A future that's too far away

Parents deserve some straight answers from Northumberland County Council over its plans to restructure the county's education provision.

The more facts which emerge in this saga, the less transparent and open the controversial process looks to be.

Now we learn that - although the consultation process into the proposed switch to a two-tier education system and the closure of 44 middle schools is well underway - the cash required to do the job is not available for years.

The £650m Putting the Learner First programme may well be the "biggest ever investment in schools in the country" but the main source of cash to start building the promised new schools will not arrive until 2014 at the earliest.

What - the question needs to be answered - will happen in the intervening time?

Do they seriously expect the affected schools to continue "as normal" - for anything up to 17 years with this hanging over them?

Do they seriously expect parents, whose own children will see none of the promised benefits, to buy into that idea?

Bear in mind also that many of these parents have long been suspicious of the entire process.

That opposition was in place long before it finally emerged this week that a key question they wanted asked was removed from a consultation leaflet on the whim of the ruling Labour group.

At the start of this process, people in Northumberland were told they would have an open, transparent debate and consultation process.

With every day that passes, this is looking more and more like an empty promise.

As for the funding details, it is starting to look like a shambles - despite claims that things are still "on track".

The Government's Building Schools for the Future programme is aimed at doing exactly what the title says.

Northumberland County Council's problem is that this "future" is too far away to be relevant to those caught up in the process it has embarked on now.

Bridging that gap will be no easy task.

But, after this week's revelations, even this looks relatively easy compared to the battle it faces to win back the trust of many parents.

What a shambles.

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Schools spending doesn't add up

Still on the new schools issue, there appear to be problems emerging with the way the Building Schools for the Future scheme operates.

Pupils at Durham Johnston School could be stuck working in leaky, portable classrooms for another 12 years - because of their academic achievements.

Priority for new buildings is being given to schools where academic achievement is generally lower.

Quite why academic results are a factor to be considered at all in determining whether a school is in a good or bad state of repair is not immediately obvious.

One can only assume that - since just about anything this Government does has to "turn a profit" in the shape of votes - spending money on poorly performing schools is a better bet.

Some might feel this is a somewhat cynical view but, in the absence of a better explanation and eight years of obsession with targets, it is a hard not to take it.

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