Monday, January 10, 2011

Highland Council plans to spend £300,000 deciding which schools to shut

"A WIDE-RANGING review of education provision in the north, which is expected to weed out schools which could be shut, is expected to cost £300,000, it has emerged."
So reports the P&J this morning.
Now closing schools anywhere in the Highlands is not going to be a happy process but our councillors are elected to get on with the job - they should have the bottle to decide and not put the work out to consultants. Old habits are dying hard at Glenurquhart Rd. Why are consultants needed? Surely the highly paid top men should know what is going on and be able to make a list or two of schools that they think should be closed?

Full story on the P&J here.
And here's the document that's going to the education committee on Thursday

6 comments:

Seafield said...

Makes you wonder how Councils managed to make decisions in those days of old before Consultants were on the scene. Perhaps they just rolled up their sleeves and got on with the job instead of taking the easy (and expensive) option.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's time to cut out the middle man and just employ the consultants?

Nairnac said...

Abdicating responsibility for decision making to faceless consultants is a common corporate practice, particularly when the intended outcome is likely to be unpopular.
The real decision on what to do is always already made and the terms of the consultants brief framed in such a way to achieve the result which has already been decided on.
Management don't want to be seen to be responsible for the unpopular decisions, but they're so full of their own hubris that they don't realise everybody sees the weaselly game they're playing.
A lot of these management types actually believe all the 'paying for talent' guff that the banksters are currently trotting out about their bonuses. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for these bloody people and their stupid games of car park one-upmanship.

I also notice from that document that the Highland Council management have something called a 'Spend to Save Fund'. have you ever heard of anything so nonsensical ? In the real world, if you want to save, then you stop spending. I'm sure the £300k could keep Nairns Grass Cutters and Scaffies on the books for quite a while instead of being syphoned out of the system to some associate of somebody within the council who will inevitably end up employed by that same outfit should they ever fall off their current council gravy train.
Just like in nature, the incestuous practices of the political classes have resulted in in-breeding to produce a mutant strain of political human being, quite removed from the normal population.

Graisg said...

Nairnac if this was Facebook I'd instantly click the 'like' button for your comments.

Anonymous said...

totally agree with Nairnac, but how do you put a stop to it.

Anonymous said...

How do you put a stop to it?

By getting involved with local and national issues as lots of people already are!

We are coming up to elections therefore now is the time to make your points and get the debates going.