Education Committee, 29 Sep 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Official Report 196KB pdf

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Petition

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School Closures (National Guidelines) (PE342)

The final item on our agenda concerns school closure guidance and, in particular, whether petition PE342 on school closures can be regarded as having been disposed of; members will recall the background to the subject. At our meetings of 26 May and 9 June, we discussed school closure policy. The minister agreed to provide us with an opportunity to comment on the guidance that he intended to issue to local authorities. The guidance is not formally subject to parliamentary approval, so he has given us an extra privilege or right in this context. Do members have any observations or comments on the petition that we may want to submit to the minister?

I welcome the new guidance. As the committee knows, my main focus of interest has been rural school closures, on which I would welcome additional guidance.

I note and welcome the fact that rural sustainability and development are addressed in paragraph 27(e) on page 7 of the proposed guidance. One of the main gaps was the lack of joined-up thinking on sustainable rural communities and sustainable development. However, according to my recollection there was to be specific guidance for rural schools. I would like to ask the minister whether he would consider elaborating on that point in a letter. There is only a paragraph about rural sustainability and development in the proposed guidance, but it is a complex area that will continue to generate interest over the coming year and further down the line.

In my experience, it is possible for a rural school to have its roll capped at below 80 per cent, to ensure that children from local families are able to access it. That means that the school cannot reach the 80 per cent trigger that is specified in the 1981 guidance and its case must be referred to ministers. I would like us to write to the Minister for Education and Young People to find out how that loophole in the legislation can be closed.

First, I would have preferred a natural presumption, as exists in England, because that is a stronger test. However, the Executive has obviously decided against that. Secondly, it is important to preserve capacity in schools in order to uphold parents' right to choose how their children are to be educated. The population of school-age children is set to fall by about 22 per cent by 2018, and it looks as though school closures will happen more quickly than that. Currently, 6 per cent of primary schools and 13.5 per cent of secondary schools are over-occupied. There is a need to stress further in any revised guidelines the requirement for genuinely open consultation with communities in the face of proposed school closures.

Do you want me to mention the petition at this stage, or shall I leave that until later?

Let us return to the petition later. Members might have one or two other comments to make on the proposed guidance. I am interested in what you say about the need to maintain capacity. I am not sure whether we can impose on local authorities an obligation to retain unused capacity in schools. Is that what you are suggesting?

It comes back to the natural presumption. I would prefer a stronger test. An example of consultation having a key effect is the case of Lismore Primary School in Edinburgh. The decision to close the school was scrapped in the face of very strong opposition from the local community. A stronger test would protect rural schools to a much greater extent than they would be protected under the proposed guidelines.

Do members have any other views on that? That is probably the central issue.

I agree with Lord James that that is the central issue. We have seen the furore over closures recently; there is no doubt that we need to strengthen the guidance in that respect.

That is in the proposed guidance. Effective consultation that gives people adequate time and which gives parents confidence in the system is central, but that is included in the proposed guidance as it stands, which I very much welcome.

I do not know that the issue is really about consultation. In Dumfries and Galloway, the council consulted for something like two years on its proposed school closures and then did not go through with a lot of them. It is not that councils are consulting only for the statutory 28 days or whatever. Although I am pleased to see more detail in the proposed guidance, I feel slightly disappointed by it. As I think Rhona Brankin was suggesting, it seems to be a list of what councils should be thinking about, but councils should think about those things anyway. There is no stricture on them if they do not think about them.

In my view, community planning is key. Councils should be able to relate their school rationalisation programmes to their community plans, both at local level and strategically. Consultation is quite often about the school estate and the number of pupils; it is not about the communities. I would have liked the document to contain stronger guidance on linking schools rationalisation to a council's community plan.

That seems to be a substantial link that we could ask the minister to build on. It is clear that the minister does not want ministers to get involved as an appeal mechanism. In paragraph 20, he states clearly that the decision is primarily for local councils to take.

I am not sure what status the guidance has—whether it provides people with any kind of hook on which to do judicial reviews in suitable instances when certain criteria are not met. One would perhaps like a bit of guidance on that aspect. If it is just exhortation, does it take us anywhere? It has to be built into the process in some way.

What is interesting about the proposed guidance is what it does not do. It says that parents need to have that discussion with their local authority and that they cannot look to the Executive to overturn local decisions because, ultimately, such decisions are to be made locally. Colleagues who have experience of such matters may wish certain factors to be given greater weight. The way in which the factors are currently laid out might imply that they have equal weight.

