Category: Coordinating Committee

Is Lyndale School under threat just so Wirral Council can provide a further £2 million to a company that already has plenty?

Is Lyndale School under threat just so Wirral Council can provide a further £2 million to a company that already has plenty?

Is Lyndale School under threat just so Wirral Council can provide a further £2 million to a company that already has plenty?

                                             

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts
Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

Last Thursday morning I visited Lyndale School in Eastham. This was my first visit, although regular readers of this blog will know that I have written extensively on the topic and filmed many public meetings of Wirral Council on the many stages involving its potential closure in January 2016.

Regular readers of this blog will also know that despite promises made in February 2014 by senior officers at a call in that matters would be dealt with in a completely “open and transparent” way, that the recent 13 page letter received from Surjit Tour turned down a request for a meeting between myself and Wirral Council on this matter.

Thankfully the Lyndale School appears to be behaving in a far more “open and transparent” way than Wirral Council is!

I wanted to start this piece by describing my impressions of the school as some of my observations about a visit to Lyndale School raise further unanswered questions.

On the same plot of land as the Lyndale School is also Eastham Youth Centre. Clearly the current consultation is about the Lyndale School, however I know relatively little about this Youth Centre. Is this Youth Centre open, closed, working or threatened with closure itself? I don’t really know the answer to that question and would appreciate somebody better informed, or more closely connected to Eastham than I to leave a comment.

Moving to the Lyndale School itself, it looks from the outside like many other primary schools do on the Wirral. Unlike when I went to school in the 1980/1990s where there literally was an “open door” policy at primary schools, these days (as is common with all other schools on the Wirral now) you need to press a buzzer on an intercom system to be let in.

There is then a reception area on the right, which at the time of my visit had many stuffed toy animals on the counter. To the left is a visitors book for visitors to sign and visitors badges on which the names of visitors can be written. On the wall is also a photo of each member of staff who works there and their job title.

My personal view on the latter point, is that organisations that do such a thing, tend to be more open and transparent than those who try to hide behind a bewildering, faceless and largely unaccountable bureaucracy.

As we had both been walking up from Eastham Rake train station, someone we both knew, who lives in Eastham had been passing in their car and had kindly offered us both a lift to the Lyndale School. So we both arrived earlier than I expected, which gave me a chance to see people coming and going for a while and how things were going. Despite the pressures the Lyndale School is going through, staff were professional and the “open door” policy referred to at the call in I saw in action as one of the parents arrived while we were waiting. If a decision is made to close the Lyndale School, this is one of the matters that the parents of the children at Lyndale School have expressed concern about as they cannot see this in operation at the other schools suggested.

There is obviously a lot of trust that exists between the parents of children at Lyndale School and the staff there. Certainly there is (despite the stress the School is under because of the political issues) a lot of goodwill between the parents and staff at the school. That’s something that never appears on Wirral Council’s balance sheet as it’s something that can’t be quantified. This is part of the reason the parents of children at Lyndale School want the School to stay as it is, as they don’t see the same ethos at Lyndale School at either Stanley School or Elleray Park.

Echoing what I have heard Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services at Wirral Council) say many times, I will also make the following point. Some schools are closed down because they are “failing schools”. Lyndale School doesn’t fall into that category and that is not one of the reasons behind the consultations on its closure. I wish to make that as clear as I can (as has Julia Hassall at many public meetings). The view from the public can be to jump to the conclusion that schools are only threatened with closure because things at them are going pear-shaped. This is not the case at Lyndale School and I will also point out that no final decision on closure of Lyndale School has yet been made by Wirral Council’s Cabinet.

I have referred before in articles describing Lyndale School as a “hospital school” as personally I think it is probably a more accurate description of what goes on in Lyndale School. Think of the political fuss that would happen if say in the lead up to a General Election (and I’ll point out now that I know of no such plans) that there was a consultation on closing the children’s ward and the hospital school at Arrowe Park Hospital? Think of it purely from that perspective and you can perhaps see how emotional an issue it is for both the people directly involved and the wider community.

There are many new matters involving Lyndale School I could write about but instead I will explain what I was at Lyndale School for. There was a very interesting meeting of the Friends of Lyndale School Association held there which was a private meeting, so there is a limit about what I will write here about it.

However, I had better explain what and who the Friends of Lyndale School Association are. The Friends of Lyndale School Association are a small charity set up in March of this year and registered with the Charity Commission in June. Their charitable objects are:

To advance the education of pupils in the school in particular by:
developing effective relationships between the staff, parents and others associated with the school;
engaging in activities or providing facilities or equipment which support the school and advance the education of the pupils.

