Plan to postpone education cuts withdrawn
COUNCILLORS in Shetland have denied they are plotting to derail the council’s financial strategy by throwing out plans to stop teaching secondary three and four pupils at the islands’ five junior high schools.
Eleven councillors signed a notice of motion to postpone consultations on ending secondary education after S2 at the junior highs in Aith, Sandwick, Baltasound, Mid Yell and Whalsay.
However the motion was withdrawn before Shetland Islands Council met on Wednesday after councillors decided the timing was wrong.
Instead the proposals are likely to be aired next month when the SIC’s education and families committee debate the results of the consultation into the future of Sandwick junior high school, which should be published on Monday.
Lerwick South member Jonathan Wills has accused the 11 councillors of forming a “secret cabal” to halt the school closure programme, by which the council hopes to save £3 million from its education budget.
“They are attempting to drive a school bus through the medium term financial strategy by refusing to implement or obstruct economies in education, and if that goes through then cuts will have to be made somewhere else,” Wills said.
He was particularly critical of education and families committee vice chairman George Smith, one of the 11 councillors who signed the notice of motion, saying that he should resign from the post.
“I think his contribution to the debate is extremely useful, but he can’t sit there as vice chairman and undermine his chair and senior education officers,” Wills said.
Smith vehemently denied he and his fellow councillors were undermining council policy, but said it was important to balance the wishes of the community with the council’s financial position.
Communities throughout Shetland threatened with the loss of both primary and secondary schools are fiercely opposed to the measures.
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In November secondary school parents staged a huge protest outside Lerwick town hall when councillors agreed to a proposal from education consultant Don Ledingham to look into the S1 and 2 concept for junior highs.
Smith said: “We have tried to find a way forward that balances the communities’ aspirations and the financial position the council is in.
“Inevitably you have to steer through that difficult course and I think Jonathan Wills and others are scared that we are going to abandon the financial strategy, which is not at all what is in anyone’s mind.
“We want to keep to our financial plan in a way which allows communities to have confidence that the council is listening to their concerns.”
What is clear is that alternative ways of saving the large sums the education department are seeking have yet to emerge.
The notice of motion calls for SIC chief executive Mark Boden to come forward with proposals to meet any shortfall that a delay in the secondary school consultation would cause.
It looks for a detailed explanation of the “substantial difference” in the cost of educating secondary pupils in Shetland compared to Orkney and the western isles, and for creative approaches to support education in rural communities.
Signatories to the notice of motion are Steven Coutts, Peter Campbell, Gary Cleaver, Theo Smith, Billy Fox, Michael Stout, Andrea Manson, George Smith, Frank Robertson, Robert Henderson and Mark Burgess.
A copy of the notice of motion can be found here.
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