Expense claim forms for Councillor Tony Smith 2013 to 2014 reveal mysterious Lyndale School meeting in February 2013
Expense claim forms for Councillor Tony Smith 2013 to 2014 reveal mysterious Lyndale School meeting in February 2013
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
Councillor Tony Smith is a Labour Party councillor for Upton ward. He is the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services. His expense claims relate mileage claims for travel to Cabinet meetings, the Youth Parliament meeting in November 2013, Council meetings, meetings of the Health and Wellbeing Board, meetings of the Schools Forum, meetings of the Children’s Trust Board, attendance at a social workers conference at the Floral Pavilion, the meeting of 5th February 2014 to consider the Lyndale School call ins, meetings of the Youth and Play Service Advisory Committee, a safeguarding meeting at Acre Lane, meetings with staff, training sessions and a meeting with parents and “Mr D” (or possibly “Ms D” or “Mc, D”) at Lyndale School on the 1st February 2013.
Some of his claims were not allowed, all seven disallowed claims relate to Cabinet meetings.
The meeting with parents and the mysterious “Mr D” (or possibly “Ms D” or “Mc, D”) on page 7 at Lyndale School on the 1st February 2013 comes as a surprise to me and this was three weeks before Wirral Council valued the land and buildings at Lyndale School at £2,696,103.00 and many months before the plan for closing the school became known to the public just before Christmas 2013.
Could the mysterious “Mr D” (or possibly “Ms D” or “Mc, D”) referred on page 7 be David Armstrong (Wirral Council’s Assistant Chief Executive/Head of Universal and Infrastructure Services)? Mr David Armstrong has responsibilities for school assets such as the land and buildings is on or does it refer to someone else? Who were the parents and the mysterious “Mr D” (or possibly “Ms D” or “Mc, D”) that Cllr Tony Smith met with at Lyndale School? What was talked about at this meeting and what was it about?
UPDATED 15:51 Lyndale School visitors’ book shows that Cllr Tony Smith, Julia Hassall and Dawn Hughes all signed the visitors’ book around the same time on that day. It is possible that Cllr Tony Smith is referring to parents + Mc (referring to Alison McGovern MP) and D (referring to Dawn Hughes).
Back in February 2014 David Armstrong denied he had visited the school and that anyone else in his team had gone to look at Lyndale School.
David Armstrong stated at a public meeting on the 27th February 2014 “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.”
and
“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.”
Below are the nine pages of expenses forms submitted by Councillor Tony Smith.
Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 1Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 2Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 3Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 4Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 5Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 6Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 7Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 8Cllr Tony Smith expenses claim 2013 2014 page 9
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Wirral Council valued Lyndale School land and buildings at £2,696,103.00 in February 2013
Wirral Council valued Lyndale School land and buildings at £2,696,103.00 in February 2013
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
One of the issues that was raised during the consultation on Lyndale School (and the call in) was how much The Lyndale School would be worth to Wirral Council as an asset if in the future the school was closed, declared a surplus asset and sold by Wirral Council? The 2012/13 asset register assigns a value to the buildings of £1,788,103.00 and land of 908,000.00 (total £2,696,103.00) valued on 22nd February 2013 (as part of its regular quinquennial or five yearly valuation).
A summary of the responses given by David Armstrong at the meetings I was at (such as the consultation meeting in June and the February call in) was that he personally had deliberately not visited the site to avoid the rumour spreading that Wirral Council was disposing of the site and that there were hoops Wirral Council would have to jump through before even getting to that stage, three of those being a decision that the school would have to close, then declared a surplus asset by a politician/s and permissions from the Secretary of State too before even reaching the stage where they could dispose of it.
The issue of the extra capital work on other schools (which costs the council money) to provide extra places for the Lyndale School children if it closed was known and quantified as obviously building work has to start well in advance of being completed due to obtaining planning permission, contract tender rules (such as getting quotes and bids for the work) and the fact that building work on schools tends to be done during school holidays to prevent disruption to what schools are there to do.
What’s interesting is in a recent response to a Freedom of Information request to former councillor Ian Lewis, Wirral Council have (finally) released the 2012/13 asset register. I read the 2012/13 asset register this morning and it does contain an entry for The Lyndale School. Bear in mind this is for the 2012/13 local authority year (1/4/2012 to 30/3/2013) which was audited as part of the audit of that year (12/13)’s accounts at some point between 1/4/13 and 30/9/13.
