Deputies accept no debate on federation

Deputy Barry Brehaut said that the department could have closed the St Andrew's Primary and St Sampson's Infants schools without going to the States.

'The federation, or broad union of schools, which means sharing resources and staff, ticks all the boxes in terms of the direction that the States is going in,' he said.

'I'm sure there will be difficulties but I have absolute confidence in the board who have been dealing with issues that have been lingering for a long time.'

Deputy Heidi Soulsby, who opposed the closure of the two schools, said the report lacked details but she had no strong views over whether it should have gone before the States.

'They are not saying how they are going to do it short of changing school timetables and a having a new committee,' she said.

'There are a lot of pages that don't say much and there's a lot of civil servant talk in it

'It's an operational matter but the irony is that they went to the States on the schools' closure when they didn't need to as they did not want to close them by themselves.'

Deputy Martin Storey said the department did not report to the States when changes were being made to the curriculum and he would not have expected it to do so for this.