The Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 - and the Explanatory Notes which underpin its interpretation – were both written in the anticipated context of principled behaviour from two legitimate opposing sides. Local authorities regularly look to close some schools. Local communities must always campaign to save these lifelines to their sustainability.
The act and the guidance were not, however, formulated to allow for the level of incompetence and chicanery which has accompanied Argyll and Bute Council’s current proposals to close 25 rural shccols.
The council’s ruling Administration is in ignorant determination to railroad a set of proposals that the experienced and respected Scottish Rural Schools Network describe as ‘the worst we’ve seen’.
The contribution of Argyll and Bute Council – led by the miscellaneous Alliance of Independents with energetic support from their new partners, the LibDems and the Tories – is likely to be a necessary review of the act and the guidance to allow for previously unimagined procedural conduct.
Consequences
Many councillors have been personally negligent in this matter. They made decisions on the basis of papers they admitted to be flawed at the point of voting for them. They also obviously failed to acquaint themselves with the relevant law and with the advisory material on the interpretation of the law – both identified and linked from the Council’s own website.
Had they done so, they would have realised that the proposals – which this morning went to statutory public consultation, are in flagrant non-compliance with that law on several key points.
This non-compliance is in addition to the depth of structural factual flaws in the proposals which councillors preferred not to explore further before they voted to approve them.
All of these matters will be made public in due course – with the presentation of hard evidence which has been available for some time and which has become even weightier in very recent discoveries, revealing additional errors of magnitude.
At the meeting on 25th November, Douglas Hendry, the senior Director advising the council on legal issues, made it clear that revisions to the proposals during consultation mean that they must be brought back to council.
The Act and the guidance to the act make it clear that this requires the commencement of a new period of consultation as the proposals for public consultation have been changed.
Personal and corporate responsibility
There is a procedure by which councillors shown to be negligent in their decision taking process, can be held individually responsible for financial losses incurred.
This consultation process is going to be protracted and expensive. There is a cost of £19,000 coming in for the hire of a consultant alone (the now discredited Keir Bloomer). That’s £1,000 each for the 19 councillors who negligently voted for the proposals – and before adding up the cost of the consultation itself, with its 19 public meetings and massive amounts of senior staff time.
If councilors – including the key LibDem group who hastily changed their votes to get into power and delivered the narrow majority for the proposals – had done their most basic homework, they could not have voted in this way and would have saved the council from serious wasted expenditure and reputational damage in equal measure.
They cannot claim not to have been negligent.
This is an issue for personal as well as for corporate accountability.
surely then if they are proven to have been negligent and are financially responsible does it not follow that they are not fit to hold office and we can ellect a new council ?
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Is it just me, but have the 19 councillors who voted for consultation been a little quiet over the last few days?
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The pressure should be kept on.
Argyll and Bute would be well rid of this “administration” which has now been exposed as involved in a conspriracy to subvert the proper democratic process – but be aware Cll Walsh is a past master at staying in power and has survived a number of misdemeanours which would have seen off lesser persons.
He will not go unless forced out of office and that would require a vote of no confidence at a full council meeting at which a number of councillors changed sides.
The LibDems in my judgement are now beyond salvation on this issue and in the balance will probably settle for their £9000 sweteners as they now would have very little to gain by flip-flopping back. They are politically dead, as is Alison Hay
It is a pity that the council elections are not until 2012.
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Dave – are you trying to smoke Simon out? He also has been very quiet since the Bloomers started hitting the fan…
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Would love to.
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Aw Dave – I didnae ken ye missed me!
Anyhow, as you and my readers know – I’ve caught you out before making up your stories which all have the same theme – take a dig at the counci/lib Dems/alliance and praise the SNP. Well methinks oyu’re at it again.
You’ll remember your claim about the “official awarding thermselves increases” – that was wrong, And about the Chief Executive of the Council having a salary of £180,000, Ooops. Wrong again. And, about the Lib dems being on 4% from the latest poll. No surprise to find out you’re wrong again.