It’s hard to describe exactly what the Friends of Lyndale School Association is, but the closest easily understood comparison to it, is a parent-teacher association or PTA for the Lyndale School. As with all PTAs they raise money to be spent on their charitable objects and you can (if you wish) donate to them online on the webpage on Justgiving website for the Friends of Lyndale School Association.

If the Lyndale School closes, the Friends of Lyndale School Association have made it clear that any remaining funds would be donated to Claire House (which is a children’s hospice on the Wirral). The Wirral Globe are also printing interviews with the parents of Lyndale School (which if you wish to read the first three are on the Wirral Globe website starting here, continuing here and the most recent one is and I will at this stage (and I don’t often do this about someone else in the local media) thank Emma Rigby of the Wirral Globe for her reporting in the Wirral Globe of this story.

Yesterday evening there was supposed to be a meeting of all councillors at Wirral Council. However as most people probably know already a lot of public sector unions went on strike and that meeting was shifted to the evening of the 20th October 2014. One of the matters on the agenda is a minority report (no not the film Minority Report with Tom Cruise this refers to something different) but a minority report about the recent Lyndale School call in.

In fact there are five minority reports about various matters. There is one about the Lyndale School call in submitted by various councillors in the Conservative Group that you can read on Wirral Council’s website. The minority report procedure hasn’t been used for a long time and I think most people are unsure whether it’s an item that could trigger a debate or whether it would just be voted on. Had it not been for the strike yesterday, this would probably have already happened.

After the call in meeting on 2nd October 2014, the second consultation on closure of Lyndale School should’ve started as the Cabinet delegated this matter to Julia Hassall. She therefore probably knows more the timescales than I do. As far as I know (and Wirral Council’s constitution has been through a lot of changes in the past few years), a decision of a call in committee is still implemented by officers even if a minority report is submitted to the next Council meeting (which should’ve taken place yesterday evening but was I would guess put back a week because of the strike).

My concerns about the entire process in this matter over the last year and how this has all been done I’ve written about before. I am not going to repeat myself here. There are however concerns about corporate governance at Wirral Council about this matter that I haven’t expressed in public.

Personally I think it is a crying shame, that on an issue as sensitive as Lyndale School, that all political parties now represented on Wirral Council (whether Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or Green) can’t come to an agreement (behind closed doors if need be) to pause this whole process and have a review.

Wirral Council claim that they can’t keep the Lyndale School open in 2015-16 due to a shortfall between what the Lyndale School predicts they will need and what Wirral Council is willing to give them. The shortfall will be
~£190,000.

I have written on this blog before that Wirral Council could easily find this small amount of money if they wished and move it around from existing budgets if the political will was there. In fact papers that went the Wirral Schools Forum last week showed that through reductions in this year’s budget they found ~£2 million. So where’s this money going? It’ll be put in a reserve and used next year to go to Wirral Schools Services Limited who have a PFI Schools contract for various schools (and two city learning centres) with Wirral Council as part of a ~£12 million/year contribution.

Wirral School Services Limited’s account show that for 2014 they had £1.93 million in cash assets, which is £6.33 million in assets minus their £4.39 million in liabilities.

What’s amazing is that a Labour Council, who trumpets its “socialist values” in election leaflets, it is seemingly happy to make £2 million of cuts in year to the Wirral Council’s Schools Budget for this year (which obviously need Wirral Schools Forum approval and Cabinet approval) to help plug a financial gap in the 2015-16 Schools PFI contract, but when it comes to an amount ten times smaller than that to be found no report I’ve seen so far even lists finding the money to keep Lyndale School open in 2015-16 (from such as underspends in existing budgets) as an alternative option!?

Despite the words of Wirral Council in the past that they would put vulnerable people such as the pupils of Lyndale School first, it seems that the school is under threat whilst capitalist greed gobbles up the available funds. If Wirral Council so wished, it could either end or renegotiate the Schools PFI contract. The schools system should not be run to feed the profits of private companies!!! Nor should vulnerable children have such a low priority!!! These are two of my main frustrations with the current situation.

I will repeat again, if you wish to donate to the Friends of Lyndale School Association you can here. The Justgiving website takes a 5% cut of all donations and charges £18 a month to the Friends of Lyndale School Association. However the other 95% (minus £18/month) is paid directly to them.

