Responding to threats of a vote of no confidence and to bring the matter of the School Place Plan to the Isle of Wight Full Council, Councillor Phil Jordan, Leader of the Isle of Wight council spoke today.
He said,
“The issue of the School Place Plan is a hugely emotive subject. We are faced with a huge surplus of school places with a falling birth rate and mounting debts in some schools. The education professionals understand, support and accept that action has to be taken to address the growing problem.
“The future of the Island education system is at stake and we must begin to try to raise the academic standards for all of our children, now and into the future. Adjusting the capacity to meet the demand is important to ensure school funding is best placed on the front line of education, not on supporting growing debt and not being able to invest in the best teachers for our schools.
“It’s a complicated issue for sure but action must be taken before we can even begin to turn around the fortunes and life chances of Island children by improving their educational outcomes.”
Monitoring Officer’s advice re Full Council decision
The official advice from the council’s Monitoring Officer, received today, states,
“The decision whether or not to close, in whole or in part, any particular school(s) for which the local authority has legal responsibility is an ‘executive function/decision’, and not a ‘council function/decision’.
“This means that it is for the Cabinet to determine (so long as such decision remains within the budget and policy framework agreed by the Full Council) and in those circumstances there is no option to abdicate the decision-making and refer the matter to Full Council.
“It is akin to the decision by the Doncaster Executive of Doncaster MBC on the closure of certain libraries in the Doncaster MBC case. The Court of Appeal held that the Council of Doncaster MBC (even though they had made extra funding available to keep libraries open) was not the decision-maker as regards the spending of allocated funds. Council agreed the council budget envelope, and spending decisions were to be determined in accordance with the allocation of functions and responsibilities.
“Not all plans and strategies are for the Full Council to agree. Some matters by default are for the Cabinet.”
Jordan: A Full Council decision would go against council constitution or legal precedent
Councillor Jordan continued,
“As we can see, the advice from our Monitoring Officer is that the issue of School Closures cannot be a matter for Full Council, it must be an Executive (Cabinet) decision.
“The calls for the matter to be transferred to Full Council from Cabinet are made in error and cannot be complied with under the Council constitution or legal precedent.
“The threats of a vote of no confidence in this administration over this matter have become ever more inappropriate.
“In view of the current disruption and workload of the Council, the change from a cabinet system to a committee system next May, the very difficult budget process which must be set in February 2025 and the school place plan issues, the very last thing this Council, community and Island needs is further disruption that a change of administration will bring.
“I do hope that Councillors can stop the local politics, see that we should be serving our community and residents and start working to that end rather than working to disrupt the Council, in turn disrupting the services and outcomes for our Island residents.”
Watch the decision-making
The School Place Plan issue and proposals for school closures will be discussed at a public Corporate Scrutiny on Tuesday 10th December evening, starting at 5pm in the Council Chamber (you can watch live online by clicking on the link to the agenda).
The decision and consideration of any Corporate Scrutiny recommendations will be discussed and decided by Cabinet at a public meeting on Thursday 12th December in the Council chamber (you can watch live online by clicking on the link to the agenda).
