March, 2014 | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision

Continuing from yesterday’s transcript of the Coordinating Committee meeting is a transcript of the next fourteen minutes of what officers said at the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 27th February 2014 that was to reconsider the Cabinet decision to consult on closing Lyndale School. On April 2nd, Wirral Council plan to start a twelve week consultation on the closure. The Cabinet report titled “Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School” can be read on Wirral Council’s website.

JULIA HASSALL
..are all included within the admissions book.

(heckling) I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.

JULIA HASSALL
OK, if there are individual parents who are saying this evening they’ve not received that, then that’s something I will continue to look into.

(heckling)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
So, quite right. My second question is errm, if you look at the, well the information tonight page 141, 140 to 141 2.5 if you skip the bullet points and go straight to the paragraph at the top of page 141, I won’t read the whole paragraph out but it just says that the changes proposed over a two year period, April 2014 to 16 and will be kept under review with regular reports to the Schools Forum. You’re looking to consult on closure for Lyndale, oh sorry.

JULIA HASSALL
Sorry Chair, is this the second report?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the err…

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
The first.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the 21st of March?

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Quite right, that is under the funding report.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Oh no, no, no. Oh right. Maybe I should ask that? It’s not about funding.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
It is under the funding report. I’m afraid, sorry.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
OK, I’ll hold back on that. I’ll hold back on that question but I won’t forget.

Right, my next two questions are for David. You just said that you were involved when Lyndale sort of moved from Clatterbridge. How big’s the area, the size around Lyndale School’s on at the moment?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I can honestly say Councillor Fraser that I don’t know the answer because I’ve deliberately because I don’t want it to confuse the debate and become a distraction, we have done no action whatsoever looking at the Lyndale site.

I said to Pat this evening after the parents spoke at the last meeting, I would very much like to have visited the school and have a look around, so I did talk to Pat but also to remind myself about the school as I was a mainstream teacher.

I deliberately haven’t done that because if I go to the school particularly with my current monitoring responsibilities everyone will think I’ve come to look at the building or look at the site or look at the land. I know the area that the site occupies but genuinely myself and no one else in my team that work with me would have come to look at the site. So I couldn’t actually quote that figure tonight.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Well if you’ve got, this leads me on to another point, without being difficult surely the Council has maps that you could look at? And also to see the size of the land? And also if the numbers at Lyndale are going down why are you extending Elleray Park?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
When my children went to school and I could choose the school, if there weren’t enough places there tough, you had to go to another school. Obviously it’s slightly different with special needs but I don’t understand why you’re not sending, suggesting that children go to Lyndale (making the most of the capacity)? Also I’d be interested if you looked at the map, how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, I’ll allow the officers to reply to that and then is that your questions finished?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Sorry no, I’ve got one more.

DAVID ARMSTRONG
Thank you Chair, yeah but clearly I could look at maps Councillor Fraser. As far as I’m concerned it would be totally irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about whether we should consult on whether to close the school.

I tried to explain, that I am known as the asset person in the Council and currently I have all the baggage and tags that go with that. There has been no work done on looking to dispose of the site.

I think it is useful, very useful that you raised that point because I would just like to take you briefly through the process because if I set that out now then I think it should clear it away for future debate.

The work to Elleray Park stems from a Cabinet report from 2009, where we were asked to go away and bring forward plans to build two new schools, one at Stanley and one at Elleray Park linked to primary school sites.

Clearly we’ve just completed the Stanley one, located it next to Pensby and that was done through funding claiming for that purpose. Because of the national circumstances the funding was withdrawn in July 2010. There’s no prospect realistically of funding on that scale now.

We have £21.5 million worth of funding capital in 2010/11. Next year we’ll have £4.1 million so we know we’re facing a different landscape. So what we want to do is go back and invest in the schools that we know now that we’ll not be rebuilding and that’s where that deal comes from, it has its origins there.

In terms of bidding for the money, we’ve had that, we’ve been looking for that for a while. Yes when we bid internally for the money against our colleagues we did also make a reference to the fact that should a decision be taken to close Lyndale clearly we will need places at other schools but the Elleray Park building work is not dependent on any decision you make about Lyndale. The scheme at Elleray Park will be done for suitability reasons and flexibility reasons whatever the decision about Lyndale. So it is not dependant in any shape or form on a proposition about Lyndale.

It actually begins to sort out things again that I did in the mid 1990s, as a short-term measure. I converted the former caretaker’s house to teaching accommodation. I never intended that it would last the length of time that it did. The scheme deals with that issue.

It moves the kitchen from the back of the school to the front which makes sense in terms of deliveries, so it does deal with issues with the school that exist. In all schools we try and respond to parental choice. We provide extra accommodation where we can when people are clearly wanting to go to that school. That’s national policy and it’s something we’ve tried to do.

In terms of the site, the idea that we can somehow just sell the site and pocket the money is actually a bit, well it’s very far fetched. If the decision was taken to close Lyndale there’d be a stepped process. For me, if a decision was taken to close the school, that doesn’t automatically mean that it would mean there would be no education on the site.

The school could convert to a free school, it could convert to an academy. It could be a shared, split site school with another school and the site would carry on being used much as it is now.

If that didn’t happen, I’d want to look to see what other purposes we could put to it for children because it’s had investment as I say it had an investment in 1999 a substantial one. It’s one of only four schools we’ve got with pools and you’d want to explore other possibilities.

It has a youth hub and a youth club on the corner of the site so there’d be lots of other possibilities. If it came to the fact there was no school and no other use for it, we have to then apply to the Secretary of State. We have to get his permission to dispose of the site.

We have to do it under two pieces of legislation, one is section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act which covers the playing fields and the playing field is not just a pitch it’s any outside space and we have to do it under section 1 of the Academies Act for the rest of the site and the Secretary of State’s words are that “a presumption is against you” on this issue. So even if we went through all those processes and the Secretary of State did give permission to dispose of the site it could then be disposed of but that condition would be based on us having specific schemes where the funding would have to be reinvested in other schools.

So I think it’s useful to set all that out to show, it is a process we’ve gone through. We’ve relocated schools to school sites when schools have closed. We have disposed of sites but the money goes reinvested back into schools.

So there’s absolutely no motive on me and anybody else to address this as a capital or an asset issue. That comes at the end and I hope by going through that and it’s a legal process, it’s a national process that shows that really the debate needs to be had about the needs of the children not about the site.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Go on, you’ve got one more question Leah.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
No, you said I could have four, no, but we’ve got plenty of time! But errm right,

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
No sorry, I’ll let you put the question if you like.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thank you Chair. My next question is, the email that Rochelle Smith mentioned, which I’m sure you were waiting for me to ask or somebody to ask that. From Paul Ashton “no plans for closure” sent in April 2012. What happened between April 2012 to a couple of months ago last year? That seems quite a change of policy, can you explain that?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I think we’d like to. The letter came in when I was covering the Director of Childrens Services post, which we… Julia agreed upon to. So I was wearing two hats when that letter came in. I was covering the Director’s post but I was also still working with Andrew doing the finances. The letter was read in that context.

