The Blue Print

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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Constituency matters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.