So this imte – tell me again about your claim of “the better than expected Argyll and Bute cut of only a 2.6% from the SNP’s John Swinney”.
I’m hearing the real figure is almost double that at around a 5% cut! Any comment on that Dave?
Obviously if I’m right then the cuts in Argyll and Bute will need to be much deeper than previously thought and the presssure will really be on to examine everywhere cuts can be made; including one suspects schoool closures.
And in these dire circumstances Newsroom Councillors would indeed be negligent if they did NOT consider schools for closure – especially when you consider the under-occupancy position of some of these schools.
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For Simon: We’ve heard a figure of something like 4.9% for Argyll and Bute – from an informed but not fully authoritative source.
But, from what we conclusively know, we’d advise you not to hold your breath on the security of any part of the current case for school closures in Argyll.
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To Simon; I dont think anyone here ever said all schools should remain open irrespective, but the way its beeen handled by all parties, including to an extent the snp of which i am not a follower, has left so much of a mess it needs to at the very least be looked at again closely, and even at that it will be difficult but at least done to the letter and the spirit of the relevant statutes.
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Newsie – thanks for your advice – have you considered the possibility that we might be talking to or at least listening to the same “informed but not fully authoritative source”
Regardless, I have to say that if next finacial year is only year-one of three years of severe cuts then equally I wouldn’t be holding my breath that schools won’t close in Argyll and Bute. And given their under-occupancy and high coists – some of them undoubtedly should close.
Hoiwever that’s my view. Let me ask Newsie – do you think cuts with a figure of nearer 4.9% rather than John Swinney’s much lauded promise of 2.6% – increases or decreases the chances of schools closing?
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Phil – thanks for that comment ” I dont think anyone here ever said all schools should remain open” I shall refrain from asking ‘that’ question.
However, you bring up a good point. Certainly the majority of posts on here claim the process is a mess and the figures are flawed. I’ve said before that in the case of the Crossroads school – parental groups and others made the same claims. flawed figures and flawed processes. However, the Scottish Mininsters having read the submission and results of the consultation process decided not to call it in because due process and procedures were fine. I therefore accept with a very large shovel full of salt claimes by For Argyll SRNS and others on her ethat figures are flawed – they have a vested interest.
I think ‘For Argyll’ and others have also attempted to question and undermine the process in the hope of stopping it in its tracks. That failed in a democratic vote within the Council (cue predictable outbursts from theusual suspects). Actually it is the outcome of the consultation will tell us whether this is indeed a mess or whether it has in actiual fact been carried out within the legislation.
THowever, the personal and often vicious attacks, name-calling and patheitc attempts at anangrams of names (not that I would say it but NEWSROOM is an anagram of ENORM SOW) do nothing but rabble rouse to the extent that proper reasoned debate is impossible.
Mike Russell has announced that he is setting up a cross-interest group to recommend how these consutations should take place(this group includes SRSN) Let’s hope that works.
My own overall view is that for party, political or any other reasons the ruling SNP don’t want to see rural schools closed – then they should pick up 100% of their costs and ring-fence that money within a local authority budget. Simples. They should also tell the HMIs to stop pointing out the inconvenient truth of th sheer number of these schools that are way under-occupied and over-the-top expensive.
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For Simon: we are firmly of the view that there is a single correct way to save money in the Argyll and Bute budget and to save unproductive and unnecessary costs in education across Scotland.
It is for responsibility for education to be removed from local authorities and made a central government responsibility.
Each local authority maintains fully staffed education departments – with Directors. Heads, QIOs – the full panoply of unproductive empire.
There are serious savings to be made here with no impact at all on the fact of education which – thanks to the FoI you despise – we now know that the lately departed Keir Bloomer said himself, ultimately depends on the calibre of the teacher and of the teacher-pupil relationship.
