Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School (Closure)
The final item is a members' business debate on motion S2M-702, in the name of Brian Monteith, on the closure of Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I ask members who are leaving the chamber to exchange their new year's greetings outside in the lobby.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament regrets the decision of Stirling Council's ruling Labour administration to close Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School in the top of the town area of the city; notes that the council has failed to listen to the wishes of parents, the local community and those involved in the school as recorded in its report on its own consultation exercise; believes that Stirling Council has therefore failed to make an adequate case for the closure of the school, and further believes that the Scottish Executive should use its powers over the closure of denominational schools to ask the council to find a way to keep the school open.
I thank the Parliamentary Bureau for selecting my motion for debate. I wish to place on record my appreciation of the members on many sides of the political spectrum who registered support for the motion or who gave their support in other ways to parents and staff of Holy Trinity. Some of the parents, staff and community council members are here tonight in the public gallery. With the Presiding Officer's permission, I welcome them to the Parliament.
Today's debate gives members the chance to air their views directly to the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People who, because of the school's denominational nature, has the ultimate say over its future. Indeed, that particular point gives not just members of Stirling Council but members of the Parliament a direct interest in the future of Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School.
First of all, I want to say a little about the school itself. Holy Trinity is one of only two Episcopal primaries in Stirling district and one of only eight in the whole of Scotland. As it does not have a catchment area, parents must choose to send their children to the school. This year, the school celebrates its 150th anniversary and its long and distinguished history and record of educational achievement moved Stirling Council's leader, Councillor Corrie McChord, to say as recently as 27 November that the school is
"as good now as it ever was, if not better".
Holy Trinity is a super and much-valued school. Indeed, I witnessed that at first hand on a recent visit to the school to meet parents and staff. It is such a friendly, happy place that it is little wonder that parents go to the extra effort of using the placing requests system in order to choose to send their children there. Some people such as Bruce Crawford have been moved to say that it is just the kind of school that the council should be nurturing and encouraging instead of closing.
However, only three months after last May's elections, the council announced its decision to close the school completely out of the blue. The proposal went out to consultation and in November the council formally agreed to close the school. I had hoped that it would think again and choose to retain Holy Trinity. When that did not happen, I lodged this motion. However, as the minister will be aware from my written questions in September and October, my interest in this matter precedes the lodging of the motion.
I will now outline the council's reasons for closing the school. The council argues that the reduced number of pupils at the school will damage their education and lead to fewer opportunities for pupils to integrate and learn with a wider peer group. My response to that point is quite simple, and is to quote from a letter that I have received from a parent. The letter says:
"If the parents of the current pupils at Holy Trinity felt that attending their catchment (or another) school was the best thing for their children, they would already be sending their kids to those schools."
That is precisely the point. Parents choose to send their children to Holy Trinity; it is not the first choice for any pupil. Indeed, if the number of pupils was a determining factor, one might also ask about the other primary schools in Stirling district that have fewer pupils than Holy Trinity.
The council has also based its argument for closure on the state of the school buildings. However, if conditions are so poor, why was the school not included on the council's shortlist of 10 or so primary schools that require priority refurbishment? Only last summer, two schools were added to that very list, which means that there was ample opportunity to act at that point and indeed before.
I will be charitable to Stirling's ruling Labour group because I do not believe that this is a partisan issue. Instead, I believe that the issue of the school's viability was not on any party's political radar, but that the school was brought forward for closure by officials after the May election. It is said that the school has four teaching rooms and therefore capacity for 100 pupils. However, the fourth room is used not for teaching but as a gym, a storage area and a dining room. Although that fact is ignored in the council's consultation document, it is strange that the council's own website states:
"Holy Trinity … is a small three class school".
The case for closure is weak and remains unproven.
I want to close by pointing out why the minister should turn down Stirling Council's application. The first reason is choice: the school's existence provides a diversity of educational provision and allows parents across the city a degree of choice about where to send their children. I have no doubt that if Stirling Council were to inform all parents of Holy Trinity's existence, the school would attract more pupils.
Secondly, national trends show that Stirling's population is increasing. Indeed, the council's stewardship of the nearby Forthside site suggests that there might well be a substantial new housing development that would provide more pupils in the vicinity of Holy Trinity. Those children would then have the possibility of going to the school. Stirling Council closed Kinbuck Primary School and Kinlochard Primary School only to find within the space of a few years that it needed the capacity that they had offered. Stirling Council's counsel, one has to say, is poor.
