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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 20 September 2007

Election promise broken on choice of a sponsor

• I AM pleased that we residents are to be consulted further about our new secondary school. However it is a great shame that we were not consulted about whether or not the school should be an academy or about the sponsor of the new school before the indicative decision was made in favour of a UCL academy.
In their election manifesto, Camden Lib Dems said, ‘we will offer genuine consultation and choice… we promise to work with you, ask you want you want and genuinely listen to what you say… we will not just tell you what you are going to get or pretend to consult you’. Unfortunately when it came to the crucial decision about the sponsor of the new school, this promise was broken.
Before launching into consultation about the new secondary school, councillors agreed to use a process that “would enable us residents to input to the options prior to firm proposals being developed”, to ensure that we would “have an opportunity to influence the strategy.”
The point of a consultation exercise is obvious. It is to listen and act on local views so that they have a direct bearing on the decisions that are made subsequently. Anything less isn’t consultation: it is a sham and a terrible waste of money and time. If consultation findings are not going to lead to action then why bother holding a consultation?
The decisions taken in July were “indicative”; the final decision is yet to be made. There is still time for the council to listen and act. There is still time for real consultation.
As I said, I am pleased that we residents are to be consulted further about the new secondary school. But let’s hope that this time it will be the real consultation that we were promised when we voted the Lib Dems into power in Camden.That, of course, means that the outcome of the exercise cannot be predetermined.
PENNY ROBERTS
Chair, the campaign for a Church Secondary School for Camden

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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