ARGYLL MSP Michael Russell has called on the leader, the deputy leader and elected education chief of Argyll and Bute Council to start “considering their positions” in light of a damning report on the council’s education service.

Just weeks after local government minister Kevin Stewart wrote to council leader Dick Walsh over a continuing internal fracas involving councillors at the authority, Russell has called on Walsh, his deputy Ellen Morton and education spokesperson Rory Colville to take responsibility for what he calls a “deeply worrying” report.

The report found weaknesses in four out of five key areas of the council’s education service.

Education Scotland stated in its report that the council should significantly improve young people’s attainment across the authority, improve the use of data, improve relationships and communication, promoting a more positive ethos amongst all stakeholders, and “improve the quality of strategic leadership and direction at all levels within the education authority”.

A spokesman for Education Scotland said: “The education authority now needs to take urgent and sustained action to address the significant areas for improvement identified throughout this report to ensure the development of its education provision and increase positive outcomes for learners across Argyll and Bute.”

The council’s executive director of council services, Ann Marie Knowles, hit back by saying improvements were under way and querying the inspection process.

She added: “We will continue to work with Education Scotland as part of our drive for excellence. However, we have concerns about the process and outcomes of this inspection which took place in September last year. We will hold a special meeting of the Community Services Committee in April to fully discuss this report and outline those concerns. Education Scotland will be invited to attend.”

Russell called her remarks “deeply misguided” as he slammed the council where three members of the Reform Group – Mike Breslin, Vivien Dance and Bruce Marshall – have called on Walsh, Morton and Colville to resign.

Russell continued: “This is a deeply worrying and very depressing inspection report. It is one of the worst ever published about the educational management of a local authority in Scotland.

“There are many great teachers in Argyll and Bute and great head teachers too, but they have been badly let down by their senior management and the extent of that failure is now clear to see. “The hidden cost of these failures lies in the strain on staff, increased sickness and absence and great frustration at not having the support they need to do their jobs and serve the young people, and the future, of this wonderful area.

“The two questions that must therefore be addressed with urgency are, firstly, how the situation is to be remedied and, secondly, how it arose.

“As far as the first is concerned it is clear that Education Scotland must exercise the closest supervision of the council education department from now on and ensure that an improvement plan is brought forward, with urgency, which is detailed, well resourced and has the active support of the key stakeholders, including the staff. “Piecemeal and thoughtless cutting of education – which has been a hallmark of the current council administration and which is in part to blame – needs to stop now. Obviously, leadership and effective management will be a key issue in making sure that any improvement plan works.

“However the judgement of the inspectors is that current leadership at the most senior level is weak.”

Pointing out that four out of the five key educational management indicators in the report are graded “weak”, Russell went on: “Councillors cannot escape some share of responsibility and in particular those who were, supposedly, overseeing education in the present administration, including the current deputy leader of the council, Ellen Morton, and the current education spokesperson, Councillor Rory Colville. “They should be considering their positions as they read this damning report as should the council leader, Dick Walsh. These failures have happened on his watch.

“This report is a wake-up call not just for education but for the entire lacklustre administration of Argyll and Bute Council. “But it is also a clarion call for change which can – and must – come at the local elections on May 4.

“Today’s inspection report demonstrates that without that change our children, our area, and our future will be at grave and growing risk.”

The National asked the leadership of Argyll and Bute Council if they would consider their positions and if they were standing at the elections in May. No answer had been received by the time we went to press.