A Martian tries to understand the incredible Lyndale School situation

Marvin the Martian from Disney's Looney Tunes — Marvin the Martian from Disney’s Looney Tunes

The below is a fictional interview with Marvin the Martian about Lyndale School. Marvin the Martian is trademarked to Warner Brothers Entertainment. Our legal team point out their trademark doesn’t actually cover its use on blogs but in case they try to argue this blog is an “entertainment service”, it isn’t, so no laughing! Yes I mean it, not even a smile! We also point out it’s not an infringing use of class 9 of this trademark as that refers to its use on goods rather than virtually.

We rely on s.30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and class this as “fair dealing” due to the acknowledgement above. When the The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Quotation and Parody) Regulations 2014 come into force in October, we’ll probably rely on them too and the new section 30A on parody.

JOHN BRACE: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed about Lyndale School.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: You’re welcome. We have watched your news broadcasts about this school and are frankly confused. Back on Mars we would be asking our politicians to resign if they behaved as yours do. Why do your politicians think they can get away with being like this?

JOHN BRACE: Well they don’t operate under Martian law for a start. British law gives them wide latitude to do what they like within reason.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Well our politicians always tell us they’re on the side of the people, how come yours aren’t?

JOHN BRACE: Well that’s difficult to say. The yellow, blue and green politicians have said they are. The red ones are being careful not to express an opinion.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: “Not to express an opinion”! If we had politicians like that it would spark a revolution!

JOHN BRACE: We’re too polite for revolutions here, the most the British tend to do if they’re cross is write a grumpy letter.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Does that work?

JOHN BRACE: Sometimes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So getting back to Lyndale, can you explain it simply in terms we can understand?

JOHN BRACE: If someone could they would have. Money is taken off the people in the form of taxes. These taxes are then used for services such as education and schools such as Lyndale.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Yes, we have schools for our young Martians too.

JOHN BRACE: The politicians decide how the money is spent and what on. They’ve decided to spend it on Lyndale this year, but have yet to make their minds up about next year.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So what’s changed?

JOHN BRACE: Well, there’s been a consultation about closing the school. This is because of lack of money, but everyone’s also been told it won’t save any money and could in fact cost more.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: That sounds very confusing.

JOHN BRACE: It is. The other reason given is that the school is small.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: What’s the problem with small schools then?

JOHN BRACE: Seems the bureaucrats don’t like them. More schools means more problems for them.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So this is being done to suit the bureaucrats?

JOHN BRACE: Well no, the politicians decided on this.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why?

JOHN BRACE: Because the bureaucrats told them too.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: These bureaucrats sound like they have more power than the politicians.

JOHN BRACE: Well we’ll leave that discussion for another day. The bureaucrats blame it on the government.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: What’s “the government”?

JOHN BRACE: Another set of politicians.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So let’s recap, one set of politicians “the government” is used as a reason by the bureaucrats to persuade another set of politicians to close the school?

JOHN BRACE: Almost right, but “the government” deny that they want to close the school.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: I’m confused again.

JOHN BRACE: So am I.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Wouldn’t it be easier if we just invaded Wallasey Town Hall and promised not to close the school?

JOHN BRACE: Maybe it would, but sadly as you’re a fictional character it won’t happen.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: A shame, I was looking forward to invading your planet. So going back to Lyndale, apart from confusing arguments about money and its small size is there any other unstated reason why they want to shut it?

JOHN BRACE: Well the person in charge of special educational needs left and a new guy came in. Some people don’t like him.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why don’t they like him?

JOHN BRACE: For a wide variety of reasons I won’t go into because it’ll probably lead to another libel threat.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: What’s that?

JOHN BRACE: Where Wirral Council threaten to sue you for telling the public the truth.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Can they do that?

JOHN BRACE: No they can’t, our laws don’t allow it but sometimes they get a little cheesed off with me.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why would they have issues with someone telling the truth about them?

JOHN BRACE: Because they have been known in the past not to tell the truth, if the public hears two mutually contradictory versions of the same thing they tend to assume Wirral Council is lying.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So why would they lie?

JOHN BRACE: The less the public know about what goes on, the easier it is for them to do things. If the public do find out they can get quite grumpy and ask the politicians to do something about it.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh, so the public have been asking the politicians to do something about Lyndale?

JOHN BRACE: Yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So if the red politicians are so gung-ho about closure that must mean lots of people have asked them to close it?