I know I will continue to get criticism (and I really don’t mind comments on this blog attacking me) from some quarters for how I’m reporting the Lyndale School issue, there has been however nothing so far that convinces me that all the decisions taken by Wirral Council so far have either been taken in the right way or for the right reasons. If everything was done so far “by the book” and in an “open and transparent” way, I would not be as irked by how the matter has happened as I am.

On a personal note, I realise there has been a deterioration in relations between Wirral Council and those associated with the Lyndale School. If other special schools on the Wirral think they will escape whilst Wirral Council’s focus is on Lyndale School, they will need to have a drastic rethink and not bury their heads in the sand. I will repeat here what I said at Lyndale School on Thursday.

There is a current consultation that the government is running on the draft Schools and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2014. These are the regulations (a type of law) that Wirral Council has to conform to when setting schools’ budgets annually.

At the moment, because of a part of the law known as the “minimum funding guarantee”, for this 2014-15 year Wirral Council could not drop school budgets such as Lyndale Schools by more than 1.5% based on what their previous year’s budget allocation was.

However the draft regulations being consulted on, whereas they (in draft form) keep the minimum funding guarantee for mainstream schools, get rid of the current minimum funding guarantee for special schools. Personally and I’m going to get quite political now, I think it is morally wrong to protect mainstream funding for mainstream schools, but at the same time allow local councils to (if they so wish) to totally change the budget (and therefore nature) of special schools which can in extreme cases ultimately force them to close. Obviously the draft regulations may be altered post consultation, but you can respond to that consultation run by the Department of Education here. That consultation closes this Friday (17th October) at 5.00pm.

If the new regulations (following consultation) abolish the existing legal protections for special school budgets, it will be perfectly legal for local councils (such as Wirral Council) to come up with a schools funding formula for 2015-16 that leads not just to the potential closure of schools such as the Lyndale School but dramatically changes the funding allocated to other special schools as the new banding system was agreed earlier this year at a call in a controversial 8:7 vote.

Wirral Council has shifted money out of the agreed budget for special schools to cross subsidise other parts of the education system, such as PFI. This is of course entirely legal if officers get the necessary approvals from the Wirral Schools Forum and others. However in other local authorities, an underspend in the special education side of matters would not be used to plug financial holes and financial instability elsewhere. Other Schools Forums take the prudent approach that underspends on the special educational needs side are put in financial reserves earmarked for that area of education.

The spare capacity such as underspends of money that was agreed should be spent in the special schools system, has instead been used to cross subsidise other parts of Wirral Council’s Schools Budget. The money however always seems to flow out of the special schools system and never back to it. Had these political decisions not been made, there would be more than enough money to keep Lyndale School open (at least for the 2015-16 year and possibly beyond). However instead the influence of a large company such as Wirral Schools Services Limited with large financial reserves has been listened to, whilst the pleas of Lyndale School parents merely to continue with what they already have, have so far been met with a lack of political will to explore alternative options and a knee jerk reaction to blame the situation on the Coalition government, the Church of England and even the Lyndale School itself, without apparently getting across to the public the personal responsibility that politicians at Wirral Council must take for each decision they make.

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9 councillors vote to make Wirral Council leisure centre concession scheme for Armed Forces less generous despite objections

9 councillors vote to make Wirral Council leisure centre concession scheme for Armed Forces less generous despite objections

9 councillors vote to make Wirral Council leisure centre concession scheme for Armed Forces less generous despite objections

                                                                                                                           

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I will start by declaring an interest in this story as I have a friend who is now a Lance Corporal in the Armed Forces and was recently mentioned in this Telegraph article.

Last month (23rd September) there was a review (by the Coordinating Committee) of a Wirral Council Cabinet decision made on the 7th July 2014 to change the concessions provided at Wirral’s leisure centres to former Armed Forces personnel.

The decision had originally been scheduled to be decided by the Coordinating Committee on 7th August 2014, however the meeting on the 7th August 2014 was adjourned because on 7th August 2014 key Wirral Council officers involved in the decision were on holiday and couldn’t be present to answer questions. So the meeting of the 7th August 2014 was adjourned to the 23rd September 2014.

There was then an interesting meeting on the 23rd September 2014 (which was in part a repeat of the adjourned meeting on the 7th August 2014). Councillors discussed the impact of the proposed changes to the policy and witnesses were heard from and questioned.

