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Schools Committee
Local Government Chronicle
Welcome to the Schools Organisation Committee of North Yorkshire County Council. Anyone who thinks that local government in England lacks the picturesque quality of its French counterpart has clearly missed the Schools Organisation Committee. It was invented (yes, it didn’t just happen, someone actually invented it) in the 1998 Standards and Framework Act.
The Schools Organisation Committee has the last word on proposals to open, close, enlarge and generally change the character of schools. It has a structure of gothic complexity combined with procedures which make the election of a new pope look like a model of transparency and expedition.
The committee comprises five “blocs” – or sub-committees, each of which can have up to seven members. These groups hear the arguments for and against the proposition before them and then vote internally to decide the single vote which each group will cast to arrive at the final verdict.
These mini colleges of cardinals in North Yorkshire comprise the local authority bloc of councillors; the schools bloc of governors; a catholic bloc; an Anglican bloc; and a Learning and Skills Council bloc.
Let us leave that wonderful construction on one side for a moment and head off into the Yorkshire countryside, to the delightful village of Langcliffe just over a mile outside the market town of Settle which has a new, 150 pupil-strong primary school.
North Craven has a problem with falling school rolls leaving it with some 300 – 400 spare primary school places. It costs about £3,800 to educate each primary school pupil in North Craven compared with £3,200 average across the county.
Back in 1998 -9 Langcliffe had 49 children on roll. By 2,000 the numbers had sunk to 33. Three years later the figure was 17 when the county began a review of provision in North Craven. The current number is 10. There are some 20 pupils in the catchment areas and half of them go elsewhere.
The County initiated procedures to close the school, arguing that it could not justify spending a five figure sum per pupil to keep Langcliffe open against a background of over-provision when an excellent alternative stood 1.2 miles away. In any case, it argued, it was already very generous in maintaining small rural schools, setting a lower limit of just 20 for viability. No-one disputed the quality of the head and two part-time teachers in the school but the sums simply did not add up.
Governors and parents argued that the school should be given time to prove it could reverse its decline in pupil numbers.
And so the issue arrived before the Schools Organisation Committee. The tension was palpable.
The LSC bloc did not turn up- its interest is in secondary not primary schools. The Catholic bloc did not turn up. Only one person came from the Anglican bloc- and declared she felt unable to vote. The schools bloc turned out in full strength, but one member declared that he has already made up his mind and the rest voted 3 – 3 so it could not contribute a vote.
So it all boiled down to the LEA bloc. The two Liberal Democrats and the Labour member voted to keep the school open. Two Tories voted for closure, one voted to keep Langcliffe open and the fourth did not turn up. At least this led to a result.
The result is that Langcliffe will remain open. It will need to recruit an acting head because the existing one will move to a bigger school in September. Present estimates are that it will struggle to reach double figures in enrolment and perhaps manage as few as seven. The county will spend about £13,000 on each of them. The estimated annual financial loss will be about double the existing reserves. The LEA may only keep the school open if there is a chance of a return to financial viability. That looks a very long shot.
I wish the school well. I wish I could believe that this is more than a very expensive postponement of the inevitable.
And bully for the Schools Organisation Committee. But students of bureaucratic fauna and flora had better hurry: these committees are about to be abolished in the education bill currently before parliament. Not a nana-second too soon.
I knew there had to be something in this wretched education bill to make me want to support the government!
© Local Government Chronicle
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