Thirdly, closure will also have detrimental consequences for pupils who are repatriated. Already, some pupils who have tried other schools have since come back to Holy Trinity because they were unsettled. Closing the school before the new campus at Raploch opens in August 2006 means that current Holy Trinity pupils will experience three different school buildings and social groups in their lifetime at primary school. If the council's interest is in protecting the education of those pupils, the effect of their having to move to different schools must be taken into consideration.
Does Brian Monteith agree that, not at the public meeting but later, Stirling Council gave an assurance that there would not necessarily be a further change? If the school does close and the children move to Allan's Primary School, they will not be moved again to the Castleview campus.
I understand that that assurance has been given to parents of pupils in primary 6 and primary 7, but I am not clear that it counts for parents of children in the infants section. Sylvia Jackson may wish to comment on that later if she has further information on that point.
Turning to my fourth and final point, which is the crucial issue with regard to Holy Trinity, I think that it is not too late to make a success of the school. I am convinced that if the council acted to promote its availability instead of hiding it under a bushel, pupil numbers would increase. In fact, as a result of the recent press coverage on the school's future, a parent from as far away as Fallin called to say that she would like her child to attend if the school remained open.
I recognise that, under the current arrangements, Stirling Council is perfectly entitled to determine which schools to close and which to retain. However, this specific decision does not have the support of parents, of the church community, of those involved with the school or indeed of the wider local community.
On 16 November 2003, barely a week before the council made its decision, Scotland on Sunday quoted the Minister for Education and Young People as saying:
"We need clear recognition of parents' wishes and expectations together with a flexible response to meeting them, appropriate to individual schools and groups of parents."
I agree. If that recognition is to mean anything, it requires education authorities, and indeed the Executive, not simply to recognise parental wishes but to act on them. Otherwise, the promise will look very hollow indeed.
I welcome the parents and staff who have made the trip to Edinburgh today. I should begin by saying that I come to the debate having spoken at a fairly early stage, and on more than one occasion, with some of the parents who are involved. I also attended a meeting prior to the public meeting, which unfortunately I could not attend. I have to say that, at that prior meeting, the Scottish Socialist Party was in evidence, but I cannot remember any other political party being present.
Is Sylvia Jackson impugning our interest in the matter? Does not she acknowledge the fact that not everybody is able to go to the same meetings that she attends and that we attend some meetings that she is unable to attend?
If Mr Monteith will give me a little time, I shall come to the point that I am trying to make.
I have been in contact with Stirling Council, which has obviously been dealing with the consultation process. I have also been in contact on many occasions with the Scottish Episcopal Church through its representative, Rob Whiteman.
What I was going to say to Mr Monteith was that I am somewhat unhappy about his lack of presence at earlier meetings. I certainly did not know of his involvement earlier, but we have found rather late in the day that he has lodged a motion for a members' business debate.
I read a recent press release in the Stirling Observer, which had the headline, "We Can Teach Labour a Lesson on Schools". It refers—in not much detail, I have to say—to pupil passports and what they might entail. The article also goes on to talk about the ideology that the Conservative policy would entail, which would be for choice and diversity. By promoting the approach that there should be choice and diversity and linking it with the Holy Trinity school, Brian Monteith has somewhat misunderstood the nature of the school. I want people to be aware that, although he is representing choice and diversity—good features that one would want—behind the matter is a system of pupil passports that is, essentially, a subsidy to the private sector. Brian Monteith was challenged on one or two occasions about the fact that the 60:40 split that could result from such a system would in no way help poorer families.
I am deeply saddened by the tenor of the member's speech. I made no attempt to make any partisan points, although had I wanted to do so, I certainly could have.
On pupil passports, I draw the member's attention to the fact that they are not transferable to the independent school sector. Therefore, absolutely no subsidy to fee-paying schools is involved. Let us move away from the debate about independent schools and our party policy on councils, and let us concentrate on Holy Trinity school and the arguments for keeping it open.
That is exactly what I am doing. I am trying to show, through a recent press release that Brian Monteith issued, that the issue is driven by ideology and that he totally misunderstands this particular school in what he says about choice and diversity.
