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Agenda item 3 is evidence in the Scottish Borders education inquiry. I welcome Councillor David Suckling and Ian Wilkie from Scottish Borders Council and Murray Tosh MSP and David Mundell MSP, who are list members for the South of Scotland.
Councillor David Suckling was previously convener of the education committee at Scottish Borders Council and Ian Wilkie is the head of legal services at the council. Councillor Suckling, do you wish to make any introductory comments or do you wish to proceed straight to questions?
I would like to make some introductory remarks to set a framework, if that is all right.
Can you clarify which education officials gave you the assurances that everything was being dealt with?
The director of education was invariably at education committee meetings along with all four assistant directors. Each would speak on his area of expertise. If the problem was financial, the assistant director with responsibility for finance would speak; if the problem was a continuing education one, the assistant director with that responsibility would speak. Those officials were almost always at all the meetings.
Were any other officials from the finance department at the education committee meetings?
Yes. The finance department used to send one of its assistant directors, Mr Bowman. I believe that you spoke to him in Galashiels.
You mentioned the Audit Scotland report. When you read about the questions that were not asked, were you surprised? If questions were asked, were actions taken as a result of those questions?
I was very surprised. I spoke to the gentleman from Audit Scotland who came and spent a few weeks with the council and I told him what had happened. Quite a few things did not get into the Audit Scotland report.
If you had that discussion with officials—it is a central element of any committee to ask such questions—why did the Audit Scotland report overlook that?
I do not understand.
Have you raised the issue with Audit Scotland subsequently? Have you received a response?
The council produced a response saying that several points were missed out in the information that Audit Scotland was given.
Were questions or actions recorded in the council minute? One of the problems is lack of clarity in how things were recorded.
Responses were almost always not recorded. I am very impressed with the verbatim report of all meetings here. The council to which I belong does not have such a report. A minute of a meeting would be cut down and would note only the outcome of the report.
Could you take me through the meeting? If questions were asked, could you identify two of the key questions? If those questions were of such central importance, would not actions have been identified in the council minute?
Sorry. I did not quite get your point.
You say that those questions were asked at a meeting. Can you remind me what those questions were? Given that they may relate to the central concern of overspend, what actions arose from the committee meetings? To be blunt, information has not come out in any evidence that we have received. Can you enlighten me?
I do not have a list of the questions that were asked during the meetings. I happen to have a list of the people who asked questions because, when I chair a meeting, I tend to take a note of everyone who has their hands up to ask questions. At the January meeting, 14 committee members asked questions. Some of those questions were multiple ones and some would have covered other folks' questions as well. I do not have a note of the questions that were asked.
That is worrying. We are talking about an articulated lorry going down the road at 90 mph without the driver. Did anyone say, "Haud on a minute; let's see what strategies could stop this"? From memory, do you have any recollection of the questions that were asked? Meetings were held in November, January and then two or three months later.
A meeting was held on 27 March, at which 13 councillors and committee members asked questions. The only note that I have indicates that one or two questions were asked about inflation and about the virements that were being suggested. Those are the only notes that I have from that meeting.
Is that the March meeting?
Yes. That is the meeting on 27 March.
Like Frank McAveety, I have some experience of local government. I would not expect the convener of the committee to keep notes, but I would have expected a clerk or assistant clerk to the committee to keep notes of questions that were asked and answered and to have notes that were much fuller than would appear in the minutes and that would cover the need for action or any follow-up. Does the council keep such records? Do such records exist? Have you been able to access them subsequently?
That is a fair question. The council reached a watershed when we moved to an electronic system. Everything is now available on computer. One or two items seem to have got lost from the last stages of the paper era. I know that the director kept much better notes than I did, but I have not been able to access them as he has been off sick recently. I asked for copies of quite a few things, but they were not available because of that.
Although we cannot know what records the director might have, I suggest that it might be appropriate for this committee to draw his attention to the information that Councillor Suckling has given and to ask to be given access to records that the director or anyone working for him might have about those key meetings.
That is a helpful suggestion.
