Trafford grammar school gets lucky in school-building injustice

Article published: Monday, November 22nd 2010

A Trafford all-boys grammar school is to get a complete rebuild weeks after the cancellation of a new school in its cash-strapped neighbour Stretford.

Once the new school and grounds of St Ambrose College in Hale Barns are completed next year, at a cost of £22 million to the taxpayer, they will be immediately signed over to a third party who will own the school and grounds. With the Old Boys’ Dinner taking place over the weekend, as well as £3,000 school trips and a brand new school to look forward to, the future looks bright for St. Ambrose.

Yet underinvestment in schools is a long-standing problem in lower-income parts of Trafford such as Stretford. A new school has not been built in the area for over forty years, in which time the number of secondary schools has dwindled from eight in 1970 to just three today. The closure of Stretford High School and Lostock College, and subsequent opening of the new Trafford Academy, was initially going to address this historical shortage of new schools in the area, but this scheme was recently cancelled.

The proposed academy had a website, a principal-designate, and even a uniform in place. Initially there would be £21 million available for the academy proposal, which included the effective selling off of playing fields at Stretford High for what opponents dubbed a ‘Mega Tesco’. This figure was controversially revised on a number of occasions – most recently standing at just £7 million – and widespread local opposition to the closures from parents resulted in the plan being blocked by the Office for the Schools Adjudicator on the grounds of insufficient consultation.

Meanwhile St Ambrose has added to its recent history of having the best of both worlds by combining public money with limited accountability. In the early 1990s it attained ‘grant maintained’ status, having previously been private. This gave it direct funding from central government, akin to the new wave of academies launched this year, until the grant-maintained scheme was abolished by Labour in 1999. It has since been run by Trafford local education authority (LEA) under ‘voluntary aided’ status, meaning the buildings and capital are still owned by a trust rather than publicly – in this case an international outfit called the Congregation of Christian Brothers.

Money for nothing

Under a scheme connected to the now-cancelled – and botched – Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) called One School Pathfinder (previously known as ‘the £20 million project’ – the reason for the renaming remains unclear, but may be due to the fact that projects ended up costing up to £30 million), LEAs not due to have new schools built until later in the programme, due to the prioritisation of underprivileged areas, could choose one school to be rebuilt as a practice-run. Trafford chose St Ambrose. As it is voluntary aided however this means that as soon as the state-of-the-art building is completed it will be handed over to the Congregation of Christian Brothers – at a cost of £22 million to the taxpayer.

The discrepancy between Stretford residents having to choose between unwelcome academy-status and old run-down buildings while the St. Ambrose project hands over millions of pounds scot-free has angered local stakeholders. One local teacher pointed out that if the Trafford Academy had gone through Stretford would have been down to two schools while the reduced budget for capital investment would have made a complete rebuild impossible. Regarding the imbalance of leverage between the two scenarios he said, “Nothing illegal going on here, but it doesn’t seem right.”

“Trafford are one of the lowest-spending authorities per capita on education,” says Dave Kitchen, Trafford Secretary for the teaching union NASUWT, “They want to be nothing more than commissioning agents.”

Mr. Kitchen admits he was “shocked” when he learned that a former private school in Hale Barns was having a complete rebuild while Stretford languished.

For their part Trafford Council say “a comprehensive building condition assessment had to be carried out prior to a final submission under the One School Pathfinder scheme” and “this identified the school in the worst condition and therefore most in need of replacement buildings.”

Deborah Brownlee, Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Service, says that the council’s hands were tied by BSF rules: “Under the scheme the Council was required to include Community, Voluntary Aided and Foundation Schools.”

But what of the fact that £22 million capital is effectively being handed over to a private organisation in a time of public service cuts? Trafford Council still re-approved St Ambrose two months after the cancellation of all other BSF projects was made public and it was clear there would be no money remaining for regular state schools. The asset-stripping and selling-off of the viable parts of public services – leaving the public purse to pick up the unviable parts, then complaining of their inefficiency – has been going on for three decades now to the point where a third of UK public services are run by private organisations.

The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a truly international organisation, its origins in Ireland, now based in Chicago, registered with neither Companies House nor the Charity Commission in the UK. The legitimacy of channelling so much public money into its coffers will surely be the question on everyone’s lips before long.

Ben Egan

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Comments

1. I fail to see why this matter seems to surprise and annoy the author of this article.

   Anyone with any knowledge of state education knows that council incompetence and overspending are the norm.

   Council education offices all around the country are bulging with extra staff recruited during New Labour’s years in power, and many of them are quite well paid. These people are the main beneficiaries of the increase in education spending. It was never about schools or chidren.

   By the way, there is no such thing as an ‘LEA’. The word ‘council’ is the proper term. You say ‘It has since been run by Trafford local education authority (LEA)’.
   No, it has been run by Trafford Council.

   Comment by simon on November 22, 2010 at 6:57 pm

2. What a fiasco. No suprise to see Trafford is a Tory council. And the excuse that they had to include VA schools is crazy, sounds like a clear example of central rules overriding the local needs this government (and the last) claim to hold dear. Simon, you have a bad habit of stating your opinion as fact and I fail to see what your assertions have to do with this matter (or the bizarre suggestion that LEAs are not a recognised term). As the article makes clear this is one example of viable public assets (£22 million in cash in this case) being hived off to outside organisations. This has rocketed over the last thirty years and coincided with a plummeting of social mobility, funnily enough. New Labour’s investment halted the fall but did nothing to reverse it, precisely because they kept the misguided attachement to the kind of quasi-privatising seen here.

   Comment by Richard on November 23, 2010 at 12:35 pm

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