Rural schools shortchanged

BENJAMIN DISRAELI’S timeless maxim about “lies, damned lies and statistics” comes to mind over school funding – and the latest grievances of those Yorkshire MPs fighting for a fairer funding deal for countryside communities.

It is highlighted by the flaws in the Government’s methodology which led to an extra £350m being made available for rural LEAs such as East Riding which was the third lowest-funded authority in the country according to campaigners.

The consequence? Despite this cash increase, East Riding is now the lowest-funded LEA according to Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart who is even more qualified to speak out on these matters as chairman of Parliament’s education select committee.

This situation is made more perplexing by East Riding’s slide down national performance tables, which has been attributed to disparities within a funding formula that has been allowed to become virtually unfathomable.

The frustration of Mr Stuart and his colleagues in East and North Yorkshire is understandable because the Tories were the one party to pledge to overhaul funding before the last election. In power, however, they have been unable to prevent more money being allocated to those London LEAs that already enjoy above-average levels of funding.

Yet, in many respects, David Cameron is in an invidious position because his Lib Dem coalition partners – and Labour for that matter – would oppose any move to divert money away from inner city schools across Yorkshire.

The Prime Minister does need to grasp the nettle. For, if it is going to cost £350m to appease rural areas on every occasion when rural MPs join forces and speak out, the price of inaction will very soon outweigh the cost of reforming a discredited system that only serves to justify Disraeli’s view of the world back in the 19th century.

Betrayal of carers

Owners must be accountable

THE UNANSWERED question at the heart of the latest care scandal is a profound one following Panorama’s exposé of an elderly dementia stroke victim being slapped by a worker at a nursing home. How could such heartless malpractice be allowed to take place at the time when it was being given a clean bill of health by the Care Quality Commission after complaints about staff shortages?

The simple answer is that official investigators will only see a snapshot of the care offered while Panorama’s journalist, posing as an undercover carer, was able to use hidden cameras to reveal the extent to which some residents were taunted, roughly handled and left in their own excrement.

Of course it would be wrong if this one reprehensible incident detracted from the compassionate treatment provided at care homes across the country, and it would be churlish not to acknowledge this.

Yet these well-managed establishments will also accept that there will need to be even more unannounced spot-checks by the CQC to identify – and root out – the small number of so-called carers whose callous neglect betrays their profession.

At the same time, this needs to be backed up by even more draconian sanctions against those premises where standards fall short. And that means the watchdog taking stronger action against the owners and managers of homes where sub-standard care is exposed. After all, they’re the people who are ultimately responsible for the treatment provided by their staff and they should have nothing to fear from such an approach.

Another own goal

British Gas in denial over prices

IT APPEARS that Stuart Rolland, chief operations officer at British Gas, has been to the same management school as Newcastle United, the under-performing Premier League club which appears to be blaming the local media – rather than its millionaire players – for the side’s dismal performances under Alan Pardew.

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from Mr Rolland’s notion that a media “witch-hunt” fuelled the breakdown of trust between the “big six” energy giants and their customers over gas and electricity prices. It was nothing of the sort. Without media scrutiny, which has been far more effective than the energy industry’s toothless regulator Ofgem, firms like British Gas would not have made any concessions. To use football parlance, the ball is back at Mr Rolland’s feet. He can either preside over a transparent pricing policy which wins back the public’s trust – or he can score another corporate own goal. It is his choice.