JOHN BRACE: No, quite the opposite the majority of people have told the red politicians not to close it.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: I’m confused again, I thought the politicians were supposed to be on the side of the people.

JOHN BRACE: Well you’d hope so, but not always. Generally the public don’t get a say in political decision-making, it all gets carved up by the establishment.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And who or what are the “establishment”?

JOHN BRACE: People with the connections to make sure the decision-making always goes their way.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Wow, they sound very powerful.!

JOHN BRACE: They are.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So why don’t the “establishment” just listen to the people?

JOHN BRACE: Well in public they say they do, in private things are a little more complex. Sometimes different sections of the public ask for two completely different things.

MARVIN THE MARTIN: So they have to use their own judgement on matters?

JOHN BRACE: Yes, but getting back to Lyndale.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh yes Lyndale. You have red, green, blue and yellow politicians who individually don’t seem to understand the “big picture”.

JOHN BRACE: Yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: And who all say they’re on the side of the public?

JOHN BRACE: Yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: The green, blue and yellow politicians all say they’ll do their best with Lyndale knowing it’s only the red politicians that will decide?

JOHN BRACE: Yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: The red politicians are doing this because the bureaucrats told them that they’d have to because of a different set of blue and yellow (but not green) politicians?

JOHN BRACE: Sort of.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But it’s not about money.

JOHN BRACE: Different answers have been given to that one.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So what is it really about?

JOHN BRACE: Well the school is for disabled children, some of whom thankfully have a sense of humour and laugh at all this.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Good for them, but it’s no “laughing matter”?

JOHN BRACE: You got it it’s a very serious matter.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So why don’t they just let the children decide?

JOHN BRACE: It’s a novel suggestion, but the red politicians wouldn’t allow it no.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Is there another reason why the red politicians could be doing it this way?

JOHN BRACE: Well another red politician called Alison is in a battle with the blues to carry on as a politician.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So is she on the side of the reds or the people?

JOHN BRACE: She would say both. However it would be breaking the rules to use such issues for party political gain.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But that could explain why the red politicians are keeping quiet?

JOHN BRACE: The red politicians just do what they’re told.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: By who?

JOHN BRACE: The red leader and the Cabinet Member.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why?

JOHN BRACE: Because if they didn’t, they’d be causing trouble and nobody wants to be seen to rock the boat.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So they have to vote for something they may not personally agree with?

JOHN BRACE: Yes.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Sounds strange, I thought they were supposed to represent the people.

JOHN BRACE: At election time yes, but they also represent their party too.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So what will happen about Lyndale?

JOHN BRACE: A solution will have to be found that means the red politicians save face.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: What does that mean?

JOHN BRACE: Well they will need to both blame what’s happened on someone (something they’ve had a lot of practice doing) and come out of it smelling like roses.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But the public think something stinks?

JOHN BRACE: Yes they do, but as I said before the public aren’t the establishment.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: I see, so it’s terribly complicated isn’t it? The blue, green and yellow politicians can say what they like because they don’t make the decisions. The red politicians do make the decision but won’t talk. The bureaucrats have told the red politicians it’s all the blue and yellow politicians’ (but not green politicians’) fault. The shadowy “establishment” always gets its own way and basically the wishes of the children, staff, public are pushed to one side and politely ignored?

JOHN BRACE: In a nutshell, but it’s a little more complicated than that. There’s also a group called the media or press that is powerful too.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh, you haven’t mentioned them yet!

JOHN BRACE: Well I’m part of them so I have. The broadcast (TV), print (newspaper), online (blogs) have all decided to side with the school.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why’s that?

JOHN BRACE: Well the media don’t have to give reasons, but they think the politicians are being unfair by picking on people that can’t stick up for themselves.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: But they are!

JOHN BRACE: That’s a matter of opinion.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Only a coward would pick on someone that couldn’t fight back.

JOHN BRACE: Indeed. However the media are powerful because they influence how people think.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh, including the politicians, the establishment, the bureaucrats and the people.

JOHN BRACE: Yes, however there are wider international considerations too. Nobody wants another war.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Why would picking on disabled kids and closing a school start a war?

JOHN BRACE: On its own no, but pandering to society’s prejudices towards the disabled, coupled with the purple party talking about immigration and other factors could.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Ahh there’s a purple party too!

JOHN BRACE: Yes but they really don’t feature in this tale. They have politicians at the European level but not national or local.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Good as we’re starting to run out of colours.

