We understand, on good authority, that the decision has been taken within Argyll and Bute Concil not to re-employ Keir Bloomer as Education Consultant in respect of the current and almost comically discredited school closures proposal process.
Another consultant will, however, be employed – provided any can be found, or paid enough, to walk into the stocks.
In his poem, Ozymandias, Shelley calls to mind the image of a shattered monument lying in the desert. It’s short, well worth a read and sums up the morality tale of Keir Bloomer’s adventures in Argyll.
‘I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
This is Keir Bloomer and Argyll’s school closure proposals are the desert from which future hired guns in the guise of education consultants will not emerge intact. Only the ruins remain.
The mercenaries would be advised to put their wallets back in their pockets and find a safer billet.
If they take the money, Argyll will have the most spectacular spectator sport in picking off at will their attempts to defend what Bloomer and the in-house hacks have cut and pasted together.
We have never been more serious is saying that – on hard evidence now assembled and waiting for serial launch when appropriate – the only thing that is defensible in these proposals is the spelling of the names of the schools listed for closure.
One article exposing a major central legal disability will be published shortly – and we are aware of and familiar with just what the respected authorities at the Scottish Rural Schools Network have waiting in the silos.
Caveat emptor.
No great surprise there. Mr Bloomer’s credibility as an unbiased consultant who could aid the consultation process was shredded by the release of the e-mail correspondence.
I also wondered if he and Mr Sneddon would see eye to eye anyway as the latter’s mechanism for determining which schools should be targeted was quite different from Mr Bloomer’s and the Education Department’s initial model. Basically, Mr Sneddon instigated a resource driven model that considered the distances between schools: schools that were within 45 minutes journey of each other were considered candidates for “amalgamation” if one of the schools had a theoretical capacity and under occupancy that would allow it to swallow the other school. There were various other factors applied to prevent major losses due to problems with the GAE but that seems to be the basic Sneddon closure model.
Problem with this is that the Act requires an EDUCATIONAL rationale for closure – the presumption is against closure on financial grounds alone. So Mr Sneddon seems to have merely taken Mr Bloomer’s educational rationale and tacked it onto the new resource driven closure list. Mr Bloomer’s position seems to be: “Big schools good: small schools bad” mantra. This was based on the pseudo-science argument that small schools couldn’t effectively deliver the Curriculum for Excellence because of insufficient numbers of pupils to form effective peer groups. (Actually, this is such a load of tosh that I find it difficult to believe that Mr Bloomer actually believes this but this is the argument put forward).
The next problem is that some of the schools that end up on the list with the Sneddon closure model cannot be described as small (at least not in the sense used by Mr Bloomer). The two Peninsula schools are the most glaring examples of this but it is preposterous to even suggest that any school above 20 pupils will have difficulties with CforE and lacks sufficient pupils for them to form adequate peer groups (as an aside, although most people tend to worry about educational and social development of children in what could be described as micro schools – ie less than 5 pupils – I’m unaware of any evidence that these schools have educational and social outcomes that are any worse than other small schools).
Mr Bloomer would know that suggesting that pupils from schools larger than 20 would benefit from moving to larger schools is a complete nonsense and indefensible.
Whether Mr Bloomer jumped or was pushed I’m not sure (though I can hear the FoI requests winging their way to Kilmory even as I type). However, I think this is good for all concerned. His continuing input to the process would have been inflammatory.
I’ll be interested if any respectable educational advisor will step up to help the Council defend the mince.
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The sound of the axe falling on Bloomer’s £1,000 a day salary can surely be mistaken for the sound of a stable door closing whilst the horses are grazing in the neighbouring field.
The Council, and certain Councillors, are now frantically trying to distance themselves from the man who, along with Sneddon, manipulated this entire process in return for pieces of silver and a badge from the Chief Executive to say ‘Job Well Done’
However the damage has been done and no amount of back pedaling, denials, or passing of the buck will detract from the fact that the process followed to construct these proposals has been tainted with duplicity from start to finish.
Cutting Bloomer out of the equation does not make the proposals any less flawed all it does is highlight that Council officers and Councillors are scared of the possible ramifications that the recent revelations might have on them, and their future. A fear that is well founded as this process has seen more breaches than the Bon Accord back four!
Now they want to bring in a substitute. Someone they know can’t be accused of wrong doing as they have no footprint in the school closure sand. Someone who, like the QIOs’ will get rehearsal training. ‘The first instruction he will receive is ‘Best not to use the e-mail system too much – Bloomer did that – not the smartest move, must be as a result of that large urban school education he got.
When the ancient mariner shot the albatross he was cursed with seven days and seven nights of bad luck. The Council have shot a sitting duck and my guess is that, by the time this is over, they will think the mariner got off pretty lightly. Some careers are more likely to suffer like the mariner’s crew than the mariner himself.
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Any truth in the rumour that John Swinney’s much praised budget cut of “only 2.6% to the Council’s budget” is wrong and that cut is actually almost 5% for Argyll and Bute? *
If true so much for the SNP’s “only 2.6% cut” and the efforts of some on here using that “only 2.6% cut” as an argument why schools should not be closed. Truth is it looks as though the cut to Argyll and Bute’s budget is also set to be higher than the average Council cut in England (4.4%) that John Swinney compared his cuts to – telling us how the SNP government had protected us all from that severe level of cut. Aye right.
If accurate this of course will mean even MORE cuts in Argyll and Bute and frankly Councillors would now be negligent if they don’t actually consider closing some of these under-occupied and expensive schools.
*I’ve not seen any articles from Newsroom on the increased cuts to this Councils budget. Somewhat surprising given the normal run of rumours, allegations, assertions, personal abuse, cack-handed nicknames, FOI and the other associated stuff we normally see on here.
Whilst you try yet yet to get another tack on the school closure front there’s real news with real impacts passing you by newsie
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Simon
ForArgyll is a blog and what blogs do is publish rumour, innuendo and opinion disguised as fact. ForArgyll is very good at that.
You are not a blog (I presume), so your spreading of rumour, innuendo and opinion makes you either a gossip or a sh*t stirrer.
Unless of course you care to back up your assertion about the cut to the Council’s budget with some evidence…
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For Henry Wragg: with the provisos that:
‘rumours’ are checked for accuracy but cannot be officially confirmed;
innuendos are well earned and keep us on the right side of the litigious;
we do a lot of heavy weight research on serious issues – including the schools closure issue;
and much of our work is first hand reporting which is often non-standard in commentary but accurate in fact and attribution.
In terms of this particular issue – the Argyll and Bute school closure proposals – we would not have stuck our heads so far and so permanently above the parapet if we did not have very possible good reason to know what we’re talking about. And we do. It’s comprehensive and there is no answer to it.
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One only needs to look at the other avenues of cuts in ABC’s focus in their ‘consultation’ to realise that they only want to hurt the weakest and the most vulnerable in our community.
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Hmm. One down and three to go. Plus of course the naughty nineteen. Their time will come….Mr Churchill again: ‘ This may not be the beginning of the end, but it is certainly the end of the beginning….’
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I think one of the more principled administration members (like the up to now respected Alex macNaughton) will take the principled road, and stop this shambles now. i am certain 2 or 3 more will follow. Look in the mirror guys. Eithe you can be bought or not.
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“Any truth in the rumour that John Swinney’s much praised budget cut of “only 2.6% to the Council’s budget” is wrong and that cut is actually almost 5% for Argyll and Bute?”
Simon, I too have heard a couple of folk mention this in the past day or two. Haven’t come across any substantive report on it however.
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What alarms me is that Keir Bloomer is also Vice-Convener for the charity Children in Scotland, who are there to help protect children’s rights and offer advice to agencies in how to do this best.
His position there must now be untenable in how easily he was willing to say whatever they wanted him to say, in order to shut these kids schools.
He should resign, he has seriously compromised his position.
And what should be pointed out is that Children In Scotland are one of the bodies in the working group that are supposed to be tightening up the Schools Consultation Act.
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Simon/Jim – phew I thought something terrible had happened. When was the last time you commented on For Argyll? Its been days hasn’t it.
Tell me, why haven’t either of you commented on Keir Bloomer’s Bloomers? I’d be interested in your opinions on them.
Or maybe I missed them, so please point them out if I did.
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Hi Crazy! Miss me eh? Can’t live with me can’t live without me….
I was going to comment while all the froth was going on but thought better of it*
In general what I thought (as I think about most of the OTT reactions on here ) was that the whole Bloomer thing was blown out of all proportion. I think most deliberately mis-intepreted the stuff attributed to him and fell over backwards just to be offended, eg the bit about Councillors being “gagged” looked to me more like him as a consultant making sure they (the councillors) were not going to be put under the undue pressure they are on here for example. Of course Newsroom decided it was gagging so that was that and the usual suspects* with their vested interests all fell into place behind newsie’s lead. And much as I feel the opposing view should be put on here – I just couldn’t be bothered in this case as most of the psoters had worked themselves into a right righteous old frenzy.
*You quite rightly point out some of Mr Bloomers other roles – from my research he is very well repsected – Mike Russell the SNP Minister uses him frequently, an ex Chief Executive of Clacks and an ex-chair of the Directors of Education. The man has a national prescence and reputation – so I didn’t want to comment in case he starts to sue some of the incautious name-calling numpties on here. Know what I mean Crazy?
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And Crazy, if the oft-repeated rumour on here of a 5% cut in the Council’s budget is true then it will be to use your word “terrible” and all the more reasons to look at shutting some schools. You still for shutting Ardrishaig?
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Simon/Jim – I’m with CSB on this, missed you loads. Funny thing is though, you always seem to disappear when something comes up that you might interpret as being a little bit awkward. Then after a few days you will suddenly appear back and completely ignore those little awkward questions.
Jim, I posted one or two questions to you a few days ago, but I guess you were just away xmas shopping and missed it! Anyway, can you just remind me again how the banks and others got us into this situation. Please correct me if I’m wrong, was it not partly because they went unchallenged and unscrutinised. Was it not because they manipulated rules and regulations. Was it not because they thought they were above the law and due process.
Or to put it an other way, if the instituitions had been scrutinised, if the organisations had been made to abide by the law, if they had been forced to answer and be accountable to their stakeholders, if they had followed due process and best practice guidelines do you think we would be in the mess we are currently in.
Simon – you’re such a girl. What personal abuse have you had on here. If you live where I think you live, you will hear more ‘personal abuse’ in five minutes in the local pubs than what you’ve had the entire time you’ve been on here.
I first started to take an interest in this because of what you were saying. Over time it became apparent though, to me at least, that you just kept on repeating yourself. You would put on this big show about no one answering ‘that’ question, yet you consistently failed to answer any questions that were put directly to yourself.
I know you have both stated that you have absolutely no links with the Council but I for one think you are both talking a lot of pants. Too many coincidences in how you behave and how you say/phrase things.
By the way, do either of you have the surname Walker, sorry Trudie only joking!
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Alasdair “I’m with CSB on this,” You almost make it sound like you’ve come to some sort of considered opinion onhtis whole vexed questio . W-e-l-l considering some of your previous posts that’s hardly a surprise that you and Crazy are in this together now is it Alasdair?
You’re the easily-offended-one-on-behalf-of-others right? You’re the one who wanted me to apologise to 500 kids and their parents because I said I was going to have a good Christmas because I knew what I was getting for Christmas! !!! That was you now wasn’t it?
