Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by members of the public:

(a)           Petitions: 

To receive any petitions presented by members of the public.

(b)           Written Questions:

To receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 29 November 2024

(c)           Deputations:           

To receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 10am on the 25 November 2024

(C)      Deputations

1)             Council’s analysis of public responses to the engagement exercise on secondary school admissions  

109.1   Cabinet considered a deputation that made observations on the engagement exercise on secondary school admissions arrangements.

109.2   Councillor Taylor provided the following response:

Thank you, Mark, for your deputation and also your work in representing the Parent Support Group. I realise you probably don’t want to be doing that, but you’ve obviously been doing a lot of work with that group and presenting views. 

I’ll start by, as the chair says, responding to the deputation as written. Many of the other issues we will review substantially when we get to the report. The deputation as written was talking about the presentation and content of the summary of the engagement exercise as we published. I think, to answer that broadly, my sense from parents, both in terms of email discussion and Facebook comments, is that  broadly speaking they accepted that the engagement output that we published was fairly representative of views. We published both a summary of the survey result and then we also published a summary of the minutes of the four, I think, public meetings that were held; public meetings of which I attended and listened to all of the content. I think we’ve been reasonably transparent as to the level of opposition and concerns to elements of those proposals. That said, further information has been published in recent days, including some obviously anonymised actual detail of the comments that came through in the engagement exercise and the meetings as that’s now on the website and partly answers really the thrust of this deputation in terms of being transparent on the feedback that came through. 

In terms of the academic evidence, again referenced in the deputation as written, what we published were the things that were submitted proactively to the engagement exercise, including from Professor Dennett, Professor Gorard and other bits of evidence that came through alongside the consultation result. I think we've been reasonably transparent. I think people are fairly clear as to what that engagement exercise told us. 

In terms of the next steps, that’s what we’ll be substantively discussing today in the report, including how we conduct the future consultation. But thank you again for your deputation.

109.3   Resolved- That Cabinet note the deputation.

2)             Class Divide

109.4   Cabinet considered a deputation that made observations on the proposals for secondary school admissions arrangements.

109.5   Councillor Taylor provided the following response:

Thank you, Carlie, for your deputation and for your work which goes long before this engagement exercise or, indeed, before we introduced the Free School Meals policy last year. 

I was going to say it’s laudable work, but really it’s inspiring work that you and other people at Class Divide have been doing to shine a light on the issues that many of us were aware of in the city, but haven't always been talked about and properly engaged with, so thank you. 

Thank you for the content of your deputation. I think there's also something that we need to say that has come out of the engagement, which is that many of the parents that are concerned with the proposals, both in the engagement and now moving into potentially consultation if agreed tonight, have also really engaged with the issue and shown genuine care and compassion for everyone in  the city. They don’t want to see the gap in attainment that we see and they don’t want to see the inequalities more broadly in the city, and I’ve been really impressed and pleased and happy that parts of the conversation have gone in that direction. 

So now what we have to do is take forward a proposal that navigates the issue and brings the city with us. But as you say, that may involve some difficult decisions and may not please every single parent or family. I’m confident we can do that in the next stage by having a real consultation, engaging in the issues and the consequences of what the proposals are, including not having unintended consequences, which is what is being flagged by Mark and Adam and others. That’s really important and that's what we will be doing. I know some people feel that this is rushed but, as you say Carlie, in a sense the issues are so important that we have to show some urgency in tackling them and we now have an 8-week statutory consultation to consider all those issues. But thank you again for your deputation.

109.6   Resolved- That Cabinet note the deputation.