Despite the running of education services being returned to the local authority fold in 2011, levels of achievement in Bradford schools are likely to be a cause for serious concern for many years to come.

Despite improvements to Ofsted scores since the Council took over from private provider Serco, which ran the service for ten years, the recent publication of Key Stage Two SATs results showed primary schools to have the third worst results in England. GCSE and A-level results also remain in the lowest 20 per cent nationally.

So the new 15-point action plan for improvement, published after 12 months of work looking at the particular problems facing the authority’s schools, is timely and important.

As the chairman of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee behind the report admits, there is no quick fix to solve the issues but, there are a number of key measures that can be taken to tackle them which could help to gradually bring standards up to, at least, a more acceptable level.

In one sense, it is such a big issue that the fact it has taken a year to draft this report should not be a surprise. But this is not yet the final version and even when that is ratified, it still needs to go before the Council’s executive to consider whether they will accept its recommendations.

In the meantime, the problems highlighted remain and every day’s delay is a day when children are missing out on the improvements that are so badly needed. That’s not to say there aren’t some fantastic efforts taking place every day to make things better in our classrooms – but everyone involved in education in this district knows that in the big picture we are failing our children and we must urgently find ways to make it better.

The figures relating to poor levels of attainment are disturbing reading for everyone. But for the individual pupils and their parents, they represent the difference between promise and despair, a brighter future and a bleaker one.