statutory guidance on school closure

Nov 5 2010

Closure Proposals – The Schools Adjudicator

I’ve talked a little before about the Schools Adjudicator and their role in hearing appeals against a council’s school closure proposal. I feel that they provide an objective assessment of your case as opposed to the heavily biased case for closure that your council puts forward. (Many councils do not even tell parents there is a possibility of an appeal to the Schools Adjudicator!)

However, you can learn a lot from reading some of the previous decisions made by the Schools Adjudicator. If you go to the Schools Adjudicator web site and look down the menu you will be able to find all the published decisions made by the Schools Adjudicator for several years back. The decision reports are short (10-20 pages long generally) but packed with information. They are in date order generally but with a bit of effort on your part you can find decisions made about schools that are a close fit to your situation. You just need to read the beginnings of the reports.

When you have identified the decision reports that closely match your own situation print them off and read them carefully and make notes. They may not all be favourable results but you can learn so much about what the Schools Adjudicators are looking for, what are important factors in their assessments, what factors are less important and how they come to their decisions. This is invaluable information when you are planning a campaign or drawing up your response to consultation or, if you are very lucky, writing a report for the Schools Adjudicator at an appeal.

The key thing is that the Schools Adjudicator will make an assessment based around the Statutory Code of Guidance for school closure but inevitably there will  be different emphases on different factors. Reading the reports will give you an insight into what the Schools Adjudicator generally deems as important. You can also see how each individual inspector interprets the statutory guidance from the way they write the report and summarise their findings.

My advice would be to spend some time researching these reports as they are a very useful resource in planning terms.

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Jun 30 2010

School Closures and the Economy

Everyone knows that we are in the most difficult economic circumstances for generations. The new coalition government has just announced drastic measures to cut public expenditure. Figures of 25% over the next five years have been mentioned. This may be an underestimate as some public services will be protected ie NHS. Where does this leave education?

There is no doubt in my mind that education will face some severe cuts particularly in the new schools capital programmes. This will have a significant impact on education. Yet local government will also be faced with jaw dropping reductions in their day to day (revenue) spending as well. The only way that local authorities will be able to balance the books in education will be to close or amalgamate schools and make teachers redundant. So there will be even more pressure on local authorities to find schools to close or amalgamate from now on. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this approach, it will happen.

Small schools are easy targets. Economically they represent a less efficient use of scarce education financial resources regardless of the educational benefits that a small school can bring to its pupils. Even if the small schools survive they will have to operate on a much smaller budget. Class sizes will rise. In some cases the operational viability of small schools will come into question. It is a gloomy picture but one which I fear is realistic for the next few years as the country tries to get back into a more positive economic footing.

I do have some sympathy for what local government will have to go through and education in particular. But parents still have the right to fight for their child’s education and they will have their say in the matter of proposed closures. The rule of law becomes ever more important in the closure process and the statutory guidance is key to any successful challenge. If local authorities do not carry out review processes comprehensively, fairly and consistently, if they ignore statutory guidance, if their consultation methods are poor, then parents have a right and a duty to complain and challenge the proposals.

The nagging fear is that the government will change the rules on school closures to make it easier for local authorities to make closures happen in order to meet the financial targets being set. This could erode parents’ ability to challenge and object to proposals they feel are unfair. Unscrupulous local authorities could use any changes to ride roughshod over parents’ wishes and preferences.

The situation is serious and needs to be monitored constantly. We need to be vigilant and watch the press and the media for any proposed changes by the incumbent government affecting education. I will try and assess the impact of any possible changes on the guidance given on this site.

In the meantime, fight the good fight using all the means at your disposal.

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Mar 30 2010

Councils – Why Do They Break The Law On Closures?

I have seen a number of cases recently where parents and carers groups are or have been fighting closure proposals made by local councils both in England and Scotland. The one common denominator is that the councils have clearly broken the law and its guidance in trying to close particular schools. And not just in small ways.

The question is why have the councils involved done this? Shouldn’t they be upholding the law as they are local “government”? Or do they see themselves above the law? I can understand that councils have a great deal of pressure on them at the moment to make savings in view of the parlous state of public finances. But surely this should be done within the law as it stands. I can also believe that councils, under this type of pressure and timescale,even with their enormous resources, make mistakes. What I haven’t heard is any council apologising to parents and admitting they got it wrong.

What I have seen is councils being arrogant and denigrating the wishes and views of the people that matter most in these exercises, the pupils and parents. Their consultation exercises have been a joke and the information they provide is partial and in some cases wrong and misleading. They have ridden roughshod over schools that are not only good but thriving. The law has been lost in all of this, well, maybe just the parts that cause the councils a problem.

Why do they do this? Because they believe they can get away with it! Parents can be bullied into submission. The Department of Children, Schools and Families wash their hands of any dealings with school closures. They leave it to the councils and the Schools Adjudicator. If you are in the wrong category of school then you have no rights of appeal over an unscrupulous council.  Even where you can point out that there has been an obvious significant breach of the law and its guidance there is a vacuum. It has to be tested through the courts, through judicial review.

This puts parents and lay people in a greatly disadvantageous position. The council with its superior financial and legal resources can afford to contest even a hopeless case. Parents with a good case have only a small chance to win. The law seems to be only for the strong. This contrasts pointedly with the law and the central government rhetoric about an education system shaped by parents.