I asked Paul Ashcroft to reply to the letter because he was the specialist special, he was the senior inspector for special education, but I also had a discussion with him because if I sit there wearing the hat doing the thing with Andrew the very last thing we would want is for any member of our team, to be suggesting that children shouldn’t go to the school. It’s the very last thing we would want, it would make an already difficult situation even worse.

He went away, he replied to the letter, he replied to the parent and I also asked him to research whether he could come across any evidence of where our staff were directing children away from the school and that’s the most current and it’s interesting, it’s been really good to listen to what’s been said tonight because the references to me appear to have been mainly, if not exclusively to staff who work for another organisation and I think that’s an issue that Julia will research in her own way.

The situation is as I described at the very beginning, the national framework has now embedded itself in. Andrew and I are looking to the future landscape, we can see more hurdles that we’ll have to go through, other agencies will have to be involved in saying yes or no to the current arrangement we have with funding empty places, we see a clear direction now in special which is to move towards paying for the pupil rather than the place so it’s because, unbeknownst to us at the beginning of this, it’s that national context and also the numbers haven’t added, the numbers have stayed broadly stable and that clearly makes the problem difficult.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, next I’m going to deal with Paul, Pat and Adam in that order.

COUNCILLOR PAUL DOUGHTY
I am at an advantage actually over some of the parents and members of the audience because I know you as individuals and I know as individuals how passionate you are about children and your responsibilities towards them and our parents and members of the audience here don’t know that and they don’t have the advantage that myself and some of the other councillors have.

I think one of the problems we’ve got is the language that’s been used in some of the communication, perhaps in the newspapers and their responsibility for that. Also perhaps the, we referred to you that know some of the perhaps careless language of NHS staff perhaps and so we have a challenge really as a local authority as to how we can reverse that negative view that parents have so the question is given some of the comments that have been made to us where parents have a lack of confidence in the process and the consultation is there anything else that you feel that as officers we can do to try and restore confidence in the consultation process that haven’t already been presented tonight?

JULIA HASSALL
OK Chair, if I start the answer to that. One of the things that we’re deeply committed to doing should the decision be to proceed with the consultation is to talk with parents and each child, talk with the school and really make sure we’ve got as up to date assessment of the needs of each individual child at Lyndale School.

So that as we go forward, we are very genuinely looking at options in the knowledge of each individual child so that when we apply what’s called the SEN Improvement Test, we’re doing it based on our understanding of what each individual child needs and looking at how their needs can and if they can be met in a different setting.

So it’s making sure amidst what you say Councillor, a lot of the language that’s been used that we pull it back to first principle and say this is about getting it right for some exceptionally vulnerable children and how to care deeply about their children and we’ll need to be absolutely reassured whether the child is going to school they have staff in that school who can absolutely respond to their children’s needs in a very caring appropriate way and that is the very heart of what we must do as we take this forward.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Pat and then Adam and then Leah and that… and I do want to spread it round the committee, all ok?

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
I’ll try and keep my questions to the question of debating whether we should have a call in on, oh a consultation. One of the parent witnesses Julia has said earlier that she had or that parents had forwarded questions to you and not received replies. My question to you is, have you been waiting to reply to these queries on the fact that the parents have raised objections to the proposed current consultation? I’ve got one more question.

JULIA HASSALL
Thank you Councillor, I’m glad you asked me that question. I met with staff at the school and with parents on the 19th of December. It was the soonest date we could arrange after I met with the governing body at Lyndale School and I brought with me a colleague who took very detailed notes at the meeting.

Quite soon after Christmas, there were very detailed questions and did need to canvass a number of views to get accurate responses and Mrs Dawn Hughes who was a parent who spoke at the Cabinet meeting, I think Dawn is here this evening, on the 16th January very helpfully wrote to me saying this is a summary of the questions we asked and here are some additional questions and she did that under the freedom of information process and what I did I was a little delayed, but I did respond to Mrs Hughes within the freedom of information timescale which is about three weeks or so ago.

I’m probably mistaken because I understood that those questions and responses would be circulated to other parents. If that’s not happened I will do that tomorrow.

(heckling) The answers given they weren’t answers.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
One other question Chair.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
Another witness referred to the fact that the closure of Lyndale School has been brought to their attention by members of staff from another organisation. Have you had any contact yourself with the NHS about Lyndale School and the staff that were mentioned?

JULIA HASSALL
Councillor Glasman, I’ve been slightly chary about going very broad on consultation at this point, but I I I have indirectly made contact with Doctor Steiger but I will want to if the consultation proceeds, certainly meet with a group of community pediatricians to elicit their views and meet with other health professionals who are involved and I know that there are some who are actually directly working within the Lyndale School and I want to very much take soundings from them and from any other professional who’s directly involved.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
You want to emphasise to them that (inaudible)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Adam.

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3 reasons why Wirral Council got budget projections on Lyndale School so very wrong

Labour councillors at a public meeting of Wirral Council's Coordinating Committee vote to consult on closing Lyndale School (27th February 2014)

Labour councillors at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee vote to consult on closing Lyndale School (27th February 2014)

Reason 1: An assumption was made about the minimum funding guarantee

As covered in an earlier blog post, Wirral Council applied to the Education Funding Agency for permission that the minimum funding guarantee requirement that Lyndale School in 2014-15 (minimum funding requirement means it would receive at least 98.5% of the funding it got in 2013-14 when Lyndale School’s budget was £761,733) wouldn’t apply.

You can read Wirral’s application here in response to my Freedom of Information Act request to the Education Funding Agency.

The report to Cabinet uses a figure of a deficit of £72,000 for 2014-15 (see the fourth paragraph of 2.8) which is 9% of Lyndale School’s budget. However Wirral withdrew their application for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee before the call in meeting.

As this blog post details at the end thanks to the minimum funding guarantee Lyndale now project a small surplus in 2014-15 and the cumulative deficit at the end of 2015 is only projected to be £18,000 rather than the £72,000 figure used in the January Cabinet report.

Reason 2: A prediction about Lyndale’s budget in an unspecified future year

In the same Cabinet report a deficit for Lyndale School’s budget is predicted in an unspecified future year of £160,000 (representing £10,000 for each of the sixteen spare places it has) (see the fourth paragraph of 2.8). This is added to the projected £72,000 deficit to make £232,000. Reason 1 goes into detail as to why the £72,000 figure is wrong.

However the £160,000 figure is wrong (in my opinion) too and here is why. As specified in Wirral Council’s application for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee, the minimum funding guarantee is a condition of the Dedicated Schools Grant that Wirral Council receive each year from the government for education. The minimum funding guarantee is also a legal requirement.

