The Final Chapter

So, the Cabinet decision to proceed with the Strood Academy School was "called-in" (as the jargon has it) to the relevant Scrutiny Committee, by six members of the Labour Group on Medway Council, and that committee met earlier this evening to discuss this issue.

Regular readers will recall that I have already written about this issue twice, first HERE and a couple of weeks later an update HERE.

The call-in meant that the decision was in effect suspended until after this meeting.

Indeed, it soon became apparent at the meeting that the sole purpose of the Labour members' actions (of which this was just the latest in a whole string of tactics) was to delay and defer getting on with the Academy that everyone else wanted (though details differed) and had agreed on the basis of the Government Minister's negotiated methodology, and accepted by the Council's Leader.

Everything that the Labour spokesman proposed, claimed or implied was obviously formulated with that end in view. Most of it came across as lame at best, and desperate at worst. I mean: to suddenly claim (when all else had clearly failed) that because there might be a change of Prime Minister before the new Academy was built and formally opened in its new home, this meant that anything already agreed might no longer apply, was really clutching at straws.

The documents both proposing and accepting the agreed way forward are in the public domain and effectively form as solid a contract as you are ever likely to find in this arena. They had even been accepted as part of the official record of the last Full Council meeting, which is of course the highest authority in Medway (Cabinet operated entirely under powers delegated to it from the Council as a whole).

Why, then, did the two Labour members on the Scrutiny Committee try so hard to have the implementation of the Cabinet decision to go ahead with the Academy delayed still further by moving to have the decision referred back to Cabinet? They tried all sorts of tactics, including the aforementioned "change of Prime Minister" argument, to achieve this end.

Fortunately, the Conservative members on the committee voted to delay no longer, and gave the final go-ahead to proceed with the Academy. This cannot be called-in again, so that is effectively the end of Labour's tactics to derail this initiative.

Meanwhile, no doubt the Labour spokesman will achieve his primary aim, which is getting himself quoted and pictured in the local newspaper(s). Why has he been so fanatical about this in recent years? Well, he knows just as well as I and my colleagues do that we are likely to take his seat on the Council from him at the next local elections here in Medway, just as we did with the other seat in River Ward just ten months ago. He surely has to make himself appear valuable, so that he can be selected to stand in a safe Labour ward in 2011. He knows that to re-stand where he is now would be political suicide.

Thus we see a pattern emerge that is so obvious with hindsight. Yes, everything and everyone is being used as pawns in a purely personal pursuit of political ambition. There is little if anything genuine about the individual concerned, as many of us have known for several years. All that is needed now is for the Medway public to wake up to what we already fully realise, just as they have woken up to other matters in recent years. Then he'll be able to be consigned to the political dustbin, just as several of his former colleagues were in 2003 and 2007; and Medway will be better off as a result.

Chapter Two

As I wrote HERE was due to happen, the question of the future of Strood's secondary schools came before a special meeting of the relevant Scrutiny Committee earlier this evening (checks clock: actually yesterday, now!) and we spent a good three hours looking at this question.

It was generally a very good meeting, with some really good input from the Head Teachers and Chairmen of Governors (rather unfortunately referred to as "chairs"!) of the two schools directly involved, plus a student from each.

Disappointingly, there was no-one present from the Hundred of Hoo School, who could have explained the two counter-proposals involving that school that had also been put forward, though neither of those turned out to be viable, as it turned out.

Interestingly, the Temple School representatives want an Academy (and had been working towards this for some five years, which I hadn't realised) whereas Chapter does not -- or, at least, not straight away. They propose a staged approach over several years, gradually merging the two schools ready to become an academy at that later date, which is a scheme they had thought out carefully.

I mentioned several things at the meeting:

• How my own Secondary School had been through something far worse, back in 1966
• My appreciation of, and general liking for, the SOCK proposal (that's "Support Our Chapter Kids")
• It would be best if we could pursue a course along the SOCK lines, if Ministers would allow this
• My oft-stated sadness at being dictated to by outsiders, as apparently has been done in this case
  

Throughout all this, I kept it as non-party political as I could (and I think I succeeded) whereas the Labour spokesman on the committee tried to turn the whole issue into a party political debate, and not exactly with any degree of subtlety (he really isn't very good, to put it frankly). He wasn't even able to recall what he had said previously during the evening, and was completely wrong-footed by the committee's vice-chairman who quoted his earlier statements back at him. It was a picture watching said Labour person scurrying through his written notes (script?) almost in a panic...

In the end, it was clear that the academy route was the only option that had been left open to us, so that is what we had to recommend to Medway Council's Cabinet -- but it was not the option I for one wanted to take! As so often happens in modern-day Britain, those at the centre dictate to everyone else -- largely because they hold the purse-strings and can lay down any conditions and restrictions they choose.