You mentioned that, after the November meeting, you were aware that discussions between various officials were taking place. At our evidence session in Gala, it appeared that those discussions were not noted and that there was no record of their taking place. We asked about the lack of minutes and advisory notes for those meetings. Do you see the fact that those discussions were not recorded as an important error? Is it fair to accept that, if you knew about them, other members of the council would have known about them? Were the deficit that you were running at the time and the fact that you were in a spending round in which expenditure was going to overrun widely known? Was that going to come as a surprise to people in January and March?
It was going to come as a bit of a surprise. In November, the apparent deficit was in the low hundreds of thousands, which, although a lot of money, is less than 0.5 per cent of what was a budget of around £60 million. A lot can happen before the end of the year with that scale of budgeting. Problems with special education had been flagged up in previous years, but not to the same extent as those that were flagged up last year. Problems with transport seem to be perennial. Those problems would come up in the meetings that the director and I had. By the November meeting, the true amount was not known and could not be guessed. In November, it seemed that something could be done about the deficit level of less than 0.5 per cent of the budget.
I take you back to the situation slightly before November. As I understand it, there was an overspend from the previous financial year. The evidence that we took suggests that by November no action had been taken to make up for the overspend that had accumulated. What role did your committee play in the discussions? An overspend in the education department has implications for the council's education committee. How did you find yourself with another overspend in November without having done something about the previous year's overspend?
As I said in my opening preamble, it had become the norm that the overspends were absorbed—rightly or wrongly. The overspend had been absorbed wrongly in this case, but we had got used to the fact that genuine overspends would be absorbed.
You use the word "absorbed", but there must be a limit to that.
The necessary money tended to come back from council reserves.
So the overspend was not absorbed in the education department budgets, but taken from council reserves.
Towards the end of the year, the education department would be able to find out whether unspent money was available from other sources. The department tended to look to the reserves for any money that its budget could not cover.
Was that a normal procedure?
It had worked for a few years before last year.
I could be forgiven for understanding from the first evidence session that we held on this matter that, according to Councillor Tulley, it was wholly exceptional to charge overspends to council reserves. Are you saying that that was normal practice?
I should qualify what I said. That had happened during the previous two years, but it had not been the norm over a long period.
The real problem last year was that the possibility for absorption had been used completely. The spillage could not be absorbed by the council's reserves. Is that what you are saying?
Yes; that is fair.
Did you assume that the overspend from the previous year would be absorbed by the council's reserves and that the education department would not have to do anything about it?
No, not quite. The education department would cover as much as it could and hope that the council could absorb the rest.
I would like to get my head clear about the situation because, to an outsider, Scottish Borders Council's internal workings are confusing, especially as there is no written record. Am I right to say that you had an overspend in the previous financial year, which started in April 1999?
Yes.
We took evidence in Galashiels that, by November 2000, it had not been agreed how the previous year's overspend would be paid. Is that right?
For the year to November 2000, yes.
I am confused. How did you go six months down the road without dealing with the overspend from the previous financial year and then have an overspend in what was the current financial year?
The overspend in the financial year 2000-01 arose partly because the previous year's budget provided the basis for the budget in that year.
That is a key point. We would like to understand the matter fully. Everything that happened is complex and difficult to understand. According to what you say, when an overspend was identified at the year end in the past two or three years, you had said, "Heck, we've got to find the money from somewhere. How much is left in this pot in the education committee?" The answer seems to have been, "Oh, we haven't got enough, we'll just find the rest from the council reserves."
That had happened in the two previous years. In the year before that, the education budget had a small surplus.
This is important for the future. Was it the culture of budget observance that, if there was an overspend, the money would be found from somewhere?
Yes, but strenuous efforts were made to find the money from within the budget.
You say that, but your response started "Yes, but—"
The money was to be found from somewhere.
We will consider a specific budgetary figure. The staff turnover budget had a deficit of £577,977, because fewer people than expected had left. One education official was quoted in the Southern Reporter on 26 July as saying that the committee had been unsuccessfully "gambling with staff slippage". That was thought acceptable because, in previous years, money had been found and the overspend had been absorbed.
