Sir – The worst event in local government history was the 1974 reorganisation that transferred powers over education, social services, transport planning et al away from cities like Oxford and put those powers in the hands of rural areas which, in the main, vote completely differently from urban areas and have different problems and priorities.
Oxford is a classic example.
This city has not returned a single Tory councillor for at least 10 years, yet its education policies are controlled by an authority dominated by rural Tories.
Their policies have disadvantaged Oxford’s children dramatically. Recent published research (January 2015) by The Times and the Sutton Trust reveal the damage that has been done.
In a survey by council area of the proportion of state school pupils gaining places in the top 30 UK universities, Reading tops the list at 53 per cent.
In stark contrast, Portsmouth has only two per cent and Oxford does not register at all.
So, in a city that contains one of the world’s great universities, we have an education system that gets less than two per cent of our children into a top-30 university.
The county council should be ashamed of its performance. It is a damning indictment of the policies pursued by the rural Tories who run it.
John Power, Oxford
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