Education Sec Gove ignored experts to approve playing-field sell-off

[mark at tlio.org.uk]

Michael Gove overruled experts to sell school playing fields

Education secretary ignored advice from panel five times over 15 
months - more than in the previous nine years
by Jo Adetunji
The Guardian
Fri 17th August 2012
Ref: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/aug/17/michael-gove-school-playing-fields


Michael Gove has gone against expert advice from his own independent 
panel several times over the sale of school playing fields.

The School Playing Fields Advisory Panel has opposed the sell-off of 
such facilities five times over the past 15 months, but sales were 
still pushed through.

Ministers must approve any sales of playing fields, and despite a 
promise in the coalition agreement to protect them, figures show that 
disposals continue to rise.

The number of fields approved for sale by ministers since 2010 is also 
much higher than the government originally disclosed, according to 
figures seen by the Daily Telegraph. It said the panel received 35 
applications between May and July this year, 30 of which were approved 
by ministers, two rejected and one withdrawn, while two remain 
outstanding. The decisions were mostly taken by education minister 
Lord Hill on behalf of Gove.

The government had said it approved the disposal of 21 school playing 
fields since 2010.

The panel is legally bound to make a recommendation on each sell-off 
and the documents show Gove ignored five recommendations not to sell 
between February last year and this July – more than in the previous 
nine years.

Labour's shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, accused the 
government of running a secret scheme to sell off playing fields. "The 
fact that Michael Gove has ignored the advice of independent experts 
and ploughed ahead with selling off school playing fields shows he is 
shamefully out of touch," Twigg said. "He also appears to have failed 
to disclose at least another 10 school playing field sell-offs when 
responding to a Freedom of Information request. This is misleading and 
incompetent at the very least.

"[He] must now come clean and explain what appears to be a secret 
programme to sell off school playing fields."

Labour said it had also written to Chris Wormald, permanent secretary 
at the Department for Education and Gove's most senior civil servant, 
about the education secretary's apparent dismissal of expert advice.

Among the cases in which the panel was overruled included playing 
fields at Woodhouse Middle School in Staffordshire, at Clarborough 
primary school in Nottinghamshire and Elliott School in Putney, 
south-west London, where fields are being sold off to pay for a major 
refurbishment.

Critics have also warned that school sports fields are in danger after 
Gove relaxed government regulations that set out a minimum requirement 
of outdoor space that schools must provide for team games.

The rule change, which was made just days before the Olympics, has led 
many to fear a wholescale selloff of playing fields and other outdoor 
spaces and the failure to promote grassroots sports as part of the 
Olympics legacy.