Every committee had a staff turnover budget and was expected to meet those figures. In the current year, the education committee is expected to meet a figure of £545,000, which is also proving impossible.
I want to be absolutely clear about the position. The council had budgets that were impossible to meet and had been impossible to meet year on year. However, the belief was that, at the end of the year, money would be found from somewhere. That was the culture in the committee in relation to its public responsibility and that was the culture that you operated as chair of the committee.
That is a reasonable way of putting it.
Was that the culture throughout the council? You talked about information being fairly up to date and in focus from the council's inception and said that problems started to arise in 1999-2000. Did that culture spread throughout the council? Was that the style of financial monitoring?
I do not think so. I think that the approach was taken by one committee. Other committees had run into financial problems and had to do much serious rethinking and restructuring, but they had sorted out the problems, so I do not think that that culture applied throughout the council.
What you said about reorganisation notwithstanding, I am keen to hear what you think your remit was as convener of the education committee. What were your everyday tasks and what were your specific areas of responsibility?
My job was to represent the department and to ensure that it fitted in with the rest of the council. I fostered relations across the department and assisted the director in coming to some of his decisions—many decisions were bounced off me and the vice-chairman to test the political aspects.
Your role would be not only that of an ambassador for the education department. Did you have a role in monitoring the progress of the department towards key targets?
I had a certain role to play in that. As I said, the department had been working for some time in a way that almost meant that it did not need a chairman or a vice-chairman. There were certain areas on which I would have liked to have been better informed, but I found it difficult to get certain information.
I wondered whether, as the convener of the committee, you had responsibility for monitoring the department's progress. I used to work in local government and I was aware that the convener of the committee always determined the committee's direction and set its reporting style.
The first note that I made is to do with the meetings with the director. The vice-chairman and I would meet the director on a Monday. He would spend the morning with his assistant directors and we would come in for an hour or so after that. At lunch time, we would have a sandwich and a chat about issues. We were all present for most Monday meetings.
Is that the same procedure for every committee of Borders Council? Are none of the chairmen and vice-chairmen involved in drawing up the agenda?
The procedure is not the same across the council. Some of my colleagues were much more involved in the formulation of the agenda. I did not tell you about the pre-meeting that often took place a day or two before the council meeting. At that meeting, the director, the assistant director and the finance people—anyone who would be speaking to a report—would discuss each item on the agenda with the vice-chairman and me.
I understand why, in a financial year, there can be an unanticipated overspend under a single heading, especially in a demand-led service. Similarly, income can be underachieved, as happened in the council's nursery budget. I also understand why there are ups and downs at the end of the year, when the whole issue is settled, and how budgets can be set without a clear idea of the outturn from the previous year. However, I do not understand why, when you had the outturn from the first of the two difficult financial years, you did not crawl all over your budget again. You would have seen, from that outturn, what the variables had been, how far they were under control and how likely they were to be repeated. You might have been confident that the overspend in that first year could be met from the balances. However, surely you would have assumed that some of the factors could recur, which would have meant that you had to act urgently and decisively to rebalance the budget in the second year, having learned lessons from the outturn from the first of the two years. Did that not happen?
With hindsight, it is obvious that things should have been done in that way. However, the officials tried to regularise things. They reported, through the director, to me. As you pointed out, a long time elapses after the budget is set before it is passed and one starts working with it. The previous year's figures are not available at that point, but the figures from the year before that are. I know that work was being done, based on that year's outturn, to anticipate what would happen.
It is difficult to see how the education department could have assumed that it would achieve the staff turnover adjustment figure of £545,000 when it had signally failed to meet the target of £438,000 in the previous year. The Borders area has a relatively low staff turnover. That section in the Audit Commission report read to me almost like creative accounting. Having had your fingers burned, surely you would not let that happen again.
To be honest, strenuous efforts were made to make the staff turnover figure more realistic, because it caused problems not only in the education department, but throughout the council. That has now been recognised. The matter was discussed by the finance department, but no changes were made at that point.