And you call me a girl…..you big blouse you.
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Simon – Blimey, CSB is sending me wiggly worms and your telling me I’m in cahoots with her….
Maybe I’m a little bit old fashioned and maybe even a little bit chauvinistic but if a woman throws one at me it’s not my automatic reaction to throw one back, but heyho that’s just me.
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To Simon and Jim; I dont think you will ever change your opinion or give any credence to anything other than your entrenched similar positions, which is a shame as if you were more open minded i feel that you would have more to add here.
You must be prepared to look at the alternatives to what you repeatedly are saying here. I have had my eyes opened by facts here and appreciate information, which i can draw my own conclusions on.
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You know I came back and read the last couple of threads and wondered if I had entered the Twilight Zone.
Wiggly worms? I didn’t realise I even had sweeties, but I don’t mind sharing. Did I say they should shut Ardrishaig? doubt it. Have I used the word “terrible”? Hmmm probably, but alas my earlier doses of coffee have worn off and the search engine for the site, does not appear to look through comments.
re: Bloomer. Yes very busy man. Fingers in many pies. But from the comments on his emails – not on here – the docs themselves, don’t you think it is at least unprofessional as the “Independent Education Consultant”? This is a link to a document produced by Children In Scotland and the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People which is specifically about the handling of school closures and the role of the “Independent Education Consultant”.
This document makes for excellent reading about how this whole thing should be handled, but page 18 is particular to Bloomer’s role.
http://www.childreninscotland.org.uk/docs/Participantsnotpawnsguidance20100315.pdf
re: The 5% cut rumour. As you have challenged us to prove our arguments, same goes for you. If you have evidence, bring it forward. Otherwise, how are we to know if it is just a fairytale written by some QIOs? They’ve written 26 already. And “oft-repeated”? Seen it mentioned twice – you and Jim. First I have heard about it.
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Simon does like to drag us off topic. He can’t answer the telling questions and there is no way he can find any excuse for the LibDem group.
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CSB – Dec 4th @ 1:09pm ‘Alasdair – for you a big wiggly worm on a hook cos you seem to be taking the bait.’
I wouldn’t mind normally, but I’m rubbish at fishing.
Not sure where Simon got the bit about you saying Ardrishaig school should closed, it was actually ‘Dazed and Confused’ who suggested that. And TBH when you look at the figures produced by the Council, he/she was right!!!
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Ahhh yes, thank you for reminding me Alasdair. December 4th seems like months ago now LOL
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Yeah Dave, we went from Ozymandias to wiggly worms on one page. Quite a descent.
The article stands. Keir Bloomer is out and his contribution to the pot – the basic structure of the proposals, what to leave out, who to leave out – should now be under serious scrutiny.
And Simon, go do your research mate. Prove to us that school closures have resulted in savings in the past. In reality they don’t, and forecasts for oil prices over the next couple of years raise the strong possiblity that they’ll LOSE money. Teachers are great and we value them, but they don’t have the skills needed for this kind of project. There’s just no “property management” or “local government funding” module on the course and they don’t suddenly acquire the skills because they got promoted to an office in Dunoon.
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“Jim, I posted one or two questions to you a few days ago, but I guess you were just away xmas shopping and missed it! Anyway, can you just remind me again how the banks and others got us into this situation.”
Alasdair: I gave up on that thread to be honest. When CSB came out with this;
“Hmmmm I thought that the council CHOSE whom and where to invest their money in. Maybe they should have been a little more careful Jim.”
In response to my point about public sector cuts. I knew at that point I was dealing with someone unable to understand the mechanism in which local government is funded.
Her retort was;
“Jim I have consulted by abacus and have managed to figure out 2 and 2 equals 4 unless you work for the council, then its minus 357.
Does the council CHOSE where to invest its money? Yes or no”
Let’s be honest, there isn’t much point in constructing a response to that.
The comparison you attempt to draw between the regulation and oversight of financial institutions and ABC’s school closure proposals is beyond tenuous.
“You must be prepared to look at the alternatives to what you repeatedly are saying here. I have had my eyes opened by facts here and appreciate information, which i can draw my own conclusions on.”
phil: Be careful what you interpret as fact. ForArgyll is serving facts dressed with very generous helpings of opinion and spin.
I do find it curious that FA hasn’t bothered to even attempt to provide any coverage of the other service cuts facing the people of Argyll and Bute. I would think it appropriate to put the school closure proposals alongside the other decisions the Council is currently making regarding the services it delivers. You know, for a bit of context and perspective.
Or does that just muddy the water and make it harder to keep to the beat of their own agenda?
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Jim – ‘The comparison you attempt to draw between the regulation and oversight of financial institutions and ABC’s school closure proposals is beyond tenuous’
Not sure how you come to that conclusion. When the financial crisis hit, it affected us all, maybe not directly but it did have an impact. However, the people who it directly affected were those individuals who had money invested in the particular banks, sods law maybe.
But every single person who lives in A & B has money invested in the Council, whether they want to or not. Every single person has a financial stake in the Council so surely they should be held even more accountable than any other organisation.
Those who were lucky enough to see what was coming three or four years ago had the choice to do something about it, we simply do not have that choice when it comes to paying our taxes. To coin a phrase, the Council is the peoples bank, so should it not be open to even more scrutiny.
Because of this, could you help me to understand why you applaud the Council for attempting to manipulate current guidelines and procedures. Surely if we are to learn anything from the financial crisis it must be that every organisation that handles ‘our’ money should be scrupulously clean and we should be able to scrutinise and interrogate them to ensure similar abuses do not happen again.
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Ahh there you are Jim. I notice you are still avoiding answering the question. Not difficult. Just yes or no.
Do they choose where to invest their money? Yes or no.
You think their reserves are hidden under a carpet at Kilmory?
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Nah, under Dick’s milk float.
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Simon – Re your comment above about Bloomer: “I think most deliberately mis-intepreted the stuff attributed to him and fell over backwards just to be offended”
I’m not sure about the other folks on here, but I mostly just fell over backwards laughing…
Good to have you back.
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CSB: Still not getting it are you.
“Do they choose where to invest their money? Yes or no.”
Yes, and they did so quite wisely. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7660741.stm & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7660438.stm
ABC’s problem, much like every other Council is due to a deficit reduction plan as a cause of the banking crisis.
“Because of this, could you help me to understand why you applaud the Council for attempting to manipulate current guidelines and procedures.”
Alasdair: I will refer you to the comments I made on another article;
“The budget deal is a carrot on a stick that won’t exist in a years time, so why bother chasing it?”
It turns out I was wrong however, the 2.6% was a completely mystical figure anyway, it looks like Argyll are getting a 4.94% hit. See latest news release on ABC home page.
“The cut in grant funding for 2011/12 is £11.4m (4.94%), which effectively means that the council will have to cut its budget by about £15m after allowing for inflation etc.
This settlement figure, recently announced by the Scottish Government, is significantly worse (some £5.6m, almost double the Scottish average) than anticipated.”
The the big hoo-haa about “Council plan to subvert COSLA concordat” was nothing more than ill informed hot air.
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For Jim and Simon: First of all, the Concordat scam is very far from being hot air.
Then, as we understand it, while Argyll will lose more than 2.6%, this is not a matter of the 2.6% baseline being wrong. The way that local authority grants are calculated sets them competitively against other local authorities through the mechanism we are all getting familiar with via the school closures proposals – GAE, or Grant Aided Expenditure.
It is only one of the hundreds of ‘lines’ of GAE that relates to the per capita funding for small (roll below 70) rural schools. The mechanism as a whole controls the specific budgets for each local authority relative to each other. There are performance rewards and penalties built into the system and what is happening to Argyll is an additional loss above the baseline 2.6% which is related to relatively poor performance on key factors.
We are not mathematicians so although we understand the principles of GAE, we are not going to attempt to explain its intricacies.
However, the Scottish Rural Schools Network team are recognised authorities on the overall operation of GAE so we have asked Sandy Longmuir to write an article for us which will show why Argyll’s overall budget will lose more than the baseline 2.6% which is the settlement.
Sandy’s main computer was hit by a virus two days ago and is being repaired. It carries all of his spreadsheets so is necessary in the preparation of the article – but it won’t be too long in coming and it will clarify this mechanism for all of us.
What we can say is that there are lessons to be learned from it in what Argyll must do to pull itself up. In relation to the planned loss of 25 rural schools, part of the impact of this, were it to happen, would be to see Argyll’s overall budget progressively drop further through the all-embracing reach of the GAE mechanism. Part of this measures the relative inward migration of families and people of working age.
The danger of specific situations like this is, as is happening in the Western Isles, that local authorities can reach a point of a cycle of decline that is irreversible without massive external intervention.
Argyll is in that risk area. It will take the strongest of joined-up strategies for us to escape it. This is a wake up call which could easily become a message of despair.
Keep your eyes open for Sandy Longmuir’s article.
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Newsie “Scottish Rural Schools Network team are recognised authorities on the overall operation of GAE s”. Do you not think some may be of the opinion that SRSN might have a vested interst in the way they present their version of figures?
Phil – Believe it or not I actually don’t have an entrenched view of whether a particular school should close or not. I want to see the resposnes to the closure documents and hear the balanced arguments. However, I am simply not prepapred to accept the simplistic and somewhart emotional position that schools should never close and that savings in the number of schools can never be made.
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Crazy – tthe 5% cut tyo Argyll and Bute’s budget is onthe ABC home page
“The cut in grant funding for 2011/12 is £11.4m (4.94%), which effectively means that the council will have to cut its budget by about £15m after allowing for inflation etc.This settlement figure, recently announced by the Scottish Government, is significantly worse (some £5.6m, almost double the Scottish average) than anticipated”.
So much for the trumpeted SNP decision ot restrict cuts to 2.6% – it’s nearly double that in Argyll and Bute! £15million off the budget this year! Services will be decimated and it is only right and proper that ALL possible savings are identified and that does include some rural schools – and anyone who says differently is most def crazy.
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Jim – thanks for the figures and the direction to ABC website. However I think you know yourself I wasn’t actually talking about figures or cuts, I merely asked whether organisations who are responsible for our money should be open to public scrutiny and held accountable for their actions, just a yes or no would suffice.
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Simon – you are like a stuck record (remember those?)
No-one has said that the council shouldn’t look for savings in its school estate nor has anyone said that no schools should close. What most of us are saying but you are not listening to is that the plan to close perfectly viable rural schools in the face of the Schools Consultation Act 2010′s stated intention to introduce a presumption against closure is doomed to failure. This is because of significant errors in the way that the Council has approached the process and because of the very weak case that the Council has put forward in the consultation documents (and that despite being rather selective with the evidence it has put forward).
I have no objection to the Council looking for cost reductions in the management of Argyll’s school estate (and they would be remiss if they didn’t). I don’t even object to them examining our own school here in Barcaldine as a possible target for closure. What I do object to – and strongly – is the unnecessary stress and suffering heaped on hundreds upon hundreds of Argyll’s school children and their parents by the Council’s delinquent pursuit of a simplistic and inane closure policy. I also object (strongly) to the Council wasting valuable financial resources pursuing this process when the likely outcome is only a very modest cost reduction, completely out of proportion to the educational, social and economic damage that will be inflicted (mostly) upon the rural population of Argyll.
