Save Our Schools

SOS tried, as a result of time restraints, to take a complaint about the way in which the "consultation" was handled direct to the LGO.  This was denied and the complaint has now been made to Croydon Council as the first stage.  This is the text of the complaint.

Croydon Save our Schools Campaign (SOS) originally sent this complaint directly to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO): because—if we use the Council’s internal complaints procedure and even if our allegations are upheld—the time-scale involved will be too long to influence events. That is, SOS’s view was, and still is, that a decision by the LGO is needed before contracts are signed. The LGO then informed us that they would not investigate our following allegations—of maladministration by Croydon Council regarding the ‘Croydon Schools for the Future’ secondary review consultation process—until we had exhausted both stages of the Council’s internal complaints procedure. In the light of the latter development, the following quotation by Robert Lowe speaking in the House of Commons in 1865 against giving men the vote and the need for 'safeguards against democracy' is therefore very relevant:

…no employment [is] more worthy of the philosopher and statesman than the invention of safeguards against democracy (Quoted in A. Pratchett Martin, Life and Letters of Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke, Vol. 2, Longman, Green. and Co., London, 1893, p. 262).

1. Delay
Croydon Council’s statutory consultation on plans to close Haling Manor High School and the three Ashburton schools opened on 27 February 2009 and closed on 9 April 2009. On 19 March 2009, the Council announced that it was organising meetings on 31 March and 2 April 2009 at these schools ‘in conjunction with the preferred sponsors for the new academy schools’. Parents and guardians with children at the schools were sent details of the consultation meeting dates and the Council distributed information leaflets to surrounding schools/local communities in the following fortnight.  It therefore took the Council one month to organise these meetings, leaving only one week for SOS to respond before the end of the consultation period.  Moreover, at the Ashburton Junior School public meeting held on 2 April 2009, a completely different date for the end of the consultation period—30 April instead of 9 April 2009—without explanation was included in the Council/Oasis printed document for participants (see 6 below).

2. Failure to provide information
SOS supporters have, for example, repeatedly asked for information on exclusions at existing Croydon academies: the first request was made on 18 November 2008.  Finally on 26 January 2009, after repeated reminders, some figures were received which were “thought” to be inaccurate.  Moreover, Croydon Council incorrectly stated that academies only have to report exclusions to the DCSF.

3. Failure to reply
Most of our supporters’ letters and/or emails to councillors and Council staff have never received replies. For example, Ms. V. Hunter’s email sent at 21:47:50 on 16 Feb 2009 to the following Conservative members of the Scrutiny Committee: Graham Bass,   Maria Gatland,  Tony Harris,  Terry Lenton,  Yvette Hopley,    Janet Marshall and David Osland.  Ms. Hunter also delivered a letter by hand for Mr. Dave Hill, Executive Director for Children, Young People and Learners before 3.30 pm on 15 January 2009, which was only acknowledged after she sent him an email on 17 January 17 Jan 2009 at 10:55:57—but she never received a reply to its content. 

4. Misleading and inaccurate statements
Mr. Hill—in a Croydon Council press release dated 19 March 2009—stated that:

Academies have a proven track record across the country of creating opportunities for pupils, raising aspirations and transforming educational standards. Official government research has shown that performance is rising faster than in other types of schools, with increases in GCSE achievement outstripping the national average and the schools that academies have replaced (‘Council gears up for academies consultation events at Ashburton and Haling’, , accessed 30 March 2009).

The ‘official’ government research referred to is the evaluation by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC)—commissioned by the predecessor of the Department for Children, Schools and Families in February 2003 to conduct an independent longitudinal evaluation of the Academies initiative over a five-year period. The overall aim of the evaluation was to assess the programme’s contribution to educational standards and to examine the key features of Academies, including sponsorship, governance, leadership, teaching and learning, and buildings. PWC’s final report concludes

that there is insufficient evidence to make a definitive judgement about the Academies as a model for school improvement (PWC, Academies Evaluation: Fifth Annual Report, November 2008, p. 219, , accessed 30 March 2009).

Therefore Mr. Hill’s above statement is both misleading and inaccurate.

