Parents take Council to Court

The case was begun last July, following the county council's 'in principle' decision of 19th April 2005 to move to two tier education across the county. There were originally two grounds for the judicial review which were;

That the decision was unfair because, from what was said in the debate, it was assumed that from that point there would be no scope for individuals to argue the case for the retention of individual middle schools on the basis of their educational merit or community function, and no opportunity for individual partnerships to retain the three tier system where it commanded local support and was working well. In practice, following the decision of April 19th, the LA and Chief Executive made it clear that, in any consultation which followed , only two tier suggestions would be considered. This, said PFLA is a breach of the rights given to individuals under statute.

The council's decision of April 19th 2005 was flawed because councillors did not take account of their own resolution of December 8th 2004 to obtain an independent evaluation of the results of the general consultation with the public on the educational and financial arguments for the reorganisation., before taking the final decision to go ahead. Parents said this was a failure to take account of an important material consideration and also a breach of the public's legitimate expectation that the council would allow their responses to the general consultation to be evaluated by an independent third party who had no preconceptions.

In January 2006, as a result of a document which was disclosed in the legal proceedings and which set out the revised costings for the PFLA project as summarised to councillors in the report of the Director of Children's Services presented to them on April 19th 2005, the parents added a further ground of judicial review; namely that councillors would have been misled by the information presented to them in the report as to the likely costs of the project or, alternatively, the scope of the work which could be undertaken for the costs presented to councillors. The reports presented to councillors in December 2004 had strongly suggested that there would be a transformation of the school estate but the costs presented to councillors in April 2005 were, according to the disclosed document,in the majority of cases, for basic refurbishments as necessitated by the change of use to a two tier school, and without upgradings.

The case was heard on February 10th and 13th 2006 and an order made by the judge for the filing of additional written evidence and submissions on the last additional ground.

The judgment of Mr Justice Munby on the case, in summary form, was as follows;

He agreed that the entire consultation process over the last two years has been rendered flawed, unlawful and unfair by the refusal of the Council to allow the public and schools to put the case for the retention of their own middle school or the argument for retaining a 3 tier model of education within any individual partnership at any stage. In particular the judge noted how people had been told during the general consultation that this was not the time to raise the case for any particular school and this could be done during stage two consultation, but then ,as soon as stage two started t were told the decision to close middle schools had already been made and was no longer open for discussion. This breached the fairness of the process and has effectively rendered the entire exercise unlawful. It would be necessary to redo the stage two consultations wherever they have been undertaken to date in order to put this right and ensure that consultation with the public was still at a formative stage.

This does not mean that the decision of the 19th April 2005 itself was unlawful and it is open to the council to have a preferred position. However, the interpretation by the Council of what that decision meant has been unlawful and has, during the stage 2 phase, tainted the entire process which can only be put right by allowing a meaningful opportunity for the public to argue for three tier schools and models.

The judge did not find that the decision of 19th April was unlawful because of the county council's failure to consider whether it had obtained the independent evaluation of the financial and educational arguments put forward in the general consultation. The judge held that it was up to councillors to decide whether or not they should fulfill their own resolutions and that the public could not, as a matter of law, hold them to a resolution which they had passed 'for their own purposes'. Whether they ever addressed their minds to the fact they had not got this evaluation remains a moot point. It was generally accepted by the Council in court that the report of Alan Parker, put forward on April 19th as a further 'independent evaluation' did not fulfil the terms of the resolution passed in December 2004. Parents would have hoped that a commitment to allow an independent third party to review the arguments for and against changing the system was a moral commitment that would be honoured.

The judge did not accept that the report of 19th April 2005 would have misled councillors as to the costs of the project and the scope of the estate renewal which could be achieved on the basis of the figures being put forward. In effect, the judge held that it was not for the court to make detailed analysis of the financial case and documentation. He found that the councillors had sufficient information before them to know that the project would be a major expense to the county over many years and again seems to have come to the view that it was up to the councillors themselves to ask for any more information they felt they needed. Parents remain deeply concerned about the costings put forward both in April last year and now, in relation to Cramlington, and must now, therefore, pursue those concerns by other routes.

Commentary - 18 May 2006

Thursday 18 May 2006