AN OPEN LETTER TO MARGARET HODGE, MINISTER FOR LIFELONG LEARNING AND HIGHER EDUCATION, CONCERNING THE CLOSURE OF BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Your letter to Rob Marris MP has been passed to us. We are sorry you consider the issues surrounding the closure of Bilston Community College (BCC) have been exhaustively considered and that you support the closure of the College. This is a decision, we believe, you will live to regret.

You fail to mention that the key question was the institutional racism of closing a College which from at least 1994 had employed about 30% of ethnic minority staff and had been the most important College in the country for the provision of education to ethnic minority peoples and others with no previous educational qualifications on premises and at times suitable to their needs.

You also make no mention of the improprieties, if not illegalities, of the methods used by the Further Education Funding Council and their local collaborators in closing BCC of which the following are a few:

• Closing BCC while accusations of fraud made by the FEFC were being investigated which were later shown to be false.
• Accusations that BCC was the worst college in the country by its inspection by unnamed inspectors of the FEFC's own staff when virtually all BCC managerial spine and one third of its staff had been dismissed or forced into early retirement.
• Accusations that BCC had large debts when the basis of these had been laid by the FEFC when it changed funding rules and illegally back-dated them and then cut BCC's 1997/8 budget by £3.5million (20%).

The fact that Wulfrun College which was allowed to take over BCC and form Wolverhampton College, has been subsidised by about £50m, is now smaller than BCC alone was at its peak, and cannot meet very modest quotas of students suggests that an independent enquiry into the closure of BCC will eventually be essential.

A reply to the above charges within a reasonable period is requested.

Published by FRIENDS OF BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Spokesperson and authorised Whistle Blower: Dr. G. Barnsby 141 Henwood Rd. Wolverhampton WV6 8P