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Education and Culture Committee 21 January 2014

21 Jan 2014 · S4 · Education and Culture Committee

Item of business

Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Russell, Michael SNP Argyll and Bute Watch on SPTV

No—I disagree. The matter will be best dealt with if we have robust legislation that is entirely clear, and we are trying to improve the 2010 act in this process. Once we have the legislation in place, the issue will be well dealt with if all those involved forbear from attacking ministers for being politically partisan when they make these decisions and instead look at the facts of the case. Those two things together will assist.I have in front of me the number of school closure proposals that have been called in. The final outcome was that six cases received unconditional consent, which is 7 per cent of the total. It is therefore possible that, in 7 per cent of cases, that might have been the panel’s judgment. The issue is around the use of the word “may”—a small number of cases might have been subject to comment, and the panel would be free to comment. It is interesting to note that there was conditional consent in 24 per cent of the total number of schools that were prepared for closure. That meant that there were issues that were clarified and assisted by the process, which is a vital point. Only in 10 per cent of cases was consent refused.I understand the points that Mike MacKenzie makes. I lived through the experience of the school closure proposals in Argyll and Bute not once but twice, because I was involved in an earlier round of school closures—I declare an interest, in that my wife was the headteacher of a school that was closed. The process is damaging for everyone involved, and Mr McArthur was quite right to say that pupils and staff often blame themselves for the process that they are going through. As Liz Smith has said on a number of occasions, we must have a fair and transparent process. That objective is not assisted if the information in the process is regarded as being unfair, not comprehensive and—as has often happened—impossible to understand. I regret that the information that the committee was given, in the opinion of many people in Argyll and Bute, did not conform to the facts of the chronology of the process. That was regrettable—the council might still want to consider that point.I turn to the points made by Mr Bibby. If the school has no pupils, the local authority will have to consider alternatives only when there are alternatives. I have never argued that all schools should remain open. There are schools that close because they have no pupils, so that issue is a red herring.Mr Bibby’s position is logically inconsistent. Having attacked me for refusing to accept one out of 37 recommendations—the only one that was not unanimously agreed by the commission—Mr Bibby announced at the end of his comments that he is going to reject more than that in his approach to my amendments. He is therefore taking a position that is even less consistent than that taken by COSLA and is motivated more by the Bain principle than by anything else.

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Education and Culture Committee 21 January 2014

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