27thSeptember 2016

Dear all Kendal Collaborative Partnership (KCP) parents,

Re: Imminent threat to funding of over £8,000,000 for Cumbrian schools including over £880,000 for Kendal schools – support requested

We are writing to you as a collaborative group of schools, committed to the best possible education for all young people in Kendal.We have deep concern about an imminent threat to transfer an £8 milliondeficit, arising from the management of the budget at Local Authority level, to all Cumbria’s schools.

We are asking for your support through signing a petition found on the “Kendal Collaborative Partnership” Facebook group, and also on our school website.

The petition is asking Cumbria County Council to withdraw their unfair proposals in order that the reasons they have run up this deficit can be fully understood, hence avoided in the future, and alternative solutions that do not compromise the education of all young people in Cumbria can be found. We write with urgency due to an unreasonably short consultation period requiring schools to respond within less than a month of its announcement at the start of an academic year.

We ask you to consider the points below:

  • Schools are already operating under real-terms cuts. This has resulted in many schools already being forced to operate at minimum staffing levels.
  • Further reductions in order to clawback the Local Authority deficit would inevitably lead to the quality of education we would be able to provide to your childrenbeing compromised; individual schools and pupils are being asked to pay the price for the management practice of others.
  • Schools are required by the Local Authority to plan a balanced budget over a three-year period and are prudent in doing so. The Local Authority is not acting according to the same principles, or within government assurances on funding.
  • The proposed clawback would not address the underlying causes of the deficit, which would continue to accrue without effective strategic planning.
  • The proposals would not allow a sufficient time frame for budget planning purposes and schools would have insufficient time for voluntary or compulsory redundancy consultation periods.
  • Should this happen Cumbria would be a model of how not to manage Local Authority budgets,likely to attract national media attention.

If you would like to discuss the issues raised in this letter in any more detail, I will be available to do so on Thursday at 3.30pm …………..

Yours sincerely,

M.A. Woodburn

Headteacher

Ghyllside Primary School