Frustration with the Special Free Schools process worthy of a John Cleese moment

As a Free School proposer my experience in the past week has further compounded my feelings of utter frustration with the process. Waiting for the Articles of Association to appear from the Department for Education has prevented us for some time from registering as a company limited by Guarantee with Companies House (an essential requirement of the DfE).  On Thursday 5^th May this document finally appeared and this is now only 11 days before the window for applications opens.  

I now need to collect signatures from all those who have agreed to become ‘members’ of the company and as these are all very busy people who live in geographically dispersed areas of East Anglia, co-ordinating this on top of the day job in London in the short time scale is something of a logistical nightmare.  Anxiety about reliance on postal deliveries only adds to the tension. 

The documents then need to be sent off to Companies House for registration, which again relies on post and a quick turn around from them.  I was reminded by someone from the New Schools Network that I have a full month before the final deadline of 15^th June, but as the proposal documents need to be posted and arrive in good time before this date, time available is again in short supply.  There does seem to be an assumption that we don’t work, go on holiday or have any other life.  Oh and given that interviews are scheduled for 1^st until 19^th August I definitely won’t be having a holiday during August.

This is not the only frustration either.  On the subject of holidays I need a current passport for the proposal process and as luck would have it this is due to run out in July.   I am becoming really well known at the post office now, as this has alone required several trips to have documentation checked and sent off.  The passport will hopefully arrive before the end of May.

I then asked today about the specific requirements to do with the statement form Local Authorities about placing children in the school when it is opened. I was told that this ‘statement’ needs to specify the exact number of children they expect to place. This was enough of a shock but more was to follow.  I found out that to demonstrate the parental demand part I need:

    a) responses from parents amounting to 75%  of the total number of planned pupil places      (in this case 36),

   b) these responses need to be from parents who have children in the right year groups for opening in September 2012  and

  c) their children have a Statements of SEN for these types of need. 

On Saturday I had an evening off and went to watch John Cleese in his one man show.  Images shown of John Cleese as one or other of his comedy characters, such as Basil Fawlty, jumping up and down in frustration gave some comedic release for my feelings about this torturous process.