North Yorkshire Council has shown itself to be nothing more than a bureaucratic entity - Yorkshire Post Letters

At the recent Whitby Community Network meeting it became clear that North Yorkshire Council has shown itself to be nothing more than a bureaucratic entity, shifting its responsibility for secondary school standards and outcomes in Whitby to a well-meaning but ultimately cash strapped Multi-Academy Trust - and doing it before either of the schools have been forced to become academies.

I agree, there is no going back on the amalgamation of the two schools, and the educational philosophy of the executive headteacher is indisputably rooted in trying to do the best for students, but the fact that a senior officer of the authority can defend the notion that the reorganisation proposals have been put together without factoring in how the capital receipt for the Eskdale site will be used to promote higher standards and quality is as breath-taking as it is absurd.

What business would undertake a massive reorganisation of staff, processes, and infrastructure, secure in the knowledge that a huge cash windfall (likely many millions of pounds) would arise from the disposal of land and buildings and not consider, from the outset, how that cash windfall would be used to transform the prosperity of the business?

The two-site solution we are left with is, as was confirmed by the school leaders, a compromise solution. It may work, or it may be back to the future with what is effectively a middle school and a high school. Without a commitment to reinvestment of the capital receipt, some prudential borrowing and serious lobbying by our councillors to achieve one school on one site, parents and the community can be forgiven for wondering where all this consultation has got them.North Yorkshire Council has been responsible for the schools throughout a period of uncertainty, multiple changes in leadership and a significant decline in standards.

In recent years they have twice added to the uncertainty by backing away from amalgamation proposals. In last year’s GCSE results over two thirds of the students in the town did not achieve a Level 5 or above in English and mathematics. This is a local crisis, and it will take all the efforts of the new leadership team to recover the situation and put education on a sound footing in the town.

Local councillors should not let North Yorkshire Council off the hook. Their responsibility for the schools, including the buildings, will, I am sure, soon pass to the Academy Trust, and we will all hear an audible gasp of relief from Northallerton. But there is a strong moral argument for all the capital receipts to be reinvested in secondary education in Whitby to help overcome the lack of strategic direction and support the council has offered over the last 20 years or more.