City's new Tory leader fails to force report on trust schools

THE new leader of the Conservative group on the council has failed in a bid to get city chiefs to draw up a full report on trust schools.

Councillor Jeremy Balfour told the Evening News last week that one of his main aims would be to campaign for a proper debate on the trust schools system that is being looked at in East Lothian.

He has asked council leader Jenny Dawe to get the director of education to look in detail at whether it could work in Edinburgh.

Cllr Dawe said that Gillian Tee, the council's director of education, and head of schools Mike Rosendale attended a conference on the issue in East Lothian.

She said: "Obviously if there is a brilliant new idea out there we won't knock it out of hand.

"But, at the moment, we have not seen any detail that suggests this is something Edinburgh would be jumping at."