Why am I still waiting over 6 months later for an answer to my question to Councillor Tony Smith?
The picture above is of myself asking a question of Cllr Tony Smith on the 15th December 2014 last year. Here is my supplementary question to Cllr Tony Smith and Cllr Tony Smith’s reply.
The Coordinating Committee couldn’t decide on the call in until Council in February had added two parent governors with voting rights to the Committee.
That was because it was a legal requirement to have at least two parent governors with voting rights on the committee.
Now regulation 7(5) and 7(6) of the Parent Governor Representatives (England) Regulations [2001] state that parent governors representatives cease to be qualified if they fail to attend a meeting for six months and also fail to send an apology.
Now, the Coordinating Committee has met many times over the last six months and I’ve not seen either one of the two parent governors at any public meeting, nor have the minutes reflected that they sent their apologies.
Therefore it seems logical to conclude that it doesn’t have the required two parent governor representatives.
As any decision on the future of Lyndale School could be called in to the Coordinating Committee, how do you propose as Cabinet Member including the voice of parent governors in the current decision and to remedy that situation?
On the 23rd March 2015, I reminded Councillor Tony Smith that I hadn’t received a response to this question. I received an email from an employee at Wirral Council on the 27th March 2015 asking for a copy of the supplementary question. I replied with a copy of the supplementary question on the 27th March 2015 but have not had a reply to that email.
The papers for the Annual Council meeting (part 2) which is to be held tomorrow evening state “The Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee currently has four co-optees – there is a statutory requirement to have representatives of the Catholic and Church of England dioceses and of parent governors – who are entitled to vote on education matters. These co-optees should also be appointed to the Coordinating Committee for those occasions when it deals with education matters”.
In a section on the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee it lists two parent governor representatives:
Mrs Nicola Smith (until 8 February 2017)
The minutes of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee meetings for the last 6 months show:
23/3/15
Mrs Nicola Smith Co-Optee Absent
Mrs H Shoebridge Co-Optee Apologies
2/2/15
Mrs Nicola Smith Co-Optee Absent
Mrs H Shoebridge Co-Optee Apologies
In the six months before my question being asked on the 15th December 2014 (8/7/14, 9/9/14, 3/11/14 and 2/12/14 Mrs H Shoebridge did not attend any of the meetings of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee nor do the minutes show that she sent her apologies.
So, as there have been periods of six months when both of the parent governor representatives have not attended any of the meetings of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee nor sent their apologies it would seem that both parent governor representatives have ceased to be so.
Regulation 7 means they cease to be qualified to be a parent governor representatives and as Wirral Council is required to have at least two parent governor representatives (see regulation 3), then it should hold an election for the two vacant parent governor representatives.
So isn’t it about time that a councillor queried why elections for the parent governor representative weren’t held after I raised this point back in December 2014 and (more importantly) got officers to commit to holding elections in the near future?
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