I am sorry to hear that Sandy’s computer has suffered a viral attack as I am looking forward with considerable interest to his explanation of the GAE mechanism and how this affects us in Argyll (I am taking regular ginseng supplements to gear my brain so I might stand a chance of understanding it).
However, what I already know is that Argyll is slipping rapidly down the ranking order of GAE. Again, I stand to be corrected if wrong, but this is the likely reason that ABC is suffering a higher than average (%) cut than other councils. The GAE support rewards councils for achieving a rather long list of social goals. Crudely put, the better a council serves its area the more money it gets. That ABC is managing to precipitate us down the rankings should be a matter of some concern to all of us here in Argyll. Incidentally, closing all of these rural schools not only loses us the GAE support that they attract but also pushes us further down the GAE rankings.
There is a real danger that unless ABC bucks up its performance we will end up in a spiral of decay such as has been suffered in the Western Isles.
Don’t know about the rest of you but I want to see an economically strong, socially confident and inclusive Argyll. This is something that the current Council leadership are measurably failing to achieve and the inept school closure proposals are just one symptom of this.
Again, someone correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be missing the point about these figures Simon. If ABC do not conform to the COSLA-SG concordant then they are in danger of suffering an even larger cut than the one which their performance has apparently landed us with.
Simon – have you yet read the Act and at least one closure proposal yet as I asked you to do?
And for both Jim and Simon: neither of you have yet answered my questions about financial viability. In case you have forgotten I asked:
1: If closing a school will result in the Council losing money year on year should that closure go ahead? Yes/No
2: If there is no cost reduction and no loss to the Council on closure (ie a net neutral effect) should a school close? Yes/No
3: presuming that you answered no to the previous two questions, at what level of cost reduction would you consider it worthwhile closing a rural school with the attendant loss of educational and social amenity in an area:
a: £1, b: £1000, c: £10,000 or d: £100,000
We await your answers with interest.
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Simon: You’re at it again – the standard rhetorical trick of attributing things to people they haven’t said and then rubbishing them for it. We’ve had to pull you on on this several times – with no visible effect.
To the best of our knowledge no one has said that no school should ever close. And any emotion there is about – and most of it is anger – relates to the injustice of healthy schols beong compelled to defend against incapable, legally non-complaint and dishonestly argued proposals.
And the council is on the record as having already chosen to go for its upper goalpost of spending cuts. It gave a spectrum of the need to make savings of £9-£15 million, whjile saying that it was aiming at the full £15 million.
Were the council better and more strategically managed – and wait for a story we will publish later on a substantial ad indefensible waste of money now contractually committed – it would be competitive with other local authorities for the amount of its annual revenue grant.
And that management inability is the heart of all our problems.
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Simon
If you genuinely want to see a balanced argument to school closure proposals then rather than spending your time playing the ‘sticking your fingers in your ears’ game with regard to the arguments being put forward by For Argyll and also people all over A&B you should be challenging the Council to provide a balanced argument.
I personally have no problem with school closures being considered, it isn’t as if it is a new concept. What I have a problem with is is a Council trying to push them through by:
1. Deliberately omitting key information from their proposal papers (e-mail evidence of this is available and has been published already)
2. Making basic arithmetical errors which make numbers misleading (they can’t even divide tow numbers correctly which result in an understated cost per pupil)
3. Falsifying the summary conclusions of major studies to make them suit their argument (again clear evidence of this already published)
4. Trying to circumvent statutory requirements by plugging in a few lip service paragraphs which have no substance to support them (this will come out at a later stage)
5. Taking advice from an ‘independent’ consultant, on very specific matters relating to the process to be adopted, months before appointing him and having council officers write back to thank him and tell him they will definitely be recommending him as an appointment.
The list goes on and on.
You may question For Argyll’s articles and have every right to however I wonder if you have been so challenging of the Council’s claims. For Argyll is, after all, a blog without statutory obligations. The Council do not have this luxury yet they appear to operate as if they do.
Have you challenged them? If not your claims to wanting to see a balanced consultation are pretty disingenuous. Or maybe, and more disturbing, maybe you feel what the Council have done is perfectly acceptable and it is the role of the public to try and prove they are attempting to cheat their way over the line..
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Doc/newsie/integrity. It would appear that I have more faith in the school closure process than you lot have put together.
Everybody aggrees some schools should close but no one will say which ones.
The school closure process affords parents and others to challenge, within a staute governed process, the figures used by the Coucnil.
The reason I simply cannot accept that people have already ‘proved’ that figures are flawed is because the parents and other groups at Crossroads in Ayr said precisely the same thing! ‘The figures are flawed the consultation should stop’. However, the fact that the Minister responsible did not call in the Crossroads case suggests that the figures were not i n fact flawed after all.
As far as I am concerned it is the school closure process that will reveal after if figures are flawed or not and if those figures are material or not.
The truth is that most posters on here are only paying lip service to the notion that ‘some schools should close’ and if it came down to it they are all NIMBY about it. That’s precisley why we need a more objective process
And if Doc, Integrity Newsie and others don’t like the process that gives communnties the opportunity to challenge Council figures – then they should eithe rlet the opportunity pass them by or take it up with the government that passed the legislation. At least your communintes are being consulted about possible cuts. With the draconian cuts heading our way as a result of a £15million budget cut – there are plenty of people who are about to lose their jobe or their serivcesand they don’t have the luxury of a statutory consultation process to protect them.
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Simon – responding to you is like a drug habit. You know you shouldn’t do it but you just cannot help yourself. But I feel that I’m just about to go “Cold Turkey”.
I’ll just first note that you are pointedly ignoring the questions I have put to you. Unless you are prepared to properly engage in debate then you lose the right to the respect of everyone else here.
To take your points:
“Doc/newsie/integrity. It would appear that I have more faith in the school closure process than you lot have put together.”
Amen! (again, I’m not sure if that was meant to be funny but it made me smile)
“Everybody aggrees some schools should close but no one will say which ones.”
I refer you to successive previous posts: the schools that are empty should be shut (unless someone puts up a very good case for retention) and schools where there rolls have fallen so low that there is a genuine concern over their educational and social viability should be subjected to a detailed while compassionate investigation in accord with the Act to determine if closure would be a better option than retaining the school. The rest of the schools should not even be considered for closure as there is no case to close them. The names of the empty schools can be found in the Council documents. The schools that should be subjected to scrutiny because of viability questions are more difficult to determine because the Council has only given us information on the costs of the schools (and the amount of money they think they can stop spending). They have not looked at viable alternatives or determined the social impact of closure so we cannot be more definite than this at this time.
Which brings me back to my main point: the Council can save some money by formally closing the empty schools. There may be a case for closing a small number of other schools on viability grounds (and that is less than 5 schools) but we (the people of Argyll) haven’t been given the information to let us determine if this is justified or not because the Council has both failed to gather the required information in the pre-consultation phase and they have failed to provide full and unbiased information in the proposal documents. There is no case for closing any of the rest and they will not close. The cost reductions that are available to the Council are thus very modest.
I apologise in advance for a crude analogy to get a point across here but even fairly straight talking argument doesn’t seem to be getting through to Simon: Old people are an expensive “burden” on society. If ABC were to embark on a programme of quietly bumping off the all the old folks they have to provide free care to than that would save the Council a lot of money. They cannot do this because it would be illegal. You can shut non-viable schools down (providing you follow the legal process) but it is effectively illegal to shut viable rural schools. The Council may be able to cut costs in providing care to the elderly but they cannot achieve the large “savings” that might be obtainable through “shutting” OAPs. Likewise, there are some genuine savings to be had from the school estate but these are small.
I’m not going to comment on Crossroads because I don’t know anything about the circumstances there – I’ll leave that to others better qualified than me.
“And if Doc, Integrity Newsie and others don’t like the process that gives communnties the opportunity to challenge Council figures – then they should eithe rlet the opportunity pass them by or take it up with the government that passed the legislation. At least your communintes are being consulted about possible cuts. With the draconian cuts heading our way as a result of a £15million budget cut – there are plenty of people who are about to lose their jobe or their serivcesand they don’t have the luxury of a statutory consultation process to protect them.”
Err, we have. Mr Mike Russell kindly made space in his busy schedule to pay a visit to Barcaldine on Monday evening. We made quite clear our concerns that the Act was not fulfilling its intentions of ensuring that there is a presumption against closure of rural schools, nor was it ensuring that the closure process was “objective, transparent and fair”. Mr Russell was unable to comment directly on the situation in Argyll but he did say that the authors of the Act had presumed that councils would adhere to the guidelines and that the Act was never envisaged to be challenged by a process that saw as many schools targeted for closure at the same time. He was particularly concerned by the implications to the process by having multiple schools within a single proposal.
You are correct in saying that at least we parents have the benefit of a statutory process. Unfortunately, the Council has ignored the initial steps to consider viability which would have prevented the majority of the schools being suggested for closure and thus avoid the unnecessary trauma for all the children and parents involved not to mention the irresponsible waste of money that this consultation process represents.
Lastly, I resent your fly insinuation that we are in some way uncaring as to the plight of the other targets of the Council’s cuts. Many of those parents fighting for their schools will also be facing the possibility of losing their jobs. I do not for a moment give the time of day to the suggestion that these job losses and loss of frontline services are in any way the fault of rural schools.
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Jim – did I at any point mention Icelandic Banks? No
And thank you for finally answering my question, Yes they do choose where they invest their money.
Simon, thank you for pointing me to the 5%, I shall have a wee look in a moment.
But as Dr Dougie asked, if it is proven that the figures in the consultation are wrong and in actual fact the council will lose money each year because of closing the school, should the closure still go ahead?
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Simon – It’s a fair point to note that rural schools are protected by statute while other services are not. Why should this be?
The answer is that the government clearly thinks these schools are important enough to the long-term social, cultural and economic fabric of Scotland as a whole that they need special protection. You may personally disagree with government policy, but that’s democracy. To say that you have faith in the consultation process as it stands implies that you suggest the council, when faced with sufficiently dire financial circumstances, should simply ignore the law. Or do you take the apparent Sneddon view that one of the main purposes of the consultation process is to consider whether the process itself is competent? The Act is, actually, quite clear and it is also quite clear that the council has subverted both the letter & spirit of it.
To have a meaningful consultation, we should be in a position at this stage of having accurate and objectively presented information in front of us as a basis for positive discussion with the council about the best way forward. That is not the case. We should have been consulted months ago about finding viable alternatives to closing specific schools, and been given all the detailed information & figures we would need to take part meaningfully in that discussion. That is not the case. We should have been approached months ago as communities, not just parent councils, so that we could formulate a response about how we felt any closure would impact on the long term future of our communities. That is not the case. The current furore is the direct result of all these omissions, and the decision of the council to keep the public in the dark about their detailed plans until the last possible minute. The entirely predictable outcome of their strategy is that communities affected by these plans are not interested in Dick Walsh’s ‘only a consultation’ – they are effectively on a war footing, which does no-one any good and cannot lead to an objective and rational outcome.
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Hi Tim, I certainly do not disagree with government policy I thought I was exhorting people to use the opportunity it affords and I’m certainly not saying the Council should ignore the law and wonder quite where you get that from.
What you say should have happened in terms of a pre-consultation is interesting. But there is a genuine difficulty of where pre-consultation starts and finishes and where official consutlation starts. And I dont’ see anything either in the stuff I’ve read that suggests that the council needs to obtain community consensus about closing a school.
