Attempting to sidestep the whole process of consultation and ignore the opinions of 3000+ parents 2000+ children and 250+ staff.
Not informing feeder school parents early enough.
Not informing local residents.
Not informing local politicians.
Not informing local business who will be impacted by the changes.
Not informing the local hospital who already have traffic issues to deal with.
Not informing the SCC department responsible for traffic planning.
Not informing the local Nepalese community.
Running a consultation that showed no evidence of listening.
Producing a consultation document that presented one choice, was biased and of legal and moral questionability.
Basing evidence on documents that have not been agreed or finalised.
Running two consultations at the same time with different source data.
Attempting to ensure that Kings was not viable by using scare tactics to influence Kings parents and teachers to abandon the school. Attempts to run Kings down by failing to market the school.
Failing to respond to requests for data that might shed some light on the proposal (FOI).
Failing to adequately answer questions posed to them, to the point it could be classed as obstruction.
Failing to even read the results of the consultation - they have admitted that your consultation responses have not even been read - so how can they say they listened!
Another issue is the pressure placed on Tomlinscote Governors. SCC have tried both to make them seem responsible for the decision and provided little or nothing in the way of concrete plans for supporting the future.
Another concern of mine is the apparent lengths that those employed at County Hall will go to protect their own personal power and influence. A cynic observing this process would wonder if they are prosecuting a campaign to prevent the formation of academies that weaken their control. At one of the consultation meetings Michael Gove closed his eyes at one point and shook his head such was his annoyance at the anti academy stance of PJ Wilkinson. One councilor at a meeting we attended at County Hall expressed the concern that if everybody went for academy status SCC will lose control. So is SCC fighting the government and the DfE? Is SCC Education department prepared to affect the educational outcomes of 5000+ children to save their own jobs?
SCC should have done “due diligence” BEFORE going ahead with this not afterward. Given the resources (using my money) that are available to SCC in terms of legal and educational advice that they can be made to look stupid by a group of local parents on a shoestring budget has to be of grave and enduring concern.
As a tax and rates payer and thus the effective employer of those who work at County Hall I would like some answers as to why those I employ are both so incompetent and why they have such a disregard for those they serve. By answers I mean “real answers” as in I expect to see someone called to public account for this debacle, not that it is just brushed under the carpet.
Where does this stop PJ Wilkinson? Peter Martin? Andrew Povey?
Reading the correspondence between SCC and Mr Ryles, it is clear that Mr Ryles preferred a Hard Federation option and SCC need to explain why they forced the Consultation to only consider full Merger. It doesn't look like there was any real discussion regarding Educational Outcomes for Children in all of this.
ReplyDeleteI am still shocked at how biased the Consultation document was and the misleading information it contained. There must me a law SCC have broken in terms of making false claims or wasting public money. There should be some accountability for the stress SCC have put my family (and many other families) through over the past few months.
Eduscational Outcomes figured little, or rather did not figure at all in terms of the thinking and assuming those emails are representative (given that they follow a consistent thread over years this seems a reasonable assumption) they seem to paint a picture of self interest in terms of SCC on the one hand and the Tomlinscote Head on the other. This is a classic example of SCC wasting money paid to them by Council Tax payers; they seem to believe that no one can take them to account. I rather hope that this last sentiment is not correct and that they can be brought to book.
ReplyDeleteHistorically and at best, SCC have always only ever played 'lip service' to serving the local community, its hopes, needs, expectations & opinions. One would love to believe this whole campaign will be a catalyst towards increased transparency, integrity, honesty & democracy. One lives in hope..........
ReplyDeleteI was stunned reading all the correspondence, especially some dating back 5 years. I worked for SCC 10 years ago and they were inept then as they are now, always re-organising and wasting money(and that was just internally). I fully support the petition this can't just e brushed under the carpet, Surrey must learn from this terrible debacle.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you expect. This County Council raises over £553M through council tax alone adding to its yearly revenue of 1.5 Billion. These parasites resemble kids in a sweetie shop. Almost £90m is spent on HR & infrastructure; that means some department is wasting money by changing stuff for changes sake.The latest figures did not have a section for hopeless schemes, railroaded by incompetent public servants, in an attempt to boost their own ego. I suppose my council tax will rise again next year to pay for this debacle. Well done SCC.
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