Cross Party Support for Decisions around Schools to be made Locally

At last night's Council meeting. a motion passed with cross party support calling for decisions around schools to be made locally. Since a number of Leicestershire Schools became academies, decisions around school place planning, school improvement, oversight of admissions and catchment area policies have been controlled centrally in Whitehall rather than by local Councils. This has often left the Council unable to address local issues around catchment area changes and the impact on school transport as they lack the powers to do so.

The motion called for these powers to be returned to local Councils, as they were run by democratically elected representatives of the area and usually had more local knowledge of the issues affecting education in the area and were in a better position to respond to them.

The Labour councillors abstained from the motion as they did not think it was radical enough and did not outright oppose academies, although it was pointed out to them that the national Labour Party not only intended to carry on with academies, but a recent report from Blunkett even endorsed the model of unelected commissioners.

Cllr Geoff Welsh, who proposed the motion, said, "We have our differences here at County Hall, but if there's one thing that all three parties agree on it's that decisions over our schools need to be made locally rather than by faceless bureacrats in Whitehall.

It's now up to us to make the case to our respective parties so that the next government can return these decisions to democratically elected representatives of local people."

Full wording of the motion:

That this Council:-

(a) Congratulates Nicky Morgan MP for her appointment as Secretary of State for Education and looks forward to working together in partnership to ensure that Leicestershire children receive the highest standards in education;

(b) Believes that Local Authorities can contribute further to this partnership, particularly in areas such as School Place Planning and School Improvement, were their powers extended in the relevant areas.

(c) Therefore calls on all parties drawing up manifestos for the May General Election to give the following points consideration:-

(i) Give Local Authorities oversight of Age Range and Catchment Area changes, enabling them to ensure such changes to local schools are made in consideration of impacts to the wider area including home to school transport;

(ii) Reduce restrictions on Local Authorities when establishing new schools in their area, providing them with the freedom to make decisions that are right for their area;

(iii) Allow Local Authorities to challenge the establishment of free schools in areas where there are good schools with surplus places, so that resources can be focused in areas of need;

(iv) Abolish the unelected regional school commissioners and hand all middle tier responsibilities to Local Authorities that are democratically accountable to their residents.