The full wording of that condition of the 2014-15 schools grant for Wirral Council is only partially quoted in their application for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee. However it can be found in this document Dedicated schools grant (Departmental guide for local authorities on the operation of the grant 2014-2015) (page 6) and is quoted here:-

Determination of the local funding formula and funding for high needs pupils

“11. The following conditions apply in relation to the determination of the local funding formula and the funding for high needs pupils:

…….

g. in deciding on top-up funding rates for the pupils it will place in special schools maintained by the Authority and Special Academies formerly maintained by the authority, the authority must ensure that the rates for each school are set no lower than at such a rate or rates that, if all the pupils in the school or Academy were placed by the authority, and the total number and type of places remained the same in the two financial years, the school or Academy’s budget would reduce by no more than 1.5% in cash between 2013 to 2014 and 2014-15;”

This reference to a £160,000 deficit can however be read as a reference to Lyndale School’s budget for 2015-16. The government is currently running a consultation on schools funding (which ends on 30th April 2014) called Fairer Schools Funding 2015-16. One of the consultation documents as part of the consultation has this to state on the minimum funding guarantee.

“We will retain the Minimum Funding Guarantee, which has been in place over many years and which dictates that for the vast majority of schools, funding per pupil cannot drop by more than 1.5% per year*”

“*Some funding is excluded from the calculation of the Minimum Funding Guarantee. Details of this are in 2014-15 Revenue Funding Arrangements: Operational Information for Local Authorities.”

The latter document specifies a number of exclusions to the Minimum Funding Guarantee, which don’t apply to Lyndale School. Although the government has committed to a minimum funding guarantee for 2015/16 it hasn’t specified what level it will be at as this is dependant on a spending review that has yet to take place. However using Lyndale’s 2013-14 budget as a guide (£761,733), £160,000 represents a massive drop of 21%.

2015 is a General Election year, do you think the government would really set the minimum funding guarantee for 2015-16 low enough to cause the kind of huge deficit that would lead to many schools across the country closing in the months leading to a General Election? Personally I don’t think it would.

3. But what about “Place plus”?

The rationale behind the £160,000 mentioned in reason 2 was that for each place Wirral Council receives £10,000. Lyndale School at the time of writing the Cabinet report had sixteen empty places (16 * £10,000), therefore if the funding Wirral Council receives is based on pupils at Lyndale rather than places Lyndale would lose out due to the empty places.

As mentioned earlier, the minimum funding guarantee doesn’t make this an issue in 2014-15. The way the minimum funding guarantee is calculated for 2014-15 for a special school doesn’t take account of the numbers of pupils or empty places at a school. As the legislation on how to calculate the minimum funding guarantee for 2014-15 quite clearly states:

“references to the number of pupils exclude those funded by a sixth form grant and those in places which the local authority have reserved for children with special educational needs;”

As referred to at the end of reason 2, it’s a General Election year next year, will the government really change how the minimum funding guarantee for special schools is calculated for 2015-16 from a formula based on the total budget of the school to a pupil based formula causing some special schools to close in the lead up to the General Election? I haven’t got a crystal ball, but I doubt they would. Even if the funding formula changes to a more pupil based funding, the minimum funding guarantee for 2015-16 (at whatever level it is set at) should protect schools like Lyndale School from large changes to their budget.

So what do you think? Have I got something wrong? If there is no financial reason to close down Lyndale what’s the real reason? I’d be delighted to read your opinion and you can have your say (even anonymously) by leaving a comment.

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What did officers say at the Lyndale School call in? “we had a problem the rules mattered more than the children”

Councillor Moira McLaughlin asks a question about staffing at Lyndale School (Coordinating Committee, Wirral Council, 27th February 2014)

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Julia Hassall (Director of Children Services), Andrew Roberts (Head of Branch and Planning Resources) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision

Continuing from yesterday’s transcript of the Cabinet decision to consult on closing Lyndale School is a transcript of the first twenty-five minutes of what officers said at the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 27th February 2014 that was to reconsider the Cabinet decision. Next week Wirral Council plan to start the consultation on the closure of Lyndale School. The Cabinet report titled “Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School” that this is about can be read on Wirral Council’s website.

CLLR STEVE FOULKES
Back to order. Settle down, I have a rather unfortunate announcement to make. One of our elected Members Councillor Denise Realey has become unwell. I think she’s found the evening stressful as everybody has to be frankly honest and has taken unwell so for the minutes can we have it recorded that Councillor Realey has left the meeting and will take no further part in the decision-making.

OK, with that said, we now move onto the next set of witnesses, these are evidence from the people obviously officers of the Authority. Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services), David Armstrong who is Assistant Chief Executive and Head of Universal Infrastructure Services and Andrew Roberts who is Head of Branch and Planning Resources.

They have up to five minutes to speak to us, for brevity they are not taking that option and will probably be spending more time answering questions from elected Members but Julia, you want to give us the background and the thought processes that ended up in the presentation of the papers to Cabinet and the consequent decision. Thank you.

JULIA HASSALL
OK, thank you Chair and members of the audience. I just wanted to start by saying from a senior officer perspective how much I appreciated hearing what the parents and members of staff said this evening.

I think following that what the three of us will say will sound a bit bureaucratic, a bit clinical and it’s by virtue of the proposals that we need to put forward. I would like to state that all three of us come from a position of valuing the children that we work with and regarding outcomes for children as an absolute priority.

The report that was presented to Cabinet on the 16th January, was seeking approval to consult on the closure of the Lyndale School. The report set out the background, saying that local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure there are sufficient places in their area, there’s fair access to educational opportunity to promote every child’s potential.

The reasons why in the report we’re considering closure of the school is because of the viability of the school is compromised because of its small size and falling roll which both contribute to a difficult financial position and I think as you said Chair earlier, it’s not in any way because of the standard of care and education in the school which is good and in many aspects outstanding.

In terms of the falling roll over the last seven years, the Lyndale School’s average occupancy has been 59% and there are currently twenty-three children at the school out of a total possible forty places. I know the second report that you’re considering call in really focuses on the financial position which is very briefly the size of the school and the numbers of pupils contribute to a difficult financial position with a likely deficit of £72,000 corrective action for 14/15 with the potential for this to increase to be in excess of £232,000 based on the numbers of children currently on the school roll. Part of that is because of changes to the national formula, which Councillor Smith referred to in terms of funding individual places occupied and a reduction from forty funded places to twenty-three because there are twenty-three children with places and also applying the new banded top up system.

Should a decision be taken to close and this would be in the future. I need to keep emphasising that the report that went to Cabinet on the 16th January was seeking permission to consult on potential closure and the report on the 16th January said that at this stage, the two most, the most viable option if or should the school close, was to expand Elleray Park School and Stanley schools so that the children currently at Lyndale School and future children would go to both of those schools.

It certainly would simply not be a case of just adding children into the existing schools. It would require very, very careful planning, consultation and change the very nature of each school by virtue of additional children joining that school, both school’s community.

