In response to last week’s report of Cllr Geoff Lumley, chair of the Isle of Wight Scrutiny Committee, saying he and Islanders were misled over the freehold transfer of Cowes Enterprise College, he sets out below the detail backing up his claim. Ed
1. On 2 July I was contacted by the Managing Director seeking my approval of a Report going to a Special Executive on 16 July without prior inclusion in the Forward Plan, and with scrutiny’s usual call-in provisions waived, as the IW Council needed to,
“agree the land transfer and the commercial asset transfer asap both of which have been agreed between our respective legal teams. Under the Academies regulations we ultimately have no choice in agreeing to the transfers .There is no commitment on the Council as to any capital or revenue spend arising from the transfers.”
I sighed, pondered the appalling education policies of the Education Secretary of State Michael Gove (now thankfully sacked, though the policies won’t change), agreed this in principle and awaited the draft Report, into which I would insert the wording of my waiver agreement.
2. I received that draft Report on 4 July from the Council’s Head of Economy. At para 6 of this draft Report it said,
“The school will become an academy from 1 September 2014 under the Academies Act 2010 as part of Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) and the council is obliged under that Act to transfer the freehold of the premises and all of the staff and the benefit of any existing contracts to OAT.”
On the basis of that statement I inserted my waiver agreement,
“This decision has not appeared on the forward plan, therefore the chairman of the Scrutiny Committee has been consulted on this report and the reasons for the urgent decision. After receiving assurances that the council will not be committing to any further capital or revenue expenditure on Cowes Enterprise College, above that which is already agreed, before a further full report is considered by the Executive/Council he has agreed the decision is necessary. Consequently he has agreed that provision for scrutiny ‘call in’ on this decision be disapplied, given the short timescales and its importance to educational attainment.” (Para 4 in the final Report).
(Note that in the final Report to Executive para 6 remained as worded in the draft.)
I did not challenge the accuracy of that statement as I had no reason to, I am not a lawyer, and I had no reason on my past experience not to accept the assertion of this officer. All councillors are generally laypeople who rely on officer advice. That is why officers are employed.
3. I then went on a visit to my mother, family and friends in the North East for a week or so, where I largely cut off from the Island grapevine. Even I need a rest sometimes !
4. I returned on the evening of 14 July and quickly picked up the following day that things weren’t quite as smooth over this transfer as I had been lead to believe before I left the Island.
On 15 July I emailed the Council Leader with a number of questions about the proposed transfer, most pertinent of which was,
“Under the Academies Act 2010 is a leasehold transfer, rather than a freehold transfer, not at all possible?”
The response I got from the Leader later that day was,
“A leasehold transfer is possible but Ormiston have declined a lease and requested the transfer of the freehold. If we cannot agree terms locally the Secretary of State has the power to determine the terms of the land transfer. The Department of Education (DfE) will directly fund Ormiston therefore it is extremely unlikely the Secretary of State will decline any request from it to issue a direction that the freehold transfers to Ormiston. More especially because the presumption in DfE’s guidance document for transactions of this type is that the freehold should transfer to the new academy.“
(This question and answer were reported by Cllr Priest at the Special Executive the following day)
5. By the morning of the Special Executive on 16 July I had learnt that – under the Government’s guidance document for transactions of this type (referred to above) – there was in fact no obligation to transfer the freehold to an academy when a school was held by a local authority. The advice in fact was that the transfer should be “on a 125 year lease for a peppercorn rent”.
At the Special Executive that day I pursued this point with them, asking why this had not been mentioned in the Report before them, on which I had based my waiver agreement of 4 July. I received no satisfactory explanation, merely a statement that they were adopting a ‘pragmatic approach’ as they felt sure the Ormiston Academy Trust would challenge anything but a freehold transfer, particularly since the Council should previously (in the David Pugh administration days) have transferred the freehold of Cowes High School to the Cowes Pathfinder Trust (who currently run CEC).
6. On that basis the Executive voted through the freehold transfer without dissent. They accepted the ‘pragmatic approach’ rather than the alternative.
For all of the above I have a document trail.
7. From the above chronology, I am very clear that I was misled over this Report to Executive, whether inadvertently or not. I tend towards the former as officers are so hard-pressed due to the savage cuts in all local Councils due to Government economic policy. It has, however, taught me a valuable lesson.
8. Finally it was still within the powers of the nine ‘Independent’ Executive Members not to undertake a freehold transfer. They were made aware of that choice. They didn’t take it and for that they are accountable.
Article edits: Amended Director of Economy to read Head of Economy.
Image: Flazingo.com under CC BY 2.0
