Now that even our Key Stage 2 SATS scores have plummeted to the very bottom of the heap nationally, it might be worth remembering this:
"A Conservative Council will transform the council's Local Education Authority to an organisation with an excellent track record of improving school attainment levels for our children." IW Tory manifesto 11 April 2005.
The guy responsible for this slight shortfall in promised delivery is cabinet member Alain Wells, who admits to being "disappointed" by the fact that kids of above average ability when they arrive in his care are reduced to being the worst in the country - worse even than Thurrock - shortly thereafter. You're not as disappointed as the rest of us mate, especially those of use with kids in the system who are seeing their life chances compromised by four years of U-turns, endless bodged consultation, general destabilisation and universal demoralisation - all symptomatic of not having a clue what to do.Alain reckons that this "disappointing" performance highlights the problem of the present structure, so presumably there will be some minor changes to the manifesto this time around in that respect? He will no doubt be reflecting on the fact that if he and his chums hadn't got in four years ago, restructuring (without village school closures) would have already happened long ago.
Manifesto score: er...can you have a minus out of ten?
So will Alain do the decent thing and fall on his sword? Shortly after Fred the Shred hands back his pension to RBS shareholders I suspect.
2 comments:
Ah yes, but why single this Cabinet Member out for individual humiliation.
Nearly four years ago when Island First got the boot, they had managed to win £6 million of cash out of the Government Office South East to build 'Ryde Interchange', that landmark new bus rail hovercraft terminal we should now have, welcoming visitors to Ryde and indeed our attractive little Island.
So what has happened since you may ask - is it really four years since the Conservatives took the £6 million gift into their capitalist care, with all of us sure in the knowledge that they would manage this huge transformation project much better than the battered Lib Dem Cabinet Member for Transport, the hapless but brazen Ernie Fox.
Well, four years on and what do we have to show. If nothing was the answer that wouldn't be so bad, but the Council have been trying to barricade the truth out of public view for some while.
After four years of Tory safekeeping of the public purse, the current Cabinet Member for Transport, Tim Hunter-Henderson, the Councillor with the least personality ever known to the Island, has less than nothing to show, or indeed shout about.
Not only has the money not been spent and the Interchange (ooh sorry, they've renamed it 'Ryde Gateway' in the intervening years) not been built, but the word on the tracks is that Network Rail are about to tell IW Council to get lost from their station having wasted so much of their own time dealing with the Council on this project.
Apparently, the Council don't want to sign the standard lease agreement that every other developer in the UK signs with Network Rail. They're so scared of contracts that they want a different set of conditions to everyone else in case Network Rail decide to shut up shop at Ryde. For heavens sake, can't the Council see that if that happens, there's no point to having a grand interchange (sorry, Gateway) to manage and maintain anyway!
But it gets worse. The council made South West Trains (aka Islandline), who own the current station chuck out all their tenants, including vaious concessions, and Southern Vectis buses who paid most of the costs for their offices, travel shop and drivers accomodation in the Station. SWT paid out big bucks to evict them all for the Council, who promptly told them they weren't about to build it and to hang on. For over a year SWT have been waiting for the money back and have lost all the rent and rates in between. They can't get Southern Vectis back because they spent a fortune across the road on new premises and fitting them out.
And in that 16 months the Council have simply walked off to hide behind a hoarding, not offering an ounce of responsibility for the decaying bus station in the intervening period.
Could it have got any worse - well yes, the Council got round the expiry of the planning permission for the Interchange (sorry, Gateway) by digging a big hole to do some test piling, then put massive hoardings round it. Levelling the site couldn't have made it look any worse.
Hunter-Henderson is so low key (or is it no key) that he apparently hasn't ever spoken to Islandline or Southern Vectis - yes, he is the Cabinet Member for Transport!!!
And so to last week's Full Council meeting. Councillor David Knowles, the Lib Dem leader of the small remaining survivors from the Tories triumphant sweep to power had Hunter-Henderson seething with irritation. Why?
Well, because he asked him three times in Members' Questions whether the IW Council's Project Manager for Ryde Interchange (damn, Gateway) was still employed on full pay by the Council even though he was suspended back in 2007 - YES 2007.
What did Hunter-Henderson have to say about it all...he couldn't answer him because it is a staffing matter - after the third time he told him to ask the Chief Executive. Then it suddenly dawned - perhaps Hapless-Henderson simply didn't know that the Project Manager had been suspended on full pay for the last 16ish months - perhaps he needs to check with the Chief Exeutive! No Project Manager, No Project!
Alfie, I can't let the last comment on your post go without comment. If you remember, the Lib Dems were going to close even more schools than the boy wonder Pugh stated originally, ie 23. He has back tracked faster than a space rocket re-entering the earths atmosphere when he realised that the Island was against him. Poor Alan Wells is just the fall guy I expect. A bit like Alistair Darling is to Gordon Brown.
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