As is well known already, formal plans to close the Lyndale School became known to the public around December 2013 but there were rumours of closure plans before then. The entry for The Lyndale School is as follows:
RAM Ref Building 000341 RAM Ref Land 000342 NLPG 42069200 Address The Lyndale School Street Lyndale Avenue Town Eastham Postcode CH62 8DE Description Special School Controlling Department CYPD Asset Type PPE Status Land and buildings Valuation Basis (See below for definitions) FV(DRC) Buildings Value (Required for DRC and EUV valuations only) 1,788,103.00 Land Value (Required for DRC and EUV valuations only) 908,000.00 Value (Applies to MV entries only) Asset Value 2,696,103.00 Value addition check ok Asset Life Years (Required for DRC & EUV valuations only) 30 Date of revaluation 22/2/2013 Date assets physically verified (if not – state reason) 22/2/2013 Valuer Sarah Duncan Comments Valuation year 2012/13 Valuation required 12/13 y Valuation reasons Quinquennial Disposal reason Disposal proceeds Revisions made y Is property held solely to earn rentals or for capital appreciation or both? Is property used in the production or supply of goods or services or for administrative purposes? Is property for sale in the ordinary course of operations? Is earning rentals the outcome of a council policy (e.g. regeneration policy)? Is the property social housing? Investment Property Classification Not Investment AHFS Criterion 1: Available for immediate sale, etc? AHFS Criterion 2: Sale highly probably, etc? AHFS Criterion 3: Actively marketed? AHFS Criterion 4: Expected to qualift for recognition as a completed sale within 1 year of date of classification? AHFS Classification Not AHFS
This entry in the asset register of course raises a lot of questions. A regular five yearly revaluation was done on the Lyndale School in February 2013. Any valuation (if a further one was done) between 1st April 2013 and 30th March 2014 would be on the 2013/14 asset register.
The 2012/13 asset register was audited as part of the 2012/13 accounts over the period 1st April 2013 to 30th September 2013. However the asset register would’ve been available for management purposes well before this audit was complete. Within two months of that audit being complete the public became aware of the plans to close the school.
So management at Wirral Council would’ve had the Lyndale School valuation from February 2013 available in informing their plans (whether they asked for this information to be provided is another question though).
However, as the school and land that The Lyndale School is on is an asset of Wirral Council now used for education (and specifically adapted for use as a special school), surely it makes no economic sense to close it down?
If it’s closed, the costs of the building (Council Tax, maintenance etc) will still be there.
If it’s closed, the children would be moved to another school so staff costs would stay, Wirral Council would be paying for building costs on two buildings then, the school they move to and Lyndale School sitting empty.
If we look back to the closure of Cole Street Primary School in Birkenhead, there was a very long time between the school being closed and it being sold. During this time it appeared to be unused each time I passed it especially after it was declared surplus to requirements.
There is another question this raises though.
Do the capital works on buildings to increase places elsewhere in the schools system so the Lyndale School children have somewhere to go to should the school close exceed the valuation of the Lyndale School?
If they do, then don’t these plans not make any economic sense whatsoever (unless I’m missing something)?!
The Cabinet decision on 4th September to go ahead to the next stage on closing Lyndale School was “called in” by Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors yesterday (lead signatory Cllr Paul Hayes (Conservative)) and will now not be implemented until there is a future meeting of the Coordinating Committee soon to decide what to do next.
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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)
Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)
Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014 (who chaired the consultation meeting at Acre Lane on the 16th June)
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This transcript below starts at 1:05:50 in the video above.
DAVID ARMSTRONG (ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE)
Just before we get to it, just before we get to it, I’ll just make the point about you’ll know there a number of people sitting here who will know we’re having discussions about Elleray Park and Stanley …(unclear)… and more recently we’ve been having discussions about Foxfield based on comments that have been made towards us.
Subsequently and clearly I’ve got to talk about the nature around the Wallasey School, but what was referred to was Wallasey School is currently based at an outpost base where inevitably …(unclear)… similar …(unclear)… some space …(unclear)… and I think that’s a very short-term arrangement, so it’s nothing at all to do with the Lyndale School.
TOM HARNEY (CHAIR OF GOVERNORS)
Well thanks for that point about a shared site.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
Can I just come back to the point the gentleman made at the back you know? I’ll come back in a minute on what Alison McGovern said. You’ve said why haven’t we got parents at the front telling?