Maybe we’ll get clearer guidance from the outcome of the ‘call-in’ of the Western Isles proposals about what pre-consultation should involve. But maybe the government will be happy to leave it as non-specific.
Looking objectively at the process – if the Council feels schools should close then it is actually in their interest to get the procedures correct. It seems to me that’s what they were at least trying to do when they had their version of pre-consultations. If the government says these were inadequate then so be it.
But either way I do not think for one moment that the question of closing under-occupied and over-expensive rural schools will simply go away – even if the current proposals fail. We all face £15 million of cuts this year and a further two years of severe and unprecedented cuts to come on top of that. For that reason I genuinely feel that we shall all be revisiting the subsudy given to rural schools for years to come.
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“for Simon”
“Highland Council has a policy of nonclosure of small primary schools if it is opposed by the community”
A&BC has likened itself to Highland before and made mention of the said council in proposal re travel times,(though inaccurately).
And when did you look objectively at anything? If anything,you are”objectionable” to everything and everyone (except Jim!!)
And if the Council had got their procedures correct,we parents,teachers,children and concerned communities would not have to go through this worry.
Thereis no subsidy for rural schools.But they are a vital part of rural life,and when all is said and done,without them there is no rural future at all.
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Still not answered the questions Simon….
“Looking objectively at the process – if the Council feels schools should close then it is actually in their interest to get the procedures correct. It seems to me that’s what they were at least trying to do when they had their version of pre-consultations. If the government says these were inadequate then so be it.”
Yes, you would think it was in their interests to get it right, so why are the documents the proverbial mice they are? They didn’t have any pre-consultation in any shape or form. And that’s not just my opinion. Look at what Ms Bailley is saying.
“For that reason I genuinely feel that we shall all be revisiting the subsudy given to rural schools for years to come.”
What subsidy? Do you mean the GAE? Or are you referring to the spin of the Council that rural primaries cost more than other schools?. Fact: Barcaldine is the 23rd (out of I think 78 active primary schools) least expensive school for the Council in terms of cost per pupil and yet is targeted for closure. And in terms of actually running the school, Barcaldine is likely to be near the head of a list called “cheapest school to run in Argyll”. The most expensive will be one of the large secondaries which will have a per pupil cost in excess of what the Council pays at Barcaldine. Do you begin to see the stupidity of this line of thought? What the Council is talking about is not making prudent rationalisation of the school estate but to remove education provision from many parts of Argyll. Over 80 schools in Argyll have already been closed in the past 40 years, The scope for making meaningful savings without damaging educational provision along with the social infrastructure has long gone. There is simply, no genuine cost reduction available within the primary school estate (apart from maybe Dunoon – though that requires capital investment).
“But there is a genuine difficulty of where pre-consultation starts and finishes and where official consutlation starts. ”
No there is not. The procedure is clearly laid out in the Act and the Council completely ignored it. Which brings me back to my other question: have you read the Act (and/or the guidance notes) and one of the proposals? If you have not then your statements are made in ignorance which is initially forgiveable but not when the same person repeatedly ignores the facts and views of others who have actually researched the subject.
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“Jim – did I at any point mention Icelandic Banks? No
And thank you for finally answering my question, Yes they do choose where they invest their money.”
CSB: OK my turn. Do you think the Council has made bad investments (we’re are not talking about capital spending here)? If so can you give examples and explain?
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For Jim and CSB: The council generally seem to be a canny investor. They do employ the same insider financial advice firm as many other councils do – Sector Treasury Services – (public sector contract via one T Blair and yes, party donations from the company owner were allegedly made and did allegedly precede the tasty contract).
But, although an Icesave account was mentioned to them by these advisers, as part of a range of options, Argyll and Bute did not invest in it, unlike some other Scottish local authorities who came quite badly unstuck in such investments.
We published on this at the time: http://forargyll.com/2008/10/why-did-so-many-local-authorities-invest-in-icelandic-banks-back-to-blair/
The question with Argyll and Bute Council is less how they invest than how they spend. We are currently working on a story that is quite numbingly indefensible on this front.
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Well Jim, lets go back to my original comment which was: Well maybe they should invest their money more wisely (or something like that – I am sure you will correct me if I am wrong).
When I made this comment, I was using the word “invest” in the context of investing in their communities and schools and frontline services…you get my drift now?
It has been quite enjoyable watching you go off on entirely the wrong direction and since you seemed intent on telling me the answers to the financial problems of the world, I thought I’d indulge you. And afterall, who am I to try and correct you? LMAO
And in answer to your question, where I think you might have been starting to twig what I actually meant in the first place…
I will freely admit to not having a clue where exactly they invest their money, but I do know that those reserves and the interest that comes from them are supposed to be used in times of financial crisis (you can find that on the Government’s website) and that they also possess items like paintings that are worth vast sums of money and sit in storage being no use to anyone. Are they investing this properly – NO. They’re not doing anything with them at all.
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Doc my answers to your questions are
1. A qualified no. Qualifed to the extent that as long as an effective education is being provided – closing schools is not always about money.
2. As above
3. Don’t know. I genuinely don’t know the answer to this and that is linked in part to my loose use of ‘subsidy’ earlier.
It does seem to me that is the average cost per pupil in primary is x then especially at a time when budgets are beoing savaged then it is legitimate to look carefully at the reasons why some schools costs are way in excess of that. Schools with low pupil numbers will obviously feature and to an extent if a school is costing much more to keep open then, in a limited sense at least, it is subsidised. (I shall however not use ‘subsidsed’ any more as it has casued a confusion that I did not intend). However, and you might well be shocked at this, I genuinely don’t think that money it is the only criteria. (For example personally I wouldn’t close the only school on an island where primary pupils had to be ferried to school. But I have to say that I have seen primary pupils, under parental choice obviously, on a ferry from Portavadie to Tarbert rather than attend the local school. So obviously ferry trips do not concern some parents). Educational effectiveness/attainment also seems a useful criteria as does travelling time. The dproblem with all of these criterion arises in where you set the bar. Eg,if 45 mins travelling time is considered then why not 40? or 35? or 30? There are judgements to be made here and I doubt anyone is going to persuade anyone else. around where a bar should be set.
It also seems to me that secondary education with the number of subjects and therefore the number of teachers required will always be more expensive than primary education. To that extent we should probably not compare primaries and secondaries.
I have read the guidance for closing schools and it seems to me that the dice are loaded in favour of schools and communities. However, I’ll say again what I’ve said in another post – if the government thinks rural primary schools are worth keeping for educational, social and economic reasons then if they want to protect them they should pick up 100% of their costs and ring-fence that monies in the allocation they make to local authorities. And they should tell the HMIs and their auditors to stop giving lcoal authorites a hard time about under-occupied and expensive schools. At a stroke the government could ‘save’ all rural schools.
But they won’t do that. Why?
Because it would cost too much – that’s why.
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Newsroom, if your “numbingly indefensible” description is as accurate as your previous “tears of laughter” description – then you should choose your words better.
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(Again: sorry Neil! I’ll give up the habit soon: honest!).
Simon – let me start with an apology. On one of the other threads I accused you of not answering the questions I had set you whereas on coming onto this thread I see that you have had at least had a stab at the main one. This is the danger of posting lots of similar thoughts on multiple threads
You have also entered into a more reasonable debating style so I will indulge you a bit further (big of me, eh!).
Let’s take that bit about cost per pupil first. You are not alone by being dazzled by it. When you have a school where the cost per pupil is headlined as it would be cheaper to send them to Fettes then things do sound inequitable. However, what this is really about is the cost to a rural authority of providing education throughout a large area.
Ideally, each settlement with children that is removed from the next settlement by more than a reasonable walking distance (2-3 miles) should have its own school. This would have been the case in the past but the internal combustion engine allows us to move children greater distances and the ludicrously low cost of oil has meant that it is sometimes cheaper to take children from their own villages, bus them to a neighbouring village and educate them there. This is the same daft logic that sees prawns that are caught in Scotland being shipped to Thailand for peeling then shipped back to Scotland to be turned into scampi.
What the Council should be aiming to do is provide schooling in all viable settlements throughout Argyll. I am pleased to see you write that money isn’t the whole story. The answers to my questions are that for 1 and 2: it makes no sense to close schools where it would cost the Council more to close it than keep it open (and that is about 5 of the schools on the current list) and the same goes for a break even position (the caveat being as long as the school is delivering a high quality education but to be honest the vast majority of schools in Argyll big and small are doing this well). You answered the 3rd question correctly as well: when you could reduce expenditure by shutting a school the question of whether or not to do it depends. And it depends on a whole lot of factors that need to be carefully evaluated. Unfortunately that is not the approach ABC has taken to this process. You are quite correct that the cost of secondary education per pupil cannot be compared with primary. Nor can special needs be compared with (say) primary; nor island versus mainland nor rural versus urban. They are all just different. You can compare the cost per pupil at one school that is very similar with another school and see if there are differences. This is valuable and may point to genuine efficiency savings. But comparing apples and oranges is only valuable to bigots and those with an agenda.
It continues to puzzle me why the Council make such a fuss about trying to close rural primaries. These are not a major item of expenditure on the Council’s P&L and the savings are pretty minimal – certainly not proportionate to the amount of social damage that closure would entail.
Just to illustrate this a bit further: as I have said before, even on the Council’s best case estimates, closure of all of the schools on the list results in a saving of less than 0.7% of the total budget. Now, the closures won’t be determined until AFTER the budget is set. What will happen if the closures are not achieved? Will ABC go bust? Will Council services cease and the dead will remain unburied? the bins un-emptied? Mr Sneddon’s wages unpaid? No. That sort of figure is well within the budgetary noise and easily dealt with by the contingency in the budget (and that is before the Council has to dip into its reserves). So why invest this extraordinary effort into targeting rural schools for closure. Methinks this isn’t all about money.
“I have read the guidance for closing schools and it seems to me that the dice are loaded in favour of schools and communities.”
And a good thing too. Rural communities don’t have the electoral clout of urban communities so they need balancing remedies. The alternative is a rural wasteland and that benefits nobody. Pleased to see you have read the guidance. have you had a look at a proposal yet?
“However, I’ll say again what I’ve said in another post – if the government thinks rural primary schools are worth keeping for educational, social and economic reasons then if they want to protect them they should pick up 100% of their costs and ring-fence that monies in the allocation they make to local authorities”.
Depending on how you look at it, they already do. I think the figures are that central government supplies 80% of the budget of LA’s – the rest being Council Tax. However, I think specific pots are different and I suspect that education is actually, effectively 100% funded by the Government (hence how Ms Baillie can ask her questions about educational budgets – and apologies to her for spelling her name wrong in an earlier post by myself). I think SNP strategists are ruing the original concordant deal with COSLA that froze Council Tax. The price for this was a removal of ring fencing for education and this has allowed the councils to thwart the government’s targets on class size reduction and teacher numbers. With hindsight – not the most clever of moves.
“And they should tell the HMIs and their auditors to stop giving lcoal authorites a hard time about under-occupied and expensive schools. At a stroke the government could ‘save’ all rural schools.”
Why HMIE cares about whether a school is under occupied or not eludes me and there has been comment on this from rather higher circles than I can provide. ABC could evade all the criticism by changing their model of capacity to either something nearer the Scottish average or to one of the mos generous councils and remove the problem at a stroke and without paying a penny. The Council are indeed thinking of changing capacity measurements but this will be done AFTER the consultation.
