Very interesting exchange at Cabinet tonight between my colleague Cllr Gardiner and the Council leadership over the Tory's commitment to retaining middle schools. The Council leader had recently given an absolute commitment to their retention after making it a (successful) election issue last year.
Deborah asked for that commitment again, got it from the leader, and then pointed out that this contradicted what they had told the Schools Minister, when summoned to Westminster on 15 Feb this year to explain what they were doing to address educational under-performance. The notes of that ministerial meeting, which she had obtained from the DfES, reported that the Council leaders had said "they were exploring a gradual move to 0-7, 7-11 and 11-16 provision" (which of course is not what we have now) "which could provide efficiencies as well as supporting standards".
This caused quite some consternation at the Cabinet table and lots of bluster about ensuring parents were consulted about any future changes, if there were to be any. Which of course is what everyone would want!
The beauties of Freedom of Information - brought in by a Labour government......
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I anticipate that this commitment to "explore" the possibility will lead to an expection from Westminster that the three tier system will eventually be phased out.
Then, of course, this Adminstration can claim that they "don't have a choice" - and wouldn't break their manifesto promises unless they weren't compelled to by Central Government!
I suspect the very same !
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