Do you mean educational factors?

Yes. I do not think that anything is missing from the paper; the problem is that everything is there, which means that people are still left with difficult decisions but without clear guidance. It is not clear when sustainability of a village is more important than other factors.

To pick up on Elaine Murray's point, is there a way of firming up paragraph 27(d) on community planning and use? The paragraph contains points to be taken account of, but it does not get to the heart of the community planning process. I wonder whether the minister might look into that more closely. It is right that the decision is for councils; that is what they are elected for and they have local knowledge. Rhona Brankin mentioned the figure of 80 per cent, and there is a failsafe that allows ministers to become involved in extreme cases. I think that that is the right approach, although I accept that it should be clarified. Community planning puts consideration of the community at the heart of any decision; the guidance should perhaps be widened on that point.

The committee has to keep such issues under review. I welcome the fact that we now have updated guidance—although, as I said, I would also welcome some strengthening in the form of a letter on rural schools, which are not covered in sufficient detail.

If I understand the committee correctly, we want to write to the minister on the 80 per cent definition and on community planning.

And on the letter to rural schools.

Well, that is the mechanism, but I will come back to that in a second.

James Douglas-Hamilton raised a couple of points on the capacity to allow parental choice and—what was the other point again?

It was on the issue of a natural presumption, as exists elsewhere in Britain. In drafting the document as he has the minister has, in effect, decided against such a presumption. I would still like it to be noted that many of us believe that Tony Blair was right about this, and that the minister is not right.

The committee will have to decide its view on that.

What matters is what works. As I said, we have to keep monitoring things. However, additional guidance on rural schools would be welcome. I hope that the minister will be prepared to provide that, in the form of a letter.

I had got used to Lord James in his role as defender of local government, but now he is saying that local government is not in a position to take such decisions, and that they should be taken by central Government.

I was talking about support for local communities.

I was being a bit unfair. However, we are in a difficult situation. This devolved Parliament is trying to allow local people to take decisions when possible. I am not sure that the minister is more often in a position to second-guess local councils than the other way round. Cases that are called in to the minister should therefore be few and far between.

I welcome the guidelines in that they provide greater clarity. Some things may need to spelled out more; for example, the fact that there is no automatic appeal to the minister. Also, it should be spelled out that decisions rest with the council. The criteria should be clear and the weighting that is given to them should be clear. However, if that cannot be done, we will have to work with what we have. I feel that closures are local matters and that it would be wrong for a devolved Parliament to assume powers and set itself up as some sort of court.

The argument about presumption is a little arbitrary given the number of obstacles that are put in the way of councils' closing schools—there are criteria to be met and other obstacles to be overcome. Whether or not we will use the word "presumption" is, in effect, what the matter boils down to. Certain issues must be considered and, if appropriate, rejected, before a school is closed. That is how I read the guidance. With the firming up in the letter, the community planning issue and the 80 per cent rule, local authorities are being asked to follow fairly rigorous guidance.

I want to know about the legal status of the guidance and whether local communities can use it to require local authorities to do something, through a legal process or otherwise. I suspect that that probably cannot happen, but I do not know.

Are you referring to the 1981 guidelines under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, or is your question about the status of the updated guidance under the legislation?

The new guidance is not a statutory instrument—it states that it is a framework that

"does not usurp the statutory rights and responsibilities of others".

As far as I can see, the guidance is not statutory.

It would be worth asking about that.

The minister will no doubt read the Official Report of the meeting, but we will write to him formally on the issues that have been raised.

We must also decide on the outcome of petition PE342, which went before the Education, Culture and Sport Committee in the first session of Parliament. That petition asked the minister to defer decisions on school closures until new guidelines were produced. Given that new guidelines have now been produced, the petition is obsolete. The primary issue was for national guidelines to be put in place. It is a matter of judgment whether the guidelines are as comprehensive as the ones in England—they are clearly different—but the gist of the request has now been fulfilled. Do members agree to close the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

The committee should keep a watching brief on how local authorities follow the guidelines.

What do you have in mind? Do you want the issue to come back on the agenda at a certain point, or simply if another issue arises?

Perhaps the matter should be put back on the agenda in a year.

Okay.

That brings us to the end of the meeting. I remind members that we have an event with the commissioner for children and young people tonight at 6 o'clock. I think that there will be a reasonable attendance.

Meeting closed at 11:13.