The motions at the end of that meeting were:

1) “That Cabinet minute 37 – 7 July 2014 (Transformation of Leisure Services Sports and Leisure Facilities Pricing Structure) be upheld” (proposed by Cllr Moira McLaughlin and seconded by Cllr Paul Doughty)

and the proposed amendment (proposed by Cllr Chris Blakeley and seconded by Cllr Mike Hornby) was

2) “That this Committee, having heard evidence this evening, stands unconvinced that any potential saving (the achievement of which remains dubious) made by implementing the decision at paragraph 3 of the Cabinet report, outweighs the harm this decision will do to Wirral’s reputation as an Authority which takes seriously its duties under the Military Covenant and as an Authority that does all it can to actively uphold and advance the Covenant.

Therefore, this Committee urges the Cabinet to reconsider its decision and restore the free Leisure Passes to all the veterans of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.”

The vote on the amendment was 6 votes for (5 Conservative, 1 Lib Dem) and 9 votes against (9 Labour councillors).

The amendment was therefore lost.

The vote on the original motion was 9 votes for (9 Labour) and 6 votes against (5 Conservative, 1 Lib Dem).

The original motion/recommendation was therefore carried.

At the start of the meeting both Cllr Mike Hornby and Cllr Walter Smith declared interests as former members of the Armed Forces.

The Cabinet Member (not part of the committee but a witness) Cllr Chris Meaden declared an interest as her daughter is a former member of the Armed Forces.

Cllr Paul Doughty (the Vice-Chair) declared an interest as his late father had been in the Armed Forces.

There is then an “anomaly” (as Surjit Tour would put it) identified at this point.

Cllr Chris Meaden (the Cabinet Member) declared an interest as her daughter is a former member of the Armed Forces at the Coordinating Committee on the 23rd September 2014 which reviewed the earlier decision of Cabinet (of which she was one of the Cabinet Members present) on the 7th July 2014.

However the agreed minutes of that Cabinet meeting show that she was present and spoke on this agenda item and contain no record of her declaring an interest at that meeting either during the agenda item itself or earlier.

Certainly the video (below) of that Cabinet meeting in July shows Cllr Chris Meaden both present and speaking on that item which fell under her portfolio.

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The video footage of declarations of interest was earlier in that meeting (see below)

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However in Cllr Chris Meaden’s defence, this item did come near the end of a long Cabinet meeting held in the evening. Politicians do get tired and overlook things. She [Cllr Chris Meaden] referred to a conversation with Surjit Tour (who is Monitoring Officer) at the Coordinating Committee meeting in September. By the way she was talking then she seems to realise it was an oversight on her part and was trying to make amends by declaring the interest instead at the Coordinating Committee meeting in September, when it should have happened at the Cabinet meeting on the 7th July.

Declaring interests is one of the few bits left of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct on which separate legal provisions apply. It’s also a personal legal responsibility of politicians, so they can’t pass the buck to someone else or blame them. The guidance from the DCLG titled Openness and transparency on personal interests A guide for councillors issued in September 2013 states in reference to councillors starting at the bottom of page 4:

“One of these is the principle of integrity – that ‘Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.’”

By my reading of the rules, this interest would be classed as a “personal interest” not a “prejudicial interest”. Therefore even had she declared this on the 7th July 2014, she would still have been able to take part and vote in that agenda item. Had it been an undeclared pecuniary/prejudicial interest it would be a much more serious matter.

This is what the existing Code of Conduct states on such matters.

Personal Interests

4.2 You have a personal interest in any business of the Council where it relates to or is likely to affect:-
(i) any body of which you are a Member or in a position of general control or management and to which you are appointed or nominated by the Council;
(ii) any body:-
(a) exercising functions of a public nature;
(b) directed to charitable purposes; or
(c) one of whose principal purposes includes the influence of public opinion or policy (including any political party), of which you are a member or in a position of general control or management.

4.3 You also have a personal interest in any business of the Council:-
(i) where a decision in relation to that business might reasonably be regarded as affecting your well-being or financial position or the well-being or financial position of a relevant person to a greater extent than the
majority of other council taxpayers, ratepayers or inhabitants of the electoral division or ward, as the case may be, affected by the decision, or,
(ii) it relates to or is likely to affect any of the interests you have registered as a disclosable pecuniary interest.

Sensitive Interests
4.4 Where you consider that disclosure of the details of an interest could lead to you, or a person connected with you, being subject to violence or intimidation, and the Monitoring Officer agrees, if the interest is entered on the Register, copies of the Register which are made available for inspection and any published version of the
Register will exclude details of the interest, but may state that you have an interest, the details of which are withheld.

Disclosure and participation
4. At a meeting where such issues arise, DO declare any personal and/or professional interests relating to your public duties and DO take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.

