Agenda item - Public Questions

Public Questions

Meeting of Council, Tuesday 13 December 2016 7.30 pm (Item 102.)

a) Bethan Osborne of Belmont ward will ask the following question of Councillor N. Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Can you confirm given the Leader’s recent statement "free school meal figure at (Sir) William Borlase school was a disgrace" that RBWM will not be progressing a satellite option with them or with any other grammar school?

b) Bethan Osborne of Belmont ward will ask the following question of Councillor N. Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

How can the council claim to be increasing Parental Choice when selective education will deliver a Grammar School for just 20% of children and, by default, a Secondary Modern to the remaining 80%?

c) Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward will ask the following question of Councillor Dudley, Leader of the Council

Following RBWM's unsuccessful September challenge to the ICO ruling, do you now accept in full the finding that because it was not “necessary” to the democratic function of investigating your alleged conflict of interest, it was therefore not lawful to publish the political affiliations of members of the public who raised concerns about your actions?

d) Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward will ask the following question of Councillor Dudley, Leader of the Council

In August Councillor Dudley argued that the Council must “stop complaints” that are "politically motivated". The Monitoring officer must now pre-approve public questions, throwing out those that are deemed “politically motivated”. I have demonstrated dangers in the Monitoring Officer's understanding and use of this sensitive data. Please define “politically motivated” and state whether this pre-vetting will be urgently reviewed?

(A Member responding to a question shall be allowed up to five minutes to reply to the initial question and up to two minutes to reply to a supplementary question. The questioner shall be allowed up to 1 minute to put the supplementary question)

Minutes:

a) Bethan Osborne of Belmont ward asked the following question of Councillor N. Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Councillor N. Airey responded that evidence from a number of reviews, including the Sutton Trust in 2008, indicated that disadvantaged pupils eligible for free school meals were under-represented in traditional grammar schools for a variety of reasons. The same reviews showed that on average pupils who attended grammar schools achieved slightly higher results than a similar cohort in comprehensive schools.

The Royal Borough was ambitious for all its school children in the borough and wanted to provide the best education for all, taking into account the family preferences for education type including faith, gender, comprehensive or selective. To that end the borough had committed £30m to provide more school places at Windsor Boy’s and Girls’, Dedworth Middle School, Charters in Ascot and both Cox Green and Furze Platt in Maidenhead.

The borough wanted to explore innovative ideas from any school or educational body which addressed the need to raise the level of attainment for disadvantaged pupils while offering increased choice of high quality education to all residents. Officers had written to Sir William Borlase Grammar School to see how they might address their historic lack of disadvantaged pupils as part of any proposal they might make.

Until such time as the Government confirmed any new regulations that would allow the creation of new selective education places, a satellite option remained the only legal option to any local authority and she would therefore not rule out such a possibility

By way of a supplementary question Ms Osborne asked if the Lead Member could explain why the council believed it was appropriate to bring selective education to the borough when it knew that Borlase had just three children eligible for free school meals whilst the nearby secondary modern Cressex had 170, representing 22% of the school. Buckinghamshire had one of the largest attainment gaps in the country. Could she explain why it would be a good idea to partner up as a satellite with a school that offered so few places to free school meal children? If social mobility was an important issue, given the evidence in neighbouring authorities, why did RBWM think it would be different in the borough?

Councillor N. Airey responded that the report to Cabinet was responding to a consultation and clearly stated the safeguards that would be put in place to ensure disadvantaged pupils would not be excluded, for example a test that could not be tutored for, allowing entrance at different ages and limiting the proportion of selective places across the system.

b) Bethan Osborne of Belmont ward asked the following question of Councillor N. Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

How can the council claim to be increasing Parental Choice when selective education will deliver a Grammar School for just 20% of children and, by default, a Secondary Modern to the remaining 80%?

Councillor N. Airey responded that data published in the November cabinet report ‘Improving Choice in Education’ set out the statistics about borough residents seeking school places from other local authorities. With 13% opting for those places last year, the provision of selective places inside the borough would obviously increase residents’ choices.

The contention that just because there was some selection other schools would automatically be less desirable did not follow. Existing schools already delivered excellent education. Borough secondary school performance in 2016 meant that the Royal Borough was ranked the 9^th highest local authority in England for pupils achieving A*-C in English and Maths at GCSE. The council was committed to building upon that success with schools that met the needs of all of residents and the council had invested £30m in the expansion of the existing schools so that parents had a choice of excellent schools within the Borough.

In considering or responding to any proposal for selective places, the Royal Borough would consider particularly the impact on existing comprehensive schools and the free school meals attainment gap. Consideration would need to be given to what measures could be introduced to offset these impacts such as: limiting the proportion of selective places; making places specifically available to children from disadvantaged backgrounds; using a test that could measure ability but could not be practiced; and allowing entry to grammar schools at different ages.

It was not the intention that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead become a selective education system alone; the council wanted a rich and varied community of schools that all provided excellent education for their pupils and offered all parents choice.

By way of a supplementary question Ms Osborne asked if the Lead Member was aware of the work in Birmingham on selective schools which operated quotas for free school meal children. Was the Lead Member aware that the average was 4.4%? How did she think quotas would work in the borough?

Councillor N. Airey responded that she would be meeting with the Excellent Education for Everyone group and asked Ms Osborne to bring the evidence along to that meeting. Legislation had yet to go through to allow selective education; the Cabinet report was responding to a government consultation. The borough had stated safeguards for any school or institution looking to establish selective education. The council wanted to ensure a fair policy.

c) Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward asked the following question of Councillor Dudley, Leader of the Council

Councillor Dudley responded that the Information Commissioner’s Office accepted the challenge by RBWM and advised the council on 7 October 2016 that they had decided there had been no Technical Breach, as they had originally indicated. However on 18 November the ICO wrote again to say they had reviewed their decision and decided to change their decision. They had now advised the council that although RBWM had provided the local resident involved with the opportunity to review the report in question prior to publication, she did not to request any amendments. The ICO had provided the borough with some further advice which was welcomed, and would be used and acted on going forward. The council also noted that the ICO had chosen not to apply any sanction to the borough in connection with this matter. The council did not accept that it had acted unlawfully

By way of a supplementary question Mr Hill asked, given that the ICO said that the release of personal data without consent amounted to the interference with an individual’s right to respect of his or her privacy and was protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and given this statutory protected right was apparently misunderstood over eight months by two Monitoring Officers, the Information Governance Manager and the legal team appointed in September, did the Leader agree that in the public interest that the decision notice should be independently re-examined by a Law Society recommended practitioner with acknowledged expertise in the area of data protection.

Councillor Dudley responded that the council did not accept that it had acted unlawfully.

d) Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward asked the following question of Councillor Dudley, Leader of the Council

Councillor Dudley responded that no changes had been made to the Constitution with regard to Public Questions. The procedure for Public Questions to Council remained as set out in the Borough’s published Constitution, in Part 2 Section C9. This had not changed. There was no pre-vetting or pre-approval by the Monitoring Officer and there was no ‘politically motivated’ definition to define.

By way of a supplementary question Mr Hill stated that he had made a Subject Access Request for the documentation relating to the case. On 19 August Mr Tubbs said that ‘if my memory serves me right, I recall saying on the telephone that I did not feel that RBWM was really involved in the matter, the comments were those of the councillor’. Mr Tubbs seemed to be saying that RBWM was not the publisher and not really involved, which was obviously wrong. RBWM had to be involved and had to publish.

Councillor Dudley responded that he would ask the Monitoring Officer to write to Mr Hill personally