GENTLEMAN AT BACK
I said there’s, I don’t want to object, but whether it was legal.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
and I had a meeting with the Chief Executive of the Council, Graham Burgess. There were three parent governors, two of whom are here tonight and they said to Graham Burgess and myself, it feels like we’re not having straightforward consultation about some of these issues. We don’t know err what you’re doing to investigate the other eight options along with the other proposals that have come forward and what we have done and what Alison McGovern also said was I think, was is there something about, can you recreate Lyndale ethos in a different setting? Can you explore that and so we’ve had one meeting so far, we’ve got another meeting on Friday, to try and have a different kind of conversation about how we explore all the different options because I think the gentleman here raised the point when we were at the Floral Pavilion, it feels like when we have these meetings sometimes you can, questions from the floor, we know we kind of almost it feels like defend the position, whereas you can with smaller groups sometimes saying you can have a different kind of conversation but we’re doing that in tandem with these meetings to try and flush out all the different options and look at them in real detail.
GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
OK, well can I just say that the replication of Lyndale and that’s what I want to talk about. Lyndale even though we knew at the beginning of the year and it’s fully documented, it says many of the children have had PMLD [profound and multiple learning disabilities], it’s the actual, it’s the vast majority, it’s almost all the children.
JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
It is.
GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
So, the reason why Lyndale is so effective in that area is because it’s a small, lovely school and it does feel like, it does feel like a home and people say …(unclear)… 0.1%, it’s the very most vulnerable of our children. So they are all, this facility actually caters for them because they are vulnerable, they are vulnerable to other more boisterous children in care.
They need more responsible adult care, they are in the absolute …(unclear)… in this Borough and the reason why I’ve gone round approaching all those businesses, is because one hundred percent of the people think that that 0.1% of our most vulnerable children should be the …(unclear)… number one priority on everybody’s agenda and everything else should come second to this.
He received a round of applause for what he had said.
1:09:00
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How was the history of the Lyndale School closure consultation rewritten by Wirral Council?
How was the history of the Lyndale School closure consultation rewritten by Wirral Council?
Phil Ward who chaired the consultation (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014
A while ago, well nearly two months ago I was at the last of the six consultation meetings about Lyndale School. Nobody could really fathom out then why the officers were keeping the notes of these meetings “a secret”. In fact, had it not been for the Freedom of Information Act request of the Wallasey Conservatives I doubt they wouldn’t have been published for a further few weeks (and let’s face it they can use “future publication” as a reason to turn down FOI requests).
The officer chairing that meeting, Phil Ward was adamant in that meeting that the notes were for councillors on the Cabinet. Previously on this blog I’ve written up a transcript of the first hour or so of that meeting. Yesterday I compared the transcript of the meeting to the notes that officers wanted to use to tell Cabinet Members about the meeting.
One of the councillors in Eastham (where Lyndale School is) (who was present at the meeting) is Cllr Chris Carubia. He has written several books for example, The Raven Flies which is described as “finding out the location of his father, Sigurd and his crew, join King Olaf of Norway’s invasion to the land of the Moor’s, encounter a strange new culture and battle a savage new enemy”. I’ve never read any of his books (this isn’t really a blog for book reviews) but this is to make a point. The reason I mention this obscure fact is that his books would be put in a library under the “fiction” section. He used his imagination to come up with them. They’re made up.
This is probably where the notes (which let’s face it officers were going to use to persuade Cabinet to make the decision they wanted) should be as they are veering towards a fictional account of that meeting. Now the alternative viewpoint is, oh don’t be so cruel John, officers are doing their best under difficult circumstances. Yes, they are, but we’ve seen this subtle rewriting of history recently before at the Improvement Board where Wirral Council asked for questions from the public, rewrote their questions and handed out the “approved” version of history to those at the meeting hoping nobody would “spot the difference”.
So what is the proof I have of this? Well yesterday (and believe me it took some time to do as it was a two-hour meeting) I compared the notes to the transcript of what was said by whom. I am only about halfway through the meeting. It is only then when you can compare and contrast the two versions that you see what edits were made, what was left out and how things were changed. After all this is consultation, Wirral-style where we ask for your contributions but then officers meddle afterwards with them.
Call me biased (because let’s face it on Lyndale I am and it’s an editorial line we all agree on here but this is a serious point about how consultations are done and how decision-making happens). Is this the way consultations should be done? If the information politicians take into account when making important decisions has been altered in between being gathered and being put before politicians by officer/s is this honest? Does the way the notes were presented originally give anybody reading them the impression that the meeting was vastly different to how it happened and the misleading impression (as apart from a brief list of some present) as no names are used so that officer’s views can look like people responding to the consultation?
