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section 1: the context of school closures
The Government's strategic objectives
1. The Scottish Government's principal purpose is to create a more successful Scotland with opportunities for all to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth. To deliver that, the Scottish Government has identified five overarching strategic objectives - to make Scotland smarter, safer and stronger, wealthier and fairer, greener, and healthier. These objectives should be the focus of government and public services both nationally and locally.
2. Our commitment to tighten the regulations relating to the closure of all schools and thereby focus on the availability and accessibility of educational services for both children and 'lifelong learners', not only supports our objective of achieving a Smarter Scotland, but also each of the Government's other strategic objectives.
3. The presence of a school in its midst can be important in helping a local community to thrive, and particularly in rural areas, to be more viable and resilient. A rural school is often the 'hub' for such communities and their activities. Our proposals recognise this reality and will help to create safer and stronger communities across Scotland.
4. Local access to educational opportunities plays an important role in creating a wealthier and fairer Scotland, particularly in remote and rural communities where the range of opportunities available locally may already be less than those available in urban areas. Creating a legislative presumption against the closure of rural schools is intended to help redress some of that 'imbalance'. Equality of educational opportunity irrespective of location is also vital to encouraging wealth generation and to enabling people to share in the benefits of that. In tightening the regulations for all school closures, we also intend to establish a consultation process which is fairer and which is perceived to be so.
5. Maintaining rural schools also supports, in several ways, our endeavours to minimise environmental impact and increase active travel as part of our healthier and greener agenda. For example, from a health and fitness perspective the school's grounds may be used by the community for sport and recreation purposes, and the buildings and facilities for the integrated local delivery of some health and wellbeing services and classes. Whereas travel patterns to a local rural school may well involve walking and cycling, travel by vehicle may be unavoidable to a more distant school outwith the local community. A heightened focus by authorities on assessing all aspects of the environmental and carbon impact and the sustainability of their proposals, will also be appropriate.
What is wrong with the way school closures are currently handled?
6. The current legislative framework governing how local authorities must handle school closure proposals is set out in both primary and secondary legislation. Annexes c and d refer to or set out the relevant parts of primary legislation and the Regulations, plus associated Government circulars and guidance. The legislation has been amended and added to over the years, in some cases in response to very specific events or cases. The result is a patchwork of rules and regulations, the oldest of which date back more than 25 years, which focus in great detail on some parts of the process yet ignore others. The whole is thought by some to be difficult to understand and no longer fit for purpose.
7. School closure proposals often cause a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety locally and arouse very strong feelings. The current rules and regulations leave many parents and local communities with no clear understanding of their rights and how the system operates. Parents often say that they have little trust or confidence in the system. Many have concerns that their voices will not be heard or taken account of, or that their concerns and questions will not be addressed or answered. The current process does not require any explanation to be given of whether or how their views have been considered and taken into account.
What principles should underpin proposals for change?
8. Our objective is to establish a new system that is:
- more coherent and easier to understand;
- fairer and more workable;
- more open and transparent; and
- above all, one in which the public has more trust and confidence.
9. Any endeavour to devise such a system stands a greater chance of success if the task is approached as a whole rather than piecemeal or by tinkering at the edges. Hence our commitment to reviewing and improving the way in which all school closures, not just rural ones, are handled.
10. A system which is regarded as fairer will be one in which all the parties feel that their views have been taken seriously and given consideration and responded to. It will not be one in which the parents and the community effectively have a right of veto over the Council, nor one in which the Council can proceed to a decision without taking full account of the views of the parents and community. A fair system is one in which the consultation process is a genuine one, where the final Council decision takes account of the views expressed and the unique circumstances of each case. It will be one where closure proposals can be and are withdrawn, modified or proceeded with, in light of the views expressed during consultations.
11. It is not the case that no schools will ever close. Circumstances change. Patterns of supply inevitably have to adjust to changing patterns of demand. In fairness to Councils the system and process must recognise their various legal obligations and duties. For example authorities are required to:
- provide adequate and efficient education in their area;
- provide sufficient school accommodation;
- educate pupils in accordance with the wishes of their parents, but avoiding unreasonable expenditure; and
- provide services that meet best value criteria.
In fulfilling these duties the authority must also recognise the entitlement of every child and young person to a quality of education which must take primacy over other considerations.
The current Scottish Government guidance stresses that the 'educational case' for change
is always key; that the quality of education provided to pupils should be the overarching consideration. This is linked directly to the duty of local authorities to strive to improve the quality of school education provided and to raise standards.