How were those staff turnover figures drawn up? I left Jedburgh Grammar School in 1985. I went back there, with the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, a few weeks ago, and a substantial number of the teachers who worked there in 1985 were still there. I do not know whether it was me or them who found that a sad fact. That visit took place 16 years after I left Jedburgh Grammar School, but teachers are still working there who joined the school at the same time as me or as I was leaving. That is probably representative of the staff situation throughout the Borders. Given that, how were those staff turnover figures arrived at? People who move to the Borders tend to stay, as it is a nice place in which to live. Teachers might move between schools, but tend not to move out of the Borders once they are there. Who decided on that huge staff turnover figure?
I completely agree with you. Staff turnover is low. Perhaps Mr Jenkins can tell us why that is so, as I am sure that he has more experience in the matter. The turnover figure came from the financial department, which set it as a target that each department had to try to meet. I do not think that anyone thought of adjusting the figure because the education department had a low turnover of teachers. The formula was perhaps based on the total revenue budget, or something like that. I do not know how the staff turnover figure was made up.
Did the finance department draw up the turnover figure?
I believe so.
The clerk will take a note to try to find out how those figures were decided on, because this area has caused a particular problem.
I have two issues to raise. First, I ask you to turn your mind back to December last year and January this year, when the Scottish Executive gave Scottish Borders Council £416,000 of additional resources. Your director of education signed a statement saying that the resources were additional to planned expenditure. Did the director of education discuss that with you?
Yes.
You are therefore aware that, some weeks earlier, the council cut £350,000 from the schools budget, as a result of which the greater part of the £416,000 was essentially absorbed, which meant that there was no increase of £416,000 in the budget.
I think that the £350,000 would have been taken out regardless of whether the £416,000 had arrived. With hindsight, perhaps we can look back and say, "Right, we had £66,000 more." However, the £350,000 would have been taken out anyway.
Your director of education, who reported to you, signed a statement that said that the £416,000 was accepted as additional to planned expenditure. That was not true; the figures say that it was not true. Did you, at any time, remonstrate with your director of education about the possibility that he might have signed a document that misled the Scottish Executive and that the money was received under false pretences? Did you raise that with the director of education on any occasion?
I would have to take advice on that, to be honest, Mr Russell. I do not believe that there was anything illegal, but I would have to take advice on that.
Well, it is a point that is being raised. I turn now to my second point.
Is it on the same issue?
It is on the virement of an additional sum.
May I ask a question for clarification?
Of course.
Councillor Suckling, are you aware that the letter that was sent to schools in the Borders in February indicated on one side of an A4 sheet the additional amount that they would receive from the Scottish Executive and listed on the other side the money that was being clawed back as part of the redistribution of money from the staff turnover budget? Were you aware that that one letter contained all that information?
I was not aware that the information was all in one letter, but I was aware that two letters had gone out in some form or another.
With hindsight, do you not now think that that was a crass thing to do?
It was an unfortunate thing to do in many ways. In the circumstances, it was probably difficult to know what else to do.
So you do not accept that it was a crass thing to do or that the head teachers' anger was justified.
I accept that the head teachers' anger was justified. I know how I would feel, if I got a letter giving me money and taking it away.
When we were in the Borders, much play was made by the leader of Scottish Borders Council of the difficulties that are caused to the council when the Scottish Executive ring-fences money for education spending, which he said was one of the reasons for the council's problems. The evidence that we took from schools was that, if they had not had the additional ring-fenced money from the Scottish Executive, many of them would have gone under. How do you square our saying that education is a priority and putting in extra resources with a local council's taking that money back? How do we provide additional resources if we do not ring-fence the money? How can we trust local councils when they put out that kind of financial information to schools?
I side with the schools. Most schools have developed a good housekeeping system using the DSM money. They, and especially their school boards, have come to rely on that. Understandably, school boards have been vocal on that point. I feel—this is not the view of the council or the view that you heard in Galashiels—that ring-fenced money is essential, not just for education but for other disciplines.
Let us consider another virement that had unexpected consequences: that from the excellence fund. That was agreed to on the basis that, in the words of Jack McConnell, the then Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, it would not impact on children with SEN.
