Councillor Jonathan Bacon resigned from his role as Cabinet member for education ahead of last night’s crunch vote on the closure of Isle of Wight primary schools because ‘political needs were being put first and the interests of children last’.
Eyebrows were raised last night (Thursday) when Cllr Bacon failed to show for the all-important meeting on the future of Arreton, Brading, Cowes, Oakfield and Wroxall Primary Schools. The meeting continued as planned with Councillor Debbie Andre stepping in for Cllr Bacon.
The outcome of the meeting – to close Arreton and Cowes but retain the 3 others – was not impacted by Bacon’s lack of attendance, but it certainly didn’t look good…
Now, it has been confirmed that the St Helens councillor resigned from the Alliance administration’s Cabinet yesterday afternoon, 30 minutes before the meeting began.
Cllr Bacon has said that less than an hour before the meeting commenced he was informed that the majority of Cabinet could no longer support the majority of recommendations – so that the closures would not be going ahead as planned. In light of this, he decided to resign from his Cabinet position.
Explaining his decision, Jonathan Bacon has said in a statement:
“I was asked to take on the role of Cabinet Member for Childrens Services in October 2023, primarily to lead to necessary process of ‘School Place Planning’ (or school closures in plain English). This is an essential step to sorting out the problems in our local education system.
“Less than an hour before the meeting at which final decisions were due to be made, I was informed that the majority of the Cabinet could no longer support the majority of the recommendations. It was apparent this was for various reasons, including political and personal ones, but without any apparent regard to the fact that this process was fundamentally linked to trying to improve educational standards on the Island. This fact has been increasingly ignored by people over the past few months.
Article continues below this advertisement “The decisions made last night do not achieve an improvement. Further, they are not just a failure to address matters but instead, they have made matters significantly worse. The Cabinet may have avoided a pothole, but as a result the Council is now heading towards a cliff”.
Having been involved in this work for over a year and overseen the efforts of the Council officers, who have laboured hard to take things this far, and to then face such a last minute turnaround was unacceptable. This was all the more so because of the apparent failure to consider the need to do something to improve our woeful education standards on the Island.
Cllr Bacon has warned:
“The decisions that have been made will mean that another process will have to be launched as soon as possible. All schools, including those ‘saved’ on Thursday night, will be back in the frame for potential closure. The failure to deal with the issue this time, and the bigger problem that has been created, will mean that more schools will inevitably be named for closure.
“The opportunity to deal with the effects of decline in pupil numbers in any sort of manageable way has been lost as a result of what the Cabinet have done”.
Cllr Bacon concludes:
“I also feel that the proposed Education Strategy, which I have helped work to bring forward, has been totally undermined, as the necessary initial steps it required have not been taken. I do not see the point in bringing the Strategy forward now as the ability to achieve what it sets out has been utterly eroded.
“Once again the Nimby factor has undermined the ability to act for the best interests of the future. It is plainly wrong to say the process was flawed, people just didn’t like the results it led to.
“I note there are still suggestions that there may be challenges to the closures that have been voted through. I welcome these as I firmly believe they will show that the claimed flaws were not there and will underline the fact that decisions on Thursday were made for entirely the wrong reasons.
“I realised this was not a popularity contest from the outset, but was something that clearly needed to be dealt with, as well as needing to be done in an objective way looking at the bigger picture. I did my best and I apologise to those in the School system for the failure to deal with matters and the effects it will have upon them. I am however most sorry for those children whose life chances are to be inhibited by that failure.
“Last night political needs were being put first and the interests of our children last. I could not be part of it”.
Since the pandemic political needs seem to be put
first all the time.
We now have the never ending blackhole, just an excuse
to fleece us tax payers of more money.
Not to mention the pre-election promise of council tax
not being increased.
Lol
A large decline in school-age children should mean fewer teachers and fewer schools but the spineless wonders in County Hall refuse to bite the bullet and the rest of us can expect another large rise in council tax next year.
Won’t be too long before Council tax is £5,000.00
a year.
Yep. Pandering to the noisy few will impact badly upon the children. School may be closer, but is it any good?
Typical deluded crap from a failed councillor, why resign? If you thought you were in the right then stick around and carry on and fight for what you believe in. The fact that you were in the wrong and just were trying save money at the expense of communities has nothing to do with it. You quite simply “wimped out”
Unfortunately, under the Tory government, resignation in the face of a moral dilemma as the honourable thing to do, disappeared completely. Councillor Bacon, at least, seems to have retained his moral fibre.
I don’t blame him. The poorly educated , lazy and feckless prevail yet again.
I think Mr Bacon should leave the Council totally , right now
Turnt me right off my full english,
I’ll just be having sausage and egg on toast
I’ll leave the Bacon off
Lol
I seem to recall Councillor Bacon resigning previously. Wasn’t he ‘head’ of the Council in those days and he, and other colleagues quit when they found things getting tough?
I may be mistaken, apologies if I am.
These people never give up, their pension pots
are bursting at the seams.
Where are the comments?