JOHN BRACE: As I was saying, the fragmentation of society by playing off people against each other and scapegoating minorities leads eventually to war.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: Oh dear. Has that happened before?

JOHN BRACE: Yes. Many times which is why measures were put in place to prevent things getting to that stage.

MARVIN THE MARTIAN: So will these “measures” prevent Lyndale being closed?

JOHN BRACE: Who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Continues at A Martian tries to understand the incredible Lyndale School situation (episode 2).

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Councillors discuss schools, free school meals and 4 Wirral schools in special measures

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Last night’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Attainment sub-committee started off well enough. Before the hour of six o’clock had even been reached, Cllr Moira McLaughlin was chomping at the bit to be made Chair. As there was only one Conservative councillor present and many, many Labour councillors, it was hardly likely she wouldn’t become Chair.

The Labour councillors then agreed to Cllr Wendy Clements being Vice-Chair.

The Chair, Cllr Moira McLaughlin pointed out that Cllr Alan Brighouse wasn’t present, but decided to continue the meeting anyway. To be perfectly honest I’m glad as if every meeting waited until Cllr Alan Brighouse was present things would never start on time as like another councillor he has a reputation for poor timekeeping.

Apologies were given for Julia Hassall who would be late. Declarations of interest were given as some councillors were school governors.

The minutes were agreed. The Chair said that the main thrust of the meeting would be a presentation from Deborah Gornik (who wasn’t there). The Chair was informed that Deborah Gornik would also be late as she (and presumably Julia Hassall) were “at another meeting”. Were they meeting each other? What was this other meeting about? Who knows?

The one officer (apart from the one taking the minutes) that had turned up on time, Sue Talbot gave her report on standards (which is not often a word you hear at public meetings of Wirral Council).

However this was about standards of education for at the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 level, with a focus on raising standards and what happened to the education of those in local authority care (adopted or fostered). The phrase “good news story” was repeated by Sue Talbot many times.

Cllr Alan Brighouse was the first to speak and used words like “pretty fantastic improvement” followed up by a question about falls in numbers of children eligible for free school meals. The answer given was that the eligible benefits for people for apply for free school meals had changed which partly explained the drop and in answer to a further question that the officer preferred to use numbers of children rather than percentages.

The Lib Dem spokesperson (as the only Lib Dem he’s therefore the spokesperson) continued to talk about primary schools becoming academies (at this point I wondered if he was going to explicitly mention Lyndale). Sue replied that Wirral Council still had legal duties towards academies and mentioned the academy representatives on the Wirral Schools Forum and Sue went on to say the good relationship that Wirral Council has with primary schools (which if you’ve been following the Lyndale story is a matter of opinion).

Cllr Wendy Clements then asked about floor targets, the officer replied that no schools triggered all four triggers but they had banded schools (sound familiar?) and there were four schools in band four… followed up by her favourite phrase again “good news story”. Cllr Clements asked a follow up question and the answer given was that they were keen to track children who come out of care but admitted that sometimes they don’t keep an eye on those children.

Cllr Moira McLaughlin asked a question about whether children subject to care orders were monitored. The officer replied not yet, but said that once the virtual headteacher role was shared that id would help. Cllr Walter Smith asked about intervention strategies. Sue Talbot gave a detailed reply going into detail about how two of her team concentrated on early years, one on english and one on maths. She said that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate had highlighted a problem they had with British working class boys and went into detail as to what her team does.

Cllr Walter Smith asked if nursery provision had any effect on children going into primary school. The answer given was yes as long as it was good quality. Cllr Tony Norbury referred to his work as a school governor and asked how the changes to school meals in primary schools would affect free school meals? The officer answered that schools were proactive at doing this as it led to additional funding through the pupil premium for them. Cllr Tony Norbury asked two follow up questions, to which the answers were “too early to tell” and “pupil’s circumstances change”.

Cllr Phillip Brightmore asked about free school meals too. The answer given was that how they encouraged people from September could be different as all infants would get free school meals. The councillor referred to the table and referred to the Wirral West figures. Sue Talbot referred to “pockets of deprivation” in Wirral West in her answer. He then brought up the results for Pensby High. Sue Talbot said that the results might change as the school had sent the whole cohort back for remarking therefore the figures were provisional.

Cllr Tony Norbury asked about English as a second language and the strategies there. Sue Talbot referred to the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service and how they need to support schools, however kids with English as a second language seemed to be better at phonics that people who had English as their mother tongue. She referred to Polish teaching assistants and Urdu speakers.

