We understand on good authority that Argyll and Bute Council’s CEO, Sally Loudon, spent time yesterday contacting councillors to establish their current views on the position with the schools closure proposals – approved for statutory public consultation on the recommendation of her regime.
While much of her effort has been concentrated on councillors within THE ADMINISTRATION, she seems to have consulted more widely, perhaps in an attempt to test for a consensus of some kind.
It is not a coincidence that this unusual spurt of activity follows our challenge yesterday on the culpable negligence of the CEO and of Executive Director Cleland Sneddon over their exercise of their own ultimate responsibilities for the progress of these proposals.
It is a matter of public record that Mrs Loudon had not occupied a position of any great managerial responsibility before she came to Argyll and Bute. She had not even been head of any significant department at her previous local authority so she will have had a steep learning gradient to climb after such a stellar and lucrative promotion.
This lack of experience may well explain why it was that she omitted to make herself familiar with the governing legislation on rural school closures. The unarguable fact is that she, with Mr Sneddon, recommended councillors to approve for formal legal consultation a set of documents which were not even basically compliant with the governing law on key statutory issues.
This ignorance of the law was accentuated by the statement the CEO made at the council meeting on 25th November – that there was no need for community impact assessments to be ready until the decision on closure was to be taken – which again demonstrated her lack of awareness of the 2010 Act.
In fact, as we have constantly pointed out, the law is unambiguous on this matter, setting a strict chronology which requires that before publication of the proposals both the community impact assessments and the consideration of viable alternatives to closure are completed and within the proposal documents.
Argyll and Bute, Council, on the public recommendation of its Executive Director and CEO, agreed to send to legal consultation, draft documents lacking these statutorily required sections.
This is a serious failure of due diligence as well as of culpable negligence on the part of Mrs Loudon and MR Sneddon.
While individual councillors should have familiarised themselves with the law before deciding to vote as they did, it is nevertheless beyond due diligence for them to have been advised by the most senior council officers that the school closure proposals were in a fit state to be sent to statutory consultation.
This is not a matter of opinion, It is a matter of law. And it is not an obscure matter of law, It is the heart of the legal requirement for proposals to close rural schools.
How the proposals were allowed to be completed in a non-compliant state is hard to understand – especially since we had publicly drawn attention to non-compliance before even the meeting on 2nd November 2010.
How this advice to council was considered proper is a matter for very serious investigation.
Ohhh now this is just embarrassing…..
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/681332
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2007/02/06/39132/on-the-move-sally-reid-dot-morfett-and-fleur-bothwick.html
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BpeabtPdA-IJ:www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/content/news/general/3250506+sally+reid+head+of+performance&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a
and all that required was a 2 second Google. If you can’t get the small stuff right then it does make you wonder about all the other “facts” reported here.
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For Jim: Perhaps you would care to detail the size of the newly created ‘department’ Mrs Loudon ran at MIdlothian and at the same time give the figures for the establishment she now heads at Argyll and Bute Council. There is an unarguable difference between them in complexity as well as in sheer scale.
Another indisputable fact is that the CEO has been centrally ionvolved in the evolution of these proposals, before even the arrival of Mr Sneddon. She has also been involved in the developmnt of the proposals to the exclusion of the then Education Spokesperson.
Both of these facts are evidenced in what we may now refer to as ‘the Blooner papers’.
The CEO then presided over the publication of these proposal papers and the approval process which, with hers and Mr Sneddon’s recommendation, were sent to statutory public consultation in a state of serious non-compliance with the governing law.
This non-compliance was not in matters of minor detail but concerned the omission of core statutory requirements to be observed in the case of proposing to close rural schools.
It would be educative to hear your defence of this?
The place of embarrassment is very far from here.
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P&J: She is currently head of performance and human resources at Midlothian Council
For Argyll: Mrs Loudon had not occupied a position of any great managerial responsibility before she came to Argyll and Bute.
You were wrong – just admit it FFS
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We don’t consider this to be a department of any great substance compared with, say a finance, infrastructural, social services or education department and it is certainly a small responsibility to ground such a huge step up.
But we are happy to publish that she did indeed have departmental responsibility of a sort.
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Harry, it was worse than that before the crafty edit to cover-up another example of very sloppy journalism.
“Mrs Loudon had not occupied a position of any great managerial responsibility
before she came to Argyll and Bute. She had not even been a Head of
Department at her previous local authority so she will have had a steep learning
gradient to climb after such a stellar and lucrative promotion.”
The original article http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/3324/fasloppyatbest.png
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Yep and not for thefirst time either. I’ve noticed some other sneaky sloppy editing as well. I posted yesterday that For Argyll had made no real mention of the hike in the budget cut the Council is facing. They put on a link to a ‘story about the cuts’ which was an edited version of a completley different story that they had run earlier.
