Lib Dems to battle against school privatisation plan

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 30th Mar 2007

Lib Dems are calling for a halt to Labour's School privatisation plan

The Liberal Democrat Group on Sheffield City Council are set to put a motion to next weeks full council meeting opposing trust and academy schools for the City. The motion will call for a halt to the controlling Labour groups plan to 'privatise local schools by the back door'.

Labour's Town Hall bosses have recently written to every Secondary School in Sheffield encouraging them to become a private trust or an academy. They believe that the move is the antidote to poor exam results which has seen Sheffield fall even further behind the national average in recent years.

However, local Lib Dems are against the move and will call for Labour to re-think their plans at the full meeting of council next week. They believe that such a move would lead to schools unfairly selecting pupils, less accountability and unhelpful competition making it harder to strategically improve education for all.

Lib Dems believe that Labours plan is 'basically about privatising local schools by the back door' as private businesses and other organisations would be running local schools via trusts. Lib Dems believe that a network of local community schools working together is the best option to improve pupil performance across the City.

Councillor Paul Scriven, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, said: -

"We will be calling for Labour to drop their plan, which is tantamount to privatising our local schools by the back door. Moving our schools out of local authority control is not the answer to the poor pupil attainment levels achieved with Labour in control"

"We do not believe that local people want to see their schools run by big business and religious organisations. These private trusts would control admissions and the school assets but they would not be accountable to local parents. Also, a quality education for all cannot be delivered if local schools are competing with each other"

"Lib Dems believe that a network of local community schools working together will give Sheffield the best opportunity to improve education across the city. We believe that's what local people want too - and that's what we shall be arguing for next week at council"

Note: -

See motion to be moved and discussed at the 4th April 2pm Full Council Meeting in the Town Hall: -

NoM moved by Cllr Anginotti, seconded by Cllr Scriven

That this Council: -

(a) notes with concern that the present administration is encouraging every secondary school in Sheffield to become either a private trust or an academy;

(b) believes that the proliferation of trust and academy schools in Sheffield will damage local education provision as;

(1) giving individual schools power to control their own admissions will ultimately lead to schools choosing pupils, not parents choosing schools;

(2) trust and academy schools control admissions and control the freehold of land and assets of schools but will not be accountable to local parents or the local community;

(3) trust and academy schools have no incentive to collaborate with neighbouring schools as they are in competition, this will fragment education provision and make it harder to strategically manage education provision for the good of all;

(c) is therefore against the present administration's plan to reform education provision in Sheffield which is basically about privatising local schools by the back door;

(d) believes that the trust and academy programme is a policy driven by Whitehall that is not supported by the majority of the public in Sheffield and therefore calls on the present administration to listen to local people and reflect their views rather than push their own Govrnment's unpopular agenda;

(e) believes that the solution to the poor level of pupil attainment is not to fragment education provision, but to promote collaboration so that community schools can work together to tackle under performance and therefore calls on the present administration to reform their education policies to this end.