It’s really important to say that in the most recent OFSTED report Elleray Park School was judged to be outstanding across the board and Stanley School was judged to be a good school with outstanding leadership and management.

One thing I did want to say and in response to possibly some of the points made earlier, it’s really important to state at this stage that the closure of the school appears the most viable option after having considered a number of options which are the eight options that parents referred to. However I have said and I’m very mindful of the fact that the eight options have been considered by local authority officers and I would expect to proceed to consultation that each of those options would be rigorously considered again and there will be other options that come forward that we have not thought of.

So in very general there will be a proper options appraisal looking at each and every option that comes forward. Should Cabinet, the report that went on the 16th actually talked about the next steps. So, should Cabinet agree to consult on whether we should close the school, there would then follow a twelve week consultation process that will involve full consultation meetings, a consultation meeting with the parents, teachers, interested people connected with Lyndale School, Stanley School and Elleray Park School. There would be drop in sessions. We’d do whatever we needed to do to get to the best possible option to move forward.

I think in summary, I would want to conclude just by describing the report that went on the 16th January that by saying considering the closure of the school is difficult and distressing as you’ve heard this evening particularly when children have such special needs and other abilities. It’s really important that their needs are placed at the centre of our concern and that what’s called the special educational needs improvement test is applied with absolute rigour and that’s a test to make sure that whatever we come up with and whatever Cabinet may agree in the future, is as good as or better than the current provision for the children concerned and it was on that basis, taking all those points into account that I recommended to Cabinet on the 16th January that they should agree to consult on closure and that I would proceeded to compile the consultation document. I’m very happy to answer any questions that Members may have or any comments.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Any of the other officers wish to make a statement about the issue? No?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
No.

ANDREW ROBERTS
No.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
No, ok. So, it’s clearly open to. Sorry I’ll use my mike I do apologise. It’s obviously open to questions from Members, I’ve got Moira, Leah and Alan and then I’ll take another three.

COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
If it’s alright with you Chair, I’ll combine two of my questions in one go and make it a bit simpler. The first one is, is there capacity for forty children and there’s twenty-three there currently? Has that reduction so far, I mean I don’t quite know how to put this, Steve did allude to it before, if there’s fewer children there I imagine the establishment was reduced to accommodate the children or has the establishment, the staffing establishment I’m talking about not changed even though the numbers have reduced?

ANDREW ROBERTS
What err the staffing establishment reduced I think it was two years ago the funded places reduced from forty-five to forty.

COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
Right, and over a period of time the numbers have reduced further what would happen then as there’s attrition, what would happen? How would that be dealt with?

ANDREW ROBERTS
That’s part of our ongoing discussion with the school and about how the budget issues have been, are dealt with.

COUNCILLOR MOIRA MCLAUGHLIN
OK, thank you very much. That’s the first one. The second one is I mean a couple of questions I asked about from Zoe and Rochelle were about confidence in the process at this point. I think, certainly I was dismayed to see the phrase in this report which was consultation on closure and it seemed to me in the first instance that it kind of preempts the outcome and I have been reassured by the Cabinet Member so far, well I’ve heard what the Cabinet Member said, I’m looking for more reassurance that this is a genuine open consultation and that options that are there, eight of them will be considered and the possibility is still there that other options that haven’t been considered to this point may emerge during the process. There’s those and I mean if you can reassure me of or do your best to reassure me that what the second part is how are you going to reassure parents now because they’ve lost a bit of confidence, well lost a lot of confidence in the process?

JULIA HASSALL
OK, by way of reassurance that we will have a very full and open and transparent consultation. I’ll just take a step back, take a step back. The advice I sought prior to embarking on this process was the local authority in these circumstances when we were considering the viability of the school would put forward a proposal to consult on closure. That is what is done, that is how it’s approached.

The intention is to consider every single option, that’s a that’s in the appendix and the eight options that are included there. When I met with the parents prior to Christmas, in a pre consultation meeting I was explaining how we reached a conclusion with a purely internal local authority looking at a number of options which was about us reaching first base to present a report to Cabinet saying that we needed to consult.

The consultation will take account of each and every one of those options, which we will undertake to revisit again and we will genuinely consider every single option that appears that we may not have considered so far.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, I did say I’ve got Leah and Alan. I think those two are … ok, sorry.

DAVID ARMSTRONG
Chair, just to add to that. Just for the benefit of the audience, I’m David Armstrong and Andrew Roberts is sitting to my left.

Just for the benefit of Members, I currently have some duties outside of the department particularly to do with assets and supporting the Chief Exec. I’m here as the Head of Service for the Children’s Department, clearly I have a responsibility about the school budgets and assets and other issues and obviously I have worked here for twenty-four years and know quite a bit about the school from that so clearly that’s why I’m here.

I think that the comments about the language are very fair and people have said the same thing to us when we did the five-year primary review because we have to follow national documentation and national procedures. If we used sort of a more informal process to begin with, a more informal language and then we changed to a very formal process part way through, people with some justification say well you did that to smoke and mirrors, ..ful language whatever.

The language is very cold. The only thing I can say to people is, that clearly if you look at the track record of when we did a very, very lengthy repetitive process of the primary review we brought forward proposals like this and we named the schools for closure and if you look at what we proposed over that period and if you look at the primary school landscape now, the two don’t match because sometimes our proposals were accepted after the consultation period, sometimes we were told to go away and start again and indeed there’s some schools I can think of one school where we proposed closure twice in two successive cycles and the school is still there and functioning normally so I hope, I know it’s difficult for people to believe us, I know the language is very cold but I think the proof is there that the process did work. There was consultation and the outcome was not predetermined. The outcomes were many and varied, at the end of the day we went from a hundred schools to ninety but it was a very different ten schools to the ones that were proposed unfortunately.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
We’ve got Alan and then Leah.

COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
Thank you for that, thanks Chair. The sort of sustainability of err Lyndale School has been in question for some time as I think we’ve heard tonight. Am I right and I accept what the Chair says, I don’t want to stray into the next part of the call in but is it the change in the Education Funding Agency’s funding arrangements that has actually prompted us into now looking at the school and looking at its viability or would we have done it anyway?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I think it’s a key issue within the debate. If you take a very brief view. Local management of schools began in 1990, when massively big Council budgets were broken up and delegated to schools quite rightly and power was given to schools to spend that money and clearly I was here when that started.

The primary and secondary debate puts the money through a formula into the schools and what’s happened over the years when we first started we had hundreds of funding factors so some of those, because we didn’t, had a factor that if you had trees on the site you got more money through the formula or if you had a bigger, we had one for a long time where if you had a bigger building you got more money.

What’s happened in primary and secondary mainstream is that the whole thing over the twenty odd years has been streamlined down and streamlined down and streamlined down. You now have a very few factors which are reliant upon deprivation, but primarily pupil numbers.