5. Certain types of decisions, including those relating to a permission, licence, consent or registration for yourself, your friends, your family members, your employer or your business interests, are so closely tied to your personal and/or professional life that your ability to make a decision in an impartial manner in your role as a member may be called into question and in turn raise issues about the validity of the decision of the authority. DO NOT become involved in these decisions any more than a member of the public in the same personal and/or professional position as yourself is able to be and DO NOT vote in relation to such matters.

Just in case someone thinks I’m singling Cllr Chris Meaden out for criticism. At a recent meeting last week Cllr Leah Fraser was present at a meeting of the Wallasey Constituency Committee Working Group when a decision (following a recommendation from the Merseyside Police) over whether to spend money on Ian Fraser Walk in New Brighton was made. As far as I can as I was present throughout the whole of the meeting, I don’t remember her declaring an interest in that agenda item (although I may not have heard her if she did).

Ian Fraser Walk is in fact named after her late father-in-law but she didn’t declare an interest. However whether Cllr Leah Fraser should have to declare a personal interest in whether money is spent on a stretch of promenade named after her late father in law is another matter.

If I wend through all the times councillors had failed to declare personal interests, it would be a very long list! Some are like the last example somewhat subjective. It’s more when councillors actually fail to declare prejudicial interests and then speak and vote on agenda items, which are the kind of major abuses that should be tackled and not happen in the first place.

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UPDATED: 9 Labour councillors vote to continue to next stage of consultation on closing Lyndale School despite concerns raised

UPDATED: 9 Labour councillors vote to continue to next stage of consultation on closing Lyndale School despite concerns raised

UPDATED: 9 Labour councillors vote to continue to next stage of consultation on closing Lyndale School despite concerns raised

                                                                          

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts
Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School which was being reviewed by the Coordinating Committee on 2nd October 2014 L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee (which comprises fifteen councillors, two parent governor representatives, a Catholic rep, is required to have an Anglican rep but at this stage I don’t really know why there isn’t one), met on the evening of 2nd October to reconsider the Cabinet decision of 4th September 2014 which made a decision to consult on closure after the “consultation” earlier this year. Neither of the two parent governor representatives (who have speaking and voting rights) nor the Catholic representative (who also has speaking and voting rights) were present.

According to correspondence received hours before the meeting, a senior Wirral Council officer stated they have previously tried to persuade the Church of England to appoint an Anglican representative, but have failed and refers to this as merely an “anomaly”.

Here is the list of the people who made the decision itself and were there on the night, including matters such as whether they are spokesperson, Chair, Vice-Chair and which political party. I have listed people who are on the committee first, it is unclear to me who the Conservative spokesperson was or whether it was Cllr Bruce Berry or Cllr Leah Fraser who was deputising for him:

Labour
Cllr Moira McLaughlin (Chair), Labour
Cllr Paul Doughty (Vice-Chair), Labour
Cllr Janette Williamson, Labour
Cllr Michael Sullivan, Labour
Cllr Denise Roberts, Labour * note deputy for either Cllr Phillip Brightmore, Cllr Anita Leech, Cllr Christina Muspratt or Cllr Jerry Williams
Cllr Harry Smith, Labour * note deputy for either Cllr Phillip Brightmore, Cllr Anita Leech, Cllr Christina Muspratt or Cllr Jerry Williams
Cllr James Crabtree, Labour * note deputy for either Cllr Phillip Brightmore, Cllr Anita Leech, Cllr Christina Muspratt or Cllr Jerry Williams
Cllr Ron Abbey, Labour * note deputy for either Cllr Phillip Brightmore, Cllr Anita Leech, Cllr Christina Muspratt or Cllr Jerry Williams

Conservative
Cllr Wendy Clements, Conservative
Cllr Tom Anderson, Conservative
Cllr Steve Williams, Conservative
Cllr Bruce Berry, Conservative * note deputy for either Cllr Chris Blakeley or Cllr Mike Hornby
Cllr Leah Fraser, Conservative * note deputy for either Cllr Chris Blakeley or Cllr Mike Hornby

Lib Dem
Cllr Phil Gilchrist, Liberal Democrat spokesperson

So to summarise, that is eight people on the committee and seven deputies substituting for people who are on the committee but chose to send a deputy in their place for reasons best known to themselves.

Ultimately the decision taken at the end of a long meeting (there were a series of votes at the end on whether to uphold the decision or refer it back to Cabinet to reconsider based on concerns councillors had) was to uphold the Cabinet decision of the 4th September 2014. This was taken on a majority of 9 votes to 6. Each of the alternative recommendations failed on a vote of 6 to 9. The alternative recommendations which were lost were proposed by by Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem spokesperson) and Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative councillor).

