Cut out the Sir Humphrey's - watch and LISTEN to the BBC South report "Close threat school gets £1m" at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/southtoday/
and hear what the Schools Minister, Jim Knight MP, actually says.
Not what the Tory truth-twisters at County Hall interpret him as saying.
Additionally his answer to a questions from the Island's MP:
"No Ministers or officials from the Department of Children, Schools and Families have had any discussions with the Isle of Wight council about intervention should existing primary schools not be closed under current reorganisation proposals."
That's one lie demolished that was doing the rounds last week.
5 comments:
Oh dear Geoff, it's not Tory twisting, it's Labour twisting!
What IW Council have said is the Labour government will be giving them less money in years to come, this means the cost of keeping schools open that are up to a third or more empty will fall on local taxpayers.
They don't have to threaten the council, all they need do is what they've done, cut the money!
Labour don't seem to have ever grasped what every good Tory knows, if you haven't got it ya canna spend it kidda. That's why we're sinking billions and billions more each year into debt.
Sigh.
Funding in 2005-2008 was 37.4 million. Overall funding for 2008-11 is 36.1 million. There is a slight reduction in funding - but not enough to warrant this kind of savagery.
To access the funding the Council has to work with Government officials to come up with a medium to long term proposal on how they are going to reduce surplus places (something they haven't actually bothered to attempt despite having a strategy since 2006) and improve primary school stock. Reducing surplus places can be done in a variety of ways, it doesn't mean closing schools (everyone but the Council seems to agree on this).
This Council began working on which schools to close BEFORE they had been told by the Department for Children, Schools and Families what issues they would need to address to get the 36 million. Presumably they just saw the chance to flog off lovely development land at St Helen's, Bembridge etc and couldn't resist.
Silly of me, I know, but I thought the Tories were actually in power at County Hall, and could make decisions based on principle and practicality. It hadn't occurred to me that they are the slaves to central government, which alone determines their policies on schools and everything else.
Er ... then why does anyone vote for Island councillors?
Robert Jones
Given decisions like "let's spend one a half million pounds on a school and then close it" are happening, no wonder the Government wants to see what the Council is planning on doing with the £36 million quid!
Labour have diverted the money to their own heartlands, as they always do. No votes here for Labour eh.
Gurnard and Yarmouth and a few others are to be saved I hear.
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