The Argyll Rural Schools Network (ARSN) has made its submission to the Commission on the Delivery of Rural Education, Continue reading
Tag Archives: Cleland Sneddon
United opposition dissociates itself from Executive response to Commission on Rural Education
The following agreed statement has been issued by opposition councillors on Argyll and Bute Council Continue reading
Highland Council caught in a copy and paste job on school closures
The Scottish Government has called-in a proposal by Highland Council to close four primary schools Continue reading
Costa Sneddonia refloated: council submission to Rural Education Commission
Education Director Cleland Sneddon’s cruise to close rural schools in Argyll was given to sailing too close Continue reading
Distortion of the condition scores of the Argyll school estate
Talking of pressure from external bodies to close schools for financial reasons (HMIE and Audit Scotland) he mentions that: “A Follow-through report in 2007 stated … 59% of the primary school estate was classified as Poor or Bad”.
But the only reference to a figure of ’59% Poor or Bad’ was in the March 2010 School Estate Asset Strategy & Management Plan and was in reference to a much earlier (2005) report which found the Suitability of the Argyll school estate to be thus.
The actual ratings in 2010 were 89% Good or Satisfactory for Suitability, with 9% Poor and NONE rated as Bad.
This marked improvement over the intervening 5 years was largely attributed to a change in methodology whereby Head Teachers were now involved in the gradings – suggesting that teachers were generally much happier than the council with the useability of their teaching spaces & facilities.
Meanwhile, the same 2010 report showed the Condition of the primary school estate as being 84% Good or Satisfactory, 16% Poor and NONE Bad.
The report even acknowledged that the overall average Condition was “Slightly better than the average for Scotland”
Quite how Mr Sneddon feels able to take what was, in 2010, a generally very positive report of both Condition and Suitability of Argyll’s primary schools and turn it round so completely is one of the enduring mysteries of Sneddonia.
Angus must have been one of the six councils he had flown in and out of before he came to Argyll and Bute.
Continuing inability to grasp the GAE funding formula for small rural schools
This is bizarre, given that it was a focal point for the successful dispatch of the first set of closure proposals, with the evidenced challenge from ARSN, through Sandy Longmuir of SSN, upheld by external experts and eventually admitted by the council.
Yet in this submission, Me Sneddon gets it wrong again. He quotes: ‘.’The small schools element of GAE is allocated to authorities as a per capita payment (currently approximately £2,450 per annum) in respect of each pupil in schools which have less than 70 pupils enrolled.
SRSN’s Sandy Longmuir says, wearily: ”The figure for Argyll and Bute Council in 2011-12 is £3,877,838 for 1413 qualifying pupils. This gives a per pupil figure of £2744 per pupil. They used the figure of £2730 in the second set of proposals last spring – we did not argue this.’
Hilariously, in this response Mr Sneddon goes on to suggest a sliding scale of GAE funding – which would have some merit if it did not come from a man who cannot master a single scale of calculation.
The use of external bodies as buffer-zones
In his submission Mr Sneddon suggests, variously, that first Education Scotland (the Education Secretary;’s department) and then HMIE might take lover the adjudication of educational benefit arguments.
Relying on HMIE for rigorous objectivity would be fool’s gold. This is the body that gave Uyeasound School in Shetland a heartwarmingly ringing endorsement for the quality of its teaching and learning – and then allowed it to be closed, on the basis of an ”educational benefit’ statement on the transfer of its pupils to a school with a much less shining HMIE report.
Education Scotland would be no better. Like calls to like. Much of the everyday work of civil servants at Education Scotland and those in local authority education departments is collaborative. They are far too close. They see themselves as being essentially on the same side. Recent evidence of this cosy relationship was seen in the call-in letter to Angus Council from the Head of the Infrastructure Unit, suggesting a ‘helpful’ meeting).
Education Scotland could not be accepted any more than HMIE as a genuinely independent assessor.
Giving precedence to process over content and evidence
Having lost two sets of school closure proposals on the grounds of their content and the lack of sound evidence to support it, Mr Cleland in this submission argues that process should be the sole criterion for a judicial adjudication of any appealed closure decisions.
Mr Sneddon says: ”The understanding was that a call in by Ministers would only be on the basis of process (our emphasis) however some authorities had decisions on some schools called in and other decisions not when the same process was applied.’
And goes on: ‘The perceived political dimension to calls ins is unhelpful and it would be better if an independent judicial board was established to review decisions where an appeal is lodged – this would ensure that process (our emphasis) is the focus of decisions on whether a decision is called in. ‘
It seems strange to describe issues of evidence testing as ‘a perceived political dimension’ and Mr Sneddon does seem to have some difficulty in understanding the drift of the law. His failure to do so may suggest that local authorities were given to understand – or assumed – that what the law said was never intended to be what the law did.