The Chair Cllr Moira McLaughlin moved the meeting to item 8 (OFSTED reports). Sue Talbot gave a brief introduction and talked about the four schools that were being monitored by OFSTED due to previously poor inspections. One was becoming an academy so would not be in special measures due to this as special measures status disappeared when a school became an academy.

Cllr Phillip Brightmore pointed out that such things “doesn’t help the kids”. Cllr Wendy Clements referred to a “clean start” followed by a comment by Cllr Alan Brighouse.

The officer explained that new academies were given twelve months to become established. A further inspection could happen any time after twelve months. There was an academy planned to start on the 1st September, but it hadn’t happened but the school had changed its name to Kingsway Academy. The delay had been caused due to complexities caused by the PFI contract.

At this point nearly half an hour into the meeting (at agenda item 8 out of 9), the Director of Children’s Services Julia Hassall and Deborah Gornik arrived.

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In Ankh-Morpork, Lord Devices discusses the future of Lyndale, leaks, consultation and golf with his minions

In Ankh-Morpork, Lord Devices discusses the future of Lyndale, leaks, consultation and golf with a minion

Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal — Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal

The following is a work of satire.

Deep in the heart of Ankh-Morpok, Lord Devices (who had become Lord a few months after the removal of Lord Fooks a few years before) was meeting with his employees.

“I’m afraid I have bad news your Lordship, the Guild of Lyndale Workers is not happy with your plans to put them out of work and there is outright rebellion among the people against you.”

Lord Devices frowned. He wasn’t used to his employees openly challenging him like this, but had been warned by his advisers in the past to be nice as it was exceedingly expensive not to, even though there were some days they would try the patience of a saint. His short reply was “but we consulted them first didn’t we?”

The minion, looking rather worried that his name would be added to the list of five hundred employees that were getting the chop thought very carefully about how to reply to such a question. “Yes we did, it was a marvellous consultation! We asked people’s opinions far and wide and received nearly a hundred replies.”

Lord Devices looked puzzled, “and we told them all we would be reading the consultation responses too before reaching a decision?”

The minion replied, “Oh yes, we did, albeit after someone gave them the impression we’d made our minds up already.”

Lord Devices frowned, “I thought it was up to me to decide!” starting to look decidedly cross and rather grumpy.

After first retreating a suitable distance the minion said, “Well, unfortunately a rather junior minion gave the public the impression you would just be rubber stamping our previous recommendations to close the school as per your previous decisions in this matter.”

Lord Devices’ voice got louder, “What? Who dared to do this? Who dared to challenge my authority to decide things?”

Careful consideration of what to say next prompted the following response, “Well as you know your Lord, nobody is ever personally accountable here and no names are ever given to the public, but if you wish we will investigate whether we should take disciplinary proceedings against this very junior employee. If anyone asks, we then have a convenient scapegoat.”

There was a pregnant pause followed by “None of your loyal minions would ever do such a thing.” said with a smile as the last sentence was said in an obvious attempt to curry favour in a decidedly difficult situation.

Lord Devices said, “Very well and is there anything else about this Lyndale matter I should know about?”

Thinking on his feet, the minion said, “Well as per ‘instructions’ we argued that the over ten thousand signatures on the petition didn’t comply with our policies and therefore that only a few hundred should be accepted. This led to us being referred to as ‘childish’ in the press by one of the parents.”

Lord Devices said, “Don’t worry about that, only half the city receives that newspaper and many of the people that do, can’t read thanks to our excellent education system. Is there anything else?”

The minion said, “Well, there have been leaks…”

Lord Devices starting to look furious replied, “Leaks! Who’s been leaking stuff?!” as his blood pressure rose to unsafe levels “Really, I thought we’d clamped down on leaks!!! Didn’t we threaten that blogger recently for printing leaks?”

The minion replied, “Well yes we did, but sadly we can’t keep a lid on the whole golf thing now.

The blogger in question seems to know some aspects of the law better than we do. He even took one of those Lib Dems politicians to court and won.”

Lord Devices started beaming at the mention of one of his enemies having to answer to a judge in a courtroom and losing, “You still haven’t mentioned what was leaked. What was it?”

