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LETTER TO DIRECTOR OF LEARNING & SKILLS COUNCIL &
MINISTER OF EDUCATION 1 JAN 2003

Dear Friends,

Once again it is the time to readdress the question of Bilston Community College (BCC). There are two versions of events neither of which impinge at any point upon the other. The LSC version that Bilston was a rogue college and rightly closed. The FRIENDS version that BCC was the first Community and Multicultural college in Britain which was vindictively and improperly closed by racists, educational elitists, institutional racists and those who believed that if one, big, new College were opened it wouldn't matter if BCC were closed.

We need not review here how the Further Education & Funding Council claimed that BCC had vast debts, was the most inefficient College in the country and had defrauded the government of many £ millions. But we will mention that an 'open conspiracy' developed to ensure that the BCC version of events was not published in the national, local and educational press.

Events can be summarised from August 2001 when the West Midlands Major Fraud Squad reported that no evidence had been found to suggest that any of the activties at BCC were of a criminal nature. The moral case against BCC collapsed at that point..

Deprived of the arguments they had previously used both Margaret Hodge and David Blunkett resorted to no argument at all; a letter on behalf of Blunkett stated that 'Ministers are satsfied that the dissolution of the former Bilston Community College and its merger with Wolverhampton College has been fully justified. The matter is not open to reconsideration.'

The LSC instead of acting impartially in winding up the affairs of BCC has fully associated itself with these illegalities and wrongdoing, but there now arises an unavoidable question..

The former principal of Wolverhampton College has left for what she no doubt hopes will be a more congenial post and an inspection of the College will have to take place. It will be remembered that there was considerable opposition to the last inspection of BCC on the grounds that to inspect a College which had lost most of its senior staff and one third of its total staff could say nothing about what it had been its efficiency and this proved the case, BCC was pronounced the most inefficient college that the FEFC had ever inspected. Institutional Racism was implicit in the report where future student capacity was asked for. Just one month after this inspection, in March 1999, the Melia Rport was published, the intention of which was to close BCC as soon as possible. With regard to future capacity of the College this report stated, 'In our opinion, propaganda, rhetoric and wishful thinking rather than hard facts...and common sense seems to have underpinned management decisions not only about financial and funding matters but also about curriculum and student support.
These figures were taken from reports of churches, temples, mosques etc. regarding their future educational needs and show once again the complete contempt of the government for the requirements and opinions of our ethnic minority people. We therefore challenge both the competence of your inspectors and their understanding of Institutional Racism and request that no inspection takes place until full consultations have taken place with local people.