He says: ”The ability to “call in” a council’s proposal(s) for the closure of a school or schools was intended to be used in exceptional circumstances only and where a breach in process had been identified. It was not intended to be a mechanism to review decisions taken by authorities (our emphasis). The same process has been used by authorities for those proposals which were called in as those which were approved. This suggests a political dimension to the use of the “call in” which was not intended.’
We have been unable to find in the law the limitation Mr Sneddion appears to believe it contains. It is hard to credit that any law would deliberately avoid allowing for a mechanism ‘ to review decisions taken by authorities .
Moreover, the text to Question 12 - to which Mr Sneddon is actually responding above, evidently unaware of the authoritative contradiction, says: ‘Under the Schools Consultation Act, Scottish Ministers have powers to decide whether to “call in” or review a Council’s decision to close a school. This can be applied where it appears to Scottish Ministers that the authority may have failed in a significant regard to comply with the requirements in the Schools Consultation Act or to take proper account of a material consideration relevant to the decision.’
Mr Sneddon’s preferred primacy of ‘process’ is the box-tickers’ charter, the ultimate get out of jail free card.
Process is:
- Did you include a Community Impact Assessment? Tick,
- Did you include an Educational Benefits Statement? Tick.
- Did you consider all viable alternatives to closure? Tick.
- Did you contact all statutory consultees? Tick?
- Did you complete the statutory consultation period? Tick.
- Did you retain all public submissions made during the consultation period? Tick.
- Did you send these to HMIE with your proposal papers? Tick…….
You get the drift.
‘Process’ does not interrogate the community impact assessment; the educational benefits statement; the dismissed alternatives; the integrity of the ‘consultation’; the content, calibre and evidence in the public submissions tendered during consultation…
‘Process’ does not check the funding impact calculations (GAE); the school condition scores; the school roll projections; the capacity figures…
‘Process’ assumes that all of these are naturally correct – because council’s would never get them wrong? Would they? And would certainly never falsify them? Would they?
The hard evidence we have published from Argyll and Bute and from Angus, shouts in the language of the pantomime these experiences have been: ‘Oh yes they would. Oh yes they did.’
If the Commission were to recommend this strategy, it would mean that flagrantly false claims made by councils in support of their closure proposals would be outside the territory of adjudication.
It would mean that the testing of claims and evidences parent campaigners meticulously and scrupulously undertake would, when they prove council claims to be in error or worse, be of no account.
This simply cannot be.
Disabling elected councillors and shifting responsibility
Mr Sneddon says: ‘Revised statutory guidance could also confirm to elected members that they would not be requested to judge the relative arguments but that they would expected to take on board Education Scotland’s advice in coming to a decision. The guidance would clarify for opponents of proposals that their views would be independently assessed which would remove this point of debate from public meetings and allow a more straightforward opportunity for interested parties to explain their position.’
This argument relates to his proposal, earlier in this response to Question 7, that: ‘The role of Education Scotland could be strengthened by taking responsibility for independently assessing the relative arguments put forward with regard to educational benefits. ‘
His wish is to see elected members neutered, unable to question and reduced to noddies.
What Mr Sneddon is trying to do here is to remove any direct challenge from elected members or parents to the detail of his future proposals; and to pass that responsibility to Education Scotland where the assessment of educational benefit is concerned.
He is making a characteristic muddle here since, in his submission he also suggests that HMIE should look after the adjudication of educational benefit – the key criterion imposed by the law.
It is unsurprising that he wishes – one way or another - to remove the responsibility for defence of educational benefit issues from himself.
A remarkable feature of the submission is that it has absolutely nothing to say on what is educationally beneficial.
Here we have a Director of Education who has nothing to say about education.
The attempt to downgrade the impact on a community of the loss of its school
Mr Sneddon says: ‘The primary concern should be the educational benefits to children and young people. The likely effect of the school closure on the local community should not be allowed to have more importance than the educational benefits for children and young people. In practice the impact upon a community became an emotive issue which detracted from the discussion of educational benefits for children and young people.’
This seeks to disregard altogether the relationship between community and school and the impact of one upon the other.
It also suggests that parents prioritise the interests of their community above those of their children. Who has ever met such a parent? Almost always, nothing comes before the perceived best interests of a child.
In fact there is evidence flatly to the contrary from one of the schools Mfr Sneddon attempted to close. Achaleven School in Connel, in the midst of a lively community, was abandoned by virtually all parents in the community because of problems on the education side. They took their kids elsewhere. The community now faces losing its school since the council made no effort to resolve the situation as it should have done.
The fact that Mr Sneddon either cannot see or does not care to see, is that parents of children in rural schools have made an informed decision that this particular educational context provides the best early foundation for the future lives of their children.