If you’ve got somebody sitting on the seat you get the money, if you haven’t got somebody sitting on the seat you don’t and there’s a check mechanism the minimum funding guarantee but that’s the hard reality. What’s happened for many years is the special schools sat alongside that, they have a defined budget, a fixed budget but you were allowed to carry on funding by place rather than pupil but what’s happened is as local … of schools has been achieved and it’s not a criticism of the system, it’s where it was always going to end up over a long journey over twenty-five years.

The national changes bring the special sector into line, not quite the same, but they bring them into line with the primary and secondary situation hence this talk of place plus. So for the first time, we cannot fund all of it on the place we have to fund a substantial part of it on the pupil and what I’m doing and Mike and others are is that through the work of the secondary and special heads which is a tight-knit family of eleven, through Pat’s work, through Andrew’s work that family as a group for some time now that they will fund not … they’ll fund forty places even though there are twenty-three children there.

Clearly they do that at the expense of money that would otherwise go through the formula, go through .. with the schools and what we’re nervous of is is that a sustainable long-term position?

We’re also nervous that we’ve been able to decide that locally. Andrew’s been able to take reports to the Schools Forum, Pat’s been able to meet with the other heads, Andrew’s met with the heads, met with the governors and it’s all been ok. From next year we will have to seek an approval from the Education Funding Agency to fund those places. That made Andrew and I deeply nervous because we’ve had some experience of the national Educational Funding Agency where it appeared that when we had a problem the rules mattered more than the children.

We were heartened to meet with the EFA with local officers this week who said that he thought they would be mindful it was the power of, they would agree to but what we see is a local arrangement that we think would be some sort of dereliction of our duties if we didn’t say we don’t think that this is sustainable long-term and we have a changing national picture which for all the right reasons as I’ve … to us is changing that landscape and taking away some of the freedoms we’ve got. So in that context, yes it is a key issue.

COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
Could I just do a … just to pick up on that the I fully appreciate the direction of travel and where we’re going but ultimately I would like to think that we’re making this decision because we’ve looked at it and we’ve decided that this is because ultimately we are responsible for public funds, that this is the right thing to do. Almost regardless of what the funding arrangements are suggesting because when I read the report it looks as though it’s all driven by the funding arrangements and not by the err by the, I will get to, my question is this.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
You’re clearly straying into the next call in.

COUNCILLOR ALAN BRIGHOUSE
I know I am straying into the next call in, but I just it was because of I do think at the end it’s fundamental to the whole process. I just, what I really wanted, my question is this. Lyndale School is something special, we’ve heard that tonight. Would we as a Council put a price on that specialness?

(applause)

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I agree with you entirely that it’s very special. I came here in 1990 after being a primary school head and I remember going to the Clatterbridge site. I in fact did the bid in my youth to move them from Clatterbridge, the bid that brought in the grant to move the school from Clatterbridge to Lyndale.

I worked through the scheme that amalgamated ??? Juniors to release the site. So yeah it is a very special school but this is where we have a very difficult job to do. Do we just sit on our hands and say nothing and know an informal arrangement that has worked well for a few years, hasn’t got the resilience to carry on or do we come to you and do we say to the Director actually the landscape’s changing nationally, the numbers aren’t rising, we’re funding this place with empty places currently other schools are compliant with that but it’s a tight-knit family of heads that hasn’t had a lot of change. We have to put the issue on the table and say this is where it is. It’s nothing to do with the specialness of the school, the school is a very special place and we’ve all played a part in our little way, a very little way compared to what you’ve heard tonight in making it what it is.

(heckling)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Can I bring Leah in?

(heckling)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Sorry I’m bring Leah Fraser in ok, thank you.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thank you I’ve got two questions to Julia Hassall and two for David Armstrong. I don’t mind who answers them. Is that ok to ask all four? Right well I’ll ask them one by one.

I’m asking Julia this but as I say I don’t mind who answers it. I asked Andrew to send me some information via email as you know and that information was the complex learning need pupil numbers between 2004 and 2013 for five schools, Foxfield, Meadowside, Elleray Park, Lyndale and Stanley. Now, going through them in this order, I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, I’m just taking them one at a time.

Foxfield in 2004 had a hundred and twenty-seven and last year had a hundred and twenty-four. So they’ve stayed relatively the same. Meadowside seventy-eight, seventy-two, I’ll skip to Stanley eighty-eight ten years later eighty-nine. Elleray Park fifty in 2004, last year they had ninety-one so they’ve almost doubled by fifty percent. Lyndale was forty in 2004 and now it’s twenty-four so basically Lyndale’s halved and Elleray Park’s doubled.

Now also looking at these feel that this errm chart, each school takes children with PMLD so why when numbers are going down in Lyndale have children with PMLD been sent to say Elleray Park? Hasn’t somebody been keeping an eye on this, because it then from what Emma Howlett, was it Emma? Yeah I think it was Emma said that it’s the Council’s statement and it’s the Council that refer to where a child goes to school. So why have the Council allowed the numbers at Lyndale to halve over ten years? That’s my first question.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK.

JULIA HASSALL
OK, Councillor Fraser, I’ll start but colleagues may want to come into that. The reason why numbers are what they are or changed over a period of time is parental choice.

(heckling)

So I’ve really looked into the issue that parents have raised with me that there’s been a subtext of diverting parents from one school to another and I’ve asked colleagues, I’ve researched how the statementing process works and the response I’ve received and I’ve looked at our admissions booklets and there is a very clear process set out and over a period of time these are choices that parents have made as part of the overall statementing process.

At this point in time, there are as you know three primary schools for children with complex learning difficulties, Stanley, Elleray Park and Lyndale. About a year ago an HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspector) was commissioned by the local authority to look at where the children with profound and multiple learning difficulties were being educated and they looked at the children who are being, there are some children with PMLD that are educated at Elleray Park School and with the larger number of children at the Lyndale School and they formed a view that individual Eric Craven formed a view that both settings could appropriately care for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties.

Stanley School has focused more on children on the autistic spectrum and currently don’t have children with profound and multiple learning difficulty but the view was both Elleray Park at that point and Lyndale could care for children with profound and complex needs and it was parents making choices about where there, which school their child attended.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thanks for that, just to follow up from that, Emma did say that she was only offered one school and there wasn’t a ??? . So you can’t chose something if you don’t know about it. If you’re not told about a school, you can’t actually choose it.

(applause)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
My second question..

JULIA HASSALL
Errm, Councillor Fraser, just

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Oh right sorry.

JULIA HASSALL
Sorry, just very briefly on that the three….

Continues at What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”.

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How did the Lyndale School closure consultation begin?

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Childrens Services) talks at a meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet about deciding to consult on closing Lyndale School (16th January 2014)

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Video footage starts at ends at 1:53 ends at 28:48 (just under 27 minutes)

Next week Wirral Council will start a consultation on closing Lyndale School. I thought it would be useful prior to the consultation to publish a transcript of the Cabinet meeting held back in January where it all started. I will state this caveat though. Some of the things stated at the January Cabinet meeting are now incorrect as Wirral Council withdrew its application to the Education Funding Agency for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee (the minimum funding guarantee guarantees the school gets at least 98.5% of last year’s funding).