In QI Stephen Fry says you can spot the lie in a pub when the guy in corner prefaces his story with “Apparently…….”.
With For Argyll it’s “we understand…….”
Dead giveaway really.
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What sheer arrogance “We don’t consider this to be a department of any great substance” – caught out and refusing to admit it – ie doing exactly what they constantly accuse the Council of doing.
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And ! STILL no comment from Fro argyll aboutt eh sweinging increase in the budge tcut for the Council from 2.6% to a massive 4.9%. Not one single jot about the possible implications of this SNP cut – this is the biggest story in A&B for years and effects everybody. Much more important (though others may disagree) than 500 pupils maybe having to move schools. And yet not a single word – we’ve had stories of people leaving a distillery, another award for a resort/hotel, cou ntells “we understand/wehear” allegations but not a single cheap about this most important of events.
This non-reporting is probably not unconnected with the fact that For Argyll had reapeatedly used the budget cut as a reason for NOT closing schools – their view was that with the budget cut at “only 2.6%”it was not as bad as feared and therefore the schools should be saved. Unfortunately for that view and for the rest of us the budget cut is almost double their prediction at 4.9% and we now know in real terms the cut is around £15 million.
Services will be slashed because of this – and still no comment from For Argyll.
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Jim and Simon need to keep the heid, or your opinion will not be taken seriously.
Whether you agree or not that ‘forargyll’ were economocal with the truth, they are 100% correct in that the CEO appears not to be experienced enough for all this high profile wrangling and backstabbing , and is seeking a steer from councillors.
What is certain, is the fact that this sorry situation would not have happened in James Maclellans day.
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I was unfortunate enough to work at the Council at the time Sally Reid was appointed. We googled her then and found documents where she was listed as a Best Value Officer in about 2005 and she seemed to rise through Chief Exec’s Assistant to Head of Performance and then through a departmental merger to Head of Performance and HR. I doubt any of these posts would have involved managing more than a couple of dozen staff or a significant budget. More leading initiatives and setting targets.
At the time of her appointment most folks I spoke to in the Council were amazed, some good candidates hadn’t made it through the the shortlist, so everyone assumed it was being rigged so Douglas Hendry would be able to outshine anyone else. We heard that there was a group of Councillors who wanted anyone but Hendry and this is who they got.
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“Jim and Simon need to keep the heid, or your opinion will not be taken seriously.”
hahaha, I really don’t think it is our reputations on the line here. ForArgyll has just proven what a shambolic and amateur affair it really is. The made a completely false statement which only required two seconds to verify. They then altered the article without acknowledging the porkie in the original. As simon alluded to, it’s awful rich coming from an organization who constantly accuse the Council of devious tactics to deceive the public.
Anyone remember the laser pen scandal? It’s laughable really.
How many other half truths or down right lies exist on these pages. Those campaigning for their schools might be best advised to take what they read from here with a pinch of salt. As to avoid ending up with egg on their faces.
“they are 100% correct in that the CEO appears not to be experienced enough for all this high profile wrangling and backstabbing”
100% correct in that they have an opinion, not that I personally value it given they can’t be bothered doing some simple research into her background.
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Is the reference to the ‘Blooner papers’ intentional or just another example of the sloppy reporting we’ve come to expect here? As we’re quoting TV shows here (Simon) you might like to know that For Argyll is doing a sterling job of matching Malcolm Tucker’s take on blogs – nothing more significant than “inconsequential, unspell-checked sh!t”.
And before you question Sally Louden’s experience remember it was the (then) executive who appointed her. I’m sure the SNP claimed credit for it then. I don’t hear them admitting the appointment was a mistake? No doubt you’d prefer it if she didn’t consult with the new administration – then you could accuse her of some other managerial failing. Perhaps the £15m cut from the SNP government could be blamed on her too? Maybe the gravity of the cuts is taking longer for For Argyll to “understand”.
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When I scrolled down to look at the comments the last thing I expected to encounter was a bunch of seagulls scrapping over a chip.
Would you guys please give just a tiny bit of time to using those research skills to the consultation documents we’re trying to discuss. It’s obvious you have some ability. It would be nice to see it applied to the subject of the discussion.
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Anne – the subject under discussion was acually posted by For Argyll and it was For Argyll’s attack on the chief executive’s experience – rapidly followed by another discussion about For Argyll altering/editing the original post trying to make For Argyll look better. So, we were all actually following the subject of the discussion. Not sure you were though….
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Jim; Grow up.
Simon; Change the record.
