IT was with great sadness that I heard of the passing of Andrew Roberts, former mayor and leader of Salisbury City Council.

Andrew was a Salisbury man through and through – from his education at Bishop Wordsworth’s to his decision to give back to the city he loved through tireless public service.

My condolences to Deborah and their boys, as well as to the wider ‘civic family’, who will greatly miss Andrew’s friendship and wise counsel.

Today is another big day for young people collecting exam results. Good luck to all those finding out how they got on in their GCSEs today.

It was no surprise that last week brought wonderful stories of success for Salisbury’s A-level students, with several schools posting their best ever results and many seeing 100 per cent of students accepted to their first choice university or vocational course.

I have always believed that a good education can be the single greatest transformer of lives.

Students in Salisbury enjoy a greater than ever choice of schools and training options – with the forthcoming Wiltshire College investment due to bring even more higher level technical courses.

Children get one chance at education and I am determined that all of Salisbury’s young people get the world-class education they deserve.

Thanks to the hard work of teachers, there are now more than 1.9 million more children across the country in schools judged to be good or outstanding.

The reforms made to the education system since 2010 have had a transformational effect on education in this country, with the best reading standards in England for over 15 years.

Further changes on the horizon are intended to enable employers to have greater confidence about what different grades mean in terms of the practical skills they can expect young people to have.

Increasingly, our brightest students need to be able to compete on the world stage and it is incumbent on us to acknowledge that, if we are to give them that chance, standing still is not an option.

Technology and the world economy are fast-changing and I welcome all of the work being done to ensure that our young people have the skills they need to get the jobs of tomorrow.