The Blue Print

This Saturday is an important day for Wales and the UK.

It is our chance to celebrate the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women who serve in our armed forces.

Armed Forces Day 2010 is is being celebrated in Cardiff so that the country will be able to honour the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community: from currently serving troops to Service families, and from veterans to recruits. The day is meant to be a celebration, in contrast with the more sombre Remembrance Sunday Parades and Armistice Day observances.

On Saturday civilian men and women will show our appreciation of those members of the armed forces that put their lives on the line every day for this country.

It will allow us the opportunity to give a heartfelt thanks for all those families who support fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters to serve their country on the frontline. It’s also an opportunity to show our solidarity with those families who have suffered losses in recent operations.

The families of our service men and women are the backbone of the British Armed Forces, it is right that we should remember them and their contribution in particular on this day.

Yesterday I published an article on WalesHome http://waleshome.org/2010/06/whatever-happened-to-the-idea-of-making-every-school-a-great-school/ which sought to address the issue of schools reorganisation in Cardiff and the way that Cardiff Council has addressed it.

I have been accused of backing the decision by the Education Minister who refused to support the Council’s plan for Canton. My accusers are right. On occasion I believe that opposition politicians should support the Government when those decisions are correct, and in this case the decision to protect standards was the right course of action. I also endorse the right of the Minister to point out when local authorities make fundamental errors in their plans.

The announcement yesterday by the Government that Cardiff Council had used the incorrect section of the 1998 School Standards and Framework Act in support of their planned reduction of Whitchurch High School raises a number of important points.

Firstly, these errors should not occur. Getting the relevant statutory provision wrong is admittedly somewhat embarrassing but also serious. It highlights the incredible strain that this council is facing in its attempts, however misguided, to reorganise school places. What this error does, yet again, is call into question the ability of the council to get this right and damages any confidence that might have existed in the community of Whitchurch that the council was able to do so.

Secondly, this latest error is part of a package of failures experienced by Cardiff Council during this process.

The original plans in Whitchurch relied on incorrect pupil projection data, information which they had actually supplied to the Welsh Assembly Government ahead of the publication of their proposals!

The council have also failed in adhering to the guidance on the maintaining of standards, which is one of the reasons why the decision in Canton was open to question and why the proposals for Whitchurch primary schools fall into this category.

It seems to me that Cardiff Council, and perhaps others, are now being caught out in the sloppy way that the schools reorganisation is being handled. More worringly for my constituency is the prospect that excellent and popular schools could be lost through a process which is now in question.