Realising he shouldn’t lie or prevaricate the answer was, “Well there were hundreds and hundreds of documents. In fact so much our press department would go into meltdown and start asking for time off if the public started knowing about them all. One of them relating to Lyndale was that we were paying another school far more per a child than Lyndale which we deliberately failed to mention in our report to you. It’s a school that isn’t earmarked for closure, but is a special school. It makes our arguments about Lyndale being too expensive look a little hollow now.

The blogger also has a year’s worth of legal invoices containing many, many secrets we’d prefer to keep hidden and some very embarrassing invoices relating to an IT contractor.”

Lord Devices frowned and his voice grew a little louder, “and why did nobody try to stop him?”

The minion replied, “We did, we redacted and redacted and redacted! In fact we even we did it so much we had to order more black marker pens (our supplier is now offering us a bulk discount)! The trouble is he’s clever and figures out what has been blacked out. We assume he must be getting some sort of outside help but so far our spies have yet to report back on this.”

Lord Devices said, “So what you’re saying is if the public knew about these things, if the public knew how much we were spending on things we wish to keep a lid on, it would be harder to justify shutting Lyndale?”

The answer given was “Yes, but there is another matter too.”

Lord Devices said, “I hope this is good news.”

The minion said, “Well, we tried to distract the blogger with a report about Fernbank Farm.”

Lord Devices said, “Did this cunning ploy work?”

The reply was “Well he did start writing about Fernbank Farm instead but he’s branched out into satire and wrote about it as a Wild West tale and now people are laughing at us.”

Lord Devices was not amused. “So what you’re basically saying is this. The press have received a large amount of highly sensitive and embarrassing information (including the consultation responses).

Not only are people starting to laugh at us, but employees have started to act like politicians in outright insubordination at my elected authority!

You do realise that now I’m going to get the blame for what’s gone on now? There’s no way my merry band of politicians are going to agree to take the blame for all of this!! It isn’t our fault our instructions were carried out incompetently! We have to face the public in elections next year, you don’t! The Greens won in my ward this year, even my seat isn’t safe any more!”

The minion replied, “Well as usual we have a plan B which we’ve already started on. For the sake of our careers, we’re leaving this now up to you. Politicians come and go, but officers don’t.”

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A stranger rides in to Wirral Town in a thrilling Wild West tale about gold, greed, horses, the law and a land grab

The following is a work of satire.

Deep in the dusty, hot West was a town called Wirral. This tale is about a land grab, a common theme in these parts as some townsfolk had let greed enter into their hearts.

Outside of town were about ten acres of farmland known as Fernbank Farm where all day the pony club offered rides to the local children. Everyone had fun there and the pony club had been there for as long as people could remember and paid rent for the use of the land to their landlord. Everybody was happy.

Little did the pony club know then, but their landlord wanted them off that land. At first they thought everything was going as it had in years gone by as their landlord even sent them a new lease to sign, which they returned back thinking everything would be just as it was in the past.

However they didn’t know that the local politicians had had a meeting and at this meeting they had changed the rules so a hundred houses could be built on the land. This was deliberately kept a secret from the pony club on the instructions of Tony Simpson.

Once a deadline had been passed and a new lease had deliberately not been agreed (while telling the pony club they would happily agree to a new lease), the landlord went to Surjit “the Sheriff” Tour, who worked for the landlord to ask him what to do. He told them that he couldn’t turf the pony club off their land yet and in order to evict them he’d first need a judge to agree to it.

The pony club were surprised by this move and got Kirwan (a lawman and former politician to help them), he did his best but the pony club soon ran out of gold coins to pay him and asked for help from Lewis instead.

The pony club’s day in court came and in the judge’s chambers in the town’s courthouse a Judge explained to all (including two curious journalists from the local reservation) that it would have to go to a proper trial where everyone would have their say. Reluctantly the landlord agreed to this.

The day of the trial came and another Judge was in charge. The landlord had hired expensive help from far, far away. The Judge said he was very sorry, but that he had no choice but to sign a possession order to turf the pony club off the landlord’s land. His hands were tied, he felt he had no choice but was very apologetic. If their landlord hadn’t been so underhand he said, he would have granted the pony club a new lease, but now unfortunately his hands were tied.

Once again the two curious journalists from the local reservation were there including a large number of the townsfolk who wanted the pony club to stay. The journalists wrote down what happened, told the local people and a story about the trial appeared in the town’s newspaper.

The husband of one of those put on trial felt the whole thing was unfair and complained. The landlord read his complaint but (surprise, surprise) said he didn’t agree. One of the two curious journalists from the local reservation even asked a question at a meeting of the politicians (it took a month for the politician to answer).