This is something I would scrap if I could. I don't believe in outsiders telling all and sundry what to do and how to do it, as you might have gathered by now. It is my single biggest gripe by far in political life, and I don't think any national political party has what I would consider a satisfactory policy on this question. Even so, it does seem that the Conservatives are well in front on this, and are the only party likely to be in a position to do anything about it in the reasonably near future.

I shall be watching them as well, though, as I expect them to agree that absolutely every local decision is to be made locally, with no pre-conditions and no external impositions whatsoever, under ANY circumstances. Oh, and all tax money to come to local communities, who will themselves decide just how much should go to a "federal" (nationwide) outfit, and to do what jobs -- and those only!

If we had that now, I believe we could solve the Strood schools issue more-or-less overnight. I'd create an Academy at Temple School now, and gradually bring the Chapter folk into this over the years that SOCK propose, building the new facility at Temple in the meantime (that last part of which is what is now being considered anyway). That would satisfy both schools' wishes, which no other approach could as they are (to a great extent) mutually exclusive.

See what true local democracy could achieve, given the chance?

A New Chapter?

There has been an issue with a couple of Strood's secondary schools for a while now. The question of what to do about (a) falling rolls and (b) the problems that Temple Boys' School had for a time is a tricky one.

The falling rolls business has been around for a few years now, owing to reduced birth rates that have impacted primary schools in recent years. This is now (unsurprisingly) shifting to secondary schools, as the reduced number of primary-age children come of age to progress to secondary level.

Okay, all of this is fairly obvious, when one knows a bit of the background. The problem is: what to do in the most acute situations such as in Strood, where one previously-failing secondary school (Temple) needs action to keep it viable.

Nearby is Chapter School, the female half of the Strood secondary-level equation. That school has a really good (and well-earned) reputation. Interestingly, both these schools have rather poor school buildings, and both could do with some new build. Unfortunately, the Government programme of "building schools for the future" has passed Medway by completely.

It is said that Medway will be included in this programme in or around the year 2016; but anyone who has been watching such initiatives in recent years will be well aware that they are always dropped after a few years -- once there are no more headlines in the offing. Therefore it is wise to assume that this will in reality never happen.

Meanwhile, where does this leave Strood's secondary schools? Well, frankly, it leaves them nowhere.

The small intake each year at Temple School makes it unviable in future, and it is an obligation on the Local Education Authority (LEA, which is Medway Council) to resolve the present situation. Under the prevailing circumstances, this seems to be possible only by merging with Chapter School. Interestingly, the principle of this is generally accepted, though not at a rush.

The problem here is that the LEA is required by Government diktat to deal with this matter pronto, and will not be allowed to phase a gradual change over a number of years, which would be our preference, and the preferred way according to (in particular) Chapter School's pupils, parents and staff. It's the way I'd personally prefer to go, remembering how my school was suddenly transformed into a Comprehensive School back in 1966, with the scrapping of its sixth form.

Reading the (socialist) writing on the wall, I gave up school, after a year of studying for A-levels, and went off to work instead. Again, that was a Labour Government diktat that dragged my (top of the area) secondary school down to the lowest (as it had been amalgamated with the worst in the area). No longer did we have precision metalwork as a craft: it became bricklaying (I kid you not -- I was there!)

This is why I have great sympathy with the SOCKS campaign that Chapter School has initiated, and am saddened that matters have been geared toward turning both schools into a merged so-called "Academy". Personally, I'd be prepared to forego the investment in new buildings if that would solve the problems and get the outside dictators off the schools' back. It has been made very clear to us that it would not. It isn't an option.

Now, to be fair, the Academies that are now being set up are a lot better than the first wave, and I have to admit are actually rather good! The shame about it all is that it is the only way to secure the necessary investment (and a direct conversation with the relevant Government Minister has confirmed this) especially for the new buildings that will be required to avoid the Government intervening directly and taking control of at least Temple (and eventually possibly both schools) away from local people.

Yes, it's a form of blackmail, and yes, it is not ideal; but if we retain control here, we can make it work well. However one feels about the Academy option, as things stand today it is the least bad option by far -- but that shouldn't be the case! Let this be a lesson in whether to allow outsiders of any kind to dictate to us, because that is the one and only really fundamental question.

Remember: I was here myself, some forty years ago. If you want to look it up, it was the amalgamation of my school (Canterbury Road) and Garth School, both in Morden, Surrey, in 1966. I therefore know what it's like, and will always work towards the best possible way forward, in spite of the pressures and threats aimed at us here on the Council whose intent is to undermine rather than to enhance.

In the words of Mr Bester in the Babylon 5 third-series episode Ship of Tears: "I won't have it!"