Labour councillors (9) voted to uphold the Labour Cabinet decision. The joint votes (6) of the Conservative councillors (5) and Liberal Democrat spokesperson (1) voted against Labour’s recommendation.

Although six councillors were in favour of not implementing the Cabinet decision of 4th September and referring it back to Cabinet with their concerns, they were outvoted by the nine Labour councillors who voted against.

This means the Director of Childrens Services, Julia Hassall can now go ahead to the next stage of closing the Lyndale School which is a short consultation (lasting about a month). Even if Wirral Council were taken to court over this matter, Surjit Tour made it quite clear in a formal letter to me that they would not pause the process and would just carry on doing this, regardless of many outstanding legal concerns. In the interests of transparency at this point, I refer to the exchange of letters between myself (mainly the one of 8th September 2014) and Surjit Tour in this matter about the possibility of legal action through the courts.

He is of course entitled to his opinion on this matter, so am I. He has to work within the policy and budget framework of Wirral Council and is in a politically restricted post, I have to consider other concerns such as financial, legal, political and commercial (it’s complicated basically).

Following this consultation Wirral Council’s Cabinet will make a further decision at some future point on closure of the Lyndale School. As it was such a long meeting and negotiations over potential access to Wirral Council’s wi-fi network for live broadcast of meetings as they happen have stalled, only part of the footage of the five-hour meeting at the time of writing has been uploaded. You can watch video of part of the meeting below.

On a more personal note and this is just my opinion, I would like to point out (briefly) that politics comprises objective and subjective tests that can be applied when determining decisions.

Nobody expects politicians to be experts as they are there to represent the public interest. In certain areas such as law and other areas they have to rely on the internal advice of Wirral Council officers. That is why officers giving advice are in politically restricted posts and can’t really be seen to be taking sides in a party political matter.

Although it would be unlawful to drop Lyndale School’s budget by more than 1.5% under the minimum funding guarantee regulations this year (2014-15) compared to its 2013-14 budget, the government is currently consulting on draft regulations which would remove this current protection under the minimum funding guarantee for SEN places in 2015-16. However there is a current consultation on regulations which cover 2015-16 and the draft regulations put to Parliament may differ from those being consulted on.

In fact you only have to look at how the regulations on filming meetings of Wirral Council changed after the consultation and lobbying by people such as myself to show that that is a distinct possibility.

However how much Lyndale School receive this year for the education of children there and in future years is down to a complicated combination of the Wirral Schools Forum, Cabinet, Council and other factors beyond anybody’s reasonable control. A schools formula is arrived at locally by a combination of the Wirral Schools Forum, Cabinet and Council. This schools formula determines how much each individual school gets each year (and is changed each year).

In essence though, this shouldn’t really be about money. The law allows Wirral Council to close a school, however naturally they have to plan for what happens next to the existing pupils. Some will transfer to secondary school well before the planned closure date of January 2016. This should really be about the children of Lyndale School.

I will recite a little personal history here. My primary school was changed (when I was 10), not because of closure but because my parents had moved three miles away and transport to and from school was taking my mother longer than it was when I only lived a mile away.

Therefore my perception of what happens to a primary aged child when you do this to them, is somewhat clouded by that. Twenty-four years later, I still resent that decision, as I do not feel my interests were properly considered especially considering the fact I would’ve left that primary school within the next twelve months to go to secondary school and that we had moved house many years previous.

I can understand though that it resulted in a reduced carbon footprint as I could walk to the school I was transferred to. It ended up with me being admitted to hospital for a week though and knowing how much that costs makes it a false economy.

The children of Lyndale School are more fragile than I was at aged ten. Wirral Council identify themselves in a Equality Impact Assessment that the disruption will have an effect on the children.

However a letter from their legal department takes the contrary view that any potential risks can be mitigated against. Personally I have no confidence in Wirral Council that the potential risks have been mitigated at this stage, as my feeling is that such detailed planning won’t actually happen until a decision to close (or not close) the Lyndale School has been finally made at some future point. At this stage officers may consider behind the scenes that spending officer time and resources on planning for something that might not happen would not be value for money. However all scenarios should be explored if Wirral Council insists on going down this route.

Considering the high costs already expended by Wirral Council on their plan to close Lyndale School, one wonders if that seemingly large and endless budget allocation had instead been used for keeping the Lyndale School open, whether it would’ve been a better use of public funds. Each time they hold a public meeting it costs thousands of pounds and there have been many of these so far. Such is the price of democracy I suppose which has deliberately made closing a school a long and drawn out process so that a “spanner can be put in the works” to stop it at any one of many stages.

