Since part of the argument for Free Schools is that they can share ‘best practice’ with other schools, they should be more open than regular schools.

Hmm, new project, (with the inevitable teething troubles that just being new will bring), with various vested interests lined up for the kill….. and you wonder why they’re doing everything they can to keep their heads down?

That said, it’s still wrong that they are being so secretive but the why is pretty obvious.

Why the hoo-hah? If the schools aren’t viable we will know within two years and we will will have learned some valuable lessons, if they are a success, everybody will be delighted. One way or the other, only time will really tell, so why not wait and see?

I can’t see that they are being particularly secretive.

Government departments don’t usually release commercially sensitive information under FoI…. and quite right too.

If you tell everyone what your maximum budget is for, say, catering….. then the catering companies will have the advantage in negotiations ‘cos they will know just how far they can push you on price. No public body would ever get VFM on supplier contracts that way.

This applies just as much to council schools as free schools.

Once the schools exist, their actual spend will be discoverable in the normal way.

Since the FoI exemptions antedated this government, Gove and even the very idea of free schools, it seems a bit odd to link them as part of some imagined conspiracy of silence.

Is that Jean Gaffin OBE, a generous lay contributor to health effectiveness reviews in the UK?

Or is that a Jean Gaffin who is using knowledge of how government systems work to chip away at a Free School that is about to open? There may be two of them, I acknowledge.

Whoever Jean Gaffin is, though, is unimportant to Free Schools. The schools will succeed or fail according to their merits. As Flowerpower suggests, it is impertinent to request that a business plan is openly published; parents enrol their kids on the basis of a prospectus, not a business plan.

One question for Michael Gove: what will you do if a Free School achieves academically but fails financially?

Etz Chaim Jewish Primary School in Barnet

Judaism is a doctrine whose holy books promote genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, homophobia and sex slavery.

Why should a single penny of my taxes go to this?

6 – Because funnily enough Jewish schools don’t promote those things!

“Judaism is a doctrine whose holy books promote genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, homophobia and sex slavery.

Why should a single penny of my taxes go to this?”

Cos, fortunately, anti-semites don’t have a veto on where tax money goes.

@ 5 Charlieman

“As Flowerpower suggests, it is impertinent to request that a business plan is openly published; parents enrol their kids on the basis of a prospectus, not a business plan.”

You think the public wanting to know how their money is being spent is “impertinent”? Does arguing with the government mean you’ve got ideas above your station or something?

It’s not just about the prospective parents. This is state policy and, as voters, we have a right to know about it. If there is a sensible rationale behind these schools, why can’t we see the paperwork? If not, why are they being created in the first place?

@Phil Hunt

>”Etz Chaim Jewish Primary School in Barnet

Judaism is a doctrine whose holy books promote genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, homophobia and sex slavery.”

Now *there’s* something I would like to see explained.

Care to elaborate?

@ 10

“Now *there’s* something I would like to see explained.

Care to elaborate?”

Well, I’ve not read it, but isn’t the Jewish holy book more or less the same as the Old Testament? I HAVE read the OT, and that does appear to support all of the things in the list there.

Of course, this doesn’t reflect on modern Judiasm, and it’s certainly not an argument against Jewish schools (I’m personally against religious schools on principle, but that’s a seperate issue to the one we’re discussing).

@Chaise

I was waiting to see if that was his ‘logic’.

I seem to remember that:

“On 23 August 1305, Wallace was taken from the hall, stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to the Elms at Smithfield. He was hanged, drawn and quartered — strangled by hanging but released while he was still alive, castrated, eviscerated and his bowels burnt before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts”

So that’s it for all our laws in force today, then ;-).

And to try and persuade that concepts such as “history” and “development” exist.

Ah well.

Charlieman: “As Flowerpower suggests, it is impertinent to request that a business plan is openly published; parents enrol their kids on the basis of a prospectus, not a business plan.”

Quite. Why should mere citizens or “parents” have any right to know things which could have no practical purpose for their humdrum lives; surely any decent individual would realise and accept that some things must be kept back from them in their own best interests. Equipped with facts they are ill-suited to understand, the masses could get quite unnecessarily exercised and become most tiresome, impeding the proper functioning of the lofty business of state. Why, they might even become so emboldened in their impertinence that they might vote the Conservative Party out of office.

(end sarcasm)

@ 12

Well yeah, exactly. It’s unfair to judge people by the actions of their ancestors, because pretty much everyone’s ancestors were bloodthirsty bastards.

Phil Hunt @ 6

Why should a single penny of my taxes go to this?

Don’t worry. It’s not your taxes that will be paying. Jewish people contribute easily enough tax not to trouble you for a sub.

@9. Chaise Guevara: “You think the public wanting to know how their money is being spent is “impertinent”?”

You are conflating business plans and accountants. As public bodies, free schools will have to explain what they have done with the money. But they should not be expected to give away all of the bright ideas about how they intend running schools. They are in a similar position to universities which receive public funds and publish annual reports and strategy documents, but which do not publish detailed business plans.

@ 16

If they do have bright ideas, then surely the public, as their effective employers, have the right to find out these bright ideas to use in other schools? And this doesn’t address the more fundamental point that use of public money should be transparent, except in exceptional cases such as things involving national security.

I wonder if LC folk would support Jamie’s angle here, if they also knew that he’s written:

The Bureau recommends an investigation by the Daily Mail into redundancy payments to staff at….

Or has LC finally outgrown it’s anti-Mail obsession :<)

If there is a sensible rationale behind these schools, why can’t we see the paperwork?

There is no obstacle to seeing the rationale or the “bright ideas”.

What the government is refusing to supply under FoI is detailed information about the budget limits for various areas where the schools will be, pro tem, in continuing negotiations with private sector suppliers. This policy of witholding commercially sensitive information is not specific to free schools, but applies right across government.

@ 19

Again, I fail to see how anything relating to a state-paid non-profit can be “commercially sensitive information”. The ultimate owners are us, so we’re entitled to see the information. And their main competition is state schools – also owned by us.

@20. Chaise Guevara: “Again, I fail to see how anything relating to a state-paid non-profit can be “commercially sensitive information”. ”

Assume that institution A has purchased services from company XX following a competitive tender where the losing bidders are YY and ZZ The losing bidders are entitled to ask for guidance about why they didn’t win, but they are not entitled to the details. The companies might use that information to skew future tenders or to act as a cartel.

When constructing their own tender, institution B may ask for a reference or advice from A, but they are not entitled to the details of institution A’s contract. They might use that information to skew the contract towards a bidder determined in advance.

Consequently, non-disclosure of commercial data works two ways in favour of the public interest.

There are 150 local education authorities in England according to Wikipedia (my count is 151, but whatever) and there are 24 free schools. I am unaware of business plans being published for individual local authority schools; LA’s deliver strategy documents and accounts.

I’m not convinced by the free school theory, but it is here now and we should allow the schools to get on with education. If they don’t work because the business plan was flawed, responsibility is shared between school founders/managers and government officials/ministers who provided funds. And perhaps some of the failures will be gallant endeavours that inform us how education might better be provided.