I may be imagining things but I detected a more reasonable approach in your last post. I am happy to continue discussing issues providing you are prepared to take on board some of our arguments.
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“Well Jim, lets go back to my original comment which was: Well maybe they should invest their money more wisely (or something like that – I am sure you will correct me if I am wrong).
When I made this comment, I was using the word “invest” in the context of investing in their communities and schools and frontline services…you get my drift now?
It has been quite enjoyable watching you go off on entirely the wrong direction and since you seemed intent on telling me the answers to the financial problems of the world, I thought I’d indulge you. And afterall, who am I to try and correct you? LMAO”
CSB: This is just become painful to watch now. I will summarise the discussion as it unfolded and perhaps you will appreciate that I’ve actually been following a fairly consistent direction.
J: “I’m sure it is upsetting to your daughter but kids are resilient and events like this shape their character. Perhaps it will inspire your daughter to become a proponent of a system which does not allow the countries’ banks to play roulette with the public’s money”
CSB: “Hmmmm I thought that the council CHOSE whom and where to invest their money in. Maybe they should have been a little more careful Jim.”
J: “I don’t know even where to begin but I will try. Do you understand the connection between sub-prime mortgages, collapsing banks, government bailouts, massive increase in the national debt and the UK government’s attempts to tackle the budget deficit?”
CSB: “Jim I have consulted by abacus and have managed to figure out 2 and 2 equals 4 unless you work for the council, then its minus 357.
Does the council CHOSE where to invest its money? Yes or no
Did some banking and financial institutions manage to come through this recession without government handouts and actually saw this mess coming and indeed warned government about the impending financial implosion?
Lets walk away from that Budget Deficit can of worms or we will be here until Armageddon and get the debate back to Argyll & Bute. The issue we are actually dealing with here.”
And in this article
CSB: “Do they choose where to invest their money? Yes or no.”
J: “Yes, and they did so quite wisely. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7660741.stm & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7660438.stm
ABC’s problem, much like every other Council is due to a deficit reduction plan as a cause of the banking crisis.”
CSB: “Jim – did I at any point mention Icelandic Banks? No”
J: “OK my turn. Do you think the Council has made bad investments (we’re are not talking about capital spending here)? If so can you give examples and explain?”
CSB: “I will freely admit to not having a clue where exactly they invest their money”
So I started out by talking about the event’s that led to the public sector funding crisis. You then used the word “invest” where you actually meant “spend”. Then you mention banks, just not the Icelandic type, the ones that did collapse. You accuse me of going off on a tangent then admit that you don’t really have a clue what you are talking about in the first place.
Next time, don’t indulge me, this is a pointless exercise, it’s embarrassing (for you) and only worsens the signal to noise ratio on here.
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Hi Doc, see I kinda guessed that if I did answer your three questions it would only spark more points from you – however – I did and you did.
Let me start with you “detected a more reasonable approach in your last post”. I think I have reasonableness personified throughout. I’m the one that’s said that the consultsation offers communintes the opportunity to counter the documents the council has issued and I also suggested doing that in a calm reasoned manner rather than in the personal, abusive over-the-top and near hysterical posts that have appeared on here.
I think your costs per head is along the lines that I was getting at – however, if you are suggesting a school for every settlement rather than travel more 2/3 miles you are going to have to build more schools. And, more schools with the same number of pupils automatically increases the costs per head (what you save on travel you pay in additional teachers salaries).
By your own figures of 0.5% -0.7% of total budget gives a range of actual (potential) savings of between £1.39 million and £1.95 million.(your actual percentages will increase now that we know the budget cut is not the 2.6% claimed – it is crippling 4.9%). Savings therefore in range £1.4 and £1,4 (rounded) are incredibly valuable at a time like this and would suggest that you stop saying “only .5% to .7 %”. I guess if the council does not close schools then it would have to have a contigency plan to make cut even more services/jobs elsewhere to compensate because the council is required by law to set as legal budget.
In terms of government protecting rural scholos you actually think the SNP governemt rues the day when it established the concordat? This is along the same line that newsroom bangs on about the perceived deficiences in the legislation itself and want further clarity. Think this an oversight? An accident? I don’t – I think it is the harbour of fuzziness beloved by national poloticians. By being less definitive they can use what the Yanks call ‘plausible deniability’ and blame others for not taking a particular action. For example – the government could have made minimum class sizes as per their manifesto a legal requirment and the councils would have no option but to comply. They didn’t and the councils didn’t and now the minimum number per class is a much more watered down version of what they promised in their manifesto. The non-ring fencing allows naional governemtnto say ‘we’ve
gvien the councils money – it’s up to them to set their priorities within that budget’. Nationall politicians LOVE non-ring fenced budgets.
Your comment on capacity has been trotted out on here before. My understanding is that central governemtn does not prescribe a definitiive model of how capacity should be measured – rather it offers ‘guidance’ (I can actually hear James Hacker say these words as I type – is htis a medical condition?)and it is up to each council to being forward an appropriate method that comp[lie swith guidnace. Given that Argyll and Bute have closed schools before my guess is tha ttheir model has been examined and found to be appropriate – so I wouldn’t waste a great deal of time arguing against that. And of course if their method is acceptable then some schools in our area are seriously under-occupied and therefore over-expensive compared to the council avaerage.
My guess also is that HMIs comment on capacirty because they are instructed by the governemtn to do so. And herein lies the sheer beauty of national governemtns being non-specific. The same government that cries crocidile tearss about rural schools insists the same councils make the most effective and efficient use of money and cut down on under-occupied schools! Simples.
I’ll state again what my position is – we are collectively facing unprecedented cuts and if money can be saved by closing under-occupied and expensive schools the unfortunately they should close. Failure to close these schools is an abdication of responsibilites and will only increase the cuts that are going to fall elsewhere. It seems to me that rural schools are getting a degree of public sympathy that will evaporate somewhat when the overall effects of these cuts become apparent. And I take no pleasure in saying that even if these schools don’t close this year – there are another two years of draconian cuts to be endureda nd I feel that these schools will feature again for cuts in future years.
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Simon – If all the schools do close, do you think there will be any impact on the villages concerned and if so what do you think they will be.
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Alasdair, I don’t actually think all of the schools will close. That said, the impact could include loss of employment opportunties among janitors/cleaners, however, not amongst teachers as I rather suspect the majority of teachers don’t actually stay in the villages they are employed in – certainly not if the number of cars you see outside wee primary schools is anything to go by. Traffic will probably be less (fewer staff arriving by car but offset to some extent by transport arriving to take pupils to their new schoo)l. A building for sale in the vilage to convert into a house and/or a business. Overall a gradual adapting to and acceptance of the situation as everyone gets used to the new arrangements.
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Simon:
“see I kinda guessed that if I did answer your three questions it would only spark more points from you – however – I did and you did.”
Yes, that’s the nature of debate: we tease out from each other a better understanding of the respective positions so we can see how we can influence each other and perhaps reach compromise positions or at least mutual understanding that is base don a thorough understanding of the actual facts.
“Let me start with you “detected a more reasonable approach in your last post”. I think I have reasonableness personified throughout. I’m the one that’s said that the consultsation offers communintes the opportunity to counter the documents the council has issued and I also suggested doing that in a calm reasoned manner rather than in the personal, abusive over-the-top and near hysterical posts that have appeared on here.”
I hope you would agree that my posts have not been near hysterical nor have they been abusive. You didn’t really respond to my point that if the Council had properly applied the guidelines to the Act and undertaken an examination of viability and social impact then most of the schools currently on the list wouldn’t be there at all. It is scant comfort that the consultation gives us the opportunity to demonstrate how incompetent the closure proposals are both in content and process when this should not have been necessary at all. Before you say, i know you will claim that if this is the case then we will see this when the Government calls it in at the end but we have been here before.
“I think your costs per head is along the lines that I was getting at – however, if you are suggesting a school for every settlement rather than travel more 2/3 miles you are going to have to build more schools. And, more schools with the same number of pupils automatically increases the costs per head (what you save on travel you pay in additional teachers salaries).”
I was alluding to an ideal situation – but perhaps something we should aspire to – and I also used the term viable settlement. For the moment I will be happy to settle for keeping the viable schools and viable settlements that we already have.
I’m delighted, however, with your acknowledgement that the nub of this is whether or not we put money into teachers’ salaries or into transport. As education is delivered by the former then that is where the priority should be. Keeping primary education as local as possible is the most effective method of delivering education and makes more financial sense than spending money on transport. You are also correct in identifying that what we are really discussing here are teachers salaries. Despite the claims in the proposals that the cuts are aimed at removing poorly performing buildings, the cost reductions come entirely from reducing the number of teachers. As educational output can be crudely modelled as number of pupils/ number of teachers = output, it is clear that the proposals will lead to an inevitable reduction in educational output.
Now, you say that we cannot afford these teachers – which is a reasonable stance for an argument but let me just illustrate the problem with this argument. You can reduce costs by increasing the number of pupils to each teachers (it would be much cheaper to have a ratio of, say, 50 children per teacher but this would obviously reduce educational output.
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Apologies – I must have accidentally hit send before finishing (or editing) the above post! (all the excitement I suppose).
To continue my point: cost per pupil is a red herring: what matters is cost effectiveness of educational delivery. The Council has a statutory responsibility to deliver educational provision throughout Argyll. There will be differences in cost depending on area. Central government supports small rural schools by giving the Council additional monies to help defray these costs.
“By your own figures of 0.5% -0.7% of total budget gives a range of actual (potential) savings of between £1.39 million and £1.95 million.(your actual percentages will increase now that we know the budget cut is not the 2.6% claimed – it is crippling 4.9%).”
Well the 0.7% figure is actually the Council’s not mine. The 0.5% figure was a conservative guess as to the actual possible cost reduction if the entire school closure programme was achieved (and only after year 2 – in year 1 there is almost certainly no cost savings and possibly even a loss to the Council). I don’t believe that ANYBODY in this process seriously believes that all 25 schools will close so the actual cost savings will be something a lot less than 0.5%. I’ll need to check on actual percentages but I’m not sure about your claim. The Council was previously working on the basis of a percentage cut similar to the one that they are now expecting so there is no difference. But I will revise the figures if necessary (just not right now).
“Savings therefore in range £1.4 and £1,4 (rounded) are incredibly valuable at a time like this and would suggest that you stop saying “only .5% to .7 %”. I guess if the council does not close schools then it would have to have a contigency plan to make cut even more services/jobs elsewhere to compensate because the council is required by law to set as legal budget.”
As I have just said, the actual cost reductions are unlikely to exceed £1M per year and this is simply not proportionate with the social and educational damage done nor does it justify the loss of GAE. I’m pleased you agree that failure to advance these school cuts will not have any material effect on the Council’s ability to fund its expenditure. Not all potential cost savings are either achievable or cost effective. These school cuts are neither of these.
I’ll not comment on Government policy further here. It just distracts from the actual issues.
Capacity is a much more interesting subject. You are quite correct in saying that the actual measure of capacity is the responsibility of the LA’s (as is delivery of education). Capacity measurements vary greatly throughout Scotland. For instance, the average m2 per pupil in Aberdeenshire is 1.5x that in Argyll. My point was simply that the Council could, quite legitimately, change its capacity measurement to something more akin to Aberdeenshire and at a stroke remove a source of criticism from Audit Scotland. As I said, the Council does seem to be intending to do this but only after the consultation period.