When the efficiency savings from this reorganisation were settled down, if there were still savings to be made, there are bound to be some schools across Scotland which could be closed on strong and accepted evidence and by consent.
There are also savings to be made from judiciously rowing back aspects of the hugeiy extravagant McCrone regime governing teachers; salaries. It is far from impossible to conceive of a good career structure which is less wasteful than that spawned by McCrone.
The Isle of Arran has shown one of the ways forward here by appointing one head teacher to, for example, around three small rural schools in the same area..
But there is no defence for the maintenance of expensive secondary jobs and multiple duplications of unproductive education departments across the country, all riding on the productive shoulders of the teachers in the classrooms and the classroom assistants whose numbers in Argyll are now to be decimated.
We simply cannot have a system which chops the weakest and the most valuable and shelters the least productive and most expensive – and multiplies them.
You can also rest easy, Simon, because when it is appropriate, everything we and SRSN have been saying will be evidenced and laid out in full for everyone anywhere to check.
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Simon; I would say that the recent ‘foi’ material (bloomer-logan etc) in itself should be enough to throw doubt on the manner of this sorry matter. Its not a secret society were talking about here.
Its descision making, that the public’ thank god’ can now see to at the very least based on dodgy prompts from Bloomer. Do you rreally believe this has been handled well and transparently?
By the way i do agree that some of the language used by ‘forargyll’ is indeed a bit flowery, and doesnt really do anything for me, nevertheless they have uncovered lots of questionable correspondence, and provided an excellent forum for all opinions.
Likewise many a time (oban marina issue) i have taken the opposite view to ‘forargyll.
This is different. Its about whole communities being affected by manipulated figures and interpretations of the rules. Bloomer no more – do you think that wouyld have happened without the profile given to the oft disgraceful situation by this media outlet.
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For phill: Hands up on the language front. It’s a stylistic thing. Will try to do better.
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Ok newsie – you would if I understand you cxorrectly
a) centraslise education in Scotland to Edinburgh and let them take the decisions
b) cut back on teachers terms and conditions as negotiated and agreed in McCrone, and
c) Do away with soime headteahcers.
My response would be –
(a)Would require primary legisltation and I don’t detect any enthusiasm for more centralised government from any party. If anythign localism is the new agenda. And don’t think for one moment if your wish came true that the purse holders in Edinburgh wouldn’t hestiate to shut rural schools. They think Stiling town is rural.
(b)Savings at the expense of teachers terms and conditions? That should re-assure the teachers here in Argyll that you want them to be your savings.
(c) If you have area based head teachers then how is the Council going to stay onside on the Concordat that you have been banging on and on about? And, of course – see (b) above.
Phil – I hear what you say but am still sceptical – What do you think we would uncover in terms of emails if For Argyll were also goverened by an FoI. Come to think of it they could volunteer to be goverened by that legisaltion – then we could all see how much conniving has been going on, with who and where…. Wha tabout it newsie?? You up for that?
ps it’s not a “stylistic thing” and it’s not “flowery” – it has deliberate,casual, personal, repetitive, childish, name-calling and abuse.
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Apologies typo ‘it was deliberate, personal etc etc…’
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Simon; Whether its sylish, repetitive, flowery, personal, childish, is not important. One mans meat etc………. . Its the delivery of facts that are important, and not any side issue. as i say not nescessarily my cup of tea, but many folk like the way its presented so thats fine and balanced the way i see it.
While the ‘craic’ may be good for petty winding up here by some of the regular posters, without the like of ‘forargyll’ exposes, many folk myself included, would have great difficulty in knowing from where to glean the information, therefore there would be no debate. Now that would be an unforgivable wrong.
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Agreed Phil. Well seeing you’re using For argyll for news and are looking for facts – this is taken from the Council’s website
“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.
Thisis worse than the most pessimitic view on here of what the budget cut imposed by the SNP governemtn would be.
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