12. It is these considerations which require authorities often to have to take into account wider factors which will perhaps be of little interest to the parents in the community directly affected by the proposal, such as the need to manage the school estate as efficiently and effectively as possible. For example, excessive numbers of surplus places tie up resources unproductively, resources which are then unavailable for use in raising standards and quality of education for all pupils. This means that authorities must look to reduce excessive numbers of surplus places in schools that are significantly under-occupied, but there may well be other ways of doing that short of proposing closure. The Government notes the statement by the Chair of the Accounts Commission in a letter of January 2007 to the Convener of the Scottish Parliament's Education Committee that "…at no time has the Accounts Commission or Audit Scotland said that occupancy levels alone should determine what councils do [in relation to a school's future] or that an occupancy level of below 60% should automatically trigger a school's closure…" 2
13. A more open and transparent system will be one in which the consultations are well informed by a clear explanation of why the Council has reached the decision to propose closure and in which the background information supporting that decision is set out. It is important then that the conduct of the consultations is and is seen to be meaningful, involving a real engagement with those whose views are being sought. In proposing a school closure a Council will have long deliberated over whether to proceed to consultation. However, it is important that the Council is seen to be open to new ideas, suggestions and proposals emerging from the consultations, and that the final decision which the Council takes is not a foregone conclusion.
14. Clear, new regulations setting out a more robust and rigorous process for the way in which each consultation must be conducted, should help to assist both authorities and consultees and result in a system which commands a greater degree of public trust and confidence than is the case at present.
Why the focus on rural schools and communities?
15. Around one million of Scotland's 5.1 million people live in rural areas; and that proportion is growing. Between 2001 and 2006 Scotland's population rose by 1%. However, the population rise in what are classified as remote rural areas was 4%, and in accessible rural areas (the rural areas nearest to towns) the rise was 6.3%. In the urban areas the increase was only 0.1%. So rural areas are gaining rather than losing population, but that masks the fact that young adults are leaving rural areas at a disproportionate rate, leaving behind an increasingly ageing population. From 1996 to 2006 accessible rural areas saw the smallest decline in pupil numbers, with school rolls falling by only 0.5%, compared to an 8% fall in Scotland as a whole. However this 0.5% fall results from a 3.7% reduction in primary school rolls but a 6.5% increase in secondary rolls. On the other hand, a sustained increased in the rate of immigration to these areas in the future could significantly affect these trends.
16. While many rural areas have made good progress in regeneration and halting or reversing population decline, there is clearly more that could and needs to be done. Maintaining the provision of accessible school and nursery education in some small, rural communities can make a significant contribution to regeneration efforts and to the long-term sustainability of the local community. New families can be attracted to the area while those already there may be more likely to stay. Conversely, the closure of rural schools can make an area less attractive to the young families who are often the lifeblood of rural communities.
17. A recently published report by the Rural Development Council in Northern Ireland, entitled Striking the Balance, 3 underlines the importance of ensuring proper recognition of the potential of policy to impact very differently on rural as against urban areas. Recognising the differential impact of school closures is a good start. It is this which underpins the Scottish Government's commitment to changing the approach to rural school closures.
18. The focus on rural school closures is rooted in an acknowledgment of the importance of accessibility of services to the sustainability of populations and communities in remote and rural areas. In towns and cities the issue of accessibility of school provision is not so critical because the distances involved are less and the availability of public transport and other infrastructure is greater. If the population falls in an urban area and authorities need to consider some rationalisation and school closures, this rarely results in pupils having to travel to a neighbouring town to attend school. The resulting changes in home to school travel patterns will often be of only a mile or so. Urban areas, by virtue of their size, also host a greater range of services available both to those living within a town and in its hinterland. The direct contribution of schools to the viability of such communities, within that wider range of services, is therefore also obviously less.
19. In rural areas the situation can be very different. 54 or 40% of the 136 4 school closures in Scotland since 1999 have been in rural areas. Closure of a rural school often means that children have to travel outwith their local community to the next available school, while at the same time the community can lose the use of the school buildings, grounds, and facilities. Moreover, there is a lesser range of services available in rural areas than in urban areas. In some communities where there is no longer a shop or post office, the school may be one of very few services still left within the community, functioning both as a "children's centre" and as a focal point for community activities. Closure could have implications for the future sustainability of the whole community, far beyond the issue of the provision of education. Its loss would certainly be likely to have a proportionately greater impact than would be the case in an urban area.
20. In addition, we are aware of the fragile condition of the Gaelic language and the vital role which rural schools can play in ensuring that Gaelic remains a feature of certain communities where it has traditionally been spoken. In the event of the closure of a school with Gaelic medium education, arrangements may well be made for the pupils to receive Gaelic medium education provision at another school. However, in the same way that the loss of a rural school can have an adverse affect on a rural community, the loss of Gaelic provision locally may also affect the use, confidence and profile of Gaelic in a community.
The term 'school'
21. Throughout this consultation paper the term 'school' is used, and includes all local authority primary, secondary and special schools. However it is intended that proposals set out in this paper would also apply to the proposed closure of stand alone local authority nursery schools; of nursery, primary or secondary departments or special units within schools; and of individual year groups within schools. The word 'school' is used as an umbrella term and should be taken to include all these categories of situation.
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