The landlord wasn’t entirely happy with these two going off the reservation at all, as well, these two were known to have caused trouble in the past but they also knew the townsfolk would really start kicking up a fuss if a large number of braves on horseback rode into the town because of how badly it had been handled. You see those on the reservation quite liked horses and didn’t like as it tended to be translated “white man speak with forked tongue”.

It wasn’t the done thing anymore for the landlord to label people (even those from the reservation) they saw as troublemakers as “crazy”. They’d done just that and ending up having to pay many, many, many (and probably a few more) gold coins to a Mr. Morton (a former employee) after he’d raised a big stink about their past skullduggery and a large amount of gold coins that the landlord had ~~stolen~~ accidentally removed in one of their “mistakes” and had said that they wouldn’t pay back (later changing their mind).

So what was the landlord to do? They asked a stranger from far away to come into town. The stranger did come into town, he talked with the pony club and he talked with the landlord.

Not quite understanding the rules of the game* Mr Aspin (the stranger) was from a far away town called Rochdale. He was not a lawman, but a surveyor but he did not like all he surveyed. Phrases such as “this is not an appropriate action for a Local Authority landlord to take”, “accusation of dishonesty”, “gnawed at his professional conscience” and “unfortunate sequence of events” ran through his report as a series of criticisms as to how the landlord had behaved.

*rules of the game referring to the landlord’s rule in that they preferred “independent” people to agree with them as if they didn’t it would mean no more gold coins from the landlord for them.

The stranger recommended they send an immediate written apology to the pony club, pay them them the gold coins they had paid to Kirwan and allow them to stay rent free as well as finding them somewhere else to move to.

Oh dear, what was the landlord to do? Sooner or later those two pesky reservation journalists would start writing about it (although on the plus side the landlord thought it might stop them writing about another of their dastardly schemes to try and close a local school called Lyndale) and then their mistakes would end up in the newspaper again which would mean all the townsfolk would know. Oh dear! How could they stop the press writing about it they thought? Let’s release the report on a Saturday they decided, the press won’t be at work then.

As no politician wanted to associate themselves with such an unpopular issue, they got the big cheese and well-known troubleshooter Mr. Burgess to apologise. “We apologise for the distress”, “the site is on of the three most valuable council-owned development sites”, “savings targets” and “we should have communicated better” he wrote as well as making the same commitment his boss had Councillor Phil Davies to find the pony club somewhere else.

Mr Burgess even went a little too far in some people’s minds in his enthusiasm and wrote things like “the independent investigation”… “found that the Council acted legally throughout possession proceedings” when the investigator’s report in fact stated “I am satisfied that the Council followed the correct procedure in the preparation and issuing of Court proceedings. It is outside my remit to make further comments in this regard as a legal process subsequently followed resulting in the Court granting permission.”

So, one of the two journalists on the reservation saw what went on and wrote this tale and here it is. A partial victory for the pony club, but it seems that the fight will carry on.

Tune in for next week’s thrilling episode about the Wild West Town of Wirral to hear how about the landlord continues to get into hot water in its efforts to “evict” disabled children from the local school called Lyndale in another tale of communication problems, politicians, apologies but this time (as far as we know at this point) not involving horses.

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The £1,092,160.12 PFI invoice connected to Lyndale School & why Wirral Council can afford to keep Lyndale open

To the left is a £1,092,160.12 invoice for Wirral Council for paying a company called Wirral School Services Limited under a PFI agreement. This is a monthly invoice, so the yearly total comes to about £12 million. As previously reported this is a story about money and education that is rather complex, but does connect to Lyndale School.

The current PFI contract was signed ten years ago, when Cllr Phil Davies was Cabinet Member for this area. It was originally supposed to run for 25 years in 2001 but was extended in 2004.

For many of these years, if I am getting this right, it was funded from general Council resources and not through the Schools Budget. This year £600,000 of costs for the PFI agreement are paid for by an £1.4 million underspend in money that it was agreed would be spent on special educational needs.

Next year, it’s been stated that Wirral Council want to reduce its contribution to the PFI agreement by £2 million, which led to some angry exchanges at a recent Wirral Schools Forum meeting about the consequences of this decision.