Some people are surprised it has not been stopped before now. However looking at the wider aspects of the way society treats disabled people, prejudice and other matters I am not wholly unsurprised by this course of events.

Below is a playlist from when the meeting started. When the video was shown due to an outstanding unresolved copyright claim regarding one of the two pieces of music used in it by Sony Music Entertainment, the video has sadly had to be edited out of the footage of the meeting. However it can be viewed elsewhere online.

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Isn’t it time Wirral Council got their sums right on Lyndale School?

Isn’t it time Wirral Council got their sums right on Lyndale School?

Isn’t it time Wirral Council got their sums right on Lyndale School?

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith, Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts
Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) at the Special Cabinet Meeting of 4th September 2014 to discuss Lyndale School L to R Cllr Stuart Whittingham, Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services), Cllr Bernie Mooney and Lyndzay Roberts

I’ve rewritten this blog post a few times as it is connected to tonight’s Coordinating Committee meeting about Lyndale School and the earlier Cabinet decision on the 4th September 2014.

The funding formula the government will use for allocating schools funding in 2015-16 hasn’t been decided yet and is now out to consultation.

It seems Wirral Council officers have for nearly a year been predicting what form the regulations will take. If changes are made to the regulations as a result of the current consultation it is also possible that this will change how much funding Wirral Council will receive in 2015-16 for Lyndale School.

Certainly it seems entirely premature at this stage to go through a consultation on closure when there is uncertainty at this point as to the funding regime.

However, where does this leave Lyndale School? Looking through the proposed regulations for school funding in 2015-16 a few things did occur to me.

There is a set amount, a lump sum that each primary school receives irrespective of its size of places or pupil numbers. This six-figure sum will be lost to Wirral Council if Lyndale School closes and would ultimately result in less money being spent on children.

One of Wirral Council’s arguments for closing Lyndale School, is that the £33,470 Lyndale would receive in inclusion funding in 2015-16 would be shared between the other ten special schools who would each receive an extra £3,347 each.

Actually that’s wrong. This is because £33,470 is a full year allocation and if Lyndale was closed, it would be done part way through the year (January 2016 is about three-quarters through the 2015-16 financial year). So Lyndale School would get about £25,102 for inclusion funding in that year, which would leave £8,368. This would then be shared between the ten special schools (if Lyndale closed) who would each receive a further £836.80 each, not £3,347.

This was an error in the Cabinet report to its meeting of 4th September 2014, repeated in Surjit Tour’s letter of 30th September 2014 and repeated in the papers for tonight’s meeting. The effect of which is to exaggerate the financial case for closing Lyndale School. To my recollection the error wasn’t highlighted during the Cabinet meeting on the 4th September 2014. However I’m sure there are possibly many other errors in Wirral Council’s education department’s arithmetic, with regards to Lyndale School funding, which I haven’t spotted yet (who in a twist of irony actually also have a duty to teach children mathematics).

I wonder if anyone will mention it tonight or has scrutiny died a horrible death at Wirral Council?

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5 questions answered about the Lyndale School closure plans

5 questions answered about the Lyndale School closure plans

5 questions answered about the Lyndale School closure plans

                                              

The Wirral Globe has just arrived through my door and in it is a letter from a Keith Crowden of Upton titled “Any Answers?” although in the online version its “Any answers on Lyndale?” .

Keith Crowden of Upton asks:

1) How many pupils go to the school and how many teachers and other staff are there at present?

Wirral Council state that there are now 21 pupils on the roll at Lyndale School (as of yesterday 30th September 2014). However it is noted that a number of these will reach secondary school age next year and will not be directly affected by the proposed closure in January 2016.

Reference: section 8.1 of this letter from Surjit Tour published yesterday.

According to the Lyndale School website there are 19 teaching assistants and 3 teachers at the school. However this information might be out of date. It is possible there are other staff too that are not listed on its website. However only The Lyndale School could answer the actual current number about how many teachers and other staff are now employed on this particular day as this number fluctuates. My own guess is that the total number of staff is somewhere between twenty-two and thirty-five (I am assuming you are referring in your question to paid staff and not volunteers).

2) How many different schools are likely to be used for the transfer of the children if the school is closed and would the attention they receive now be diminished in another environment?

Stanley School and Elleray Park have already been named as alternative schools so at least two, however some parents have said they will not send their children to either of those schools if Lyndale School closes. So the number of different schools if it was closed that the children at Lyndale School would go to is likely to be a number between three and six. In theory it could be as high as twelve, but that’s highly unlikely.