The big issue is that—as with St Mary's Episcopal Primary School in Dunblane, which is a high-profile school that has attracted pupils to it—the Conservatives are looking at the denominational sector as an area that they would like to promote as faith schools. However, Holy Trinity is a denominational school only in legality and in name. It is not a denominational school as it operates on the ground: in terms of assemblies and religious instruction, it follows the five-to-14 curriculum. Brian Monteith has totally misunderstood the school and is trying to promote it as a faith school although, essentially, it is not.
I ask the minister to consider the issue of denominational schools. He is looking at Holy Trinity because it is labelled as denominational, although in practice—along with other schools in Scotland that Mr Monteith mentioned—it is just the same as every other school. That raises issues about catchment areas, which I am sure Bruce Crawford will mention. If, in practice, Holy Trinity is the same as other primary schools, there should not be a difference in terms of catchment areas. That issue must be examined in the promotion of such schools.
I have taken some time labouring that point, so I will finish by saying that there is a significant issue about the cost of the school in that the cost per pupil is more than twice that in other city schools in Stirling. That said, nobody is saying that the education that the children at the school receive is not appropriate. They are very disadvantaged children in terms of clothing, footwear and free school meals allowances.
I must ask you to finish.
There are many complex issues around the subject and I hope that the Deputy Minister—to whom I have spoken previously about this—and the Minister for Education and Young People will take all those matters into account.
I ask other members to stick to four minutes, to ensure that everybody is called.
I sincerely congratulate Brian Monteith on securing the debate this evening. To be frank, I am amazed at the attitude with which Sylvia Jackson approached the debate—she spent most of her time attacking Brian and the Tories and spent very little time prosecuting the case on behalf of the pupils who attend Holy Trinity school and their parents.
Brian Monteith has provided us with the opportunity to bring to the Executive's attention some of the real concerns that exist in respect of the robustness of the decision that has been reached by Stirling Council to close Holy Trinity school: I believe that the case to close the school has not been made by Stirling Council. The minister should look extremely closely at a number of aspects before an irrevocable and unsafe decision to close the school is made.
Shortly after the start of the consultation period, I met a group of concerned parents of pupils at the school. It was clear from the meeting that the parents were able to put a case for keeping the school open that was clear headed and which was not based on a romantic attachment to a lost cause.
The easy option at that stage would have been to whip up emotions through the local press in an attempt to gain maximum political advantage, but I say to Sylvia Jackson that I think that the case for keeping the school open is too important to play politics with. I therefore wrote to the council to respond to its consultation process, in a serious attempt to explain in what respects I thought that its proposals for closure were unsafe. In the letter, I asked specific questions of the council about its decision-making process. Unfortunately, I have received no response—perhaps that is no surprise.
I have also since written to the Minister for Education and Young People, Peter Peacock, to explain where I think that the decision that has been reached by the council is unsafe, and to state that the school should remain open.
The council's decision has been partly, but substantially, based on the cost of current spend per pupil at the school. With only 21 pupils attending the school—according to the council's records at the time—the council's own figures show that the current spend per pupil stands at £7,647. However, that masks the reality of the situation because it does not show how pupil attendance at the school has been managed down to enable the picture of a high-cost school to be painted. Let me explain what I mean by that. In 1999, the number of pupils was 53, but every year since then pupil numbers have been allowed to fall. If 53 pupils were attending the school today the cost per pupil would be only £2,750—that figure is lower than the average spend per pupil across the Stirling Council area.
The denominational issue is a catch-22 situation. I think that the reality is that Holy Trinity is not a denominational school, but that begins to undermine some of the arguments for keeping it open. The council's rationale for the falling number of pupils is the status of Holy Trinity as an Episcopalian school. That status has allowed the council to avoid allocating it its own catchment area, and placements there are not offered to parents who are looking for first-time places for their children. If a real desire existed within the council to continue operation of the school, what prevented it from approaching the Episcopal Church authorities to have the school's denominational status removed? I cannot imagine for one moment that the church would have created any barriers if removal of denominational status would have meant that the school would continue in existence.
Does the member share with me the view that the nature of an Episcopal denominational school is different from that of other denominational schools, such as Roman Catholic ones, in that a fairly liberal attitude is displayed in the curriculum and that that in itself marks such schools out as being different?
I understand entirely the point that Brian Monteith makes.
I hope that the Deputy Minister for Education and Young people is aware that I raised other matters with Peter Peacock in my letter to him, but I do not have time to go into all the detail because I have been limited to four minutes.