Below this is just the first half of the meeting compared to the notes. Things I have added are I hope highlighted in green. There are aspects of the notes that are broadly similar to what happened and I’ve left them in unedited. The aspects of the notes that seem to be at odds with what was said, have got a line through and are replaced with a direct quote of what was actually said. There are sections which were originally blank in the notes and some of the extra detail has been added.
This is so you can compare the “Wirral Council version” to my version of what happened based on the transcript. I hope that is clear. Most of the changes happen to the “key points” column. As names aren’t in the original version, this could’ve originally given the misleading impression that “key points” were made by the public. However this is just officers’ (and the Cabinet Member’s) viewpoints. It would take a long time to transcribe the rest of the meeting and do the same with the last few pages of the notes. If I have the time I will though. You can listen to the whole consultation meeting at Acre Lane about Lyndale from start to finish if you wish. Please leave a comment on this as (as has been mentioned many times by politicians and others before) getting consultation right is key to the decision making process at Wirral Council.
Annotations are added in red.
Public Consultation Meeting re The Lyndale School held at Acre Lane
16th June 2014: 5.30pm to 7.30pm
In Attendance:
Julia Hassall: Director of Children’s Services, Phil Ward Senior Manager SEN, Councillor Tony Smith: Lead Member for Children and Family Services (arrived late not present from start), David Armstrong: Assistant Chief Executive, Andrew Roberts: Senior Manager School Funding and Resources.
Attendees 34.
Questions/Comments Key points
Can we have a copy of the notes which you have been taking throughout the 6 consultation meetings
Could you then have key bullet points, or pick
up the themes and can we see them.
These are high level summary notes and not minutes and we will be using them to inform Cabinet. They are to capture your views
Phil Ward: “They’re not for circulation.”
They will be made public when our report goes
to Cabinet
I have been to 100 companies so far and have asked them what they think of the closure of Lyndale and they are 100% against it.
You are public servants and you should be serving the needs of people not yourself
Thank you for your comments
Phil Ward: “Is that something you’d like to submit to us?”
The consultation document is not worth the
paper it is written on
Phil Ward: “point taken”
When the children’s assessments are done
will they be used to cost need. Will you look at the banding
The assessment is about capturing the most up to date information of a child. This will be done on an individual basis
Phil Ward “then we had captured the up to date information that we retain on the children so that we could begin on an individual family basis”
The banding system is new and it was agreed by the Schools Forum.
There will be review after the first year. DA/AR will feed this information you are raising back to the Forum
David Armstrong “Just on the banding system, the banding system where we have five bands because of the special schools budget. Clearly, it’s new so it’s only been in place for a short while and I mentioned the Schools Forum before.” … He referred to the Schools Forum and how questions about the banding feed into the Schools Forum.
Ed – 1st update: Everything below this has gone a bit wrong (table wise) below this point. I’m working on fixing it! 2nd update: Fixed (11:36 13/8/14) 3rd update 3:55 pm removed duplicate cell in column 1 (above)
Councillor Dave Mitchell:
Will the petition from 5 years ago also be presented to Cabinet?
“Will that include the decisions made by Council which were fully supported by all parties?”
All 3 parties fully supported it and decided not to close Lyndale
“I think that’s a very important issue, it should actually be highlighted. It was a notice of motion to Council and it was fully supported by the local authority at that time.”
David Armstrong: No, it would just include references to previous reports.
Julia Hassall: This is a new consultation.
“We did make clear reference to that to my recollection at the call in.”
Lyndale school is a fabulous resource inside the school as well as outside. We are able to take our children out so that they can enjoy the trees, the garden etc. The idea of squashing us into another school is not conducive to provide a high level of care and education
Phil Ward: “Thank you for that point.”
Is it 5 or 10 places in Stanley School, it is just a play on words
The new building was built to accommodate a higher number of pupils.
The number of extra places will depend on the needs of the children
David Armstrong: “The school’s brand new and what we learnt when the Lyndale School was built was looking at primary schools. We built them absolutely tight on the existing campus. We found that the schools became more popular and also you’re building something for fifty or sixty years. We’re building something for fifty or sixty years, so we’re building to a generous standard and the new style that was built to a generous standard. The school, the school that we’re building had a capacity of ninety pupils. The new building is capable of taking a hundred and ten and the reason for that is that we’ll be building to the maximum standards in place, we’re building some spare capacity because we’re investing several million pounds for the next couple of years.”