I do not think that I have said that there was no impact.
The virement was permitted only on the basis that there would be no impact on children with SEN. Do you not think that, because of the impact that there has been on children with SEN, the council has breached its word about that, even to the Scottish Executive?
Let me comment on the autistic unit, which was, I think, to be located at Innerleithen. There has been no impact on the situation, in that we have one autistic unit in the Borders. Although one was planned, it was not put in place.
That is splitting hairs, is it not? Parents and other people were counting on that planned unit.
Yes.
Their expectation has been dashed.
The Borders is a big place and transport is quite a problem. The more that provision is split up around the Borders, the easier it is for a lot of folk. As you can imagine, it is expensive to maintain things in that way.
Do you now accept that the cuts fell more heavily on children with SEN than they should have, that they have been cruel for parents of children with SEN and that, in retrospect, the council was—I think that this is the kindest word to use—wrong to undertake such an action?
I take it that you are not suggesting that we were singling out children with SEN.
I am not suggesting that; I am suggesting that not enough thought was taken to protect the most vulnerable in the education system.
I think that a lot of thought was taken over that. There has been a big increase in the budget for SEN, although it was not enough, which we acknowledge. I do not have the figures with me, but I believe that you obtained the figure for the annual increase in the budget for SEN when the committee visited Galashiels. That increase was due to the fact that more children were requiring that attention. The budget went up severalfold.
Have you read the committee's report on special educational needs?
No, I do not have a copy of it.
If you had read it, you would perhaps be able to say—as I think the council should say—that the cuts are contrary to the spirit and the letter of this committee's views, which were unanimously accepted in the Parliament.
I suggest that provision for SEN children has gone up, although not by as much as your report indicates you would like.
Let us move forward. Do you accept that the whole episode has caused something of a fracture between Scottish Borders Council and those whom it serves? How do you think that the council and parliamentarians can move the situation forward in a more positive direction than has been the case?
There is no doubt that a big fissure has formed between the Borders public and the council. That can be seen every week in the newspapers, whose stories have been fuelled from various sources. Some of the concerns have been justifiable and some unjustifiable. They are still being fuelled.
Do you accept that, given the publicity that there has been and the effect that it has had on the morale of youngsters and teachers, any attempt to pick out education as the source of a clawback of the £3.9 million overspend from previous years would be totally unacceptable to the people whom you serve?
I agree. I do not think that it is possible to claw back £3.9 million from next year's budget or the budget of the two following years. Some other mechanism has to be found. As you are aware, the Borders has a good education system. We have had very good results. I am sure that the situation has not helped, but that shows the resilience of youngsters in the Borders.
When we took evidence in the Borders there were two or three issues that shocked us: the cleaning of the schools, the cut in provision of services for youngsters with learning difficulties, such as speech therapy and the tightness of the per capita budget and materials that the schools were working with. When the council is setting its budget, would you—if you were still chair of the education executive—be pushing hard for a bigger slice of the cake for education?
We always pushed hard for as big a slice of cake as possible. It is perhaps a little harder to do when one has the biggest slice of the cake anyway, without putting up the backs of one's colleagues. Until now, there has been little problem in making the case—it has been a question of the allocation of resources after one has made the case.
Those are three elements that are right at the front line and which must be protected.
Yes. The cleaning was a serious problem and, as the committee will be aware, there was significant comeback on that. The system has already changed.
The worry is that, although schools can hold their breath for some time, it looks as though such problems will carry on for another year, so the situation is serious.
At the moment, we are not quite sure what is happening next year. It certainly looks as though the situation will continue.
I am aware of the risks of saying that you should increase the expenditure in one area. You will be as aware as anyone else who reads the local papers that there is great pressure on other areas of expenditure, such as care in the community and essential roads maintenance. Is there not an argument that the issue in respect of special educational needs is not that the council has overspent its budget, but that, as you acknowledged, the budget that was set did not match the level of demand? Has there been a failure to set an adequate budget?