I can only ask the ministers to see that the council's decision is unsafe, and to support the views of the parents who want to keep the school open. Please refuse the council permission to close this good little school, which has not had a chance to achieve its potential. Keep it open and tell the council to breathe new life into it.
I echo comments that colleagues have made and I thank Brian Monteith for bringing the topic forward for debate.
What is particularly worrying is the allegation that Stirling Council has systematically run down the roll of the school. If there is any element of truth in that allegation it is extremely worrying. It must be the role of councils to preserve people's ability to choose small denominational, or non-denominational, schools. I hope sincerely that Stirling Council has not sought to systematically run down Holy Trinity's roll.
It is clear that Stirling Council has used arguments for closure of the school that do not appear to be justified. For example, the consultation document states that the school does not have separate dining and gym spaces, but that is not unusual. Many schools in central Scotland, including schools that are larger than Holy Trinity, do not have separate spaces for dining, separate gyms or even separate assembly spaces. On the cost of educating pupils at the school, it is clear that the school has a high number of pupils who have additional support needs, which will lead to increased costs. However, if the school is closed, the costs will just be transferred elsewhere.
It is clear that the top of the town in Stirling is, or used to be, an area of deprivation. It used to receive funding through the council's programme and it had objective 2 status from the European regional development fund. If we are to regenerate communities, it is important that we retain core services and seek to build relationships between those services and the communities in which they are offered. We should not unnecessarily create exclusion. In deprived communities, levels of car ownership are exceptionally low, so we should not force people to seek access to schools that are outside their immediate communities.
I read the report on the school by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education; it is clear that the school has shown much improvement in recent years. I note that it has had to deal with some difficult problems, including high levels of disruptive behaviour. The school has made good progress on that front, but we know that disruptive pupils need continuity and consistency. They need staff who have good knowledge of their needs, of the community and of their families. In some cases, those families have been there for several generations.
I take on board the comment that the pupils might not have to be moved twice. We do not want a situation in which that happens, either to pupils who are in the latter stages of primary education or to those in the lower years. It would be extremely disruptive for pupils to be moved once and then moved again to the Castleview campus in 2006.
A sensible way forward would be for the school to have a stay of execution for at least two to three years and, during that time, for Stirling Council to work on publicising the school and attempting to raise its roll.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am just about to finish.
The council should also use that time to harness the renewed community interest in the school. It was clear from the HMIE report that there was not previously a huge amount of community interest in the school, but interest is being renewed through the current campaign and it is important that the council work with that interest during the next two years. When the Castleview campus is developed, that will be an appropriate time for the school's status to be reviewed with the status of other primary schools in the area. We can take it from there.
The Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School certainly is a denominational school. Its case has been taken up by no less a person than the Rev Graham Blount, of the Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, who sent an e-mail to several of my colleagues with an attached submission from the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane. Mr Blount said that the bishop's letter
"raises several questions which have not been addressed by the Council … It is therefore the view of the Scottish Episcopal Church that due process has not been followed by the Council and that several issues remain to be addressed before a proper decision can be made on this."
It seems to me that the bishop presents a persuasive case. He makes it quite clear in his letter that he is supporting the school
"not by dint of their denominationalism, but where they provide good education for their pupils."
The bishop's letter continues:
"There appeared to be universal agreement at the Public Meeting held on 4 November 2003 that Holy Trinity provided the highest quality of education to some of the most disadvantaged children in the Stirling Region."
It is important to note that the school contains a large percentage of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It has also been acknowledged that a number of pupils have educational difficulties and undoubtedly require extra support, so the extra cost per pupil can partly be explained by the council's recognition of the need for extra staffing and the associated cost of that.
The bishop went on to say that he acknowledged that the roll was small but that the quality of education in the school has been recognised by all to be high and that there can be no doubt that small schools have a place in education and, for some children, offer the best environment.
I will make a few brief points that merit the minister's sympathetic consideration. First, the school has inspired the confidence of parents. Secondly, the community wants to retain the school. Thirdly, parents have taken it upon themselves to make placing requests for the school. Fourthly, Stirling's population is on the increase, with the prospect of more housing being built, and we need to look ahead to a time when there might be a need for more places. I suggest that the minister uses his authority, and the powers that he has, to find a way in which to keep the school open; it has, in our view, served its community well for 150 years.
I apologise if my voice does not hold out; I have a cold.
