Bill Wiggin MP leads delegation to meeting with Schools Minister
Press Release :
27 March 2008
Bill Wiggin MP has taken his campaigns for a fairer funding deal for Herefordshire’s schools, a new special educational needs school and opposition to rural school closures, to the schools minister Jim Knight MP. Senior councillors and council officers from Herefordshire, which included Council Leader Roger Phillips and Chief Executive Chris Bull, came to a meeting with the minister organised by Bill Wiggin. At the end of the lengthy discussions, Bill Wiggin said:
“After opposing the schools closure threat, it was high time to bring a delegation from Herefordshire to speak to the schools minister about the range of issues affecting schools and education in our County. Earlier this year everyone in the County was shocked by the merger and closure proposals, which were drawn up by council officers responding to instructions from the Government advising that to receive capital funding for new school buildings, surplus places needed to be reduced by closing schools. We left the minister in no doubt of the problems this had caused the astronomic levels of misery and concern that had arisen among the County’s parents.
“The Council was also left confused by Government civil servants telling them to close schools and then, following the public outcry, Jim Knight suggesting that they could not do this. We asked the minister to clarify the current situation and sought a re-assurance that the capital projects to improve school buildings, that we qualified for, could continue without having to close schools. Although he gave no cast iron guarantees, Mr Knight accepted that there was confusion surrounding rural school closures, was sympathetic to the problems this had caused and promised that his civil servants would now work with the Council on their capital funding bids.
“We then made the minister aware that while our schools do a fantastic job on shoe-string resources, they could do even better if we had a fairer funding deal from the Government. Despite our rural needs, such as rising transport costs as a result of increasing fuel prices, providing education in a sparse area and the maintaining of school buildings, we currently receive the third lowest funding settlement per pupil in the country. Unfortunately the minister would not budge on this issue and stated that the present budgets were set. He also turned down our request for a new school for people with special educational needs, which is a real pity as we would all like to do so much more for these young people and their families. “Although it was disappointing that the minister could not give us any guarantees on improving the funding settlement and helping improve education services in Herefordshire, the Council has now been able to clear the air with the minister and hopefully enable a better working relationship from now on. I also will continue to support our local schools and press the Government to give us the better deal that our children and teachers deserve. It was unfortunate that Hereford MP Paul Keetch had a foreign affairs meeting and so was unable to join us at this meeting because when it comes to safeguarding the education of the County’s children we should all work together to present a united front.”
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