Are there any PMLD children at Stanley School at the present time?
No, but there are some children with PMLD at Elleray Park
David Armstrong: “The school was built to take the full range of PMLD.”
I have visited Stanley School and I would be petrified to leave my child there. I think it would be a massive risk as I don’t think my child will be safe “would be absolutely petrified to leave Scott there. I’m absolutely petrified.”
Both Head Teachers are confident that they can safely integrate your children into their school. Across the country there are many schools who do this successfully
Phil Ward thanked her for her point.
Has anyone spoken to Paediatricians or Specialist Health Visitors about this consultation
Phil Ward: “Sorry I can’t speak for paediatricians, but surely the point… No they have not, no is the answer to that.”
What is going to happen if there are growing numbers with children with CLD if you transfer our children into Elleray and Stanley
This is something which we have to manage all the time. We need to keep up with the changes in SEN.
Phil Ward said the question had come up a number of times and the answer was that Wirral Council has a responsibility on specialist provision. When there was evidence that the numbers were growing in any particular category then they would start discussions with schools to plan places.
In your special arrangements to provide an up to date assessment of each child you need to take into account that some of the children don’t have language etc and the environment is as important as well as relationships, friends, as well as a sense of place and security. They need a safe environment and this could be difficult if you mix them with children who have ASC ASD (autistic spectrum disorders)
We have asked our Principal Educational Psychologist to ensure that we have an up to date picture of each child and their needs. She understands each child and if we know the needs of each child, this will help to drive our future provision
Julia Hassall “This is why we’ve got our principal educational psychologist pulling together a group of meetings with the key staff involved with each child, the parents, any health professionals to really understand each individual child but also how the children interacty with each other.”
What aboutCouncillor Chris Carubia: However nobody had mentioned Foxfield School before? That was a great provision why have you not put this forward as an option
This is a secondary school; children come into this school at aged 11. One of the options mentioned in the consultation document is a 2 to 19 provision. We are looking at Foxfield School as an option as parents have asked us to.
Also it is important to remember that if we close Lyndale we will have a discussion about each child and parents can state their preference for any school
How come at Stanley only 90% is funded, will this mean that the other 10% will not be funded and have to be found our of their resources
She said that there were ten children at the school [Stanley] that were not funded and would this be sorted out if the Lyndale School children went to Stanley School?
Annually there is a census for each school. Numbers are reviewed and amended taking this into account.
Andrew Roberts replied, “In terms of places at special schools, those decisions are taken annually. So the schools take it at a point in time, the decision taken in respect of Stanley was taken last November as a census. Clearly we need to be reviewing, as do the number of places at other special schools.”
We gained public support when we fund raised £80,000 for the sensory garden, if you close what will happen to it and how will you give the money back to the general public who had donated it?
This was their hard work and you are going to knock down Lyndale!
There is an amphitheatre; do you know who built it?
It was the YTS lads from Wirral Action
Phil Ward: “We don’t know” David Armstrong: “there’s no decision been taken to determine it”…. In other schools we have always made sure that if we were about to close and transfer the children, we relocate any other equipment where possible. “anything that was in memory of a particular pupil we’ve dealt with that first and then we’ve gone on from that”We will look to relocate the sensory garden
David Armstrong: “I don’t know.”
David Armstrong: “I can’t know every detail.”
No
Ian Lewis
4 years ago officers put forward a proposal to close Kingsway Primary School because it was not financially viable and this was voted against and this school is still here. So what is to say 4 years on Lyndale will not be the same and continuing to deliver high quality care and education.
“If in four years time that’s [Lyndale] still here, who’s to say it won’t be viable?”
Kingsway remains a small school which limits its budget income and there is an outstanding Council resolution to carry out a review.
David Armstrong “In Kingsway, we haven’t gone back, but at some point there’s a Council resolution to go back and revisit Kingsway.”
Elleray and Stanley school do not always provide 1 to 1 support or even 2 – 1 support for their children so if you relocate Lyndale will that not effect their financial viability
The Head Teachers of both schools are confident that they will be able to manage integration of the children from Lyndale.