I welcome the parents and staff of Holy Trinity who are in the public gallery tonight. The school is in Central Scotland, which I represent, and the issues that affect that school are similar to those that affect parents, pupils and staff across Scotland in relation to school reviews, closures and public-private partnership programmes.
I want to challenge the idea that big is always better. I do not think that that is proven and I think that the testimony of the parents, staff and pupils involved with schools such as Holy Trinity show that small is quite often better. Perhaps we should replicate that model in other areas. The idea that centralising schools and creating greater and greater distances for pupils to travel is better than having smaller schools does not stand up. The idea that the big superschools will make up for the sense of community and the expertise that is delivered by small schools such as Holy Trinity does not stand up either. Instead of moving towards bigger and bigger schools, which undoubtedly results in larger class sizes, we should be reducing class sizes. Holy Trinity has small classes; the absolute maximum class size for any school should be 20. If that is deliverable in Denmark, it should be deliverable here.
The references that have been made to the suspicion that falling rolls have been deliberately arranged over a period of years were not unfamiliar to me. For a number of years, parents of children in Ballerup High School in East Kilbride, which my eldest daughter attends, have suspected that the school has been deliberately run down. Indeed, the roof has been in need of repair for at least 10 years. Last year, when my daughter was studying for her highers, rain drops would fall onto her school jotters.
That leads me to the use of the poor state of schools as an argument for their closure. When I went to the roadshow that was being held in South Lanarkshire as part of a so-called consultation, I was absolutely horrified to see that photographs of the dire state of repair of Ballerup were used in justification of the argument to close it. In other words, the absolute failure properly to maintain and invest in the school for years is being used as an excuse to close it. That is clearly what is also happening to Holy Trinity.
The comments about housing developments were also familiar to me. There is a suspicion that the demographic evidence that has been put forward in the South Lanarkshire consultation is, at best, tarnished and, at worst, has been deliberately misrepresented to justify the arguments for closure. No account appears to have been taken of proposed housing developments in the area, which suggests that the data are highly questionable. No attention has been given to the possibility of attracting pupils to the schools that are in danger of being closed and ensuring that the local community has pride in them.
As always, it is the poorest communities that suffer. If the proposals go through, almost half of the south of East Kilbride—including two large areas with the poorest families—will be left with no secondary provision. That means that the poorest children, and those with additional needs who need most support, will be required to travel further. Lo and behold, they will not get assistance with the cost of travel as they will be within two miles of the school that they will have to attend. The poorest children will therefore travel the furthest and be most at risk of truanting from school, because it will become more and more cumbersome to attend school in the first place.
There is also the question of safety. I was involved in a walk to Earnock High School in Hamilton to find out what the pupils faced. I am not sure what circumstances current Holy Trinity pupils face, but Earnock High pupils are forced to walk through an industrial park and across busy roads without security. I am sure that that is a familiar picture, none of which seems to have any effect on South Lanarkshire Council or other parties. That is another story similar to that of Holy Trinity.
I have a real fear that, with schools as with hospitals, communities that mobilise themselves, care about their facilities and know better than anybody the likely impact of closing those facilities, will be ignored. There is a serious democratic deficit and a gap between what communities want and need and what the Parliament and councils are prepared to deliver.
For fear that Miss Leckie's daughter might have ended up being quoted again, I did not feel inclined to interrupt the speech at any point, but generally a closer degree of relevance to the subject of the debate is expected, and Miss Leckie might find that, on an occasion when there is not as much time to play with as today, the Presiding Officer has to step in.
As is customary on such occasions, I add my congratulations to Brian Monteith on securing this debate. I also acknowledge the interest that Sylvia Jackson, who is the constituency member, Bruce Crawford and other members who are present have taken in the matter. I confirm to Bruce Crawford that his written representations have been received—as have Brian Monteith's—and that Peter Peacock is on the point of sending a reply to them; I think that Bruce Crawford asked about that during his speech.
As is perfectly clear to all, Stirling Council's proposal to close Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School formally requires the Scottish ministers' consent before the council can implement it. I must make it clear at the outset that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the particular circumstances of the proposal at this point in time, and I will explain why.
The council's application for consent was submitted to the Executive in December and, as is usual in such circumstances, Scottish Executive officials are reviewing the background to the proposal in detail. For me to express views on the proposal now could be held to be prejudicial to full and proper consideration of the case, and I shall therefore not comment on it. Nevertheless, it has been useful to hear the points that have been made about the proposal today, and I assure members that we shall take all those points into account before any decision is reached.
