School closures: Keir Bloomer – £1,000 a day is an expensive jammed torpedo

Would you pay £1,000 a day for human weaponry without integrity who’ll happily bury difficult evidence in return for his hire? And become an evidential torpedo stuck in the tube and threatening to take the whole ship with him?

Argyll and Bute Council has retained as an adviser on the planned school closures, an education consultant, Keir Bloomer, at a cost of £1,000 a day.

The blanket motion approved by councillors on 25th November 2010, to send the discredited proposals to formal public consultation, also contained approval for Executive Director, Cleland Sneddon, to keep on hiring a consultant.

It looks as if Bloomer is going to be paid to be present at all or almost all of the public meetings on each of the closure proposal papers.

Following the revelations below of what Bloomer really thinks – and of the important information he was primarily instrumental in suppressing in the interests of closing 25 of Argyll’s rural schools – parents and community campaigners may have some pertinent questions to put to him at these meetings,  now scheduled.

The Scottish Rural Schools Network lodged a Freedom of Information request to see communications between Bloomer – none  better named – and Argyll and Bute Council. They received an incomplete package with some key – and telling – omissions they are now pursuing.

But within the documents handed over, there were some startling disclosures. These:

• shed light on the extent to which Bloomer initiated moves to suppress evidence of the fundamentally unsound case on the key issue of the educational benefit of the post-closure school transfers proposed, were it to be based on the facts of educational performance at the designated receiving schools;
• highlight the fact that Bloomer himself is aware of the unreliability of the ‘bigger schools are better’ mantra that became the proposals’ universal panacea in claiming educational benefit
• demonstrate that his attention to detail in what he delivered to his masters was so casual as to be utterly misleading;
• expose the real political drivers of the closure moves and show how little Education Spokesperson, Councillor Isobel Strong, was allowed anywhere near the power axis responsible

SSRN has shared the material with us for publication. It is reproduced verbatim below, with commentary added by us to underline key passages.

The real political power axis driving the school closure initiative

On 6th April 2010, Keir Bloomer met Council Leader, Dick Walsh, to discuss draft closure  proposals. There is a note about Executive Committee but no mention of meeting Education Spokesperson, Councillor Isobel Strong – only Dick Walsh.

On 30th March 2010 there is an email outlining the main players in driving the school closure initiative forwards. They are listed as ‘Director, Chief Executive and Council Leader. Again there is no mention of a role for the Education Spokesperson in this inner axis. The named triumvirate are to give ‘steer on how they wish to progress matters’.

Since Executive Director, Cleland Sneddon, did not take up his post until May 2010, we are unsure of the identity of ‘Director’ in this communication.

We have formally asked the council who the Head of Education reported to before the arrival of Mr Sneddon and will add the name when we get it. The other two identified by role in this trinity of closure-monkeys are Executive Director Sally Loudon and of course, Council leader, Dick Walsh.

So why was the Education Spokesperson out of the loop on this – and was she even aware of the situation? It certainly dilutes accusations against her of central responsibility for the discredited proposals

On the education benefit argument

9/10/2010
Email Keir Bloomer to Chris Delgarno-Platt & Carol Walker
Subject Re: School Data Sheet

‘My only query is in relation to educational performance.

‘The Edinburgh report was able to use this advantageously because the school it was proposed to close (Granton) had very poor performance figures and the receiving schools were better.

‘I am fairly sure that in our 20-odd proposals there will be no clear pattern.

‘There is every prospect of embarrassment (eg over the excellent HMI report on Minard).

‘Also, making educational comparisons could be very divisive. At a time when we want headteachers to support the party line, this could be a problem. Obviously this is an issue for Carol to decide but, for what it is worth, I would miss this section out.’

NOTE: The proposals did indeed suppress the educational performance information, as Mr Bloomer suggested they should.

This has to raise questions about the practice of paying consultants out of public money. There could not be a clearer example than this that consultants are not independent experts concerned with the evidence; and that they indeed deliver what they are paid to deliver.

They are not independent. They are often not particularly expert. They are always mercenaries for hire.

Here Bloomer is seen to be fully aware that there may be little or no educational benefit in the transfer to the designated receiving schools – and that evidence of educational performance will male that obvious. His response is to suggest that the Council suppress the inconvenient evidence – and they did.

He is also prepared to bury evidence of high level performance, as with the ‘excellent’ HMIE report on Minard school, where it might cause ‘embarrassment’ against the intention to shut down the school.

It could be said that £1,000 a day is cheap for a performer prepared to go to such lengths.

Bigger schools are better?

Remember that the educational benefit argument in the suite of closure proposals is no more than an unevidenced commitment to the simplistic Bloomer mantra for urban environments: ‘bigger schools are better’.

Yet this is not actually the view of the man himself, as expressed here – although it is clearly good enough for Argyll.

On 12th April 2010 Keir Bloomer tells Carol Walker and Chris Dalgarno-Platt:

‘Educational argument

‘In many ways the key educational argument is the resources argument. There are other lines that can be taken and I have included a number of them.

‘However, I have been careful not to overclaim on their behalf.

‘At the macro level the resources argument is absolutely valid.

‘At the micro level, teacher quality is more important than any other factor and is not really influenced for good or ill by amalgamating schools.

‘The other arguments are true but not overwhelming. I think we need to be honest about this from the outset.’

NOTE: The document Mr Bloomer refers to in this communicaton has have withheld from the material supplied under the relevant  FoI. Justin Willey of the Scottish Rural Schools Network has already requested a review to discover this and other missing documents.