Ian Lewis
5 years ago at a full council meeting all 3 parties agreed to keep Lyndale open. Therefore the message is keep it open
Julia HassallThe difficulty as mentioned is that there is a change to the funding formula and we have been funding empty spaces in this school. You have been really clear during these consultations that what you want is wherever your children go to school that it needs to replicate the provision at Lyndale
“No, no the significant difference Ian now to five years ago, is the government have changed the funding formula. So Lyndale is currently funded as if there were actually forty children at that school and over the last seven years, the numbers have gone down. It’s been about fifty odd percent occupancy in the school and following the exact funding formula, it will mean that as some point, the £10,000 per a child will have to be applied and that will mean £230,000 for twenty-three children as opposed to £400,000 because there aren’t the children in the places.”
I have an issue in relation to the banding of our children. I accept that they all have different needs but my worry is that my child who is on band 4 is getting £8,000 less than others on a band 5 but what will happen at Stanley School? what band are they because how much money are they going to have taken off them?
We do not think that this will work as my son needs 1 to 1 care as although my son can feed himself he also needs to be fed as well.
Andrew Roberts: The banding is a new system and only came into being on 1st April 2014.
David Armstrong The question about whether your child is on the right band needs to be fed in to their annual review. You can also take this up with the Principal Educational Psychologist.
Julia Hassall said, “Can I just add one other bit, I think it’s important to feed that in through the psychologist when the meetings are taking place as well.”
If the banding was changed would that keep the school open?
David Armstrong:
In relation to the National Funding, Local Authorities have the ability to say what system they are going to use and Wirral chose to do a banding system which has no flexibility.
“decided to do away with this system, which you know because it was easier, but it really doesn’t have much flexibility or address the actual needs of the children involved.”
The difficulty is that by the time you go to the Schools Forum to change this system, Lyndale will be closed
(no response given)
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As Tom Harney (the Chair of governors at Lyndale School) himself said at that actual meeting in relation to another matter “it’s amazing the things that go on”. He was also one of the few speakers at that meeting to get applause. The comments made by Cllr Paul Hayes (a Conservative councillor who if I remember correctly was also present at that same meeting) about the consultation process as reported in their local paper were very critical of the way the consultation process and that meeting was handled.
As I’ve mentioned the Conservative and Lib Dem positions, I should mention that the only Labour councillor I recognised at the meeting (Cabinet Member for Childrens’ Services Cllr Tony Smith) arrived late. It is of course extremely difficult to describe what the Labour position is on Lyndale School other than being pro closure consultation, telling the public that they have an open mind and that no decision has been made yet. A decision is expected on the 4th September on the next stage. The point that Labour are keen to make is not for Labour to do things that would give the impression that they have made their mind up. This was again made at the July Council meeting by Councillor Tony Smith and Councillor Phil Davies.
So in the words of a Wirral Council officer Phil Ward what was the purpose of these notes about the meetings? Phil Ward said “They’re notes recording the high level points raised at the meetings and importantly we will be reporting them to Cabinet.”
I had a look through the notes for the one question I asked in the two-hour meeting (something is there but it bears little resemblance to what I asked). It wasn’t there in any form that resembles what I asked. Maybe it wasn’t classed as “high level” enough. Maybe I should instead have started by saying “This is a high level question I am asking so please put it in the notes”. Or maybe Wirral Council doesn’t like putting down tricky questions and answers and prefers to subtly rewrite the historical record to suit itself.
However this isn’t about me. This is about Lyndale School. Let’s have a look at the notes Wirral Council produced.
Here’s the first line of their notes “10th April 2014: 10am to 12pm”
Err no, seems Wirral Council can’t get the date and time of its own consultation right (which should worry you there right from the start if they can’t get the simple stuff right like the date and time!) It should read “16th June 2014: 5.30pm to 7.30pm”.
Turns out there were two different meetings at Acre Lane as part of the consultation. There were notes from both meetings. Apologies.
Moving on, it seems the “points” column according to the table used are not what the people had to say at the consultation. No the “points” column is reserved solely for points made by officers and the Cabinet Member Cllr Tony Smith.
The more difficult questions raised, the important concerns of parents about what’s going to happen, what appears in the points column? Nothing… almost as if Wirral Council is ashamed as to what was said to these questions to be known in public.
Even some of the answers that do make it are misleading. At least one of the officers is in fact tying themselves in knots and going into policy areas that strictly speaking in my opinion they shouldn’t. To the best of my knowledge all the officers at that meeting are in politically restricted posts. One of these legal restrictions from what I remember is that they are not allowed to “speak to the public at large or to a section of the public with the apparent intention of affecting public support for a political party”.