In answer to the second part of your question, if the school was closed and the pupils were transferred to either Elleray Park or Stanley School, then Wirral Council plans to spend less money on a per pupil basis than Lyndale currently receives. Currently Lyndale School receives on average ~£33,000 per pupil, this would drop to between ~£17,000 per a pupil to ~£26,000 per a pupil depending on which one of five new bands that particular former Lyndale School pupil is assessed in based partly on their EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan).

However if Lyndale School shut and the former Lyndale pupil/s was transferred to an independent special school, the amount received per a pupil would be uncapped. If the former Lyndale School pupil went to a special school outside of Wirral (bear in mind Lyndale School is in Eastham very close to the edge of Wirral so it is a possibility parent/s would choose placements outside of Wirral) the amount would also be uncapped based on the current policy.

This is because Wirral Council’s current policy is to not have a cap on funding for independent special or out of borough special placements, but they intend to introduce a cap for special pupils in schools on the Wirral Borough from next year assuming they get agreement to this from the various decision-making bodies.

This reduction in funding will probably lead both to less staff time available per a child and/or a reduction in other costs that the school has. That is the view of the parents, some councillors, staff and other people replying to the consultation. However Wirral Council takes a different view on this point.

I do not think it is realistic to state that education would remain the same as they receive at Lyndale School although Wirral Council would disagree with me on that point.

3) Would all children find places nearer or further away from home as at present and would transport be provided for them to go and come back from school each day?

The first part of that answer is impossible to answer until a final decision over closure is made and a parental choice is made about alternative schools. However I remember one parent stating that they moved house so that they could be nearer to Lyndale School, therefore in some cases the places would be further away from their home.

SEN Transport can be provided for pupils to go and come back from school, however some parents choose to take their children to school themselves. If your question is would SEN Transport be provided at the new schools as a choice, then the answer if yes if it was requested. However SEN Transport is not compulsory and results in a cost to Wirral Council.

4) What would happen to the present teachers and other staff if the school was closed?

They would lose their jobs, that is to say they would be made redundant as the school had closed. It would then be down to the individual members of staff to apply for jobs elsewhere if they so wished to do so at that stage.

It is to be noted that Wirral Council made an error in the consultation document in relation to what would happen to the staff if the Lyndale School closed.

Despite how the unimplemented Cabinet resolution of 4th September 2014 is phrased, no jobs are guaranteed. Any decision over employing former Lyndale staff elsewhere would be up to that school’s governing body, the usual legal processes such as filling out application forms, criminal record background checks, interviews etc and the former Lyndale staff would be in a competitive process with other applicants for any new jobs created at other schools.

Due to the funding reduction, even if all the former Lyndale School staff applied for jobs at the places where the former Lyndale School pupils had been moved to, the funding reductions would mean that there would be a reduction in posts compared to current staffing levels at Lyndale School.

5) Would the real saving come from the sale of the Lyndale premises and site?

The land and buildings are valued at £2.7 million in February 2013 by Wirral Council. However it could not be sold unless:

(a) it was declared surplus to requirements (a decision that would have to be made by Wirral Council)
(b) a buyer was found
(c) there are other decisions that would have to be made by bodies outside Wirral Council in relation to the land and buildings before a sale could proceed as it is a school. It is unknown whether such bodies would agree to it or not. For example multiple approvals would be needed from the government in relation to the land and buildings before any changes such as a sale or change of use were made.
(d) in order to change its use planning permission would be required (a decision that would have to be made by Wirral Council)

It is to be noted at this stage that the Land Registry entry for Lyndale School refers to a conveyance agreement (if memory serves correct 1952) between Cheshire County Council, a limited company and an individual. I note that prior to the creation of Wirral Council in 1974, this piece of land was in the Cheshire County Council area. Although Cheshire County Council was abolished in 2009, in 2009 its functions were transferred to Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East.

I do not currently have access to a copy of this document, which is lodged with Land Registry, Birkenhead. Due to public service cutbacks I have to wait for an appointment with Land Registry in order to view and request a copy of it although either Chester West and Chester or Cheshire East should have a copy when the Cheshire County Council records were transferred.

I have given as full an answer as I can to the above questions, considering that some of the detail is either not known to me, would take too long to collate or would result in me having to make enquiries of others.

There will be a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee on 2nd October 2014 starting at 6.00pm in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall to discuss the recent Cabinet decision and decide what to do next.

At the moment implementation of the decision has been put on hold pending the outcome of that meeting.

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