Letter: School funded opt-out fight

FRAN ABRAMS voices the misgivings surrounding the use of public money to influence parents to vote for grant maintained status for their children's schools ('Taxpayers funded Tory plan for schools', 6 February). The government-funded Grant Maintained Schools Centre would not be alone if it were confirmed that it had been influencing parents in this way. Money provided by the taxpayer has probably been used in every 'opting-out' ballot initiated by a school governing body: it most certainly was in my son's school. In that (unsuccessful) case, governors appropriated school funds to produce literature encouraging an opt-out vote, which meant that parents wishing for a more balanced debate had to pay for that debate from their own resources. Questioned about the legitimacy of this, the Department for Education asserted that governors could use school resources in any way they wished.

Clive Upton

Ilkley, West Yorkshire