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To both Trudie Wright and Anne Baird – well done in identifying yourselves and standing up and being counted, I pointed out in a couple of blogs yesterday that hiding your identity and anonymous postings was not only cowardice but often leads to bullying. I don’t look at “Simon Says” blogs anymore but you can judge for yourself the balance there between cowardice and bullying.
Please just ignore him and anyone else who does not have the guts to stand up and be counted. You do not know who he or she is, it could be anyone with a vested interest here, it is the same as an anonymous letter though the door and like these things should be immediately trashed
If you want to see how decent debate can be hijacked by vested interests, crazies and sad people who think they can play at Batman or Robin by concealing their identity, just look at what has become of the online comments on news stories in “the Scotsman” at http://www.scotsman.com/ . No one reads them any more for any decent debate. If you indulge the anonymous “Simon Says” of this world it just gives them fuel and drives out the decent people who don’t want to be bullied by the likes of him or her hiding behind anonymity. I would guess that is already beginning to happen on For Argyll
You have probably guessed I have strong feelings on this. I have spent much time on concealed information from local and national government in recent years, I have struggled through Freedom of Information requests to try to get open information, and the likes of “Simon Says” should not be tolerated on an excellent website like For Argyll if it is not to suffer “the Scotsman”s fate.
So cut him off? No just ignore him, that’s the worst thing you can do to him
Neil Kay
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As I said in a parallel post -
Why mention only me Neil Kay? Why are you not mentioning anyone else? What have you got against me?
What is your REAL agenda? Is it only those who are for the consultation process that you are targetting ? Shame on you if you are.
That’s the 3rd time you’ve posted about me and NEVER once mentioned these posters – Why Neil Kay?
Newsroom
Phil
Robert
Mugglemum
Crazy-She-Bat
John in Kintyre
Alasdair
GlenbarrMum
Opinion
Ardchattan Mum
Pam@Luing
BFOandC
Linnhe
NB Says
Islay Parent
Flaming June
Southend Mum
Aand Z Luing
Zira
Luss Mummy
Dazed and Confused
and loads more.
Actually the majority of posters on here in fact . But you ONLY pick on me. Something to hide there Neil Kay?
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Simon….
Am I under the nom of ‘loads more’?
I like to pick on you too, but only because you (as many has said) keep repeating yourself…
Either you are that stupid…or are right up cleland’s ****
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pick one
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Whilst I accept the need in some cases for anonymity (for instance because of rules about Council employees not being allowed their civil rights of free speech – which is shameful in most cases), nonetheless I do broadly agree with Neil Kay on this one. BUT ABOVE ALL, do let us please STOP SQUABBLING and GET ON WITH THE JOB. How many people have yet produced draft Responses to the Proposal Documents so they are ready to hit the enemy with them as and when? How many people are actively involved in formally challenging the legal status of the Proposal documents? How many more FOI requests need to be submitted? Are all those bright ideas for resistance being ACTIONED?? There is a LOT OF WORK to do if these vile people are to be defeated and the children and communities of Argyll protected – both now and in the future. I say VILE because what these people are KNOWINGLY proposing in many cases is a re-run of the Highland Clearances. As well as being deeply unprofessional from an educational point of view, it is also DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL. Andrew McIntyre’s letter in this week’s OT was a timely reminder of how literally vital this is for communities all over Agyll. So let’s get to it. There really is a war to win. We shouldn’t squabble among ourselves and we shouldn’t take prisoners either. If you have a Councillor who voted FOR this mess SEND ‘EM TO COVENTRY. FOR EVER. And let ‘em KNOW. This is no longer the ‘polite county of Argyll’. This is too serious for sentiment. We know who our friends are and we know our enemies too. And in public life you’re only as good as your LAST VOTE.
(PS. NK: – if you do your homework you’ll KNOW who I am!)
Grr Grr
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Well said. This is so important.
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Neil Kay: I don’t know why you keeping bringing up the issue of anonymous postings because every time somebody highlights what a moot point it is.
It is technically impossible with FA’s current setup to verify the identity of posters. I could post under the guise of one of ABC’s councillors, a member of staff a national politician etc. You have no way to verify I am who I claim to be. And I have no means of confirming you are even Neil Kay. To place any trust in poster’s identities is actually dangerous.
In the online arena you have to judge contributions on their content and completely disregard the pseudonym under which they are posted.
“I say VILE because what these people are KNOWINGLY proposing in many cases is a re-run of the Highland Clearances. As well as being deeply unprofessional from an educational point of view, it is also DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL.”
BC: Comments like this do your cause no favours at all. The folk of Argyll are not going to be compelled to support you when you choose to campaign on this level.
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