31 jobs could go at debt-ridden Gosport school
CHANGES Brune Park Community School
A GOSPORT school is looking to axe 31 teaching and staff posts – after it was discovered to be £800,000 in the red.
The scale of financial troubles at Brune Park Community College will be a major setback for a school recovering from a poor Ofsted and the resignation of its former head Dr Ian Johnson in September.
On Monday, governors will be asked to approve a set of draft proposals to help rebalance the books. As well as the loss of seven teaching posts, 23 support staff and one senior leadership team member, teachers receiving additional pay for undertaking extra duties will be asked to consider pay cuts.
Chris Anders, interim head, said he was shocked to learn about the deficit which he says left him with no option but to propose several job redundancies.
He said: ‘It’s hard news for the staff because they’ve been working well since September and students, parents, inspectors and advisors are all commenting on the improvements they see.
‘The deficit is massive. I’ve looked at every possible way to make savings to utility bills and cutting all department budgets by 10 per cent, but it doesn’t get anywhere near the amount we have to save by 2016.
‘It looks like staff numbers were increased significantly a couple of years ago. Compared with other schools there is an overexpenditure on staff.’
He added: ‘This situation is particularly disappointing as it means we have to face another hurdle.
‘I came here to focus on teaching and learning, but now we’ve got to make huge savings at a time when budgets are getting smaller in real terms year on year.’
If Mr Anders’ proposals are approved next week they will go out to a formal consultation with unions.
He also said teachers who stand to lose their jobs would be encouraged to fill school vacancies.
Cllr Roy Perry, Hampshire’s education boss, said the county council uncovered the financial black hole when school governors invited it to manage their deficit last April – which was thought to stand at £150,000.
As a foundation school, Brune Park had opted for several years to run its own business affairs.
Cllr Perry said: ‘They wanted our support to help reduce the deficit, but then we discovered the real amount. It’s an enormous deficit to be acquired in a year, and it would certainly imply to me we need to look very closely to see if the information in the accounts last year was absolutely correct.
‘We’ve never seen any other school with this scale of deficit. It’s very serious.’
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Comments
There are 14 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
CouncilWatcher
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 03:38 AMNot a word from Edgar, Hooky or Cheggers on this. I'm surprised they haven't had something to say. Nothing from any of the Governors either. Why not?
Yocal
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 01:31 PMThanks for pointing that out rickey.
rickey
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 02:13 PM£800,000 loss of public money and nothing mentioned in the article of calling in the Police. Somebody at the school must be responsible for this money.
rickey
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 02:06 PMHas anybody actually read the article. There are not 28 teachers going. In fact the breakdown in the article equals 31. That's 7 teachers, 23 support staff and 1 senior leader. If they can't deal with simple maths no wonder they a problem with 800,000! At is normal it's always the underlings who have to pay for the mistakes of others.
Yocal
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 01:06 PMGrimbly@7 getting rid of 28 teachers sounds like a short term over kill to me based on you quick calculation. I assume the idea is to recover that debt in 1 or 2 years, after which I assume they would start recruiting again. I assume teachers pay is a full time professional level eg. £25,000+ per year with all the overheads on top of that. eg. 28 teachers would probably need some extra hours admin and pension costs etc. I guess that the high number of redundancies is due to that many teachers would be part-time and there maybe a preference to remove part-time staff.
edithb
Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 09:53 AMThis is a microcosm of the situation prevailing in the country as a whole, where the people who caused the situation, (bankershead and business manager) get off virtually scott free, while the people at the bottom of the heap pay the price in the loss or downgrading of their jobs. There will be a knock-on effect on the students as well, which is a major concern and one only hopes the downward spiral can be halted. I think Dr Johnson was the worst thing that happened to Brune Park in a long while, he took a "good" school and produced one which is under notice to improve and left it in massive debt into the bargain. He should apologise publicly.
NewmanHay
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:21 PMAs a former student of this school I'm shocked to see it going from bad to worse. I didn't think much of how "Dr" Johnson ran the school, not that I know much about that myself but still things didn't add up. Mistakes have been severely made and the future generations of this school are now suffering... someone sort it out please after all I've turned out fairly alright so far since I left in 2008 and so have many others. Plus I do feel for the teachers who will lose their jobs especially towards any of those who taught me.
Grimbly
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 09:01 PM£800,000? 28 jobs?.......... That comes to £28,571.43 a head....... Hmmmmm! I wonder who had the bright idea of expanding staff levels?........... Something doesn't smell right!
Flying bull
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 07:10 PMSadly I dont see as many comments about this subject unlike the Fratton Park tax bill, Sad.
Rational man
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 06:16 PMWelcome to the education system of the future. Where Foundations and Academies run their own affairs, and market forces dictate success or failure. This will happen on an increasing basis oiver the next few years as the pump prime money for the Academy system runs dry. But hey, maybe McDonalds can come in and sponsor it. McGCSE anyone? Next up, the NHS.
Flying bull
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 05:45 PMI wonder where the £800,000 will come from to repay this dept of gross incompetence? The only pepole I can see suffering in all this are children staff. Can we ask to governers and Dr Ian Johnson for the money back?
norbertbleu
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 05:29 PMFirstly the school bursar must surely have left his or her post as this is gross incompetence, and secondly the governors who were in situ at the time should also go as they would have been presented with balance sheets and signed them off.
Flying bull
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 04:37 PMHow do you discover you are £800,000 in the red? If I am £1 overdrawn my bank wont let me hear the end of it! How can this come as a shock? What were the governers doing?
Gosport and proud
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 04:24 PMNot sure if i'm just stating the obvious but rather than cutting costs, should we not be trying to find ways to make money? advertising, sponsorship, letting out facilities etc?
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