Key Education questions were blocked by officials

POLITICIANS' attempts to resolve concerns about the way Education was being run and question why as many as 15 staff left the department were effectively blocked by public servants, extensive Guernsey Press enquiries have revealed.

A review of the department widely anticipated to bring about change failed to do so after the director and his senior management team objected to the direction that it would take.

And correspondence between the head of the civil service and the consultant commissioned to review the department in 2007 has revealed the extent to which the report was steered away from what deputies considered to be the heart of the problem – the management style of the director, Derek Neale (pictured).

There are concerns that the latest review – to be considered by the Policy Council today – could also be subject to the same pressures and legal vetting.