Cabinet 16th January 2014
Committee Room 1, Wallasey Town Hall
Agenda Item 14. Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School

This is a link to the Cabinet report titled “Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School”.

Transcript

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Now I’ve been given notice that we have a parent of Lyndale School, Dawn Hughes. Welcome Dawn. So it’s my intention to allow Dawn to address the Cabinet, then I think Julia Hassall (the Director of Children’s Services) will introduce the report and then Tony Smith Cabinet Member will want to make some comments. So that’s the procedure that I intend to adopt. So Dawn, can I invite you to come forward and speak to us. Could you just give us your full name and address first of all before you say anything to us?

DAWN HUGHES
Yeah, it’s Dawn Hughes, 24 ??? Road, Bebington, Wirral.

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Now Dave is just going to switch on the microphone for you, OK. So just take a seat, in your own time just say what you want to say to us.

DAWN HUGHES
Can I ask if these could be passed round?

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Of course, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

DAWN HUGHES
My name is Dawn

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Just take your time, that’s fine, yeah, thank you.

DAWN HUGHES
Hello everyone, my name is Dawn Hughes which you’ve just heard.

My daughter Ellie attends Lyndale School and the disruption that is being proposed is a lot worse than Miss Hassall’s report. It would take me longer than five minutes just to explain my child’s diagnosis and all the ways it affects her daily life.

She is not unusual at Lyndale, this is the level of capacity that the nursing staff deal with every day. But to deal with practical matters first, I want to ask you to show us that you are sincere when you say that you have the needs of our children at the heart of this process by further extending the twelve week consultation and allowing our governors access to resources like Council staff time so that we can explore other options. Then we can take all the time needed to give due weight to this important issue.

Miss Hassall’s report details falling roll numbers at Lyndale, leading to escalating costs with little qualifying information. The truth is that Lyndale has lived under the threat of closure for eight years which leads pre-school services to discourage prospective parents.

Lyndale parents have strongly supported a two to nineteen option for Lyndale for many years so that their very vulnerable children can avoid the unnecessary and cruel distress of transition to an unfamiliar environment and community. This option along with inviting in children from out of area would have increased roll numbers and it is still possible for this to happen if the will is there.

This report says that Lyndale is not financially viable, but the national average spent, the amount on PMLD children is £29,000. That’s against Lyndale’s spend of £33,000, a shortfall of £4,000 per a child and that’s not considering the complexity of needs. Also not a great deal of scope in terms of the local authority budget. This shortfall would be lessened by greater occupancy. The high need of our children means that the cost of education would be the same provided by an alternative school or an alternative.

Our parents feel that the £16,000 top up for PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] children is simply not enough to cover their needs and clearly we’re looking at how this figure was arrived at. Is it based on need or cost?

We know national government decisions have made things difficult but the Discretionary Schools Grant is administered locally and it is within your powers to allocate more where there is need. The SEN [special educational needs] Improvement Test legally means that you have to provide as good as or preferably better provision for our children.

The test would have to look at provision in the suggested alternative schools. Miss Hassall has said that Stanley School and Elleray Park are equipped to take Lyndale children but they are already full to bursting. I spoke to both schools recently. Stanley said they had 97 children already against a capacity of 90 and Elleray Park has 92 pupils and only 75 actual places. Where are our children going to fit?

If you plan to extend these schools why not invest that money to continue to provide good quality PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] provision at Lyndale? Stanley School has never in its history had a PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] child so it has no experience in this field. Lyndale parents are very worried about the safety of their children and their needs.

We contemplate the mix of PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] and children with behavioural difficulties. Many of our children are on life support, oxygen, naso-gastric or gastroscomy feeds and should any of this equipment be pulled out it could be fatal within seconds.

Many of our children cannot purposefully moved at all, and should they be bitten or hit, and should they be bitten or hit they cannot defend themselves. It is madness to put these two types of children together.

Lots of our children are hyper-sensitive to noise or some movement for example. For some children noise is unbearable and induces seizures. My own daughter’s hypersensitive and contracts painful muscle spasms which can last for months leaving her unable to sleep, eat or swallow amongst other horrible symptoms. I don’t even have family around at Christmas because Ellie can’t tolerate bustle, how would she cope in a big, noisy school?

The alternative to mixed disability classes would be to segregate our children within a mixed school. The problem here is that in an emergency (such as a child needing resuscitation or having a seizure which happens frequently to many of our children) medical staff would have to navigate their way through keypad locked doors losing valuable seconds which again could prove fatal to our children.

Aside from these very real safety concerns, Stanley and Elleray are not suitable in this way. Lyndale provides a community atmosphere where children can move freely and safely around the school, visiting each other’s classrooms and socialising at lunchtime and other activities. Why should they be locked away for their own safety in a school which is unsuitable for them in the first place?

No one would sensibly suggest putting heart patients and meningitis sufferers on the same ward with the same doctors for the obvious reasons that they require different environments and treatments despite both having the label of “being ill”. In the same way we can’t treat all children that who have got the label of learning disabilities in the same way either.

Autistic and PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] children have very different medical, environmental, educational and emotional needs. For example PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] children need a stimulating, colourful sensory environment, exactly the opposite of what the type of environment autistic children need.

Parents have asked me to tell you that should Lyndale close, they will either keep their children at home or send them to schools out of area. This will incur a huge cost to the local authority.

The truth is we don’t think that it serves our children’s best interests to move at all. Many people feel our children are “just sitting there” with no consciousness of what happens around them, but I know that when Ellie looks at me with a twinkle in her eye it means she wants to play. I know that when other people see blankness she is in fact concentrating hard. I know when she is in pain or sad or anxious or ill and the staff at Lyndale have taken years to build up the same knowledge – that our children have an inner life as rich as yours or mine despite their inability to communicate it through normal means.

If you force them to move, they will feel the loss of all the people they trust and love and the loss of a placement that they were safe in for years. I ask yourself to put yourselves in their shoes for one minute.

Imagine being completely reliant on others for everything that happens to you and then imagine going to a strange place, where you know no-one and no-one is able to understand you when you try to tell them how you feel. Many of our children could not cope with the upheaval of a move. Change induces anxiety in our children and anxiety significantly worsens their disabilities and illnesses. They then suffer in a way that you would find unimaginable.

I’ve come to accept it with sadness over the years that Ellie will never learn to speak, eat or play independently or be able to take GCSEs. Many of our children don’t even make it to the end of primary school. It is painful for many parents with PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] children to be constantly talked at by educationalists about “achievement” and the need to move on.

Ellie is 11 and still likes peek-a-bo. All she needs is a special place where she is happy and she can rely on the consistency and environment and the adults around her. Lyndale allows for the days when the children frequently feel under par and brings therapy or treatment into the classroom.

