Much has been written recently about Swindon’s status, leadership, redevelopments and ambitions. The decisions and actions of officials and representatives on issues from the wi-fi financial scandal, the old college eyesore and Croft school planning fiasco have been widely derided and rightly criticised.

There is, however, one set of local public officials whose actions have, to date, passed largely unnoticed and under the public radar. I refer to the management of Swindon College.

Your readers may recall a case in the High Court on which the Adver reported (May 13, 2011) that Mr Rowe, the HR Manager in Swindon College, had made “largely fallacious and untrue comments” about Mr [Robert] McKie, a former employee, which cost Mr McKie his career.

His Honour Judge Denyer QC said that a procedure adopted in the HR Department was “slapdash, sloppy and failing to comply with any sort of minimum standards of fairness”. He also said that the contents of an email sent by Mr Rowe were “not in fact supported by any evidence” and “flouted elementary standards of fairness, diligence, proper enquiry and justice”.

In order to get justice, Mr McKie was obliged to endure three years of hell and risk of financial ruin because the college management chose to neither retract nor apologise for its unjust comments. Instead, it decided to defend the indefensible and wasted considerable public funds in doing so.

The lack of public accountability by the college’s management clique, highlighted by this case, is astounding. Despite His Honour’s criticism of the HR manager, Swindon College will not say if anyone has been disciplined.

It’s sad to think that public officials are able to behave with such impunity. Perhaps this stems from the Board of Governors anonymity and silence. Minutes of Board meetings on May 24, 2011 and July 12, 2011, following the judgement, state the subject is confidential. So much for local accountability.

Thank goodness for the Freedom of Information Act. Your readers and taxpayers may like to know that college maladministration in this case alone, has so far cost them £30,000 which was paid as an insurance excess. In the three years since the case was prompted, the annual insurance premiums to protect the college against such claims, have also more than tripled.

The compensation has yet to be concluded. Legal fees and expenses have yet to be concluded.

Apart from the financial cost I feel it is a disgrace that such a potentially important institution of the town is not run with more integrity and moral fibre.

When I read the columns written by our representatives, seeking publicity and profile for their aims and ambitions for a university in order to raise the facilities and status of Swindon, I have to conclude that sadly the town has yet to prove it can find the calibre of management to properly administer such a venture.

Rather than setting up a dedicated group to work with Swindon College (and others) as the Advertiser reported on February 15, 2012, perhaps Councillor Renard’s time would be more wisely spent looking at the accountability of the existing college management.

E Jones Tismeads Crescent Swindon

Locarno reply

To respond to Des Morgan’s comments made in his letter of March 31, I agree with his assertion that the council were in favour of the Locarno project and I believe remained so until the matter came up for a planning decision on February 8, 2011.

To the surprise of most, and the relief of many who attended the debate, the application was rejected. We can only conclude that this refusal was attributable to the strength of opposition to the proposal both via the mail and demonstrated at the planning meeting itself.

Most Old Town residents are as anxious as the council to see this building, around which earlier lives revolved, brought back into use but there has to be an acceptable and sustainable proposal to achieve this end.

The present owners’ main concern, as one might expect, seems to be maximising the profit on their investment which is why they appear to have resubmitted the previously rejected application for reconsideration, together with an alternative proposal to demolish the building.

The latter application, to quote owner Mr McKenzie “would be only as a last resort”, meaning presumably in the event of resubmitted plans being rejected yet again, (unless of course he would consider scaling down the proposal, as has been suggested).

Ray Morse Tismeads Crescent Swindon

Save our centre

Approximately two weeks ago the stalwart Guides of North Swindon pack trawled the streets of Nythe delivering a flyer to every household on the estate (approx 1,300), informing all the residents that the present committee of Nythe Community Centre needed help to run the centre, otherwise it would be closing very soon – as the present committee has mostly elderly members and they feel that new members are necessary to keep the place going.

The present Government has good and bad points, but has asked on numerous occasions for people to volunteer to do their bit for society, but what happened to our appeal and even a small feature in the Advertiser? The answer is next to nothing. Out of all our residents, only three people responded.

Our community centre is very modern and clean is used by various groups at least 20 times a week and also at weekends for local parties and celebrations, so where are the users that are needed to help us carry on to ensure that the facility that is so well used continues to function?

Come on Nythe, where is your team spirit? Let’s not let this wonderful opportunity die.

Please come and help us run this. It’s not hard work, if it were I would not be involved either, but we need some new blood to keep it going. Please contact me if you can help.

