By James Simons
Norfolk Council is seeking legal action to stop the Freedom of information Act being applied to force them to release details of school ratings in their Borough.
They have so far refused to disclose to parents the ratings of schools in its borough. The move has annoyed parents who feel they deserve the right to choose where to send their children to school.
Norfolk Council for the past 3 years has assessed future risks to all schools and academies that could stand in the way of the schools receiving “good” judgement by Ofsted when they come to inspect the schools.
CATEGORIES
Under their system, schools are categorized into 3 groups: – those causing concern, those requiring improvement, or a potential system leader . In its assessment at the start of this academic year, 72 fell into the bottom category, 119 in the middle, and 231 in the top. The disturbing thing for parents is that the Council has remained tight-lipped when it comes to identifying schools that come under one group or the other.
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A parent from Kings Lynn, Evelyn Sharpe, told The eye of media.com ” I think this is unacceptable, and represents a poor guide for parents. We have a right to know the quality of a school we intend to send our children to.
It is completely improper for a Council to withhold this basic information from parents who have the best interests of their children at heart, and want to send them to good schools. Some schools are poor because of inadequate teaching, or admission of children from weak backgrounds or dysfunctional homes.
Such schools have children who could be a bad influence on children from good homes who want the best academic development for their children. Norfolk Council is taking the meekly out of us, and this needs to stop”, she said.
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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
In November, Norfolk Council turned down an EDP Freedom of Information request asking for this information. A month later rejected an appeal, arguing it would make it less likely schools would share data with it, damaging its work to support education in the county. It is shocking to think that the Council could turn down a freedom of Information Request to disclose vital information useful to the knowledge of parents.
Weak
The excuse given is wholly weak and gives the council no right to overlook a freedom of Information request. Upon learning about the problem, the eye of media.com, next week, plan to serve the Council with an FOI of our own, and we won’t be going away easily.
The EDP has rightly argued that parents should be able to see the most recent assessments of their schools, especially as many Ofsted reports are several years old.
RIGHT
In January, Cliff Jordan, leader of the Conservative councillors, and now leader of Norfolk County Council, said: “Parents up and down our county have a right to know whether their local school is in good shape or not. Sadly, this is typical of the secret-squirrel tactics employed by the current council leadership.”
RULING
Ironically, the Information Commissioner’s Office ruled last month that it was in the public interest for the ratings to be released, but their ruling has been ignored.
The ruling reads: “In the commissioners’s view, disclosure is unlikely either to have a significant effect on the willingness of schools to contribute to the process carried out by the council, or else any inhibition caused by the free and frank manner with which advice is provided or views are exchanged would not be sufficiently severe, extensive or frequent to prejudice the council’s work in this area.”
APPEAL
The council solicitors for the first time, have launched an appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal to overturn the decision
They wrote: “The Information Commissioner, in its decision, failed to grasp the impact upon the parties, school performance and morale of disclosing this information to the press.”
It claimed the decision was inconsistent with previous rulings and warned of “probable sensationalisation(sensationalism) and manipulation of the information”. It had previously criticized coverage of risk ratings of Suffolk schools by the BBC, and the East Anglian Daily Times. However, that excuse is weak and an insufficient reason for refusal.
A council spokesman said: “We are appealing this decision because, in this case, we believe the Information Commissioner did not appreciate the extent to which the disclosure of our risk assessments of the achievement of Norfolk schools would prejudice or be likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.
“It is our view that releasing this information would diminish the championing work of the council. Disclosure of the dialogue that we have with individual schools to ensure children and young people are receiving the best possible education would undo the good work already done.
Without this dialogue, our existing approach – that has contributed to significant improvements in Norfolk’s schools – would be invalidated.
“Our view is shared by schools who responded to a survey we conducted. Of the 195 replies we received in two days, 181 – or 95pc – felt disclosure of the information would be prejudicial to the working arrangement between the council and schools”, the statement read.
Well, our view is different. Our view is that parents indeed have the right to know the standard of schools in the borough, so they can make an informed decision when choosing a school for their children.
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