Further scrutiny of decision to close Chichester school denied

Labour leader Michael Jones (Southgate & Gossops Green) called in the decision to close Rumboldswhyke Infants School, in Chichester, and Clapham & Patching Primary, in Worthing.

His hopes of another debate were squashed, however, when Tony Kershaw, director of law, said there was ‘no valid grounds’ to do so.

Mr Jones said: “With this rejection, sadly we have exhausted all the ways to internally challenge the cabinet’s decision to close the schools.

“Not only is this very unsatisfying and not particularly democratic, it once again highlights how this county council fails to take sufficient regard to people’s concerns on some very important issues.” 

Members of the cabinet recently agreed to close the schools, despite one of the council’s own scrutiny committees asking for them to be kept open.

One issue raised by Mr Jones involved threats of legal action made throughout the process, with the Friends of Rumboldswhyke School considering calling for a judicial review.

Mr Jones said a call-in was  ‘essential so that members can be satisfied that the cabinet have not left the council liable to a successful challenge of the decision by judicial review’.

He disagreed with Mr Kershaw’s argument that it was not up to councillors to scrutinise the potential for any legal challenges – though the latter said in his response that the possibility had been ‘taken into account’ in this case.

Mr Jones said not allowing councillors to consider such outcomes ‘just makes it likelier decisions will go through with less than a robust case’.

Sarah Sharp, of the Friends of Rumboldswhyke School, and district councillor for Chichester South, said she wasn’t surprised by the decision to reject the call-in.

She accused Mr Kershaw of ‘repeatedly [siding] with the cabinet against the scrutiny committee’ and added that the schools were being ‘obstructed’ from ‘exploring properly avenues of academisation which both MPs support’.

Mrs Sharp said a letter of complaint against the county council was being finalised ‘as we believe that there aren’t enough checks and balances in place’.

She added: “The letter of complaint will hopefully trigger a hearing from someone outside the council who can take a hard look and unblock the systems that are preventing democratic voices from being heard.” 

A council spokesman said: “Our rules around call-ins require certain conditions to be met for a request to be successful, including an explanation of why further scrutiny is required.

“Those conditions were not met in the call-in request, which did not raise issues other than those previously considered in the run up to the decision.”

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