School capacity is in any case a bogus argument. If you have two schools within walking distance of each other and they are both well below potential occupancy then there is a case for merging the schools. This is not the case for any of the schools on the current list. It doesn’t matter if the buildings are “half-empty” or not. What matters is their educational suitability. This is calculated but is strangely absent from the consultation documents. Why? Because most schools in Argyll are either A or B and often targeted schools are actually higher in rating than receiving schools. Buildings cost much the same regardless of occupancy. It is only the teachers’ salaries that really matter.
“I’ll state again what my position is – we are collectively facing unprecedented cuts and if money can be saved by closing under-occupied and expensive schools the unfortunately they should close. Failure to close these schools is an abdication of responsibilites and will only increase the cuts that are going to fall elsewhere.”
As I have said and will be proved correct, the potential cost reductions from the primary school estate are very modest. Closing or retaining the schools will have virtually no effect on cuts falling elsewhere.
“It seems to me that rural schools are getting a degree of public sympathy that will evaporate somewhat when the overall effects of these cuts become apparent.”
I am sure there are Council officials and Administration councillors who would very much like this to be the case but I think the more likely outcome is growing public anger at the Council wasting scant resources on a doomed, illogical and incompetent school closure programme that is quite possibly nothing more than a smokescreen for the rest of the cuts.
“And I take no pleasure in saying that even if these schools don’t close this year – there are another two years of draconian cuts to be endureda nd I feel that these schools will feature again for cuts in future years.”
I very much doubt that. With the exception of Dunoon where some rationalisation of the school estate could be achieved; the previous closures have denuded Argyll of rural schools. All further closures can only be achieved with ever diminishing financial returns because of increased transport costs and loss of GAE. They can only be achieved at much greater socio-economic cost to Argyll than can be justified by the paltry cost reductions.
Regardless of when this sorry farce is brought to a close – hopefully soon – I think the people of Argyll will be having serious questions to ask of those Councillors who voted to take the “mince” to consultation and of the officials who put their names to it.
Savings therefore in range £1.4 and £1,4 (rounded) are incredibly valuable at a time like this and would suggest that you stop saying “only .5% to .7 %”. I guess if the council does not close schools then it would have to have a contigency plan to make cut even more services/jobs elsewhere to compensate because the council is required by law to set as legal budget.
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Aarghh – that last bit is from “Simon” not me. Too much haste not enough speed etc. But must be off an do some real work for a change.
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Hi Doc, compared to Newsroom and some hysterical others on here with their childish repetitive name calling, personal abuse of officals and red-herrings galore (which are trumpeted and then just disappear quietly…rember their cunning plan to get Luing to refuse to be dropped form the list? Or their call for every school community simply not to co-operate with the consulktation process? Didn’t realy think either of those two through now did they?) you have been great and, I really have say, almost as diplomatic and reasonable as myself.,
Are you or anyone else actually surprised that since teacher costs are the biggest expense then that’s where the savings are?? For argyll are certainly not. Their ‘solution’ to the rural schools question is to
a) centralise education in Edinburgh and run it from there
b) reduce teachers terms and conditions negotiated under McCromne to get more value(ie work more for less) from them, and finally,
c) reduce the number of headteachers, in rural areas.
Clearly they know as well where the savings are – and big savings as well according to your own figures – and savings that in percentage terms at least will grow in value as the overall council budget is cut by £15million this year and God alone know s by what next year and the year following. You are largely protected inthe NHS from all of these draconian cuts but after April you will start to notice them.
I take it we have come to an understanding if not an agreement on capacity, ring-fencing (and why governments don’t like it). ‘Cause if you have I’d like to aslk a couple of questions if you don’t mind
1. If the average cost of educationg mainland primary pupils in Argyll and Bute is x how many times x do you think it is acceptable to go to until you say enough – that is now too expensive? Twice? three times? four? etc etc
2. What constitutes ‘viabilty’ in a village? Where most people are employed in the village and there is a healthy spread of ages? Or where incomers make life-style choices and move to village where housing is cheaper but they commute to work and shop elsewhere; however, want to have everyone else support the additional costs of their ‘local’ education? (You don’t have to answer this but – what percentage of people in your village work in your village? What percentage of parents with children at local schools work or even live in the village? – I understand that in some of the schools out for consultation that a high percentage of the pupils are there through placing requests and parental choice – is it reasonable to expect everyone else to pick up the tab for their choice? )
3. What other services and jobs would you cut to protect ruraL schools?
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Simon – you may have missed the Doc’s earlier post in which he explained that he is a ‘proper doctor’ and not a physician! Nothing to do with the NHS… incidentally I can’t see anything in his posts that suggests he agrees with you on the issue of capacities – maybe I’ve missed something.
I’m a bit short of time just now too, but happy to tackle your other questions.
1. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a reasonable ‘limit’ on cost per pupil in small schools. The point you’re missing is that if this cost appears very high it will almost always be because the number of pupils is very low, and hence any overall saving to be made is small. An extraordinarily high per-pupil cost will usually only appear when the numbers have dropped to the point where the viability of the school is genuinely in question for educational reasons, in which case it should be reviewed (properly) anyway on those grounds. You have at least acknowledged that high per-pupil costs are largely down to teaching ratios, and not (as the council spins) anything significantly to do with the ‘under-occupation’ of buildings.
2. I doubt if many people move to small villages because of cheap housing – there isn’t any, and that’s a big part of the reason why many rural communities are struggling already. On employment, the village where we (both) live is probably fairly typical for Argyll. There is a sizeable proportion of self-employed people with businesses based in the village as well as a number of larger employers who provide jobs in a range of industries. No denying that a good number of people commute both into and out of the village for work, but not sure what the relevance of this is. The population is certainly pretty stable with a low turnover and many families who have been here for years. As far as the school is concerned, like any school with a good reputation it benefits from a modest number of ‘placing requests’ – pupils who come from outwith the catchment area. But the bulk of the pupils live within walking distance of the school and have attended it continuously for their entire primary education. Some of their parents and grandparents did also.
3. The council could come here to try & find other ways of making savings, but I’m afraid they won’t find a lot to cut. There are no pavements or streetlights. Most of the housing is served by private roads and tracks which are maintained at the owners’ expense. The one ‘B’ road in the village has had little significant maintenance in recent years. We have a school (see above). Our bins get emptied (fortnightly would be fine by me). If we want to use libraries, swimming pools, halls and other council-run or subsidised leisure facilities we have to travel to the nearest town. Our rural-based police officers have admitted that they have to spend most of their time working in the town now anyway. Not a lot of fat there to cut, and I doubt we’re untypical of Argyll’s smaller settlements.
I’m afraid you’re displaying some of the ignorant prejudices that often exist about the notion that rural communities are subsidy junkies enjoying a high quality of life at others’ expense. Just remember that most of Argyll’s economic primary income is generated by rural and island-based industries such as tourism, farming, forestry, fishfarming, quarrying, etc.
Now I’d like to turn your Q3 back at you: Which services are you so keen to save, and think could be paid for by closing rural schools?
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Hi Tim, A couple fo shoirt comments form me and then I’ll answer your question. If you’re not sure there should be reasonable ‘limit’ on cost per pupil in small schools then we just have to disagree. Except please note tha tI of course maintain under-occupied schools will always cost more. Open any school and there immediately fixed cost – under-occupied schools (50% or less occupancy rate) will always cost more as the unit cost (per head) is higher.
I note your comments re lack of services in villages and I would suggest that in part explains why for some considerable time now rural Scotland is even more depopulated than before. However, I would suggest tha tthe ony people who regulary coimmunte ti our villages for weork ar ethe staffa t the primary schools. They don’t actually live in these vibrant communtiies – mos tof them live miles away and contibute very little to the locla economy. I do accept that not all rural schools or rural villages are the same and that yours has the majoriy of pupils who loive within walking disctance. Not the same at every school.
What services am IU keen to save, servies to older people, care homes and care homes on islands are especially important, roads, services to young people, youth work and grants to those marvellous voluntary oirganisations that actually save the council so much money, leisure services, access to futher education, roads and infrastucture to name but a few. Because all of these will be adversely affected by this coming budget and the fewer schools that close the worse it will be. The Doc himself has estimated saving of between £1.4 and £1.95 million should all the schools close.
Having said that I would repeat that I do not think all the schools should close. But as an Argyll and Bute community faced with thses levels of cuts we simply cannot afford to continue to deliver schooling in under-occupied and highly expensive units when cheaper and probably better facilties are available elsewhere.
Sorry but there it is.
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Thanks Tim!
Tim has answered most of your points “Simon” so I won’t spend much time repeating what he said. Just two things:
“1. If the average cost of educationg mainland primary pupils in Argyll and Bute is x how many times x do you think it is acceptable to go to until you say enough – that is now too expensive? Twice? three times? four? etc etc”
I simply don’t understand the question. Can you have a go at re-phrasing this?
“I understand that in some of the schools out for consultation that a high percentage of the pupils are there through placing requests and parental choice – is it reasonable to expect everyone else to pick up the tab for their choice? )”
I cannot speak for other schools but I am happy to supply the information for Barcaldine. I’m supplying this from memory so please excuse me if I make any small errors. Barcaldine currently has a roll of 23 (out of a capacity of 24). Eleven of the children are placements but four children in the village are themselves placed out of the village (mostly parental work related issues). Of the eleven, 4 are from one family who live near the boundary of our catchment and who find it easier to come to Barcaldine than go to Appin. Of the others, two are previously home-educated children so weren’t in the school system before. The rest are “parental choice” placements and reflect the excellent regard that Barcaldine is held in locally. The schools that the children would have gone to if they had not been placed in Barcaldine actually have a higher cost per pupil than Barcaldine, so you could argue that the parents are reducing costs by sending their children to us (though a quick bit of thinking reveals this to be a spurious argument which demonstrates the futility of using per pupil costs as useful comparators).
You seemed to have missed what I said before: Barcaldine is the 23rd cheapest primary school to run in Argyll on a per pupil basis and at an annual cost to the Council of less than £115K is remarkably good value (the actual cost is somewhere well south of this but I won’t confuse the argument and will instead use the Council’s own figures as per the proposals). The school is number one in the Council’s school building efficiency table (ie it is the most effective in the whole of Argyll); it has the lowest carbon footprint and the highest occupancy. It is rated A for educational suitability (the receiving school is a B). The Council’s Planning Department want not just to see Barcaldine retained but for the Education Department to plan for extending it or building a new school because of the strategic importance of Barcaldine in regional economic development (not much mention of any of this in our closure plans!).
I could go on. Simple fact is that our school isn’t some parasitic monster sucking the lifeblood from other schools (or the taxpayers). It is a well run, very cost-efficient educational facility which it will cost the Council more to close each year than keep open. Barcaldine might be exceptional (exceptionally daft as a closure target anyway) but most of the other schools on the list are also actually pretty cost efficient. There are a few (and it really is a few) where the cost per pupil is high. But as Tim says, that is because these schools have very few pupils and so the cost reductions from closure are very small. These schools are also the ones that are in the most socially vulnerable areas, where the children would have to travel the furtherest. As I’ve said before, it is right to examine the viability of these schools but that should be done carefully and under the guidance laid down in the Act.
But why do I have the sinking feeling that you are going to keep banging on about how expensive all these schools are and why they should be closed forthwith regardless of how much we do to demonstrate that this simply isn’t true.