Sue Vowles Secretary Nythe Community Centre email sovowles@gmail.com

George is back

Love him or hate him (and we both love him), George Galloway (Respect Party) is now back as an MP after his recent win in the Bradford West by-election. The reason he won the seat from Labour was quite simple.

His manifesto was a true socialist manifesto not just for the people of Bradford but for the working people of Britain. He and his team campaigned against the government’s austerity programme, privatisation of the roads and the NHS and against the war in Afghanistan and a probable war in Iran.

The people of Britain are sick and tired of seeing this country being destroyed by the millionaires of this government and its right wing, ideological policies.

We have both attended his anti-war meetings in Swindon and with his charisma, the moment he entered the room the atmosphere was truly amazing. George is one of the great orators of our time and anybody who has attended any of his meetings will agree. Watch out David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and the rest of the cowboys in this government (Robert Buckland South Swindon MP excluded), he’s a rare breed of Tory, a Tory with a social conscience).

George is back and he’s after all of you for making the likes of the 99 per cent of this country a misery.

Martin Webb and Mark Webb Swindon Road Swindon

Leaving roots

Congratulations to those local wealthy stalwart Tory associations throughout the land of Britain, who are refusing to send their regular quota of money to Central Office for fear it will be used to campaign further for gay marriage. Little wonder that Tory grass roots membership is in sharp decline.

This is what happens when Cameron and Co turn their backs on Christian values and succumb to certain very vociferous and aggressive quarters. All parties eventually come undone when they ignore grass roots membership. Rightly so.

J Adams Bloomsbury Swindon

Repeal Act

After the recent findings by The Care Quality Commission that 50 abortion clinics and some doctors have been deliberately and contemptuously flouting the law, is it not about time that the 1967 abortion act was repealed?

The Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said that he was shocked at these findings and he was preparing to report doctors and organisations to the police. One would hope and expect that if any illegality is proven then the full measure of the law should be brought to bear and justice seen to be done.

Since 1967, we have seen over 7,000,000 babies aborted in the UK with the current rate at over 200,000 abortions per year and one in three women, by the age of 45, will have undergone an abortion. This suggests to me that there is something very seriously wrong at the core of our society.

Perhaps if the British people were to see abortion and have full knowledge of the status of the baby in the womb prior to it being aborted (and quite clearly see that it is not a “clump of cells”) then I do believe that public opinion would change very dramatically on this issue.

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and if we really consider ourselves a just and compassionate society, then how can we justify the aborting of over 200,000 of our own humankind in the womb who have no voice and no choice in their own destiny?

Steve Jack Damson Trees, Shrivenham Swindon

A great day

It’s been over a week now since Swindon Town played at Wembley in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final and all the Town fans I have spoken to all said the same thing. They had a wonderful day out, the weather was good and the only thing was the score. It took the gloss off it.

G J Belcher Highworth Road Swindon

So long Sue

Unfortunately, last Friday we had to bid a sad farewell to Sue Hull and her team at the Toothill Lunch Club, after nearly ten years of tasty meals and happy days out.

We wish them well and thank them for everything.

Toothill Lunch Club Members Swindon

No science fight

Larry Wright (Letters March 19) seems to suggest that creationism, ‘intelligent design’ and evolution are mutually exclusive; they are not. One is in the realm of religion (a belief); the other is in the realm of science (something that can be measured or proved by experiment). I would hope that he could see an ‘intelligent design’ in the evidence that supports the ‘theory of evolution’!

A theory is defined as a hypothesis, supposition or opinion, that is usually put forward to explain certain observations or behaviour. In science, further observations and/or experiments may be designed to prove, or disprove, the theory.

To date, most of the evidence supports Darwin’s theory of evolution, but not all. Thus, evolution should not be taught as a separate subject in schools (as suggested by Mr Wright); it should be taught as part of biology.

The origin of the world is still debated. There are many mathematical equations (based on assumptions, some of which are not proven) that try to explain the origin of our world and, indeed, the universe. None answers the question “What was there before the Big Bang”? We are taught that ‘matter’ is indestructible; nor can it be ‘created’!

It is interesting that the description of the ‘creation of the world’ by God (recorded in the book of Genesis in the Bible) is in agreement with the subsequent ‘proof’ of the order in which things developed; there are few who believe it was literally created in the ‘six days’ (as we now measure them).

There should be no battle between science and religion; they each deal with different aspects of life. Science explains many of the facts of life; religion attempts to describe the meaning of life.

Science attempts to answer the ‘how’ questions and deals in things that can be measured; religion attempts to answer the ‘why’ questions and deals in things that cannot be measured, such as beauty, love, loyalty and courage; though few would deny their existence!

Malcolm Morrison Prospect Hill Swindon