I say ineptly not particularly because of anything which has arisen in the Clare v Haverhill debate, but because of the lack of information which was given out to people in the beginning and which allowed a lot of false and defensive positions to be taken, and become entrenched, before things became a little clearer.
It is staggering to realise now that when the county council first mooted its review publicly, it was not intending to have a public consultation in Haverhill at all.
Even now the average member of the public here has little knowledge of some of the fundamental proposals in the pipeline which will change communities dramatically.
If you're a governor, you may have known about some of these ideas for as much as three years.
If you're a parent or work in a school, you may have become aware of them over the summer.
Recent consultation meetings may have shed a bit of light, but, if you're like me, you may still be in the dark over some very important elements in each of the options.
I am mystified as to why all this secrecy has been maintained.
It hasn't done any good because communities could not be more aerated or teachers more insecure about the whole thing than they are now if it had all been made plain from the beginning.
The consultation, as we suspected, is fairly cosmetic, and one suspects it won't change the decision on March 4 from what has been lined up for some time.
One is once more reminded of the scene in Brassed Off when the researcher whose work is no longer relevant accuses the Coal Board chief of having made a decision months ago, and he replies: "Wrong, Miss Mullins – two years ago."
I'm not saying the decision is wrong, or the change to two-tier is wrong. I don't think I'm in a position to make that judgement, because I still don't know enough about it.
Clare's community may well suffer by the loss of limited junior secondary education within the town, but whether the children will is less clear and that, after all, should be the main consideration.
But the keynote of the whole process seems to have been to tell people the bare minimum and make out everything else is undecided.
It's an emotive subject and you can see why the council was afraid of the public reaction – people don't like change, in general.
But when will councils (and Governments) learn that it is better to be up front with people and trust to them seeing the sense in what you are doing (if it is sensible), than to try and put one past them in secret?
That just never works and always makes things worse.