March 4: Choice and Stack
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WITH school
admissions in the news, I’ve had an interesting Freedom of
Information response from Kent County Council about the
number of parents who are using choice
advisers.
These were set up by the Government in
2006 as part of a drive to help parents choose secondary schools
for their children, with some £9million made available to education
authorities.
At the time the initiative was
announced, schools minister Jim Knight said these
advisers "will have a real impact on ensuring that all parents are
armed with the information they need to find the right school for
their child."
The data from KCC gives an intriguing
insight into the extent to which parents are using the service.
Last year, 866 parents sought help and before that in 2007-2008,
859.
That looks relatively small in the
context of the 17,500 applications for places that KCC has to
process each year but the authority points out that around 1,810
parents also sought help via its own network of 250 family liaison
officers and parent support advisers, who are also trained to give
advice on admissions.
Even so, the numbers remain relatively
low, espeically given the costs involved - £104,587 last year and
£56,764 this year so far.
Read the
FOI response on school advisers here>>
There is of course one way in which
the relatively low take-up of help from KCC’s three choice advisers
could be seen as an indication of the fact that the majority of
parents are relatively comfortable with applications process.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At an estimated £75million, the
potential costs of the proposed Operation Stack lorry
park now outstrip the costs of the first version of the
Turner Centre, which KCC was forced to abandon back in 2006 when
the construction bill reached an estimated £50million.
Will the lorry park plan suffer the
same fate?
It’s difficult to see in the current
climate exactly where such a huge sum will come from and as yet,
there has been no planning application submitted by KCC for its
proposed park.
Costs of Stack park could reach £75m - read our story
The estimated £75million includes the
possible costs of building access roads off the M20 – a major civil
engineering challenge in its own right.
Perhaps the planned high-level summit
on Operation Stack will come up with some alternatives but it is
difficult to know what. If there are alternative viable solutions
to what is a genuine problem for the county when Stack is
implemented, you’d have thought someone would have though of it
already.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Anticipation is mounting at County
Hall and we can expect a puff of white smoke from Sessions House to
bring us news of who the authority's new group managing
director is to be some time next week.
The MD will replace departing chief
executive Peter Gilroy, who leaves in May.
I'm told a shortlist of five
candidates has been drawn up and that there may be one internal
candidate on that list.
Thursday, March 04 2010
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