From the start, the supporting figures given by Argyll and Bute’s education department in its proposal papers to close the 26 schools have been flawed. Situations around the GAE per capita funding for small rural schools have been misunderstood and the calculations unstable. This was discovered and demonstrated by the Scottish Rural Schools Network, whose team is arguably the most knowledgeable in the country in dealing with this complex grant.

Aspects of costs and savings are also incompletely considered, leading to overstated savings and underestimated costs, arising from the proposals to close schools and relocate their pupils.

We do not intend to discuss the specifics announced at the Luss meeting on 12th November 2010. Their case looks lstrong but they need to play their cards carefully.

However, as an indication, the Luss campaign team believe that they have undermined the claimed savings in the closure proposal for  Luss school  and the amalgamation of its pupils with those at Helensburgh’s Hermitage Academy.

At the meeting, Councillors seemed impressed with the figures whose over-generous detail was  presented to them and to the meeting.

They asked for copies of the calculations and for updates during the working up of the case.

Before complying with this and similar requests elsewhere, each school needs to think further in to this process.

You may still end up on the list for closure and your case will go to consultation; to final decision by the Council; in some cases, to appeal; and, in some cases, to call-in by the Scottish Government.

Councillors are on your side at the moment but they are responsible for overseeing and approving a process leading to seriously deep cost savings.

There will be a time when your own Councillors will be forced to become your enemy. And they must then fight to win what will have become their case where, at present, it is the education department’s case. And they know that. And they will already be preparing the ground for that moment, as they must.

So – how much do you want them to know of the detail of your case just now? If your figures are correct and you let them have the detail of them before the 25th November – do you really think that they are not immediately going to go to the education and finance departments to have them checked out? (Few councillors are mathematicians or accountants.)

And, armed with this material, if your figures are right, do you seriously think that the education department will not either bedazzle the unwary councillors with mathematical formulae to blind them to your accuracy; and, to outflank you, will not neatly revise the nature of their own financial presentation in the final version of the proposals to go to statutory consultation, probably on 25th November? This is, after all, war.

We recommend a different course of action.

Costs and savings miscalulations should not be raised before 25th November

These are not matters to be disclosed by 25th November in an attempt to get a school taken off the list of recommended closures.

The single thing that can achieve removal from the list prior to consultation is the cast iron proof that the detail of practically achievable travel times to the newly designated receiving school is more than the maximum of 45 minutes chosen by the Council. (Highland has chosen a 30 minute maximum.)

Education Director, Cleland Sneddon gave a public commitment at the full Council meeting on 2nd November 2010 that a school whose pupils will  have more than a 45 minute journey to their replacement school will immediately come off the list.

Proving costs and savings wrong in the case of a single school  is centrally important – but will not alone save that school from an eventual Council closure decision. This would, though, come into play on appeal against closure or in the case of a call-in of that proposal by the Scottish Government.

It will  be important to establish the grounds for appeal. If they are based on the introduction of new evidence, it may be crucially important to get strategic advice on what not to disclose in the presentation of a school’s response to the closure proposal, submitted after the statutory consultation procedure.

The importance of collective challenge to the  claimed costs and savings

What is important here is for each school to work through the Scottish Rural Schools Network (SRSN) team and build a collective case that the entirety of the claimed costs and savings in the suite of closure proposals is wrong.

Within that, it would be important for the schools grouped together in one proposal paper of, say, two schools to be closed and one further school identified to receive their pupils – to show together that the costs and savings associated with that amalgamated proposal paper did not stack up.

The reason for the whole closure exercise is to achieve significant overall saving.

Together – and with the expert help of the SRSN team, the threatened schools need to see if they can show to a significant degree that the costs associated with the proposals are greater and the savings less than claimed.

If they can, what Councilors are going to put their electoral future on the line for less substantial savings and for a department whose own work has challenged its competence?

For now, let your Councillors know only the summary facts of your case for the moment: ‘We think the costs involved in this proposal are much greater than they say’. ‘We feel that the claimed savings are half what they say they will be’. ‘We are concerned that the GAE grant position is not what they say it is and the income will be less than claimed.’ etc

And, when the time comes, back up the detail presented in proving this position statement by getting your figures checked out and finally verified by the Scottish Rural Schools Network team. This will give them the weight of authoritative expertise.

And take the SRSN’s  advice on when and what to disclose to whom. They know the game.

This is an absolutely key defence against closure. Very importantly, it is the key for all of the schools acting in concert, if they can jointly demonstrate that the total anticipated overall saving is significantly overstated.

For this reason we cannot recommend strongly enough that every school should check with the Scottish Rural Schools Network team on the accuracy of their challenges to the costs and savings given in the closure proposal papers. The SRSN will check the figures and their underlying assumptions and underwrite agreed conclusions. They are experts in the field and this assurance is important to the credibility of financial arguments advanced.

School campaigns will need the authority of the Scottish Rural Schools Network (SRSN) verifying the numbers in their case – and they have offered their assistance. Never look a gift horse…

The political reality

The political reality is that closure proposals will go to statutory consultation, with the pre-ordained removal of a token couple of schools from the list at this stage.

And the political reality is that almost all of the closure proposals will be agreed by the Council after the consultation period -again probably with a managed reprieve.

Appeal and call-in will be critical.

So – demonstrating accurately that the initial proposals were fatally flawed undermined – rightly and usefully – their credibility.

But what goes to consultation is what will ultimately determine the Council’s success or failure in closing almost all of these schools.

Do you really want to help them, at this point – before the finalisation of those papers – to get them in to more competent shape and to make your own case for retention harder? Think on.

Update 15th November: Unfortunately our advice came too late. Luss had very promptly given their calculations to Councillors and had asked them to get additional information to help to build their case.

This procedure on its own is manageable. You need to ask your Councillor to get you specific information from council staff – but you are advised simply to describe what you want without saying what it relates to, what you intend to use it to do or that you consider it should have been provided in the first place.

After the 25th November, the closure proposal papers may go to statutory public consultation. At that stage they become the Council’s case, not the education department’s case and at that stage they are the formal and final basis for the Council’s case for closure.

Do not forget that the education department has been sent away to make the case watertight and to repair the profound flaws in the case by providing ‘additional information’.

When he received the request from Luss, Councillor Freeman did as we anticipated and was helpful to the community, asking the education department for the information Luss required – and neatly flagging  it up to them as ‘missing information’. (The education department is required at the moment to provide ‘additional information’.)

After the 25th November, it does not really matter how much information you give to Councillors and Council staff. Their proposals stand or fall on the calibre of the content of the papers sent out for statutory consultation.

Until then, any team engaged in trying to save its local school would be naive in the extreme to alert any part of the Council to potential flaws in the proposal documents.