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“The Doc himself has estimated saving of between £1.4 and £1.95 million should all the schools close.”
“Simon”: it is difficult to escape the suspicion that you are deliberately misrepresenting what I have written. The figure of a reduction in spending of £1.9 million comes from the Council not me. I gave the figure of 0.5% of the total budget (£1.4M) as a more likely for on-going cost reductions after all the closure costs had worked their way out of the system (the closure costs will exceed £1M and may even be as high as £1.5M when redundancy costs and the costs of the closure exercise are factored in ). I also said that was a conservative figure and the actual figure is likely and this presumes that all schools actually close. We seem to be in agreement that not all of the schools on the list will close and so the actual cost reductions will be tiny and have no influence on the Council budget.
You may have noticed that I don’t use the word “savings”. That implies efficiency savings. What the Council want to do is reduce costs by reducing services. However, in targeting rural schools they will not only fail to reduce costs but they will drive these up through a closure programme procedure that is wasting money that could have gone to some of the good causes you list.
Wake up “Simon” and see the reality.
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“and the actual figure .. is likely to be much less”
Sorry for that omission.
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Hi Doc, thanks for the reply. Nah – no more banging on from me on this particualr post at least*. It’s obvious we are not going to agree so just repeating points ad nauseum is a bit of a futile exercise.
I’ll watch with interst to see how Barcaldine gets on during consultation – especially with that number of placing requests (almost 50%) . But I’ve no doubt we will ‘cross swords’ in other posts before that.
*If you do want to have a go (and only if you want) the question at 1 might now be more ) easily understoood – I understand (from googling – so apologies if the figure is incorrect) that the averagecost of educating primary school pupils is £3,948 per year. How much more expensive than this does primary education have to be before we say ‘that’s too expensive’ – twice that amount? Three times? Four times?? etc. etc.
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Doc, I’ve just noticed your latest post. Certainly not my intention to try to misinterpret what you’ve been saying. Let me explain – you said on another post ‘the saving would be only 0.7% of total budget – bu tprobalby only 0.5%’. I took the ‘total budget’ you referred to mean the total council budget of £278 million, That where the figures I’ve used come from. I’m looking for that post but as yet cannot find it. If I cannot find it I will of course withdraw my comment unreservedly.
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Nope no need to withdraw I found it. Doc, you said this on 11Dec at 10.06. “The Council spends £278M per annum. The proposed saving is 0.7%. My point here is that the saving is very modest compared with the overall budget”. That’s where I took the figures from that, as it turns out, I correctly attributed to you.
Mind oyu you also argued under the same article on 10th of Dec (about the council ‘subverting’ the concordat) – “the Scottish Government has made a relatively generous budget settlement proposal to Scottish Councils…the settlement is better than the Councils themselves were anticipating and means that they do not have to implement as severe cuts as they first thought”
Now that the budget cut has almost doubled to 4.9% and the amount to be cut has risen to £15million – way beyond even our pessimitic Council’s worst forecast – you’ll maybe want to review your earlier comments in light of these more recemnt developments.
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Simon – we always know when you’re running out of steam because you start talking off the top of your head rather than making statements based on facts. To keep things easy for you, we have mostly stuck to quoting figures from the council’s own documentation, even when we believe them to be flawed. That means you can check our claims yourself using nothing more than the council’s website and maybe a calculator.
“under-occupied schools (50% or less occupancy rate) will always cost more as the unit cost (per head) is higher”
That may or may not be true in itself. It is certainly irrelevant. The council’s financial impact statement on the closure program makes it absolutely clear that NONE of the savings from this exercise come from property overheads. The reason is that these are largely wiped out by the extra costs of transporting 500 or so children over greater distances. Loss of GAE support received by the council (which is direct extra cash for the Argyll economy) wipes out the remainder and leaves the council with a net loss from closure of buildings. They then have to make even greater savings on teaching posts. This was the subject of my very first post on FA and I and others have re-stated it more times than I can remember.
I don’t know whether we’re still not getting this message through because you don’t understand it, or because you don’t believe it. The extra costs associated with smaller schools arise because they have generally higher teacher:pupil ratios, not least because one teacher will often have to cover a wide age-range. This isn’t ‘unfair’ or even ‘inefficient’ – it’s just a natural consequence of living in a sparsely-populated rural county.
My list of ‘services not received’ in Barcaldine was not a complaint, and I certain don’t imply that it is a reason for depopulation of rural areas. It was simply an illustration of the fact that rural communities, while they may cost a little more in provision of education, often make less demands on other services.
I still don’t know what your priorities are. You’ve just more or less stated every council service apart from education (OK we get it, you don’t have primary-age children). You know that our position in this debate is clear – we do have primary-age children. We also live in small communities which place an exceptionally high value on the schools which help bind them.
So come on, what is the single most important thing that Argyll & Bute Council does for you, and that you want to see protected?
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Jim, I am getting the impression you are in a huff. Oh well LOL
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I dont know Dr mackenzie or Tim, but they are certainly winning the debate with Simon whom i dont know either. Dr MacKenzie has well researched facts, and conducts himself in a respectful manner at all times. very positive and very believable.
I started here as anti closure in general, but for sure Barcaldine surely has no chance of closing. It goes against the grain of all we should believe in were it to go any further in the consultation. It would be a slap in the face for all their enterprise, efficiency, and educational achievement.
I understand Barcaldine and Strone were to be reprieved at one point before the 19/17 decision, but Councillors MacKay, and Marshall persuaded Dick Welsh to keep it in the 26 hit list.
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http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2010/dec/council-slam-negative-tactics-argyll-rural-schools-network.
Looks like someone’s not too happy!!
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Tim, for the record I always acknowledged that the majoirty of the savings come from salaries. You may disagree, however, the Council says it will make savings and my understanding is that should a school close the net money (salaries, property etc – the savings – minus additional transport costs etc ) are immediately taken out of the education budget and since the no department can exceed their budget it is in that way the savings against budgets are dealt with. That’s certainly how I would do it.
I do understand that your focus is on primary schooling and that is your priority – I just don’t have that narrower focus – because I can just see how services that enrich all our lives and that have been built up over many years are going to be decimated. It’s worth remembering that the Coucil anticpated between £9 and £13 million of cuts per year for the nest three years. The budget cut this year alone from the Scottish governemnt is £15million. And there are still two years of unprecedented cuts to go.
I simply cannot see us experiencing three years of budget cuts at this level and think it reasonable that under-occupied (ie low demand) higher costing schools should be, or will be, left unaffected (the SNP recognised that within their amendment – whilst they wanted to reduce the number of schools to be closed -on the basis of reducing traveling time – they still, inteded putting school closures out for consultation).
Given the scale of the cuts we face, councillors, regardless of party or grouping, would be negligent if they did not seek to make savings through efficiencies in the school estate.
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Re Morags comment and web link – if you read the info below the statement in this web link (“notes for editors”) it states “The education service accounts for 29% of the council’s budget – £80m” but if you read the full page spread the council has in the local papers about the budget consultation it states that the budget for education is £99.6 million which equates to 35.9 % of the councils budget. How are we, Joe Public, meant to make head nor tail of any of this if the council can’t even publish consistent information??
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Thanks Phill. It is appreciated.
“Simon”: you first start off by saying you don’t want to continue in this thread (believe me I would like to leave as well!) but then you go and make a whole lot of other statements. Where an argument has exhausted itself and all we are left with is agreeing to disagree then I’m happy to leave things like that. However, when the opposing party makes statements that are incorrect, false or misleading then I feel I have to respond. So (wearily)…
“I’ll watch with interst to see how Barcaldine gets on during consultation – especially with that number of placing requests (almost 50%) ”
You obviously see that as a weakness. It is instead a measure of the respect that parents in North Lorn have for Barcaldine’s excellence not only in educational attainment but in providing a superb extra curricular range of activities and in a great natural environment. It is a very happy and totally inclusive school. I sincerely wish that all children could have the opportunities of going to schools like Barcaldine. As I said, there are placement requests from the village to other schools and there are placements into the school. The level of placement requests into Barcaldine is a mixed blessing. We have had instances recently where families moving into Barcaldine could not be accommodated at the school until the next session because the school was at full occupancy. Any independent observer looking at Barcaldine would conclude that the school should be expanded not shut (as the Council’s own Planning Department want to happen and the Barcaldine Community Association tried to help do but were rebuffed by the Council).
Remember that Barcaldine is one of the most cost effective schools in Argyll. Even a Martian would see that shutting it (at a financial loss to the Council!) is bonkers. yet you seem to support this “Simon”. Can we assume you don’t live or work in North Lorn then?
“that the averagecost of educating primary school pupils is £3,948 per year. How much more expensive than this does primary education have to be before we say ‘that’s too expensive’ – twice that amount? Three times? Four times?? etc. etc.”
Schools will be different on a per pupil basis for a whole lot of reasons. You can have the interesting situation where if a school becomes larger it becomes more expensive as it needs to take on an extra teacher. Barcaldine is in a nice “sweet spot” in terms of teacher number versus pupil number. You already answered this question yourself: you pointed to the fact that small islands could justify much higher levels of per pupil expenditure than other schools. I presume you would agree that this applies to special needs schools and to secondaries. Why not to rural primaries? The cost per pupil is basically irrelevant. What matters is the cost to provide education throughout your region Some schools will inevitably cost more than others on a per pupil basis. The only question you should be asking is: is the school operating at peak cost efficiency? ie are there genuine cost savings that can be made through efficiency measures? If the answer is no then that school is operating at its optimal efficiency. The time when there were genuine cost savings to be had through amalgamations is long past. Education in Argyll now costs what it costs. The only way to reduce the expenditure is to reduce the service. It may come to that but be in no doubt, the proposal that one third of all primary schools can be shut without a detrimental effect on education and society in Argyll is a lie. Not a difference of opinion. A lie.
To quote the Manic Street Preachers: if you tolerate this; then your children will be next.
Except that the Council has decided to start with the children.
“The Council spends £278M per annum. The proposed saving is 0.7%. My point here is that the saving is very modest compared with the overall budget”. That’s where I took the figures from that, as it turns out, I correctly attributed to you.”
You correctly attributed to me the fact that the Council claims it will save 0.7% of their budget by closing one third of all the primaries in Argyll but you fail to acknowledge that I have suggested that the actual targeted cost reductions are much less than this and the achievable cost reductions are tiny.
“Mind oyu you also argued under the same article on 10th of Dec (about the council ‘subverting’ the concordat) – “the Scottish Government has made a relatively generous budget settlement proposal to Scottish Councils…the settlement is better than the Councils themselves were anticipating and means that they do not have to implement as severe cuts as they first thought”
I’ll give you this one. I had presumed that ABC would be near the average cut level. As it turns out, because of the poor performance of our Council in meeting social targets we have slipped down the GAE rankings table and so the money given to ABC by the Government will be considerably less than average. The cuts will be in line with the Council’s original projections. What you have not mentioned is that if the Council do not conform with the conditions of the concordant (several of which relate to primary schools) then the Council will suffer an even larger cut.
I must confess, when I discussed GAE with Sandy Longmuir and heard how rapidly Argyll was slipping down the GAE rankings I was horrified (and he will back me up on this). I think it is essential that all the citizens of Argyll wake up to the possibility that we are heading for a Western Isles type situation unless the Council starts to perform better. Closing rural schools actually exacerbates the situation ie: they cut a little bit of expenditure by closing one third of all primaries but end up losing even more money from loss of GAE.
