A MAJOR row is brewing over the future of the borough's Community Education Service.

The CES was devastated by huge cuts in this year's council budgets, and now the shake-up of council departments threatens the system of committees which runs it.

This week the chairman of the Community Education Council, the service's governing body, Mr Gordon Hubert, said the people who used and ran the service were in danger of losing out.

The CES is run by centre committees and area councils which report to the CEC, all made up of users within the community. But the departmental shake-up could spell the end for them.

Mr Hubert said proposals to abolish the bodies had caused enormous resentment within the service.

"The message coming across to people is that their efforts are welcome but their views are not," he said.

Mr Hubert said the CES members had taken exception to a view expressed by acting chief education office Mr Graham Talbot.

In a report to this week's education committee, Mr Talbot said that the creation of a new community services department, and the splitting of the borough into four area councils would affect the way the service was run.

"The continuation of the present Community Education Council is not likely to be needed." says the report.

"A similar view will probably end the current area councils who would merge into the new four areas."

Mr Hubert said it was vital that a community service should be run "by and for the community".

He proposed that no changes would take place without full consultation with the CEC and the area councils, which the committee accepted unanimously.

Councillors at Wednesday's (June 4) meeting congratulated staff and students on their success in exams, after a report on the results was presented.

They showed that out of some 1,646 exam entries, 1,465 were successful, a pass rate of nearly 90 per cent.

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