Education ‘mauled’ by States over law review
EDUCATION committee members were warned yesterday that they could face a vote of no confidence after their draft proposals for a new Education Law were ‘mauled’ in the States.
Deputy Lyndon Trott, one of the leading rebels, said that he ‘would not hesitate’ to bring a vote of no confidence in the committee if it failed to ‘respect the House and listen to the wishes of the Assembly’ when returning to the States with new proposals.
Education’s flagship review was torn apart by a series of amendments which led to ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen asking to withdraw its report, which was agreed before lunchtime.
‘I’ve been a member of the States for 23 years and I have never known, in that time, a policy letter be so extensively and successfully amended,’ Deputy Trott said after the meeting.
He described it as an ‘unprecedented mauling’ while others said it was a ‘car crash’ for ESC.
‘You’ll often get a lot of amendments and the sponsoring committee will win some and lose some but on this one, it was one-way traffic from the word go.’
Education was given strong direction to rework its plans to introduce new governance boards for States schools which were criticised as lacking detail.
Deputy Peter Roffey, whose amendment on the governance proposals was the trigger for the withdrawal of ESC’s report, said the committee would be ‘playing with fire’ if it claimed it could not follow the guidance given.
But Deputy Dudley-Owen warned that there would be cost implications in changing its proposals as radically as it was directed.
‘Absolutely we have to take it on board and we have to let people know how much that work is going to cost,’ she said.
She promised to be more effective in consultation. On the threat of a vote of no confidence, Deputy Dudley-Owen said that if her committee felt it was not able to deliver on States directions, deputies would have to decide whether that was ‘a matter of competence’ or ‘an issue outside of your control’.
