A ROW has broken out among district councillors over whether the principal and governors of West Somerset College should be asked to answer publicly questions about the establishment's poor GCSE results. West Somerset Council members were split when the issue was raised at a meeting of the authority's scrutiny meeting - and culminated with council leader Cllr Tim Taylor vowing to force some form of debate sooner rather than later. He later told the Free Press it was important the college had the opportunity to speak openly in public and that the council did all it could to help. "I am sure councillors want to support any attempt that is being made to improve the college's academic results, and to that end I would like to have a meeting with the college governors and senior staff, which needs to be held in public," Cllr Taylor said. "It would allow the college to explain its position and councillors to ask questions of the college and to ask what the council can do to help the college and its initiatives." Last week, Cllr Taylor accused scrutiny committee members of taking the wrong route when they opted to try and hold talks behind closed doors with college representatives. Cllrs Mandy Chilcott and Martin Dewdney were the only scrutiny members who argued that local residents deserved to know what was happening at the college and what the plans were for the future. They wanted a question and answer session to be held urgently in a public forum, but the majority of committee members wanted to discuss matters in private. Led by committee chairman Cllr Peter Murphy, they refused to back Cllrs Dewdney and Chilcott and instead opted to ask the college to co-operate with a task and finish group. The group would be made up of a handful of councillors and take up to nine months to investigate the issues away from the public glare. The findings would eventually be made public at a future district council meeting, probably sometime next year. Cllr Chilcott said: "Our public wants us to do something now. "Personally I would like to hear now what [the college's] plans are. I'm sure they will have plans. "I propose we start the process by inviting the college or governors to talk to us about their plans for the future." She said the college's poor GCSE results - which saw only 38 per cent of students gain five or more A* to C grades - was the most emotive subject she had dealt with as a councillor. "This affects West Somerset so much, but I've been concerned about the results for a number of years, this is not a new issue. "I have had more people speak to me about this and about their grave concerns than anything else and we need to respond to those concerns." Cllr Chilcott said the committee had not shied away from calling in NHS representatives to address concerns about out-of-hours doctor services or ward closures in local hospitals. "I would like to to call in the governors or the college to answer questions and that could then feed into the task and finish group," she said. But Cllr Murphy, backed by Cllrs David Sanders, Jon Freeman, Bruce Heywood and Keith Ross, was adamant private meetings were the way forward. Cllr Ross said a task and finish group would look at things in the round. "We will take evidence and we will look at where we are and we will bring it back to scrutiny and have the key players at the table," he said. "That is the proper way to do it. This is not a court and we're not here to hang people, we're here to help people." But Cllr Taylor was adamant the council had to step in on behalf of worried residents. "This is complicated and it should be looked at, but if we don't do it, who does?" he said. "We all need to sit down in a co-operative way." Cllr Dewdney added: "We need to ask tough questions in a challenging way. "They are the monopoly supplier and this is really important. "We need to find out where the future of the college is and we need to help to make this public." The committee was due to discuss the wider issue of school catchment areas in West Somerset before the end of the year, but the issue of the college was raised by Blue Anchor resident and a former school governors chairman, Jim Butterworth. Speaking at the start of the meeting he urged the committee to use their powers to review issues of local concern by calling the college into account as a matter of urgency. He said local people had no choice but to send their children to what he branded a "failing academy" and said more than 400 people had signed a petition calling for principal Gaynor Comber to go. "As a chairman of governors for 15 years and hearing children read twice a week I know many of these children. They are no different to any cohort of lively teenagers," he said. "They are not to blame for these poor results. "We have to do something for our youngsters. We cannot stand by and do nothing. "The principal and governors of our one and only college have so far chosen not to answer our questions. "Disaster stares us in the face." Cllr Freeman said he believed the "co-operative approach" offered by a task and finish group was the way forward: "It is more likely to be fruitful as the other approach would amount to a public flogging." Cllr Taylor said: "I think the committee has taken the wrong route and I as leader reserve the right to open channels with West Somerset Council quite separately to scrutiny. "A small group is the wrong mechanism, this needs a much larger group of councillors to look at it."