Moreover, at the public meetings, Mr. Hill claimed that information in the leaflet issued by Croydon SOS was inaccurate.  A subsequent check, however, has shown this not to be true.  Similarly, at the Ashburton meetings parents were led to believe that the two Oasis academies which have reported results showed an improvement on the predecessor school.  This was also not true. Problems which have occurred in an Oasis Academy in Southampton were also discounted by Oasis and questions put to Croydon Council about Oasis Mayfield have been met with the response that this academy is not in Croydon. In addition, Mr. Hill has repeatedly claimed to parents that both Oasis and Harris are “experienced” sponsors of academies.  Yet Harris has only one academy which has exam results which allow for any comparison; and overall, these show a weaker improvement than Haling Manor, the school which is proposed to be closed.  In addition, Oasis has been described as “inexperienced” by a Minister of State.

5. Failure to follow procedures or the law
Croydon Council have said in their proposals that they do not intend to carry out an Equalities Impact Assessment (EqIA) until the Building Schools for the Future programme is under way—that is, until the funding agreements are signed. This means that if there is likely to be a detrimental effect of the plans on any group of students (or any other stakeholders) this has not been assessed. Moreover, as the Improvement and Development Agency states:

The EqIA process is not just a legal requirement, under a number of acts including the Race Relations [Amendment] Act 2000. It actually helps to improve policies, strategies, procedures, functions, projects, reviews and organisational change for the whole community and not just minority groups (I&DeA, Introduction to EqIAs, , accessed 30 March 2009).

Therefore Croydon Council has failed to follow both the letter and the spirit of equalities legislation.

N.B. Lambeth Council have also failed to carry out an EqIA and, since Croydon keep complaining that so many Lambeth children come to Croydon for their education, this could be having a very serious effect, particularly on Afro Caribbean boys.

And although Croydon Council have consulted with Surrey, Sutton and Bromley—according to their Expression of Interest—they have not consulted Lambeth or any other neighbouring boroughs.

6. Inadequate consultation
Croydon councillors have no mandate for these proposals—since none of them were elected with a manifesto to totally eliminate all community local authority secondary schools in the borough. The Council has spent a lot of money on glossy leaflets and consultants; refused to ballot parents and other stakeholders (including students); and denied a place on the platform to those opposed to its plans at the three meetings referred to above. The 19 March 2009 press release advertising the consultation meetings was only provided when Croydon SOS’s website publicised the fact that the public had not been given any details of the dates, times and venues for the meetings. Those attending the three consultation meetings, moreover, were only able to ask questions: but not allowed to present alternatives.

In addition, Harris Federation—the proposed sponsor for the academy at Haling Manor when it closes—advertised for a new head teacher in the Times Educational Supplement dated 27 March 2009 before the original end of the consultation period and before being given official approval to turn it into an Academy. Similarly, Oasis—the Council’s preferred sponsor for the Ashburton Academy—advertised the equivalent post on its website with a closing date of 9 April 2009—the final day of the original consultation period, which following the consultation meetings and a press report is now also problematical.      

The Council provided contradictory information during the consultation period: for example, at the Haling Manor meeting on 31 March 2009 the Council’s feedback form and the questionnaire provided by the proposed Academy sponsor both stated that completed forms must be returned by 9 April 2009. Conversely, according to The Croydon Advertiser 3 April 2009, immediately following the 9 April, ‘a final six-week period of consultation will take place before the Harris Federation can take over the school’. SOS was unaware of the latter extension to 21 May 2009 for Haling Manor until this press report. Meanwhile the joint glossy publication provided by the Council and Oasis at the two meetings for the three Ashburton schools on 2 April 2009 states: ‘30th April 2009 Academy consultation ends’ (p. 19). Here again until 2 April 2009 SOS was unaware that the Oasis Academy consultation had, according to the founder of Oasis (the Reverend Steve Chalke MBE) who spoke at the meetings, “only just begun”. SOS is therefore totally confused by such inconsistencies: since the length of the consultation process for all  the  four  schools  should at  least have been similar with all stakeholders made
aware of this at the beginning of the process—even if the outcome in all other respects was a fait accompli.

Hence, for all the above reasons, SOS concludes that the consultation process has been a sham.