Education president says no to Scrutiny hearing
EDUCATION, Sport & Culture president Paul Le Pelley has refused to attend a public hearing into how his committee is progressing on policies and how it intends to make savings over the next three years.
Called by the Scrutiny Management Committee, the hearing scheduled for Monday would have also touched upon secondary and pre-school education.
Deputy Le Pelley's refusal, after first accepting the invitation, has also put him at odds with Policy & Resources president Gavin St Pier and States chief executive Paul Whitfield.
In declining the invitation only weeks after accepting it, Deputy Le Pelley gave the reason that the collective opinion of Deputy St Pier and Mr Whitfield was that 'good governance would be best served if such a hearing be held after the forthcoming debate in the States Chamber'.
But last night they released a joint statement giving a different version of what they said.
'In an unrelated meeting, we both acknowledged in passing that it might be beneficial for the Scrutiny public hearing on education to be held after debate, due to the significant focus required from the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture to develop that policy letter in a short timeframe,' they said.
'However, our position was and is that the decision on whether to proceed with the public hearing is rightly a matter for the Scrutiny Management Committee only.'
Scrutiny president Chris Green said the committee was frustrated by the delay.
