Truancy lesson needs learning

Is it any wonder that the county’s LEAs lag behind the rest of England when it comes to academic performance indicators like SATs and GCSEs when so many youngsters have a poor attendance record?

It is not the only question that needs answering exactly a week after David Cameron’s visit to Yorkshire in which he identified skills training as a priority issue.

Why, for instance, do countless initiatives, including jailing the parents of serial truants, appear to have had such little impact, despite their expense? And what is going to be done to reverse a trend which has such a detrimental impact on attainment?

There are no easy answers. If there were, this matter would have been tackled effectively when David Blunkett was addressing this issue as Education Secretary in the late 1990s.

Perhaps the best place to start is with those LEAs and schools that have succeeded in reducing their truancy rates. Certainly some have been more effective than their counterparts in Barnsley and Hull, the two areas that traditionally have the worst attendance record in the county. Why is this so? Hull says the reason is that heads have a more draconian approach than elsewhere. Is this right?

Then there are the mixed messages being given out by the Government and LEAs. While Education Secretary Michael Gove intends parents to be fined if they take their children out of class in term time to take advantage of cheaper holiday prices, Leeds education bosses for are prepared to authorise up to five approved absences per term. Where is the consistency when the DfE is claiming that its reforms are motivated by the desire to give schools the power to intervene much earlier before a youngster’s truancy gets out of hand?

And then there is the issue of leadership and accountability. Where is it? Unless someone starts answering these questions and others, next year’s truancy tables will be even more familiar, with even more children let down.

The bloated BBC: Double standards over staff costs

RISING ratings mean that the hit show The Great British Bake Off is to be switched to BBC1 next year. It is likely to be very successful – an endless diet of cookery programmes appear to be the new fad.

One programme unlikely to feature, however, is The Great British Rip Off featuring the BBC and the obscene sums, £150,000 in one instance, that were paid to staff to relocate from London to the Corporation’s lavish new base in Salford.

Although the move was completed successfully for £9m under budget, a point that should be noted, even greater savings could have been accrued – and then re-invested in more original TV programming – if costs had been kept under stricter control.

As such, Margaret Hodge, chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, is right when she says that this latest largesse, coming on the back of a succession of golden goodbyes for senior staff following a series of scandals, will “aggravate” licence fee payers – the very people who foot the bill for such benevolence.

Like other employers, the BBC has statutory relocation responsibilities and these were fulfilled. Yet there is a difference between these payments and the 11 instances when the relocation of the individual concerned cost in excess of £100,000 – with no proper records kept of the decision-making process. Other payments, too, have also been criticised for being over-generous.

It gets worse. The BBC’s 10-year contract on its new premises could become a “white elephant” because the leased studios are no longer compatible with advances in digital technology. In year one, the underspend on use of one broadcast facility equated to £500,000. Why can’t those concerned be interviewed on prime time TV by Jeremy Paxman? It would make compelling viewing and expose the BBC’s double standards at a time when it appears to be so hostile towards the Government’s economic strategy.

A City trendsetter

THE size of the challenge facing Yorkshire fashion designer Christopher Bailey can be measured by the fact that his appointment as chief executive of Burberry saw six per cent wiped off the value of shares in this £6.6bn British institution

Such verdicts are as cut-throat as a football manager receiving the dreaded vote of confidence.

A reflection of the high-esteem in which departing chief exectuive Angela Ahrendts was held, it is now up to 42-year-old Mr Bailey, the driving force behind the iconic brand’s revival, to set a new fashion trend by combining two key roles – that of company boss and chief creative officer – at a time when global factors, like slowing sales in China, could hit the financial bottom line.

It seems to be a knee-jerk response, given how the financial fortunes of high street clothes retailers – whether it be Burberry or Marks & Spencer – depend on the quality, and style appeal, of their designs.

One other point should be made. As Mr Bailey’s home town of Halifax has a proud textile heritage, he is tailor-made to help shape the brand’s future.