Further scrutiny of decision to close school near Worthing denied

Labour leader Michael Jones (Southgate & Gossops Green) called in the decision to close Rumboldswhyke Infants School, in Chichester, and Clapham & Patching Primary, near Worthing.

His hopes of another debate were squashed, however, when Tony Kershaw, director of law, said there was ‘no valid grounds’ to do so.

Mr Jones said: “With this rejection, sadly we have exhausted all the ways to internally challenge the cabinet’s decision to close the schools.

“Not only is this very unsatisfying and not particularly democratic, it once again highlights how this county council fails to take sufficient regard to people’s concerns on some very important issues.” 

Members of the cabinet recently agreed to close the schools, despite one of the council’s own scrutiny committees asking for them to be kept open.

One issue raised by Mr Jones involved threats of legal action made throughout the process, with the Friends of Rumboldswhyke School considering calling for a judicial review.

Mr Jones said a call-in was  ‘essential so that members can be satisfied that the cabinet have not left the council liable to a successful challenge of the decision by judicial review’.

He disagreed with Mr Kershaw’s argument that it was not up to councillors to scrutinise the potential for any legal challenges – though the latter said in his response that the possibility had been ‘taken into account’ in this case.

Mr Jones said not allowing councillors to consider such outcomes ‘just makes it likelier decisions will go through with less than a robust case’.

A council spokesman said: “Our rules around call-ins require certain conditions to be met for a request to be successful, including an explanation of why further scrutiny is required.

“Those conditions were not met in the call-in request, which did not raise issues other than those previously considered in the run up to the decision.”

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