School closures (or not)

As I predicted some of the school closures have been called in, and as I also predicted, the terms of the call in are vague and offer little hope to the campaigners.

Look at the thrusting leadership from the Minister:

Mr Russell said closures must always be taken by those with the best knowledge of local circumstances.

But he added: "My role is not to retake a democratically-taken decision but to ensure that a robust consultation process was properly followed and the educational benefits of these decisions are clear."

In other words, look at the process again and have another vote before coming to a decision.  No threat or promise of a veto, just a series of iterations of the consultations until they are acceptable to the Minister.  Acceptable process that is. 

And this is likely to happen just before the Holyrood elections, if my timetable is right.

This would give the Council the opportunity to give a good kicking to the MSP for his failure to engage in the process, and his support of the SNP ahead of the best interests of the Western Isles on a number of issues.

Which will be fun to observe.

But let us again stand back on this whole issue and look at the calamitous failure to have a rural policy that delivers anything.

The new schools were given the go ahead only on the back of the Council finding it's share of the funding gap by closing a series of schools.  This was approved by the Minister, and all the funding was calculated, approved, paid and celebrated in numerous Government press releases over the past 5 years.

Now the Government is trying to backtrack on the implications of its decision when it realises what it has done.  Only to find that it doesn't actually have the power to stop what it has set in train.  Only delay it slightly.

And when you look at specific areas, you will see that the West Harris Trust have received large sums of Government money to buy the estate and develop the area.  All acclaimed by large and numerous Government press releases.  A large part of the rationale behind the buyout was the retention of children, at Sheilibost School, to grow the population in the area.  A school that the Government has already tacitly agreed must close to justify the new school in Tarbert.

Ooops, anyone see the logic in what is being done?

Actually, I think that Sheilibost might just survive because the buy-out having happened so recently, but I'm not holding my breath.

Now, would anyone like to remind us what the MP and MSP promised us about education provision in the islands and in the rural communities?


(I would normally, but I'm away and haven't got the time at the moment)