Author: Melanie Swan
EDUCATION ASSURANCES MEANINGLESS CLAIMS COUNCILLOR
Tuesday, 27th May, 2008 at 10:19 am, Isle of Wight
Press Release From Melanie Swan
Councillors were invited to attend a briefing on the latest stage of education proposals on Thursday 22nd May.
“One of the key assurances to the public has been that money from the sale of school property would be ‘ring fenced’ for re-investment in education, said Councillor Melanie Swan who attended the briefing.
“This appeared to be a dangerous promise because I couldn’t see how the current Administration could guarantee it in the face of an unknown future. I specifically asked the Director whether it was possible to ‘ring fence’ these monies, throughout the changes, given that there will be a new administration in a year’s time; he conceded that it wasn’t.
Up to now, people have found a small crumb of comfort in this sorry process, in believing that money from school or land sales would be re-invested in education.
This is likely to be another example of people feeling let down by this Leadership” she said after the meeting.
“The subject of re-investment is bound to come up in the coming consultations so I asked whether people would be told that this so-called ‘commitment’ would only last for the one remaining year that this administration has left.
The Director said that giving people this information would be a ‘political’ decision. In other words, Officers can tell people that the money is ‘ring-fenced’ and politicians will decide whether to tell them that this is only guaranteed for a year!
Can we trust them to do this?
Councillor Wells didn’t even attend the briefing! How much trust do Islanders have left for a Leadership with such a trail of broken promises?”
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