Suffolk Free Schools: County Council changed response to DfE for "political" reasons

Suffolk County Council were asked by the DfE to give their views of the proposed Suffolk Free Schools. A thorough response was drafted by County Council officers based on factual information. You can see a copy of this below:

Draft Submission by Suffolk CC to DfE re Free Schools

However this letter was never sent. The reason for this is, according to County Council Officer Simon White that "Graham [Newman] has had a few "difficult" political discussions about Beccles, and wants us to recast the letter in more neutral terms" so the letter was, presumably redrafted and sent but I do not have a copy as I think it missed the "deadline" for my FOI. You can see Simon White's email in full:

From: Simon White
Sent: 21 February 2012 09:29
To: Philip Houghton
Cc: Phil Whiffing
Subject: Letter to DfE re Free Schools

Just talked to Graham about the draft. I had redone it to make our views clearer (I thought). However Graham has had a few "difficult" political discussions about Beccles, and wants us to recast the letter in more neutral terms - just providing information about the pupil numbers, the likely range of impact on neighbouring schools, and the current performance of those schools. This makes for a shorter letter and with the same info and length on each proposal. This is essentially "answering" the DfEs narrow question, not saying we support or oppose, and leaving them to make the inferences. Could you have a go at drafting this today? Thanks. My now obsolete additions attached.

This is a shame as the letter (and especially the tables at the end) are very clear abut the impact of the free schools on other Suffolk schools. Here is the Beccles Scenario:

Scenario  2014-15 Sir John Leman	Y7	Y8	Y9	Y10	Y11	Total
No Free School	212	250	244	226	251	1183
Free School Full (108 in year)	104	143	118	136	143	644
Free School 50% Full (54 in year)	158	196	190	172	197	913

These figures clearly show the proposed free school would have a significant and possibly devastating effect on Sir John Leman High School. It's a shame that the County Council did not see fit to point this out clearly to the DfE preferring them to "make inferences". I don't think they are likely to.

Tomorrow the free school proposers who think their opponents are "pathetic" and should be ignored and want to "kick the backside" of local schools - and watch out for free school FOI shorts before then!