Cllr Susanne Rooney, the Executive Member for Education, has taken umbrage at a number of comments made by local Keighley councillor Kris Hopkins on the letters page of last week's Keighley News.

He demanded answers to a number of questions about the progress of the schools' reorganisation process and what, if any, effect the new structure at City Hall would have on the situation.

He wefted political pointscoring into his comments as politicians are want to do. That is a very sad course of action to follow on such an important issue.

Cllr Rooney has retaliated by stating her view that Cllr Hopkins is treating children's futures as a political football for entirely partisan reasons.

In her response to his claims, Cllr Rooney says she wants to make the position clear to correct the misleading impressions given. Great in theory, but her letter falls well short of that and instead has a liberal sprinkling of political rhetoric, veiled allegations and statements that fail to answer even the most basic questions. In fact her response raises even more questions.

Cllr Rooney is quite right when she states that in a change of this magnitude it is incumbent on all councillors to work constructively for the benefit of our children.

That said, there is also a huge responsibility to effectively communicate with parents, school staff, City Hall staff and fellow representatives. That is clearly not being done. If it had been done there would not be the huge raft of unanswered questions, confusion and uncertainty which exists.

That is a totally unacceptable situation.

For the sake of the parents and teaching staff, it is time for a warts and all statement in plain English as to the correct position instead of waffle.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.