Education is trying to shore up support for its school governance board plans – but political criticism of the approach has been renewed.
The President and Vice-President of Education, Sport and Culture want to modify the next stage of setting up the boards in the face of concerns raised by other politicians.
Deputies Paul Montague and Andy Cameron want the purpose of the boards to be set out to show they must support the views of staff, students and parents, and hold senior leadership to account on standards, resources and performance.
They have also proposed removing the requirement for each board to have an education civil servant as a member, in response to fears that the oversight of schools would be kept too close to central government.
But a critic of Education’s approach labelled these changes “window dressing” on social media.
Deputy Haley Camp, who unsuccessfully attempted to delay governance boards being set up earlier this month, said ESC are trying to push through legislation “knowing it doesn’t achieve autonomy and knowing that it will need major unwinding in order to get to anything approximating autonomy”.
She said setting out the purpose without handing boards independent powers is “an irrelevance” and removing education officials from the membership shows the committee is “entirely subservient” to the civil service.
Deputy Montague admitted that the plans first drawn up by the previous ESC committee “broadly” supported devolution, but acknowledged feedback since then had made clear more needs to be done.
A special committee of the States will investigate how far and how soon school governance boards should be left to scrutinise schools and make decisions ranging from staff appointments to how budgets are spent.
Deputy Camp accused ESC of leaving these decisions “entirely” to this process “to see if making these boards ‘real’ is even a possibility.”
Education’s political leadership insist they are committed to genuine independence and have previously relied on the trust of the Assembly that the outcome will be satisfactory.
“Our Committee’s priority is to deliver governance that strengthens our education system and provides schools, The Guernsey Institute, The Sixth Form Centre and learners with the best foundations for success. Good governance should enable better outcomes for students while ensuring accountability and transparency,” Deputy Montague said.
“We are grateful to Members who worked with us ahead of this debate to help shape the Ordinance, and to those who lodged a separate amendment after engaging openly with the Committee. We hope the debate will result in the formal establishment of Governance Boards, driving further improvements for our education system and every learner within it.”
Deputy Cameron said the changes make the role of the boards “clear from the outset.
“By removing the requirement for an Education Officer representative, while maintaining the overall size of boards, we are also responding directly to feedback from Members and providing boards with greater autonomy and flexibility.”
The next stage will be debated by the States next week, where Education also faces a challenge from the President of Policy & Resources to limit the attendance of the Director of Education at board meetings.
Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez said further restrictions on education officials were necessary to “ensure the continued direction towards independence and autonomy for the Governance Boards”.