Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 25 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Official Report 123KB pdf

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School Closures

Item 1 on the agenda relates to school closures. Members have before them a sort of response from the Executive. I have to say that I do not think that it is what we were seeking. It is a disappointing response, given the time that has been invested in this issue by the committee and petitioners. There has been a failure on the part of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, initially, and the Scottish Executive in moving this issue forward in a reasonable time scale.

I agree. I expected a better response and am extremely disappointed. There is still no clear guidance in relation to school closures. Where is the guidance on consultation of parents, teachers and others or on the way in which local authorities should conduct themselves? As long as that situation continues, petitions will continue to be sent to the Scottish Parliament and parents and teachers will continue to feel frustrated that they are not recognised in relation to school closures.

COSLA has had an opportunity to rectify the situation—you will recall that I suggested that it should examine the matter—but I am not sure that it is the appropriate body to do so, given its current make-up. I hope that members will consider placing something in the committee's legacy paper on this matter as the situation is not good enough.

I concur with what has been said on this matter. The response is immensely disappointing, especially as it comes 15 months after the letter from COSLA that said that it could not proceed with the matter, which all of us were surprised at. The issue is much older than that, in any case, and was discussed by the committee at one of its first meetings. Since then, the issue has continued to bedevil the committee and the country.

The problem is that the number of closures has not diminished and that the potential exists for more closures, particularly in order to close the affordability gap with the introduction of public-private partnerships. Parents will be badly treated—and will resent that—because there are no standard national guidelines, as Cathy Peattie discovered when she made her important trip as a committee reporter to Argyll and Bute. The Scottish Executive has let down not only the committee but Scotland—particularly rural Scotland—by refusing to treat the issue seriously.

I concur with what has been said, broadly. National guidelines would serve everyone better. Parents would be better able to recognise the procedures that were followed and local authorities would be able to say that they had conformed to a procedure that had been laid down. If people felt badly treated, there would be a structure for them to measure their experiences against. As it is, however, the lack of any benchmarks means that the field is open for people who feel aggrieved to dispute decisions. It would have been in everyone's interests to sort out this matter. I accept that funding methods have changed and that there has been big investment in schools, but the Executive must surely recognise that this is the time to get this issue sorted out. There should be no further delays.

There can be no show without Punch, so I feel that I must say something, especially as this is the final time that the Education, Culture and Sport Committee will meet in this session. However, there cannot be much more to say than what has been said by Cathy Peattie already. Certainly, no one else could put it more eloquently.

It seems rather as if our letter to the Executive has been at the bottom of a pile and we have received a reply only because an official discovered it while tidying up their desk before the election. That is extremely disappointing. No doubt the committee—if not a newly configured Executive—will have to consider the issue seriously immediately after the election.

I do not want to add anything to the substance of what has been said but, in process terms, I note that the letter has come from a private secretary rather than the minister. Perhaps sending a letter to the minister would elicit a ministerial response that might, hopefully, be more favourable than the one that we have before us. In addition to adding this matter to the legacy paper, we should therefore drop a note to the minister.

My understanding is that the initial letter went to the minister and that we have received a response to a follow-up letter that was sent. My initial letter to the minister has yet to be replied to. I will certainly write to the minister—so that the letter is on the desk of whoever is the minister on 2 May—to ask that the matter be taken forward as a matter of urgency because it has an impact on both rural and urban schools in Scotland. Some national guidance is needed on the issue.

On an associated matter about responses, a response from the Executive was circulated to us today or yesterday afternoon on the technology teachers petition, which is more than a year old. That is an indication of, as Brian Monteith says, things being cleared off desks. Very little in the response makes any sense.