Now I will make this clear, I’m not referring to Julia Hassall, David Armstrong or Andrew Roberts. These people are senior professionals and although I’m sure people like me make doing their jobs more difficult, I will state now my personal opinion that all three have been extremely professional in my past dealings with them.
This is despite me doing what in any other sphere of life outside the political arena would be classed as behaviour that would lead to people falling out with each other. I have written things (robust criticism would be putting it very mildly) that disagree with their professional opinions and have pointed out what I perceive as flaws in arguments they have used. They know I do not however do this out of malice or anything personal.
That’s just the nature of politics as one of the rules is “don’t take things personally”. Other people’s opinion of them may be wildly different but like myself they are doing a job in a highly political environment, so criticism goes with the territory. They are public figures (as are politicians) and are rewarded with a high salary partly to reflect the problems that having to deal with the likes of the press can cause.
Now you can point out at this point the press is supposed to be impartial. I try to be even-handed (and believe me that’s very difficult at times) and to quote Cllr Jerry Williams recently “There’s no side to the gentleman, he does a very good job”. An editorial decision (and I’m pretty sure the Wirral Globe takes a similar policy stance too) was made a long time ago that we’re against the closure of Lyndale School, but obviously in the reporting of this matter to do it justice we have to report both sides of this issue.
There are people of course that are for the closure of Lyndale School. You are entitled to your opinion too (it just happens to be one that this publication disagrees with but that is the nature of politics)! However one of the extremely important roles of the press in society is to stand up for the viewpoints of people who can’t advocate for themselves. The children of Lyndale School are in that position.
The person to whom my criticism is about at that meeting is the Wirral Council officer Phil Ward. Now I’m not saying he said things downright stupid and overt like “vote Labour in May” I’m not. However throughout the whole meeting he appeared to champion a particular policy position/stance on this matter.
There is admittedly a fine line between explaining decisions that have already been made and talking about decisions that have yet to be made by politicians in the future. The former is entirely legitimate for officers to do. Taking policy positions (especially on a party political matter such as how education budgets are spent) is something that officers have to be very careful of.
Now officers can say in relation to future decisions “based on my professional advice or opinion I advise you to do X (or X, Y and Z are options I’d prefer you to do X). However the decision is up to you.” That is one thing, however they should not advocate support when speaking to the public during a consultation for a particular political decision that has yet to be decided or even worse give the impression that a decision has already been made when it hasn’t yet (even if they think they can guess how it will be made). If they go down this route, their impartiality will be called and can be called into question (and his was during the meeting).
No officer at Wirral Council I know of before in a politically restricted post has done what was done at that consultation meeting by Phil Ward in the way he did it. Believe me, during meetings politicians have put officers under extreme pressure to take sides. Most officers with some common sense (and there are a lot of them at Wirral Council) will politely decline to answer such questions. This is what should happen.
This was however what the audience at Acre Lane found so amazing. A consultation is supposed to be about listening to their views (and yes Wirral Council has a long way to go on getting better at involving the public in their decision-making). However chairing this meeting was an officer who was the equivalent of waving a red flag to a bull. Had he come to the meeting with the genuine attitude of “We’re here today to hear your views, the purpose of the consultation is to do that, we appreciate you being here and we’ll listen carefully to what you have to say.” then I think the audience would’ve applauded him. However the impression the audience got was that he was lecturing them and completely impervious to any other viewpoints.
Sadly this particular officer did somewhat get stuck in “broadcast” mode. However, this attitude leads to the audience getting the following impression and I quote from the notes “No one has fully answered any question. You are just white-washing it. You have already made your decision”.
The Wirral public are not stupid, nor are they children. They are able to read people’s body language and how they say something. How something is said and the person’s body language when saying it are a large part of its meaning. Sadly Phil Ward didn’t seem politically savvy enough that night to develop a positive relationship with the audience. Nor did he seem to appreciate the way power shifts. The senior officers are better attuned to these kind of things.
There was for example in that room that night, Emma Rigby from the Wirral Globe, myself and Leonora. For those who recognise us, they’d know that that amount of people from the press means you have to be very careful what you say. I hope to carry on in the next few days with publishing a transcript of the long meeting itself. In the meantime the below links should take you to what has been published so far.
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