Months of preparation and anticipation lead to five hours in the Court of Session on Monday 13^th October. With all other avenues closed, this was the only way to keep this once-in-a-generation opportunity of equitable access to education alive.

The five Directors of Mull Campus Working Group Ltd (Emily Greenhalgh, Colin Morrison, Tracy Mayo, Joe Reade and Rob Claxton-Ingham) were there in person, joined by more than 120 people online listening in. The case is being followed not just in Mull, but by policy makers, journalists and education professionals from across the country. It’s not often that a Local Authority is taken to Judicial Review, but Argyll and Bute Council currently have two awaiting an outcome.

A Judicial Review does not answer moral or practical questions regarding a particular decision. So the judge is not going to offer an opinion on the best site for Mull’s new school, or address equality of access to education as a principle. Instead, he has to consider whether the Council’s decision-making process was lawful, rational and procedurally fair. He cannot say if the decision was ultimately the right one, but whether the council followed a sound and fair process to get to it.

It’s not enough to simply not like the decision, or to find some mistakes in how it was arrived at. Few Judicial Reviews are brought, and many fail. They are very expensive. The truth is that we just don’t know which way the legal decision will go, no matter how much we believe we are on the right side of the moral argument.

So in just making it to Edinburgh our community have achieved a huge amount, regardless of the outcome. Our island of a little over 3,000 people came forward with £80,000 to fund the JR in just a month. Hundreds of messages of support have carried us forward. We have been determined to make the case for Mull’s children not just because we personally believe in it, but because we have had a whole community behind us.

We can’t be sure how long we’ll have to wait for an outcome, but typically it can take between 6 weeks and 3 months for the judge to come to a decision. We can only hope that we will have a judgement before Christmas.

We have based our legal case on four critical failings by the Council that we believe meet the core tests of a Judicial Review - unlawfulness, irrationality and procedural unfairness. Whilst the judge continues to deliberate, we cannot comment extensively on the arguments. However, we have published our KCs Note of Argument here if you would like to read our position in full. We have requested that the council do the same. We would also recommend that you read James McEnaney's article on the Herald. 

What comes next? 

Whatever the outcome of the Judicial Review, the key issue is money. Argyll and Bute Council do not argue that a split campus is undesirable or unwanted  - they just say it can’t be afforded. If that is the case, then it raises two questions that must be answered regardless of the court’s judgement:

• Are the Council’s estimates of cost accurate? How is it that the ‘Mull Campus’ will cost more than £8,200 per square metre, when the recently-built Oban High School (in todays prices) was only £3,600 / m²? On a cost per square metre basis, we would certainly expect a smaller island school to be more expensive – but how could it be more than twice the price? 
  As a basis for choosing where to build Mull’s new school, these figures must be questioned.
• Why is the funding offered to the council not sufficient to build the schools the island needs? The foundational principle of the 2018 Islands Act is that island communities should not be disadvantaged relative to those on the mainland. Mainland families rightly expect good quality schools, easily accessible without children having to leave home from age 11. Why should island families expect anything less? That is not just a point of principle, but the Islands Act says it is a point of law. The Scottish Government LEIP funding scheme that is enabling the new school has never been assessed against the terms of the Islands Act.  Policy that pre-dates the Act (as LEIP does) does not need to be ‘island proofed’ unless a Local Authority requests it …. and Argyll and Bute Council never have.

So the Working Group are not stopping here. We have already requested a meeting with Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth, and hope that will happen soon. All procedural and legal avenues are being explored. The Judicial Review is one step in a journey, and the journey is not over. Our objective is simple and principled – every child on Mull should be able to access education without having to leave home.

Finally, despite the overwhelming generosity that saw us raise nearly £80,000 in a month, our funds are almost exhausted and not all the bills are in. We estimate that we need another £15,000 to cover legal costs we have incurred to date. If we win the case, we hope to be awarded costs – and if that is the outcome, we will use any surplus to continue the fight or donate to education projects on the island. All money raised goes only to legal fees. None of the many volunteers involved are taking a penny in expenses.

If you can give a little more, we would really appreciate it. THANK YOU. 

https://scotcourts.webex.com/meet/dallen

The culmination of months of preparatory work is here - our Judicial Review takes place in the Court of Session from 10am on Monday 13^th of October (this coming Monday).