Maybe its time to lobby the DCSF for a change in the law to help parents fulfill what the government (apparently) want them to do, shape the education system. Maybe we should band together to try and redress this one-sided contest. Is anybody up for another battle?

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Feb 16 2010

Weapons – Statutory Guidance on School Closure

I cannot stress highly enough how important understanding the statutory guidance for closure of schools is in any part of the UK. It is the basis on which any Schools Adjudicator or appeal process will assess the council’s closure proposals. It shows anybody what factors must be taken into account in coming to the decision to close a school. If the council does not take into account all the factors they are supposed to then you can start to build a case against the council’s proposal.

There are links to the statutory guidance in both England and Scotland on the right hand side bar.

On the face of it, it might seem complicated but you must get to understand it and that may mean going through it several times. Once you have understood it you must then think about your particular situation and start asking yourselves questions about whether the council has actually considered these factors. Where is the evidence they have considered the factors? What evidence is there that they have not considered these factors? The Government think that a good case must be made by councils when proposing the closure of schools but it is surprising how many councils do not consider all the factors they are supposed to.

In many cases, councils produce the closure recommendations from a review process involving a number of schools and busy themselves trying to find ways of choosing the right schools for closure that meet their objectives. These objectives are not always transparent to parents and carers. Nor are they necessarily in the best interests of your children. They are so keen to get this selection process right that they move straight to recommendation to close without checking to see whether it meets the statutory guidance. Either that or they play on the fact that parents will not know what to do to challenge them effectively and thus they can get their own way.

In our experience, councils fall down at this stage. Only parts of the statutory guidance will be demonstrated and there will be big holes that you can exploit and build up evidence to show that the council have not taken into account major factors that they should have. For example, the guidance gives a certain amount of weight to the views and wishes of parents. Can the council demonstrate that they have taken your views and wishes into account in coming to their decision? Educational standards are also important and the council should be able to show how standards will tangibly improve as a result of the closure. Has your council done this? These are just two factors out of many.

If you want an example of how to assess your situation against the statutory guidance for closure click the link below and you will see what we did at Gillas Lane. This should help you visualise what it might look like for your school situation. It is a great way of structuring your evidence and it shows you where the council’s weaknesses are and where you should be concentrating your fire power.

Comparison Against Statutory Guidance – Gillas Lane

I urge everyone involved in school closure fights to do this early on as it can form the basis of any campaign and evidence-getting exercise. This enables you to challenge the council effectively.

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Jan 8 2010

Weapons – Use the Council’s Own Policies and Procedures

We’ve already talked about about how to use the consultation on school place planning / school closure effectively and register your views and objections. However, there are other legitimate ways in which you can challenge the council.

  • The Council has published strategies, policies and procedures which you can usually find on their web site. During a school place planning / school closure exercise it is very likely that there will be some conflict between their existing published policies and what they are actually doing as part of the exercise. Make sure you check what is happening and see whether it conflicts with any of these. In the Gillas Lane fight we found inconsistencies with the following published policies:-  Community Cohesion Strategy, Community Consultation Strategy,    Corporate Equality Scheme,   Primary Strategy for Change and others. If you challenge these then at the very least you will embarrass the council and, possibly, have the basis for a formal complaint.
  • If you are unhappy with the way the consultation has been carried out you can always try the council’s published formal complaints system. If you feel aggrieved then why shouldn’t you complain. You may get a negative response, as in our case at Gillas Lane, where the council did not recognise the complaint as being a legitimate one for their own published system. This did not stop us going to the Local Government Ombudsman and asking him to investigate the complaint on our behalf.
  • To make progress on closing a school the council has to report to its cabinet and obtain formal decisions. There are mechanisms where a decision made by cabinet can be “called in” for scrutiny or review. It is usually helpful to have the assistance of a friendly ward councillor or two in achieving this. During the Gillas Lane fight, we were able to get the first decision that reduced the options to one (ie closure of the school) scrutinised by a separate committee. We had the opportunity to make short presentations to this committee and the councillors on the committee were able to ask questions and make comments. Whilst this committee cannot overturn the cabinet’s decision it can ask the cabinet to look at it again and take note of their comments.
  • And last, but definitely not least, look at the legislation itself covering school closures. There is statutory guidance on school closure. Check what the council has done against the the detailed statutory guidance. Assess whether the council has missed issues, or not followed the guidance properly. You can find an example of how I did this on the Save Gillas Lane School web site called something like assessment against the statutory guidance. If there are areas that you feel have been missed note these and use them in your arguments. It may be very useful if you are able to get to an appeal stage.

These are key actions if you plan to mount a long term campaign as they will give you a strong basis for challenge. Make sure everything is written down with all the “i”s and “t”s dotted and crossed. You will always get back from the council that they understand how difficult and emotional closing a school is for parents. Yes it is and so it should be but the way to challenge the council is not by saying “Oh woe is me and my child” or “You cannot shut this good school”. They will not listen to emotional arguments. And, to a certain degree, anyone hearing an appeal will do likewise.

It is by discrediting their arguments, using logic and sensible rational arguments back at them and tripping them up using their own facts, figures and policies that you will stand a chance of saving your school from closure.

It will be a long campaign. You will need patience, resilience and fortitude. You have to stick at it until all of the options you have are exhausted. Give them a real run for their money.

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