Basically it means that for 2015-16 (the year that there’s been the recent consultation on closing Lyndale) that £2 million of extra compensatory savings will have to be found because of a political decision. The actual funding from one year to the next that Wirral Council is receiving for education isn’t really changing that much so this £2 million issue has dare I say it ruffled some feathers.

I state political decision because (yes there was a U-turn on this last year so who knows really) statements already made are that Labour want to freeze Council Tax in 2015-16 at 2014-15 levels.

However, going back to Lyndale School (soon to be discussed at a special Cabinet meeting). This underspend on special educational needs (money already agreed that should be spent in this area) was shifted out of that budget to pay for the PFI costs. I have requested the actual contract between Wirral Council and Wirral School Services Limited, first by a freedom of information request (denied), now as part of the audit (I’m still waiting).

Based on what I do know, I can tell you this. Part of the PFI cost is funded by a fixed grant Wirral Council get of £5.5 million a year. There are facilities management support costs built into the contract that Wirral Council charge the schools for which total about £3.3 million a year. However this leaves a gap of £2.5 million.

Until this year (although strangely at the Lyndale call in officers stated that funding educational items from outside the schools budget would cause problems and as far as I remember somewhat glossed over the fact that they were already doing this to the tune of £millions for the PFI schools), Wirral Council have plugged this gap.

The problem is essentially due to a political decision not to raise Council Tax in 2015-16 and not carry on with this arrangement (diverting an underspend from special educational needs to plug the gap this year) that although the education money Wirral Council receive is hardly changing that from next year (when there’s a General Election on) the cuts to education can be blamed on the national coalition government despite this being a local decision that’s been made.

I’ve looked at what happened in another borough on Merseyside at their Schools Forum when there’s an underspend in special educational needs. The money didn’t get diverted in this way and was carried forward to the next year to be also spent in that budget area.

There’s no legal impediment in money between different budget headings in the schools budget being shifted around in this way, but as far as I can tell not one of the schools covered by the PFI agreement fall into the special schools category (please correct me if I’m wrong on this point). Therefore there is the moral question to be asked should money previously agreed to be spent on special educational needs be diverted to pay for PFI projects in this way?

Obviously if you’re a parent or member of staff at Lyndale School the answer to that would probably be no. Yes, I have somewhat simplified matters and there are complicated factors involved also in schools funding such as the minimum funding guarantee which for example for this year guarantees that the money schools receive from Wirral Council won’t drop by more than 1.5%.

Interestingly as Wirral Council wanted to bring in its “banding” for special educational needs this year, it asked the Education Funding Agency for permission to drop school budgets by more than the minimum funding guarantee (which is a legal requirement) allows. However this request was withdrawn.

There is also a little confusion as to what was agreed by the Wirral Schools Forum in its five bands for special educational needs. There’s £10,000 for each child, then bands depending on need that go up to £16,000 (band five). However band five was never an absolute limit and from what I remember there was flexibility to go above this in certain circumstances. In fact I doubt putting funding into bands would have ever been agreed by the Wirral Schools Forum without that uncapped band.

You see there is an uncapped band that applies to independent schools, non-maintained schools or schools located outside of Wirral. If Lyndale closed and some children were transferred to schools outside of Wirral there wouldn’t be a cap on their education funding. In fact it almost seems wrong to cap funding to Wirral’s special schools, but not outside of the Wirral.

To give an example of a special education school on the Wirral that falls into the independent category, below is a three page invoice to Wirral Council for one term which totals £535,098.00. These fees range from £10,213 a term to £23,361.00 (or over a year would be from ~£31k to £69k per a pupil). Just for comparison, the consultation on closing Lyndale is because ~£33k a child per a year is seen as high, but when you compare that to what children at West Kirby Residential School cost Wirral Council is actually lower.

44 children at West Kirby Residential School cost £535,098 a term (£12,161 a term). There are three terms in a year, so that works out at about £36,483 a child there compared to ~£33k at Lyndale.

The truth is Wirral Council officers have made an artificial comparison between Lyndale School and other special schools were the needs of children (and therefore staffing costs) were far, far less than at Lyndale School which made Lyndale School look expensive by comparison.

What do you think? Below is a heavily redacted invoice (unfortunately as its double-sided some of the redactions come through on the other side) that backs up my argument that Wirral Council does have the money currently to fund special schools at Lyndale levels (or even in the case of West Kirby Residential School above Lyndale levels).

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 1 of 3 £535098

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 2 of 3 £535098

West Kirby Residential School invoice November 2013 Page 3 of 3 £535098

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