We remain very much subject to legal constraints as to what we can and can't do or say publicly. However, our KC James Muir has agreed to us sharing his Note of Argument, which lays out our position in one document. You can read it here. Throughout this we have tried to be as open as possible within legal boundaries, so that the community we represent can see and understand what we are trying to do. We invite the Council to also be transparent and publish their own Note of Argument.

Anyone in Edinburgh can attend in person - Court 6 in the Court of Session.

You can also watch online, and we encourage everyone who cares about this case to do so. The numbers watching will be noted in court, so the more the better. 

If viewing online, please turn off your microphone and camera. You must not record anything. 

Here's the link, which should go live at about 10am on Monday. 

Remember that we will not get a judgement on Monday. We won't know the outcome for many weeks, but we very much hope to have it before Christmas.

Thanks once again to everyone who has backed the Judicial Review so generously with their money, time and hard work. This would not be possible without you.  

Many thanks,

Mull Campus Working Group Ltd.

We now have a date for the substantive hearing of our case in the Court of Session - Monday October 13th. 

Ahead of that, Argyll and Bute Council will need to formally respond with 'answers' to our petition, and there will be opportunity for us to refine our submissions. But most of the work is done, and we just have to wait patiently for our day in court.

The case will be heard by Lord Cubie. Judicial Reviews typically have one day for the court hearing. It is very rare for the judge to issue a decision on the same day. More than likely we will have to wait a further few weeks, with the outcome known in late October or November.

We will keep you posted! 

Today it has been confirmed that our petition for Judicial Review has been accepted by the Court of Session. This essentially means that the judge agrees there is a case to answer, and that it has real prospects of success. We can now proceed to the next stage, which is to prepare for a court hearing. We expect that to be in October.

Lawyers for Argyll and Bute Council have 14 days to produce answers to our petition that lay out the basis for their defence.

Our fundraising total now stands at just a little under £80,000. That is phenomenal. As the process moves forward we will keep assessing whether more might be needed, but we think that is unlikely. It very much depends on how vigorously the council defend the case. By raising such a large amount so quickly and from such a wide variety of donors, we have proven that the community are behind us.

THANK YOU!

We are absolutely astonished and delighted that we smashed through our initial target of £50,000 in just one week … and now just a few days later we have hit £70,000!

To all donors, large and small, THANK YOU!! The speed with which we have raised this huge sum, the variety of donors, and the boosts from large individual sums shows the strength and breadth of support in our community.

Fundraising efforts are still continuing – in particular the online raffle being organized by Aileen Clarke. If you haven’t bought some tickets, you still have time! There are some fantastic prizes to be had.

For now, we think we have enough money in the pot to continue with confidence. It is impossible to know how much we will ultimately need. That very much depends on the success of our petition and how aggressively the council defend themselves. The Judicial Review process will take many months to complete, and we will be continuously reassessing our funding needs as we go. But we don’t want to ask for any more than is absolutely necessary. Every penny we spend has to be earned by the hard work of you, our donors.

Donations are still welcome however, so if you have raised money but not paid it in yet, please do! Any surplus will be used for further legal work if it turns out to be needed, and at the end if we have money left over we will donate all that we can to MICT for use in education projects on Mull and Iona.

The next significant legal milestone will be the decision of the Court as to whether our petition will proceed to a formal hearing. We may not know that until sometime in August. We will keep you posted!

Thanks once again to everyone who has supported this action. We could not do it without you.

Just seven days in, we have hit our £50,000 milestone! 

We had a month to get here, but thanks to the huge generosity of all our backers we did it in just a week. That in itself should send a loud message to the council - this community is not lying down, and we have the capacity and energy for the fight!

The campaign has been live for less than five days, and already we have pledges well over £30,000!

THANK YOU! to everyone who has given so generously. The faster we get to our initial target, the louder our message to the council. The broader the number and variety of donors, the stronger our mandate. So every donation large or small counts. 

We're bowled over by the effort being made by so many people to raise funds. Keep it up! Whilst our confidence is growing that we will reach £50,000 before the July 6th deadline, we will need to find more afterwards. It's impossible to know quite how much our litigation will cost, but £50,000 is the minimum. So after we reach £50,000 we will keep on raising more money, but without such a tight deadline to do it in. 

If you would like to read the full text of our petition to the Court, you will find it here. 

We've also had a lot of press coverage of the campaign - below are a few links to read more.

BBC      -      STV     -     West Coast Today    -     The Herald    -    The Sun