WHY CALL a spade a spade when you can call it a long-handled gardening implement?

The Scottish Government was under fire this week after the publication of a consultation on how schools should be run in the future.

Currently, councils have a legal responsibility for standards and they control the purse strings, but schools also have power over decisions and some of the budget.

The starting point for the Scottish Government is to question whether the current arrangements are working as well as they could under the overarching principle that as much control as possible should be handed to schools because they know what is best for their pupils.

With community empowerment high on the list of SNP priorities the support of the wider school community, including parents, is vital - hence the consultation.

Unfortunately, following a meeting of parents in Glasgow to discuss the document with Scottish Government officials, several contacted this newspaper to express their bafflement and confusion at the content and questions.

These parents are probably amongst the most engaged and knowledgeable in the city and it is worrying so many struggled to understand what was being asked.

In fact the document is not as incomprehensible as some I have read over the years, but the way the questions have been framed anticipates a degree of inside knowledge unavailable to the vast majority of parents.

By way of example one asks: “What are the barriers within the current governance arrangements to achieving the vision of excellence and equity for all?”

The problem here is that many parents would not know exactly what was being referred to as “governance”, would struggle to detail the “current arrangements” and would not know what the “vision of excellence and equity” was.

Others questions refer to abstract concepts such as “effective collaboration amongst teachers and practitioners” and “building professional capacity”.

One parent of two primary aged children who attended the meeting concluded that the consultation appeared designed to disengage parents.

She said: “I appreciate the aim that parents should be involved in decision-making, but I am unable to answer these questions because I do not have sufficient knowledge about the current system of schools governance.

“The questions are so technical and open-ended that they are impossible to answer without an in-depth of knowledge of the current state of school governance that no parent possesses unless they are employed in the sector.”

The problem for the Scottish Government is how this is perceived by parents. One told us: “I left the meeting convinced this is an exercise in making it look like parents are being consulted. It’s a fudge so government can impose reform and say they have a mandate from parents.”