Yes. Back in March, some of the officials, the vice-chairman and I held a series of meetings to consider special education and the reasons why demand for it had increased so much and had completely outstripped the increased budget that it had been given. We had three meetings—it would have been four, but the heavy snow knocked out one of them. We concluded that we did not know where the increase in demand came from. If the increase had been quantified when children were younger, we would have known about it in advance. We thought that children were moving into the Borders and, in certain cases, that was true. However, demand shot up and although the resources increased annually, they were insufficient to meet that increased demand.
Did you envisage making recommendations to deal with that increase?
After a series of meetings, we applied the criteria that governed the way in which we funded SEN much more rigorously than before.
What does that mean?
Policies can be either loosely or tightly interpreted. Sometimes, one has to interpret a policy a bit more tightly, perhaps by not being so accommodating.
Do you mean that you were going to squeeze the budget by trying to make the money go further?
Yes. We had started to do that.
I will ask a process question, followed by a political question—I know that I am treading on dangerous ground, convener, but I would like some clarification.
Yes.
On that basis, let me establish what the council's priorities are. You are about to engage in the budget-setting process. Some evidence has been collected on the use of reserves. From statements that you have made today, it appears that past practice was to share the pain. Is education the political priority for Scottish Borders Council? If so, how will you reflect that priority in your budget deliberations?
If you think back to your local council days, you will probably realise that the budget process for next year has started—it is well under way. The major difference this year is that I am not part of that process.
Let me press you on this issue. These days, the language of politics is about priorities. I can set five different priorities and give them equal weighting, but I am trying to push you into telling me what is the political priority of Scottish Borders Council. If, as has been said elsewhere, education is the priority, how will you make that priority a reality? You have talked about what the education department has done previously, but how do you make that a reality in the context of the budget-setting exercise for next year? To be frank, the local authority for which I worked never had reserves.
I read about the average level of council reserves in—I think—Audit Scotland's report. I think that the figure was 2.8 per cent, but I take your point.
Are you aware of any plans for public consultation on the council's budget?
Not at the moment. I am aware that there is consultation as part of the budget process, especially if one is working with budget holders in other organisations. However, as far as I am aware, the budget is not subject to public consultation.
In the evidence that we have received so far, people have said either that the decision-making process in the council was centralised or that it was decentralised. How would you define it?
Recently the process changed—we now work to the executive structure. The executive meets formally and informally to deal with most business.
In percentage terms, how much influence do you think the convener of the education committee has when key decisions are made, compared to the influence of, say, the council leader? Let us pluck him from obscurity.
As the committee is aware, the leader of Scottish Borders Council is a strong personality who holds the council together quite rigorously. The holder of the education portfolio, as it now is, will have as much say in the executive as the other portfolio holders.
Do you think that when you were the convener of the education committee you were well served by the directorate of the education department?
I thought so at the time.
Do you think so now?
Looking back, I see one or two things that I would have changed, had I known about them. For example, I was not informed that one of the assistant directors of education had been suspended until just after that happened. A week later that assistant director lost his job.
So you were not aware that there were concerns about one of the assistant directors of education.
I was not. I first heard about that at 5.45 pm on 1 June, when I was about to go to our local village celebrations, which Mr Jenkins may remember. I was phoned by John Christie, who said that he had just suspended the assistant director of education with responsibility for finance. That was the first that I knew about it.
I want to be clear about this: are you saying that the convener of the education committee was not informed that the council was about to suspend one of the assistant directors of education?
That is correct.
Do you know whether the leader of the council knew about that and was part of the decision-making process?
I do not know. I feel that he must have been, but I do not know.
What is the role of the elected members of Scottish Borders Council, if they are not informed that members of staff are about to be suspended or that there are concerns about their conduct?
That is a valid question.
What is the role of an education convener? With the greatest of respect, I have the feeling that all afternoon we have heard the story of a bystander at a traffic accident, who watches the accident happen but is not involved and cannot remember some of the details.
I take it as a personal criticism. I do not know whether it is justified. The situation had arisen before in other departments. It is not the first time that we have heard such comments.
So, on previous occasions, Councillor Tulley has said that you were responsible.
As committee convener I have to be responsible.
Were you responsible?
