Not Building Schools - July 2010

I was in the chamber of Commons when the great row over the cancellation of the building of ‘schools for the future’ programme was announced by Michael Gove, the coalition’s Secretary of State for Education. Some commentators have called the reaction, or overreaction, one of ‘synthetic rage’. I was there, I saw it, and it think there was nothing synthetic about it at all, it was quite genuine, if not all of it entirely justified.

Part of the Anger on the Labour benches was undoubtedly borne of guilt, and frustration. The reality is that the last Government announced that the capital spending budget was to be halved but they did not take any of the unpopular decisions needed to implement it. The recent coalition emergency budget did not cut the capital spending budget any further than the one inherited from the previous government. Let us be clear: these are Labour’s cuts. It is now the unpleasant duty of the new coalition government to actually take the difficult decisions to implement the cuts in capital spending. That about half the schools in the rebuilding programme will not now proceed, seems to me entirely justified by the economic reality of our times. New schools are nice to have and sometimes necessary, but anyone who knows anything about education understands that what goes on in any classroom is vastly more important than the construction of it. In any event, the programme was a sitting duck for cutting: it was hopelessly bureaucratic and had already spent £60 million on consultants (equivalent to the cost of building three more schools).

Part of the anger was exacerbated by the cock-up that accompanied the announcement. The list setting out which schools would be rebuilt and which wouldn’t, was not available in the right place at the right time, and then it was found to be incorrect, and when it was corrected it contained further mistakes. It was this that generated the rage as members bellowed in un-parliamentary language across the chamber, it was disappointment generated by first thinking that their schools were safe, only later to discover that they were not.

To what extent should Gove take the rap for the cock-up?

He could have delayed the announcement until the detail in the list was 100% accurate, but then, how was he to know that the list supplied was hopelessly flawed, containing some 25 mistakes. He might have justifiably shown some frustration at the way he had been served by his officials.

What was refreshing however, amid the scenes of anger, was that this minister took complete responsibility for the errors and sought to blame nobody but himself. This is a remarkable change in the way that we have become accustomed to being governed.