As I suspected “Simon” you are not listening to the arguments and the facts. I asked Jim before and I’ll ask you now: who is your constituency in this? I know where mine is and they (rather embarrassingly) stop me in the street to give me their thanks for giving them a voice. I am both humbled that so many people should put their faith in me and nervous in case I let them down. Pride I spare for the approval in my children’s eyes when they see their daddy step up to defend them, their friends, their school and their community. I cannot say but I suspect that every one of the Barcaldine parents feels the same way. I would be surprised if any of the parents from any of the other threatened schools felt any different.
The Council have just put out a press release condemning the “negativity” of communities fighting for their schools. Let me just utter the old latin phrase:
Nemo me impune lacessit
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Doc – “The cost per pupil is basically irrelevant” no it’s not – it is useful measure of where schools are operating inefficiently. and as for your statement “Education in Argyll now costs what it costs” I don’t agree with that one bit. Some of these schools simply cannot be allowed to continue to rack up costs we can no longer afford especially in thre present finacial climate. Some of them should close.
And without trying to upset anyone yes I do think placing requests can be a weakness rather than a strength. If placing request start to outnumber local village kids – then the true occupancy rate and therefore costs per head are being artificially distorted because of placing requests. Whilst I recognise rights under placing requests I really don’t see why the rest of us should be expected to pay for that choice just because somebody wants their child to attrend that particular school. Let’s face evereyone has been arguing about ‘viable villages’ – villages and their schools are hardly viable if they are importing 50% of their pupils.
Thanks for ‘giving’ me the one re the budget cut being greater than anticpated. Of course you will also agree that contrary to your former position the Council will now have to implement even more severe cuts than they first thought actually almost double the level than previously anticipated – and that every avenue including rural schools required to be examined with even greater scrutiny for savings.
I know you think that “you are not listening to the arguments and the facts!” I rather think that works both ways.
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“Simon”: Cost per pupil is only relevant when you are comparing like with like. Otherwise it is irrelevant. Let me just put a simple question to you: is it relevant to compare the cost per pupil at a special needs school like Parklands to, say, a rural primary like Barcaldine? Of course it is not. Nor is it really helpful to compare the per pupil cost at a rural school to an urban school. The urban school will almost always be a more expensive school in total cost but cheaper in per pupil cost.The rural school will be cheaper overall but have a higher per pupil cost. However, when the GAE support for small schools comes into play then the difference between what it costs the Council to deliver education in the large urban school and the rural primary is actually quite small. In the Council’s table of per pupil costs, Barcaldine is number 23 but we are only 8 points off the cheapest school. This means that there are a lot of very efficient schools in Argyll both large and small.
There are some schools where the cost per pupil is much higher than at other schools. This is down to low occupancy. Such schools should be examined to see if they are educationally and socially viable and if they are not then they should be closed. There is a mechanism for doing this and it is a pity that the Council has not used it properly.
The Government gives Argyll and Bute Council money to deliver education in the County and leaves it up to them how to deliver it. There are no schools “racking up costs”: this is a figment of your imagination. I notice you haven’t responded to a single positive fact about Barcaldine.
To placements: 15% of the children in Barcaldine come from a single family who happen to live just outside our catchment area (which is defined in that case not by distance from the school but by a geographic feature). Because North Lorn is a relatively prosperous and successful part of Argyll with a rising population our schools are still relatively close to each other. This means that parents can choose to send their children to a choice of primary schools within the area. The fact that quite a few want to send them to Barcaldine should be a clue as to the excellence of the school. Your argument seems to be that Barcaldine should close BECAUSE it is a popular school. I repeat that there is no financial detriment to the Council in whatever choice the parents make – unless they place them in Lochnell rather than Ardchattan, Barcaldine, Lismore or Strath of Appin in which case the GAE will be lost.
Regarding the cuts. My impression is that because of the Council’s inefficiency at meeting the targets that the Government has set we will be looking at cuts in line with what the Council originally anticipated rather than the lesser cuts that other councils are enjoying.
Can you point to a single disputed statement of fact you have made where I have been unable to show that it is false, misguided or just simply wrong? That is the difference between us: when you are losing a point you just go onto something else or misrepresent what I (and everyone else) is saying.
Don’t bother responding to this “Simon”. I’m certainly not going to waste any more of my time . rather, I am going to devote my time to ensuring these proposals are killed off as quickly as possible to avoid any more waste of resources and unnecessary stress to our communities.
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Doctor;
Simon just doesnt get it and never will, because he doesnt want to. You cant debate with the likes of that.
Your understanding, fairness and integrity is needed in a positive way, as you are doing with a respected and fair minded voice. Please continue the good work on here also but give Simon a miss, as hes trying to divert your much needed input.
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Doc, I cetainly don’t share your argument re placing requests. Indeed I’m not even sure that placing request pupils can be counted in the true roll of the school and am surprised that incoming familes are being turned away because of so many polacing requests – an even more expensive consequence of placing requests.
And I’m certainly not convinced that “Because North Lorn is a relatively prosperous and successful part of Argyll with a rising population our schools are still relatively close to each other. This means that parents can choose to send their children to a choice of primary schools within the area” that taxpayers and our council should be paying for expensive schools just so that ‘prosperous parents’ can pick and choose the school they want their children to attend.
Why we should we all be expected to incurr additional costs at this particular time when every other service is under severe threat? Close old folks homes and don’t repair roads but give placing requests for ‘prosperous parents’ priority ??
Sorry: not in my world.
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Simon
Having a choice of schools means that children do not end up in a school where their needs are not met, being too big to care, or where they are being bullied.
Having no school means no new families will move to the area.
Do you want ALL parts of Argyll to be destroyed by ABC’s inability to make decent decisions for our sustainable future? Just because they have done this throughout so many areas, does not give them the right to do it further.
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Simon aint a parent of a school age child, for sure. A bit of jealousy methinks.
Old folk in Argyll would also be horrified to see their local school close, and take the heart out of the community. Young and old compliment each other in a village or community.
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Simon – you have asked us what should be a reasonable spread of educational per-pupil costs. We have responded with an explanation that you have not accepted, and you continue to insist that more expensive schools are automatically less efficient.
What is your own answer to your question?
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I did swear not to respond to any more of “Simon”s rather crude taunts and both Phill and Linnhe haver made excellent defences of parental choice. However, I think his comments are so out of line with reality that I have to respond to them unless anyone else reading this happens to think there is any truth in them.
“Indeed I’m not even sure that placing request pupils can be counted in the true roll of the school and am surprised that incoming familes are being turned away because of so many polacing requests – an even more expensive consequence of placing requests.”
Placing requests work both ways. I know of one school where there have been an extraordinary number of placing requests AWAY from the school. The roll is being used as an argument to close the school. You cannot have it both ways. Imperfect or not the roll is the measure of a school’s occupancy and all the other factors that derive from this.
As I have said, a popular school receiving a lot of placement requests can incur peculiar problems. The same school that I mentioned in the last paragraph was, just six years ago, over-capacity because of the school’s popularity and the number of placements coming to it. However, where you get the idea that this produces expensive consequences I just don’t know. Would you like to evidence that statement?
“And I’m certainly not convinced that “Because North Lorn is a relatively prosperous and successful part of Argyll with a rising population our schools are still relatively close to each other. This means that parents can choose to send their children to a choice of primary schools within the area” that taxpayers and our council should be paying for expensive schools just so that ‘prosperous parents’ can pick and choose the school they want their children to attend.
My wife picked me up on this. My defence was the qualifier of “relatively”. My point was that North Lorn has advantages that areas such as (say the lower Kintyre peninsula) do not share. Population here is at a quite high density and employment is high. I wasn’t trying to suggest that we are all Ferrari driving well-to-do’s! Virtually all of the villages and settlements around Oban have been expanding, with evident new housing (Taynuilt, Connel, North Connel, Benderloch, Barcaldine, Kilmore and Kilninver. This is not to forget Oban itself. Oban has very restricted capacity for further residential development but Dunbeg is a target for considerable expansion of housing (and not forgetting the high tech industrial expansion at Dunstaffnage).
North Lorn has not suffered the demographic declines that have hit other parts of Argyll. While there has been rationalisation of the primary schools in Oban itself, the surrounding settlements have tended to keep their village schools. This means that the Oban area has a relatively high density of primaries, serving the educational needs of villages that are typically 3-5 miles apart from each other. This geographic proximity means that parents have the good fortune of being able to choose from a variety of different sized schools, with different ethos and focus without having to commit their children to unacceptably long journeys. And just to remind “Simon”: this is a good thing. It is what we should aspire to throughout Argyll. Again “Simon” makes unfounded and un-evidenced statements about these schools being expensive. I have repeatedly pointed to the fact that Barcaldine is one of the most cost-effective schools in Argyll (by the Council’s own figures) and yet he continues to peddle his anti-rural bias evidenced by this failure to acknowledge that most rural schools are comparable in cost-effectiveness to urban primaries – not in a small way because of the GAE support for small schools. A number of these schools will cost MORE to close than keep open. He acknowledged that it doesn’t make sense to close a school where the Council end up losing money and yet he continues to attack and call for the closure of perfectly viable schools.
“Why we should we all be expected to incurr additional costs at this particular time when every other service is under severe threat? Close old folks homes and don’t repair roads but give placing requests for ‘prosperous parents’ priority ??”
There are no additional costs. In the case of my own school, placement requests from Lochnell to Barcaldine actually generates money for the Council (at £2600 per pupil). Placement requests from Appin to Barcaldine (and vice versa) have no impact either way. Also, your insinuation that placements are in some way a sinister attempt to rob old folk of their retirement homes is risible. As I said before (and you ignored) in my own village school we have 4 placements out of our catchment area (1 to Lochnell and 3 to Oban schools) and 11 in (six from the Appin catchment and five from Lochnell – the latter generating an additional £13,000 for the Argyll economy from the Scottish Government. However, catchment areas are just a bureaucratic convenience. In between settlements there is frequent housing (just drive between North Connel and Appin and see how true this is). For people in between settlements the choice of which school to send their children to is largely a matter of convenience. In our case, four of the Appin placements come from one family who live between Strath of Appin and Barcaldine. They might not live actually in the village but I can assure you they are just as much a part of the Barcaldine community as those families who live within our catchment area but to the South of Barcaldine and who could just as easily send their children to Lochnell as the schools are about equidistant. They not only participate in school events but they share parental child moving duties for activities such as Brownies and AYT with the rest of the Barcaldine parents.
I’m not authorised to comment on the other parents and why they choose to either place children outwith or into Barcaldine but in any case none of this justifies “Simon”s blatant and crude attempts to try to divide our communities by pitting school children against OAPs in a bogus battle for resources that is going on in his mind.
You end by saying “Sorry, not in my world”. I’m glad I don’t live in that world because it is obviously narrow-minded and unconcerned with truth.
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having just got to this article, one minor adjustment is suggested – the article says that the only defensible thing about that proposals is the spelling of the names of the schools proposed for closure – that may be the case, but the council unfortunately cannot manage the same level of performance in relation to all of the schools concerned – after the title page of its report and at the head of page 2, Garelochhead is misspelt.
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The NHS Redundancy Crisis affects millions of people….why is nobody taking action?
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