In many cases, the department went its own way and perhaps did not inform the convener of everything that, in hindsight, I realise it would have been useful to know.
Let me ask that question again. Were you responsible?
I do not think I need to answer that, Mr Russell.
I want to ask about the role of the policy and resources committee. There are individual budget headings and departments, but it appears that the policy and resources committee of the council has a particular role. I understand that an order was issued in November that steps were to be taken to bring the education budget into line. How was that done? Were you involved in that? Was the policy and resources committee or the education committee responsible for overseeing that?
The policy and resources committee consisted of all the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the council committees. Apart from its remit of looking after the policy and resources of the council, it looks after what is now called the corporate services department—the council's central administration unit. At the meeting in November, the chair of the policy and resources committee pointed out that there was an overspend in education of £265,000—that was the figure that I gave earlier—and indicated that it was less than half of 1 per cent. It was said that all departments should try to keep within budget.
But you knew about the previous years' figures and nothing seems to have been done about it.
The money had been absorbed through the use of reserves. I was of the opinion that once that had happened, that budget would be back in balance. Obviously that was not the case. It had been decided to count the previous year's overspend.
Could you clarify that for me? As convener of the education committee, you assumed or were under the impression that the previous years' overspend had been absorbed by the council's reserve and had so been dealt with?
Yes—wiped off.
Somewhere along the line, a decision was made not to do that.
Yes.
Who made that decision?
I take it that it was the current convener.
The convener of the council?
Yes.
Did that happen without consultation with you or your committee?
Yes.
When were you notified that that decision had been taken?
During the spring when somebody said, "And then of course there is the money from the year before and the year before."
So, Mr Tulley does not ring you up and say, "By the way, we're not actually going to pay this out of reserves this year as we've done in previous years." Instead, he just thinks that somebody might tell you at some stage. Is that what you are telling us?
It seemed to work like that sometimes, yes.
Gosh.
You said that you learned about this in the spring, yet all the evidence suggests that the £1.6 million overspend from the previous year was learned about in November 2000. I would like that point to be cleared up.
I think that what came out of the policy and resources committee is a matter of interpretation. I did not realise that the decision applied to money from previous years.
With respect, the minutes of the policy and resources committee meeting are a matter not of interpretation but of factual record. Clearly, if the convener of the policy and resources committee had taken a decision—whether at the committee meeting or through a scheme of delegated responsibility, which, again, is a matter of public record within each local authority—that decision would have been written down somewhere. Something of that significance would have been brought to all councillors' attention and to spending conveners' attention. Yet you say that you did not know anything about it.
No, I did not.
What did you do when you became aware of the convener's decision? Did you challenge it in any meeting with him?
I am not saying that it was the convener's decision. I do not quite know where the decision came from.
I accept that. When you became aware of the decision—which you must have interpreted as either a political or a management decision—did you raise the matter at any level within the council? Did you take it to the committee?
No. We took it up within the education management team.
I do not understand that, because you have implied that the decision was taken outside the education department and then given to the education department. Are you saying that the director challenged the decision within the council's corporate management structure?
This is going back almost a year and a lot has happened. I am sorry, but I cannot really help you on that one.
I would have thought that in the distressing circumstances of recent months, you had the opportunity to think over such matters and try to work out where that decision might have come from. If you decided that you were not going to challenge the decision or could not challenge it, it would be instructive for this committee to know why you did not think that you could change a decision that had been taken elsewhere within the structure.
It may be that I thought that I had made a serious mistake at that point—I am not really sure, to be honest.
Do you see yourself as a victim in this process?
I see myself as having followed an inevitable course. As one knows if one reads the papers and is aware of things, in local politics the ultimate responsibility lies with the chair. If something serious has happened, the chair has responsibility. I do not see myself as a victim.
Did you decide not to continue as convener, or were you asked to make that decision?
I would have resigned my chairmanship at some point. By that, I do not mean simply at some point in the future. I would have resigned as chairman, but the thing that pushed me to resign on 5 September was that there was a council meeting that day. Had the decision been completely up to me, I would have left it until the council's report on the situation had been published.
