RESIGN! Birkenhead MP demands Wirral Council chief executive and education boss stand down (From Wirral Globe)

RESIGN! Birkenhead MP demands Wirral Council chief executive and education boss stand down

3:00pm Friday 5th March 2010 in News By Leigh Marles

BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field has this afternoon demanded the resignation of Wirral Council's chief executive and education director.

Mr Field has sent a blistering letter to Steve Maddox expressing fury at his "shameful" management of the town's schools.

He said Mr Maddox and Howard Cooper, the chief officer of the children's department, should resign immediately.

The council has refuted the MP's accusations.

Mr Field says that he has met with Howard Cooper on many occasions to ask for action to be taken against the low examination results achieved by "most of" Birkenhead’s pupils.

And in 2008, the Labour MP lobbied the Government and council to establish a new Academy in Birkenhead.

Throughout the process, Mr Field says there had been a "culture of inaction" among chief officers and he raised these concerns with Mr Maddox.

Such was Mr Field's frustration that he demanded Mr Maddox should fire Mr Cooper.

But, according to Mr Field, the chief executive instead indicated that he would be backing his education boss to the hilt.

The Academy project was put back a year due, says Mr Field, "to Wirral officers’ inability to deliver basic data" that the Department for Children, Schools and Families had requested.

The department has now confirmed the project is in danger of a further year’s delay due, claims Mr Field, to the council’s failure to adhere to the agreed timetable which would have seen the project fully agreed for a 2010 opening.

Mr Field said: “Wirral’s senior officers have abjectly failed to act in the best interests of my young constituents.

"Despite repeatedly calling for the chief executive to address the incompetence of his senior education officer, council officers have consistently failed to deliver this new school to deadline.

"I have therefore called for Stephen Maddox’s and Howard Cooper’s resignations.”

In his five-page letter to Mr Maddox, Mr Field writes: "You have presided over a local authority with shameful education outcomes for too many of our young people.

"If any hospital had a comparable record whereby 81 per cent of its patients were either injured or killed, that hospital would rightly be closed immediately and, if the senior management refused to do the decent thing and resign, heads would roll.

"Yet a 19 per cent success rate was the record of one school in Birkenhead.

"Sending our young people out into the world of work without the minimum school leaving requirements similarly damages or kills their chances of long term employability.

"This letter establishes how I have tried in vain over the years to stir you and your senior officers into action. Repeated letters and phone calls led only to your assurance that matters would radically improve.

"Now I learn that, through your inability to show the minimum level of leadership necessary to run any local authority, the new Academy will not be opening until 2011, two years after the originally agreed date.

"The incompetence that you and Howard Cooper have displayed in mismanaging education in Birkenhead has smitten the lives of too many of the young people I represent in Birkenhead and is unacceptable.

"I told you that if there were any further setbacks to establishing a new secondary school in Birkenhead I would publicly call for the removal of you both.

"I therefore serve notice that I am doing exactly that."

A statement from Wirral Council strongly refutes any suggestion that there have been any unnecessary delays in the delivery of the proposed new Academy in Birkenhead.

And the authority hit back at statements suggesting Birkenhead schools are not performing well at improving educational attainment levels.

It says: "Wirral Council is deeply committed to improving the life chances for young people right across Wirral.

"We have had considerable success in driving up attainment right across the borough and ensuring investment is made in to our children’s future.

"Secondary education in Wirral is of high quality and using Ofsted's own data compared to national and similar local authority data provision is outstanding and the 2nd best in the whole of the Northwest.

"Most importantly, we believe it is important to refute the suggestion that schools in Birkenhead are not delivering ever improving outcomes for young people.

"All schools in Birkenhead have been judged by Ofsted on the most recent full school inspection to be at least ‘good’, a tribute to the teaching staff and council officers working so hard in this area."

The statement says the delivery of the proposed new Academy in Birkenhead has not been delayed by officers of the council, and that the reverse is the case.

"The project is moving apace with a meeting held just this morning with key funding partners including the University of Chester."

Timescales have changed for reasons that are beyond the control of the authority this includes issues around sponsorship, which is the responsibility of the DCSF.

The statement continues: "Throughout the process we have met all DCSF requirements and requests for information however challenging the timescale.

"We welcome constructive debate as to how we can all work together to continue to drive up standards and make a difference to the future life chances of children in Birkenhead and right across Wirral."