Liberal Democrats put parents in the driving seat for local Education

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 1st Jul 2008

Sheffield parents are to be put in the driving seat for education through ballots on proposed changes to their local school from now on. Liberal Democrat Sheffield City Council are to introduce the measures for any academy or trust school proposals.

New lead councillor for children's services Andrew Sangar is to introduce a new way of consulting local people when considering proposals for Academy or Trust status. Parents and carers will have the opportunity to take part in a ballot. Parents of the school affected and its feeder schools (where appropriate) would be balloted about a proposed change to school status.

"Previously, the Council has not engaged with parents as much as I would have liked when considering changes to the way local schools are run," says Cllr Andrew Sangar, Sheffield City Council's Cabinet Member for Children's Services & Lifelong Learning. "We want to change this by introducing a ballot into the consultation process."

"At a time when the Government are providing incentives for local schools to change the way they are governed, we know that local parents want to ensure that they are in control. We will provide a framework that will allow them to be the ones who decide the future of education in their area."

"We have been advised that the ballots cannot be legally binding, but they will give an extremely clear steer on any decision. We will require any school pursuing Academy status to use the ballot system, and encourage schools that are pursuing Trust status to do so too."

To make sure that any ballots are free of bias, neither the local authority or the school governing body will run the ballots. Instead, they will be managed independently by an organisation with established expertise, such as the Electoral Reform Society. The estimated total cost of running such a ballot is £10,000 each time.

Cllr Sangar added: "This will be a big step for Sheffield and, as far as I know, no other Council is taking such measures to involve local people in the future of their schools. It's all about involving local people in decision-making on the big local issues, and putting them in the driving seat."

The ballots will first be used by the Council this autumn as part of its consultation on whether the current Parkwood High School should formally be closed, to be replaced by an Academy on the same site from September 2009.