Gove confronted over cancelled school projects
Updated on 05 August 2010
As Education Secretary Michael Gove faces criticism over the scrapping of plans to rebuild nine secondary schools in Sandwell, one local councillor tells Channel 4 News that he believes the minister owes them a personal explanation.
Michael Gove had cancelled school building projects in Sandwell, despite originally telling officials that their schemes were safe.
Last month the £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme was axed, with plans to update more than 700 schools scrapped. A further 151 projects remain under discussion.
Mr Gove defended the decision to end the project, saying the BSF created too much bureaucracy and was not value for money.
The department of education argued money saved was intended to finance the new free schools scheme, a Swedish style programme under which groups can apply to set up new schools in their area.
Mr Gove was later forced to apologise to the Commons and council leaders after it emerged that an initial list of 715 affected BSF projects contained errors. .
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Many schools, including a number in Sandwell, which believed they had escaped the axe, later learned their rebuilding projects had been hit.
Mr Gove initially told the council he intended to review his decision to axe £114m of borough school rebuilding schemes. The Department for Children Schools and Families later maintained that such a review would not be going ahead and that the move to cancel the projects would still stand.
Amid acrimonious exchanges in the Commons, the West Bromwich East MP Tom Watson called Mr Gove a "miserable pipsqueak".
A group of Sandwell councillors called for Mr Gove to overturn his decision to axe nine secondary schools' building plans in their area.
"He still owes people an explanation"
"He (Gove) promised us that he would urgently review his previous decision and that we would be a priority for the money, so what we want to hear today is how that is going to happen," Deputy Leader of Sandwell Council, Steve Eling, told Channel 4 News.
"He told us face to face that he would come to Sandwell and apologise to people and that he would review his decision as a matter of priority and our schools would go ahead. Now statements from the Department of Education since then have changed that and that's become confusing to people.
"As far as we're concerned though what he's said himself is what counts not what his civil servants have put out. At the end of the day the book stops with him, he is the Secretary of State. He is responsible.”
Councillor Eling called for the education secretary to make a personal visit to Sandwell: "He still owes people an explanation and he did make a commitment that he would give one" he said.
"I think in September, when the schools are back, he is under a form of duty to come and speak to the people onthe ground who have been affected by his decision."
Following the talks in London, Sandwell Council Leader Darren Cooper spoke of his disappointment after Gove refused to reprieve the borough's schools' modernisation programme.
He said that while Mr Gove had said he would not reverse cuts to the secondary school scheme, he had assured councillors that Sandwell would be a top priority for capital resources in an autumn spending review.
The Department of Education declined to issue a statement, saying the meeting was private.