Did you make that decision on your own or in discussion with others?
It was discussed at a pre-meeting.
With whom did you discuss that?
At that point, I discussed my decision with the new executive committee.
How many folk were involved in that discussion?
About 10.
Did anyone from the executive ask you to tender your resignation as convener of the committee?
Yes.
Did the council convener ask you to do that?
He was one of them.
Was he the first to ask?
Yes. He was conducting the meeting.
When Jackie Baillie asked you about the role of the education convener, you said that your role was to represent the department in the council. In retrospect, do you agree that that is probably not the education convener's role? Your role should have been to ensure that the education service was delivered effectively for pupils and families in the Borders.
Not only those who work at headquarters but the whole education service wants to be represented on the council somewhere. That is an important role.
I can safely say that people from the Borders who listen to your comments today or read about them later may not be very reassured, especially given your response to Jackie Baillie's question about the council's priorities.
That is a view that is being put around the Borders. I quite accept that some children will be disadvantaged but the level of disadvantage across the whole school population—and across the population in general—is probably fairly small. For instance, the level of disadvantage is probably not noticed by most pupils.
Are you really saying that? When we visited the Borders, we were told a whole catalogue of cutbacks: people having to carry out extra functions; no staff development; nursery teachers moving on to temporary contracts; cuts in the provision of information communications technology; and schools being unable to implement the national grid for learning. The list went on and on. You seem to be minimising that.
We shall hear this coming Friday morning the suggested changes to the way in which the education department is run. That will be part of the start of the process. Until now, the cuts that have taken place have been amplified, as it were. I have a daughter at a high school in the Borders. I am sure that there must be some impact, but nothing has come to light as a real problem because of the cuts. The average child in the Borders is still being educated to a high standard—we are used to that. It is easy to seize upon situations where the faults are obvious.
Would you say that the kind of evidence that you have given to us today and that we gathered during our visit to the Borders indicates that the management style of the council is not responsive to the customers it is supposed to be serving?
I think that that is a popular misconception. The council's management style is very customer orientated. However, perhaps that is hard to pick up and it is not reported. The executive committee, including the leader and chair of the council, is responsive to what happens and will promote the Borders at any opportunity. I do not think that that is reported a lot.
There is a problem with the public's perception of the council.
Undoubtedly.
Do you not think it is a problem that the convener of the education committee was not told that one of his staff was going to be suspended? Is that not part of the management style?
I do not know where that came from, to be honest. I do not think that that was typical. I stand by what I said. I remember the day very well.
Do you not think that it is a problem that you were not told that the previous practice for absorbing overspend had been countermanded?
The provision of financial information in the education department was done by one person, as you are aware. Sometimes information was difficult to follow up.
After listening to your evidence, some might think that you have been remarkably frank with us in certain areas. However, in answering the question on the management style of the council, you became the defender of the council executive again. Is that an unfair thing to say?
I would never stop defending the council. It is a good council and it does a good job in the Borders.
I was not talking about the council. I think that there is a difference between Councillor Tulley and the council, even if he does not think so. You seem to be defending the executive committee. Considering that you have accepted, for example, that Councillor Tulley has made a direct criticism of you, why are you doing that?
It is easy to find a scapegoat. I admit that management style varies from person to person and I would not use that kind of management style. However, Councillor Tulley has a vast amount of local government experience, going back 30 or 40 years. His knowledge of the Borders and what has happened in that time is huge. His backing of the people of the Borders is also strong. I have no problem with that at all.
So you are loyal to the last.
We are in danger of straying into an area that is outwith our responsibility.
Finally, I want to reflect on two matters that have come out: the decision about the clawback; and the sacking of the former assistant directors. If I were in your position, Councillor Suckling, and that were sprung on me, I would think that I had been treated badly by somebody in the system. Do you agree with that and who do you think treated you badly by depriving you of involvement in and knowledge of those decisions?
I had a word with the director of education and the council leadership and asked why I knew nothing about what had apparently been going on for about three or four months by then.
There are no further questions.
Meeting adjourned.
On resuming—
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Deputy Convener