It seems that much of this particular missing document did not reach the final draft of the proposals. This may be because, as many people have pointed out, the resources argument does not even work at the macro level – unless you subscribe to the greatest additional resource consequent upon the ‘amalgamations’ -  the bus drivers -  being the reason for higher attainment in rural areas.

Which report was Bloomer reading or was he winging it?

A major issue in the planned school closures is the impact on the economic and social sustainability of the affected communities.

At the meeting on 25th November, Executive Director, Cleland Sneddon, announced with some bravura that the presence of a primary school was not all that important in inward migration to rural communities. He cited housing and employment as two greater influences and mentioned vaguely ‘some studies’ that have shown this to be the case.

He was actually referring to the Outer Hebrides Migration Study, which Keir Bloomer had put Council staff on to – although in an inexplicably misleading fashion that calls into question how far he bothered to read material he was prepared to use as evidence.

Email 28/7/2010

From Keir Bloomer

To Carol Walker, David Logan, Chris Dalgarno-Platt (referring to a referring to a SchoolClosureTemplate.doc which, improperly, was  not inclded in the documents released)

‘One point in particular worth mentioning. The Western Isles refer to a study of migration in the Outer Hebrides. This indicates what factors sustain rural communities. The study mentions employment, housing etc but not schools.

‘If we could get anything comparable on Argyll and Bute, it would be really helpful.’

NOTE: In point of fact the Outer Hebrides Migration Study mentions schools no fewer than 21 times.

Community Impact

From Kier Bloomer: 12/8/2010, Exemplar Proposal Draft (extract quoted below)

‘Impact on the Community

’5.3 Studies of the sustainability of rural communities do not generally see the existence of a school as being of comparable importance to local employment opportunities, the availability of housing, private sector led economic diversity or clean energy.

‘None of these issues are affected by the proposal.

‘It is noteworthy that there are several thriving rural communities in Argyll, such as Cairndow, that do not have local schools. [Check available report evidence. Other examples of thriving communities]‘

NOTE 1:In fact Cairndow, at the head of Loch Fyne, has a thriving community-run pre-school facility in its superb Village Hall.

NOTE 2: The proposals as published, used Bloomer’s draft paragraph:’Studies of the sustainability of rural communities do not generally see the existence of a school as being of comparable importance to local employment opportunities, the availability of housing, private sector led economic diversity or clean energy.  None of these issues are affected by the proposal.’

This rightly omitted the own goal of Bloomer’s remarks on Cairndow and – unsurprisingly, failed to find any supporting evidence in Argyll for the argument he wished to propose – of rural communities thriving without their schools. Ardenrtinny, further into the Cowal peninsula than the ‘guardian at the gate’ community of Cairndow, is a case in point – decimated after its school was closed in the last and  bitter round of such exercises.

It is worth nothing that Bloomer was prepared blithely to draft an ‘authoritative ‘ sentence (”It is noteworthy that there are several thriving rural communities in Argyll… that do not have local schools’) on the basis of absolutely no evidence at the time of writing and with no discoverable evidence to follow. We would call this pretty slap-happy and intellectually dishonest work.

Links between schools and rural community sustainabilty?

In the same email – from Keir Bloomer to Carol Walker and Chris Dalgarno-Platt on 12th April 2010, and in looking at community impacts, he says:

‘Local people are likely to advance the argument that closure of the school inevitably leads to th decline of the community.

‘In part, the answer to this is that education should equip young people as citizens of the world. It is no part of the role of the school to limit horizons.

‘The consequences simply have to be accepted.

‘In addition, however, it my be possible to demonstrate that retention of the school has not prevented the decline of the community.’

NOTE 1: It was  not, of course – from the evidence of the proposals now going to consultation -  ‘possible to demonstrate that retention of the school has not prevented the decline of the community.’

NOTE 2: For sheer fascism, the line: ‘The consequences simply have to be accepted’ would be hard to beat and is a stance way beyond compliance with the requirement of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010.

Pupil information, in relation to pupils at each affected school

In the same email – from Keir Bloomer to Carol Walker and Chris Dalgarno-Platt on 12th April 2010, he calls for:

• ‘Roll projections (ideally about 10-15years)’
• ‘Evidence from several recent housing developments showing the low number of pupils generated.’
• ‘Location of pre 5 provision for closing school.’

The Scottish Rural Schools Network team has had it confirmed that no individual school roll projections were done beyond next year. They were so surprised by this that they queried the response and had it confirmed.

The question has to be asked why, in so important a set of proposals with such far reaching negative impacts on so many rural communities, were no individual school roll projections done beyond 2011?

Educational performance

Again in the emai from Keir Bloomer to Carol Walker and Chris Dalgarno-Platt on 12th April 2010, he calls for the inclusion of evidence on educational performance:

• ’5-14 scores’
• ‘HMIe findings (grades, strengths, weaknesses with dates)’
• ‘Visiting specialist provision.’

NOTE: No 5-14 scores appear in any of the proposals and HMIE reports such as Minard’s, scarcely get a mention.

It is difficult not to surmise that the reason for the omission of the evidence Bloomer told the education department to collect did not point in the right direction so it was ignored.

And elsewhere in the documents, Bloomer admits that attainment is ‘ephemeral’. By this he will mean that it can change as quickly as changing a teacher. And at the heart of the final proposals is a great deal of changing of teachers.