Although I cannot comment on the proposal itself, I can say why the council cannot implement it without first seeking ministers' consent and I can give an indication of the procedures that are involved, which might be helpful. I think that it was Sylvia Jackson who said that the school is classified as a denominational school. That is correct; in fact, it is one of only four local authority-managed Episcopalian primary schools in Scotland—I understand that the others are St Mary's Episcopal Primary School in Dunblane, Bishop Eden Primary School in Inverness and St Ninian's Episcopal Primary School in Perth.
Proposals to close denominational schools do not automatically require the Scottish ministers' consent, but the proposal to close Holy Trinity does because, if it were to close, the pupils would no longer easily be able to attend an Episcopalian school. It is important to put that point on the record. Under those circumstances, and in considering whether consent to the closure proposal should be given, we are required to have regard to the arrangements that are proposed by the local authority for the religious instruction of the pupils involved. In accordance with usual practice in such cases, my officials have written to the Scottish Episcopal Church, seeking its views on the question of the religious instruction of pupils, should the closure be implemented. I heard what Lord James Douglas-Hamilton said on the matter. It was very interesting and helpful, but an official process to obtain the church's view is under way. The church has also been asked to describe its current arrangements for the religious instruction of pupils at Holy Trinity and any other involvement that it has in the life and management of the school.
I welcome the clarification that the Executive is to seek from the Scottish Episcopal Church, which will be useful not just for the school that is the subject of the debate, but for the four Episcopalian schools in Scotland. As I understand the situation, the school is Episcopalian only in name, and religious and moral education is provided according to the five-to-14 curriculum, as it is in any other school in the Stirling area.
We shall certainly clarify those issues in the course of the discussion that is under way with the Episcopal Church.
Another part of our procedure is to seek views from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, which I do not think has been alluded to in the debate. Once we have those views and the information that we have requested from the church, we should be in a position to reach a decision. That process will also take account of the representations that the council received during its consultation on the closure proposal. That there are such representations underlines the requirement for statutory consultation with parents, school boards and denominational bodies when an authority proposes to close a school.
Authorities have to take account of representations that are made during the consultation period before they reach a decision. That ensures that there is a full opportunity for all the issues surrounding a closure proposal to be aired locally and for them to be considered. That is an essential part of the democratic process, which allows local elected members to be fully aware of local concerns and considerations before they decide on the way forward.
I understand that there will invariably be concerns about school closure proposals, and that those concerns can generate different views and perceptions. Setting to one side the position of particular schools, it is right that I should remind members that authorities have a general responsibility to keep the provision of schools under review. That applies in all areas. Population patterns change over time and school buildings might no longer be suitable for current requirements—a range of factors might come under consideration. Authorities have to take a strategic view of their school needs. They are in the process of developing school estate management plans, which should be a valuable tool for local authorities in the proactive and effective management of the very large capital asset that the school estate forms. The plans will help authorities to manage their assets in order to support wider community and policy objectives.
Can the minister give any information about likely time scales? He has told us that HMIE and the Scottish Episcopal Church will be involved in this case, but parents and pupils are concerned about the matter and the quicker it is resolved, the better. Does the minister have any idea about the time scale of decision making?
Yes. We are talking about weeks, rather than months. I certainly hope that the decision will have been taken before Easter. The member will appreciate that we have to go through the proper procedures. Things are not necessarily in our own hands; we must await responses. We will, however, do everything that we can to ensure that any uncertainty is dispelled as quickly as possible.
The Executive is fully committed to supporting authorities in developing a school estate that meets all our aspirations, that responds to evolving needs and that is effectively managed and maintained over the long term. I shall not go into the figures for the amount of investment that we have been making in school estates, despite the temptation to do so, but to say that a significant investment has been made would be a fair summary of the record of the past few years.
The case of Holy Trinity Episcopal Primary School in Stirling will be examined with great care and attention. Brian Monteith's motion invites the Executive to ask Stirling Council to find a way of keeping the school open. I cannot speculate on the outcome of the council's application for consent to close the school. However, I assure all members that before reaching a decision we will give the proposal, including the denominational aspects, and all the representations that have been received about it the most careful consideration.
That concludes today's business.
Meeting closed at 17:45.