ESC reeling as law update is derailed

It culminated in the rejection of Education’s plans to introduce new school governance boards. Deputies who argued against the boards, said they were simply window-dressing and lacked any real substance.

Peter Roffey said the proposal did not go far enough in devolving power to new boards for all States schools, and members agreed with him by 22 votes to 14.

With the draft law now likely to be subject to several changes, and a further delaying motion now expected to follow, the picture for ESC looked uncertain last night.

President Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said the amendment was more far-reaching than its proposers realised.

The ‘go big or go home’ approach would lead to instability across the schools and was irresponsible, she said. while ESC’s proposals offered an incremental approach.

Deputy Roffey said that school governors needed to be given ‘power and flexibility’ and the chance to ‘properly govern’, including having the autonomy to decide how much they used States services and resources, including finance and HR officers. That was not on offer from Education, he said.

While he personally wanted to see ‘devolution-max’, he said that the amendment was essentially seeking more clarity on the proposal.

Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said she was not clear what the responsibilities of the new boards would be if the report from ESC was approved. ‘How far does this delegation and devolution go?’ she asked.

Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez described the amendment as a pragmatic, interim step.

Deputy John Gollop wanted more insight about how the boards would work and detail of how they did work at schools in the UK.

Deputy Heidi Soulsby, who seconded the motion, said that she could not imagine ‘anyone in their right mind’ wanting to be on a governance board as outlined by ESC.

But former Education vice-president Bob Murray backed his former colleagues robustly. He said he had served on many governance boards and described much of the debate as ‘a load of nonsense’.

‘They’re there to improve outcomes for students, not to fulfil ideologies,’ he said. He said Deputy Roffey’s vision of ‘maximum devolution’ was, equally, ‘a nonsense’.

There was a note of warning from Deputy Neil Inder who said that while he supported the amendment, he wondered if any board would deal with issues arising from teachers’ unions.

ESC member Deputy Sue Aldwell said that she had spoken to head teachers and they did not want to have to deal with issues like human resources, or have to order toilet rolls or buses.

Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq expressed concerns about the financing of the concept, and warned that it would take a decade to make school operations more efficient than currently.

How they voted ...

... on Deputy Peter Roffey’s amendment to revamp proposals to offer more devolution to school governance boards

For: Deputies Blin, Brouard, Burford, Cameron, De Lisle, de Sausmarez, Fairclough, Falla, Gollop, Inder, Kazantseva Miller, Leadbeater, Matthews, McKenna, Meerveld, Oliver, Parkinson, Queripel, Roffey, Soulsby, St Pier and Trott. Total: 22.

Against: Deputies Aldwell, Dudley-Owen, Ferbrache, Gabriel, Haskins, Helyar, Le Tissier, Le Tocq, Mahoney, Moakes, Murray, Prow and Vermeulen and Alderney representative Roberts. Total: 14.

Absent: Deputies Bury, Dyke and Taylor and Alderney representative Snowdon.