As the largest trade union in Harrow we feel compelled to respond to the letter by the Harrow Council Conservative Group, sent to school governors concerning the running of the academies consultation (‘Concerned by “partisan” stance’, Your Views, March 24).

The open letter makes scurrilous accusations that the Labour run council has abused its power by “using the machinery of the council to lobby governors on academies” and by producing an array of “generalisations, half-truths and carefully worded statements” to raise doubts of those pupils and parents involved. As an independent union and stakeholder involved in this consultation process, we would be the first to cry foul if the Labour run council had unduly influenced proceedings and acted “inappropriately” either for or against academy conversion.

As recent local news coverage would support, we are by no means an apologist or advocate of Harrow Council but the opposition group’s statement is simply not the case and is underpinned by a political objective to remove and eradicate perceived town hall “interference”.

The picture painted by the Conservative group is wholly inaccurate, disingenuous and one motivated by the desire to progress what is a mainstay of national Conservative Party policy. Furthermore, we are staggered and disgusted at the hypocrisy of the Conservative Party given the recent actions of the local Conservative MP (Bob Blackman, Harrow East) who felt obliged to use “the official machinery” of Westminster to raise near identical concerns of those of his Harrow Conservative colleagues in Parliament.

For instance, on March 24 he raised a Parliamentary question calling on the Conservative Secretary of State for Education to intervene in Harrow and assist those schools “that are trying to break free of the dead hand of the local education authority” and accused the “Labour run” Harrow Council of conducting a campaign of “misinformation”.

This is unhelpful and we do not believe that the future of our young people should be kicked around like a political football. This undue influence has done nothing to encourage a fair and balanced debate within the affected schools who we believe have not acted fairly in the presentation of both sides of the academies decision.

We liken their relationship to a cartel which has pooled its resources and funding together in attempts to suppress and silence a balanced and fair debate within each school in the hope that they will benefit from perceived extra funding from central Government.

Out of this political wrangle, we therefore ask who is benefiting from this; is it Cameron’s Conservative Party in coercing school cartels to accept short-term financial funding/gratuities in return for leaving the “dead hand of the council” or is it the Labour group in maintaining the status quo? We thought this debate was about the future of our young people’s educational achievements and improving their life chances, not political arguments which this debate has sadly generated into.

Harrow UNISON Local Government Branch