Scottish council elections: Schools chief takes on Holyrood over exams

THE head of Scotland’s flagship education authority has said he is ready to “take on Edinburgh” in a row over controversial new exams to protect standards in schools.

Jim Fletcher, the Labour leader of East Renfrewshire Council, insists it was right to defy Holyrood and delay the new Curriculum for Excellence exams – forcing education secretary Mike Russell to hand all councils a similar opt-out.

The authority area has the best schools in Scotland and enjoys regular glowing reports from the country’s education watchdog, but teachers feared that the changes could hit standards.

“It was very much the view of the head teachers in our secondaries that we weren’t ready,” he said

“The view was we will do what’s right for local kids. We didn’t want any of our children to suffer any dip in their exam performance.

“We were frankly prepared to take on Edinburgh and if it wasn’t right for East Renfrewshire children, to say we weren’t going to do it and want the delay.”

Under Scottish Government plans, pupils now in the second year of secondary school are, in 2014, to be the first to sit the new national exams, which replace Standard Grades and Intermediates. East Renfrewshire announced it would delay for a year, after head teachers complained about uncertainty over the content of the new exams.

This was eventually accepted “somewhat grudgingly” by Mr Russell, Mr Fletcher said.

East Renfrewshire is likely to be a close-fought battle between Labour and the Conservatives in the local authority elections next week. Both have seven seats apiece, although the Tories took more first-preference votes in 2007 in an area which is seen as a traditional heartland.

But Labour’s Ken Macintosh held on in the Eastwood Holyrood seat last year, while Jim Murphy also won for Labour in the 2010 Westminster election despite a strong push by the Conservatives.

The council constituency takes in some of the most affluent areas in Greater Glasgow including Clarkston and Newton Mearns.

Tory group leader Jim Swift said proposed housing developments eating into greenbelt land are causing widespread concerns.

“Newton Mearns is proposed by Labour and the SNP to expand by a third which is a huge expansion in housing,” he said.

The expansion is likely to mean two new secondaries – with cost estimates of up to £70 million – as well as other amenities such as roads, at a time of budget cuts. Mr Swift believes that the Conservatives can take power from Labour.

“We believe that we’ve got a pretty good chance,” he said.

The traditional strength of the Tory vote in the area is seen as one reason for the forging of the unlikely partnership between Labour and the Nationalists on the council administration, along with a Liberal Democrat provost.

The Nationalists returned their first-ever councillors in the area in 2007 and SNP group leader Douglas Yates is hopeful of increasing on the three seats they currently hold.

“I think we will increase this time and it’s not just because of the rise of the SNP,” he said.

“I think it’s been down a lot to the record we’ve had in local government.”

Provost Alex Mackie admits the Lib Dems’ coalition with the Tories at Westminster has led to disenchantment with some voters on the doorsteps.

However, he added: “What are you to do? Just no bother? It’s a UK problem.”