Lyndale staff know that ill health is part and parcel of our children’s lives and to accommodate this into their individual sensory curriculum. I don’t believe that you can provide that at bigger schools with no PMLD [profound and multiple learning difficulties] experience. I don’t believe you better Lyndale to pass the SEN improvement test, you certainly can’t convince me or the other parents.

I imagine that most of you who have children or grandchildren and that they are the apple of your eye, quite rightly so. Now imagine that you are forced by some authority to send them to a place for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to a place where you know that they will unsafe, unhappy and possibly grossly, maybe fatally misunderstood. How would that feel?

And how much worse must that be for us who care for such fragile children every day? I ask you not as councillors or as administrators, but as parents, grandparents and decent human beings, please do not close our school.

I will extend an invitation to all members of the Cabinet to attend a meeting with our parents and visit our children. Come along and get to know them and see the wonderful work that Lyndale does. Thank you for your attention.

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Thank you for a very clear presentation. Thank you very much.

(applause)

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
OK, can I now ask Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) to come and put forward and introduce the report, Julia.

JULIA HASSALL
Thank you Chair. I just want to start by saying I appreciate that what I’m going to say now will sound very cold and factual following on from Dawn’s description of the some of the children at Lyndale and indeed our own report and I just want to acknowledge that before I start my presentation.

From the outset, I think this report is saying that this report is being brought to Cabinet this evening to seek permission to consult on closing the school and it’s not seeking permission to actually close the school.

Meeting the needs of the children is actually central to our concern and we are starting by working in partnership with the school to create an up to date needs assessment for each child. There’s real commitment and I put it to you now that the process is to be very transparent and open.

The report sets out the background and the reasons why it’s felt necessary to consult on closing Lyndale School down. Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient places, school places in their area to ensure fair access to educational opportunity to promote the fulfilment of every child’s potential.

To do this any plans must consider the educational benefits for children, value for money and the way schools can develop collaborative practice for the benefit of the children. In this instance the local authority will need to take into account current provision for children with complex learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties at the Lyndale School, Elleray Park and Stanley primary schools, Foxfield and Meadowside secondary schools.

The reasons for considering on consulting on closure of the school are set out in paragraph 2.4 of the report. Closure of the school is being proposed for consideration because the viability of the school is compromised by the small size and falling roll which both contribute to a difficult financial position.

This proposal is not being made to Cabinet because of the quality of educational standards at the school. The most recent OFSTED inspection from November 2012 judged that Lyndale School was a good school and that pupil care and support, behaviour and safety were assessed to be outstanding.

In terms of the falling school roll, by way of background if every available place was taken then the occupancy would be 100%. Over the last seven years, the Lyndale School’s average occupancy has been 59% and there are currently twenty-four children at the school out of a total of forty places.

The size of the school and the numbers of pupils contributes to, as I’ve said previously, a difficult financial position with the likelihood of a deficit of £72,000 without any other action for 2014/15 which is 9% of the school’s budget and the potential for this to increase to £232,000 based on the numbers of children at Lyndale on the school roll.

Just to say a little bit by way of background about the funding reforms. Funding for pupils with special educational needs changed in April last year. The new system is called place plus. This means that the government pays £10,000 for each child that the schools place. In Wirral this year it’s being introduced gradually, but in future with £10,000 paid per a place, with 24 children in a forty place school this could mean a shortfall now of sixteen places or £160,000.

A Cabinet report that we’re presenting later this evening recommends a new approach to high needs top ups of … dependant on the child’s level of needs. This …

The top up now per a child is dependant on the additional needs of the child. It’s set by the local authority in agreement with the special schools and high needs providers on the Wirral who make recommendations to their representatives on the Schools Forum.

The majority of the children at the Lyndale School will receive the maximum top up payment per a child of £16,000 based on their profound and multiple learning difficulties which was described to us so clearly by Dawn.

This is the highest band which applies to all four special schools on Wirral for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties. These national funding reforms have brought the Lyndale School provision into sharp focus. One of the difficulties the school faces is in terms of its small size and therefore large unit costs.

Should a decision be taken in the future to close Lyndale School, then the proposal at this stage would be to expand Elleray Park School and Stanley School so that the children with complex learning difficulties including the children with profound and multiple learning difficulties are educated and cared for on the same school site whilst recognising the individual needs of each child. This would not simply be a case of adding children into existing schools. We’re very carefully considering how each school will need to change to fully meet the needs of the children from the Lyndale School.

It’s proposed to expand the numbers of children across both schools up to two hundred and thirty children. Building work at Elleray Park is already planned to address sufficiency and suitability issues and this will be through a one-off capital investment. .. recent OFSTED reports, Elleray Park School was judged to be an outstanding school whilst Stanley School was judged to be a good school with outstanding leadership and partnership.

It’s very important to say that at this stage, the closure of the school appears to be the most viable option after having considered a number of different options attached as appendix two. However if this report is agreed by Cabinet, this will be the start of a lengthy consultation process with parents, staff and stakeholders but all available options will be considered including previously considered options set out in the appendix.

In terms of consultation, if Cabinet agree, then what will follow is a period of twelve weeks consultation after which a further report will be presented to Cabinet detailing the findings of this initial consultation. If the second report recommends the closure of the school and Cabinet agrees, a further formal six week consultation will follow. This is known as a representation period and the final report will .. to before Cabinet. It is only at this stage that a decision to close the school should that be approved can be taken.

My report sets out how a number of meetings with all representative bodies including meetings with parents and carers of … where a number of questions have been raised. The minutes and results of some questions will be sent to all parent carers next week. There is a commitment to work with the school to ensure full up to date needs assessment on each child as soon as possible which will help determine how children’s needs can be met which is very much a sustainable way forward. Should the decision be made tonight to proceed to consultation, a full schedule of consultation events will take place and they’ll be published.

In summary, I want to conclude by saying that considering the closure of a school is difficult and distressing particularly when children have such special needs as the Lyndale School does. It’s clearly important that Lyndale is a place at the centre of our concerns and that the special educational needs assessment improvement test is applied with rigour.

The test requires any future plans to demonstrate our children will maintain the quality of current provision and indeed improve upon it. I recommend that Cabinet agree to consult on closure of the Lyndale School and that I’m authorised to compile and produce the appropriate documentation to start the consultation as soon as is practically possible. Thank you.

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
Thanks Julia very much. OK, so I’m now going to ask Tony Smith whose the Cabinet Member for Childrens Services to make some comments.

CLLR TONY SMITH
OK, thanks for that Chair. Thanks very much Dawn for that. Dawn can I first of all say that I certainly will come round with you and meet with the staff and parents at Lyndale and if necessary spend as many days as possible in the school and can I also make this clear? This is a consultation, the officers have already formed a view on Lyndale School and that.

