At the meeting in Luss on  12th November 2010, Councillor James Robb laid down for the audience exactly what position he and his fellow councillors are in with the school closures proposals. It is almost mythically awful. He likened it to the situation of the film, Sophie’s Choice. You could also see it as having to make the judgment of Solomon.

The normal procedure at council meetings is that a motion, put and agreed, is then subject to amendments. Each Councillor may vote for only one amendment.

If the normal procedure applies, the meeting on 25th November will see a motion put to proceed to the statutory consultation process on the proposal papers as they then stand – and Argyll and Bute has gone for the minimum consultation period of six weeks.

What will then happen is that, with their community representatives present in the public observation area, Councillors will put forward amendments to exclude each school remaining on the list for closure, except for those already all but closed.

But, under normal procedure, with only one vote to make, each Councillor is going to be put to the sticking point, compelled publicly to align her or himself with one school only.

Last night Provost Wiliam Petrie assured the meeting that the Councillors will support the retention of Luss School – but, in the normal system, they have one vote each and if they use thoe votes for Luss, where will this leave them with Kilchreggan, Rosneath and Parklands? This must not drive schools to fight each other for support. It makes acting together imperative. Alone,  schools will be picked off one by one.  Acting as an organised single force, they can be formidable.

The alternative to the normal procedure is that Council Leader, Dick Walsh, might opt for a vote on each specific school proposed to close – but this would be a lengthy process and probably a numerically futile one. It is inconceivable that, with 36 councillors, a single rural school in one part of Argyll and the Isles can be won on a majority vote.

Argyll and Bute is a massive and complex area, with a physically divided mainland,  inshore and offshore islands, single track roads off the main roads almost everywhere and long journey times to get anywhere. Councillors simply do not know areas other than their own, or the schools in those other areas.

While Councillor Ellen Morton, conscious of this problem, has now cleared it with the Council Leader that Councillors may visit schools outside their own areas to familiarise themselves with the wider picture, not many will do this. Those who are key to the process are the sixteen Councillors chosen to serve on the Executive Committee. They will now be required to visit schools in the communities outside their own. (For information we list the names of Executive Committee members at the foot of this article.)

If they are invited to do so and do not, it will add to the current controversy about the anti-democratic nature, in a local authority like Argyll and Bute, of the Executive Committee itself. Its existence certainly sees some areas more powerfully represented than others, with over half of the body of councillors condemned to be little more than marker buoys.

It is entirely possible that the Council Leader will come up with an entirely different procedure. He is known for revealing unexpected rabbits from hats. But this too is an inappropriate procedure for governance. Decision taking processes should be stable, known to all in advance and not a matter for the theatrics of smoke and mirrors.