considered alternatives before publishing their proposals, does this quote from Mr. Sneddon in the Press and Journal mean he admits they have failed in their legal duty?
“The consultation will help us identify alternative proposals and will highlight any inaccuracies in our current proposals.”
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Another old saying “putting the cart before the horse”.
The Council had a statutory duty to explore all viable alternatives before moving to a closure consultation (Mr Sneddon probably had missed this as it is nearer the end of the Act under the special rules concerning rural schools – and let’s not have any snide comments about perhaps he should have read it all the way through before thinking of closing one third of all primaries in Argyll). You would also have thought that the Council had a duty (or at least the self respect) to have ensured the closure proposal documents were free of errors before publishing them.
There are some marvellous “inaccuracies” as well. Mr Sneddon is going to have a busy Christmas break thinking up positive spin over these (I suggest the line that errors were deliberately left in so as to fully engage the serfs – sorry! – citizens in the process and make sure we are all on our toes).
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