Having worked in that area I do know the concerns of parents and the environment looking at the school at Lyndale and that. I’m also very conscious that it has been an outstanding service to the Authority. You’ve always had good or outstanding OFSTED reports and that and over the last sort of six or seven years the numbers have been falling in the school and that has to be a bit of a problem and that but I do want to make this very, very clear that with regarding how open and transparent the process is.

If you do need any questions answered, if you do need any officer support I will ensure that you know that that is available and you know anyway that will be allowed like that. No options are out at this stage, I’ll make that clear as well. Even if the options are not in the papers that have been put forward, if people have other options then we will certainly listen to those options as well and that.

We are very lucky I have to say in this Authority to have outstanding special schools. It’s not often the case in local authorities that that happens and that. Whether it’s Lyndale or Elleray or Stanley or the other special schools we do really, really well in the Authority. So we do put our children in special educational needs with a high priority and I want to ensure that continues that way.

If there was any change and I don’t know whether there that would be enough … We will listen to the cuts consultation and that we are happy to say that we do have other outstanding schools and that.

So I don’t want to say much more than that really. I will come round into the school with some other Cabinet Members, they need to come round and making sure that happens as well. If you need help and support from the Authority, if you’ve got any question you want to ask or anything you feel you has to go in then we certainly would support that.

I’m happy with the content of the Director’s report. I think it’s been fair. It’s outlined what the pros and what’s happened in the organisation over the last six or seven years and that. The position that we are in at the moment, also the changes that have been brought about nationally and that. We’ll certainly keep an open mind. I think the twelve weeks consultation should give us sufficient time to be able to engage in that process and that but feel free to come back to me at any time if there’s any queries and that if necessary I’ll certainly revisit the school and that but thank you very much on behalf of the Cabinet for that contribution and I will be seeing you …

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
OK thanks Tony. OK, can I just say a few words. I mean first of all thanks to Dawn for such a clear presentation. I think that was really helpful to hear first hand.

I mean the other thing I want to say you know there’s no question Lyndale is a fantastic school, it provides you know a high quality education for its pupils and nobody would want to take a decision like this lightly. So I think it is important that we allow sufficient time for all options to be properly considered and it is important that we as Cabinet Members and Tony as the Cabinet Member for Childrens Services keep an open mind on all the options.

Appendix 2 of this report there are eight options identified. I know from personal experience when I was Cabinet Member for Childrens Services I know that if other options emerge during the consultation then I think that’s absolutely fine and we need to consider them, but I think you know we need to make sure that the outcome being completely open and transparent process for how we go about looking at this and obviously any help, support, advice, guidance you need… that we can give to help this process and for the parents and governors and the staff and everybody to feel that their voices have been heard and we’re happy to give that help and advice.

So I think the main thing now is in my view is to agree this report. We’re not making any decision tonight about any particular option. We’re just agreeing to consult around those options.

I myself, you know I’ve been down to back into Lyndale before and I’m sure there are other Cabinet Members who will avail themselves of the opportunity to go and have a look at the school and its staff, governors and parents I think that’s absolutely fine. So by the time that we come back to Cabinet with a further report at the end of the consultation period everybody hopefully will be content that we’ve done a proper sort of job making sure that we’ve looked at every possible option and certainly Dawn you’ve spoke tonight with passion about your feelings and we will sort of take those feelings on board.

So I think really that’s all I want to say, I just want to thank Dawn and the other parents and governors for coming here tonight and I want to add my support to Tony for recommendations outlined in the report at paragraph twelve that we agree to consult on the closure of Lyndale School, that the Director of Children’s Services or her nominee be authorised to compile the appropriate consultation documentation and proceed with the consultation exercise as soon as practically possible. Can I ask Cabinet if we can agree to those recommendations?

CABINET
Agreed.

CLLR PHIL DAVIES
OK, so we’ve agreed those recommendations. I’d like to again thank everybody who’s coming tonight to hear this report for your attendance and I really do sincerely look forward to the consultation and making sure that everybody is given an opportunity to have their say. So thank you very much for your attendance tonight. OK, I’ll make a pause at that point and allow people who are just here for Lyndale if they want to leave they can do so. So we’ll just have a couple of minutes adjournment.

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Baldrick has a “cunning plan” about horse trading (satire)

The following is a work of satire. Any similarities to people living or dead are purely coincidental.

Baldrick has a cunning plan about horse trading

HORSE TRADING

John Brace

INT. A LARGE OFFICE ROOM OF TYRRELL COUNCIL – DAY

BALDRICK
I have a cunning plan.

BLACKADDER
Does it involve turnips?

BALDRICK
No.

BLACKADDER
Does it involve closing half of the local libraries because Deputy Big Cheese is still cheesed off about that?

BALDRICK
No.

BLACKADDER
It doesn’t involve overcharging the disabled?

BALDRICK
No, my plan involves horses.

BLACKADDER
Horses? Well that’s new I suppose, but we’re a local council, we do serious stuff like schools and social services. We don’t horse around!

BALDRICK
Ahh, but this is a cunning plan involving other people’s horses.

BLACKADDER
Other people’s horses? Isn’t that theft?

BALDRICK
Have you heard of Turnbank Farm?

BLACKADDER
No.

BALDRICK
Well this council owns it. We rent it out to a riding stables for a pittance of a rent. The land is worth millions.

BLACKADDER
I still don’t understand what your cunning plan is.

BALDRICK
Well the lease comes up for renewal soon. My cunning plan is to send the tenants a letter saying we’ll renew the lease. The tenants will be lulled into a false sense of security and will think we want to renew. We then wait for the existing lease to expire then we can get them evicted. The land can then be sold for millions for housing and it’s on a flood plain!

BLACKADDER
That is a very dastardly, diabolical cunning plan. Is it legal though?

BALDRICK
Well if anyone queries why we sent the wrong letter, with all the bad things that have happened here over the past few years it’ll just be put down to incompetence rather than design.

BLACKADDER
That is the most evil, diabolical cunning plan you’ve ever come up with Baldrick. Not only are you suggesting we use trickery to get what we want but you’re suggesting houses should be built on a flood plain.

We just have to make sure none of the local press or bloggers find out before we get a judge to sign off on a possession order otherwise we’ll be foiled (and probably sacked). In case our in-house solicitor opens his mouth about this in court make sure he’s on holiday when it comes to trial.

BALDRICK
Certainly, Blackadder. Who will we get instead?

BLACKADDER
Well when the public find out about all this going on they’ll need cheering up, how about we get the famous comedian Dara O’Briain to represent us in court?

BALDRICK
I’m afraid the cupboard is a little bare after agreeing all those gagging orders, so we can’t afford the famous comedian Dara O’Briain. How about Sally O’Brion instead? She’ll only cost us £1,800.

BLACKADDER
Great. Let’s do it then. If anyone kicks up a fuss afterwards we’ll just say that it’s part of our job description to act “in a commercial manner” so they can’t sack us.

THE END OR IS IT?

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Baldrick has a “cunning plan” about horse trading (satire)

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