Thanks to VentnorBlog reader, James Pickett, who added his comment below to the thread regarding the cabinet debate taking place tonight at County Hall. We thought that some readers may have missed the comment, which is a letter he sent to the Isle of Wight County Press last week, but did not appear on the letters page. James was happy for us to reproduce his letter here. Ed
I have been reading the recently published council papers, ahead of next Monday’s cabinet meeting to decide on school closures and reforms. These documents are so breathtakingly inaccurate that it is hard to focus on any particular point, but I will try. Suffice to say that the invasion of the Bay of Pigs was better planned.
Much is made of the support for the proposed change to a 2-tier system, as decided by the Council in March, and which has been consistently presented since as a fait accompli. Indeed, Steve Beynon himself made it clear that the consultation period was NOT about structural preferences, as the Council had already made that decision.
However, the report from Keith Woods (Mr Beynon’s successor), to be presented on Monday, states that:
“all [consultation] meetings reminded respondents that they could still make representation in respect of the policy move from a primary, middle and high system to that of a primary and econdary system”.
Had this been the case, then the responses, especially from the middle schools and their governors, would have been wholly different!
This disagreement with the facts could, of course, be easily resolved if another statement that: “appropriate recordings and/or notes were taken of the process and audience comments” were not also hopelessly wide of the mark. A few hasty transcriptions have been made, the St.Helens meeting having been summarised in all of 23 words (!) which will give you some idea of the importance that this Council attaches to consultation and to its statutory obligations.
Other objections are dismissed with the glib phrase “No significant representation received against”. These are weasel words – I objected strongly, both in writing and by email, but this was not significant, apparently.
My son thinks it is – he loves his school (Nodehill) and cannot understand why the Council wants to close it and why he hasn’t been consulted. Nor can I, especially as the Education Act 2002 includes a duty to consult pupils on any proposed changes that may affect them.
The Council’s grasp of legal principles seems to be on a par with its grammar, reporting that: “Young people were also concerned that some teachers might loose their jobs”. I wish David Pugh would loose his.
