ESC may be directed again to devolve more power to schools

During a debate on the Education Law in June 2023, the States agreed an amendment to devolve extensive powers to school governors and leaders, but the Assembly later allowed the policy letter to be withdrawn without facing a final vote.

ESC president Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said at the time that her committee would ‘bow to the will of the Assembly’. But it now wants deputies’ backing to make its interim school boards permanent while withholding any legal powers from them and creating a States investigation committee to study what role the boards should play in future.

Peter Roffey has drafted a new amendment ahead of this week’s States debate on schools’ governance. He will again ask the Assembly to direct ESC to draw up proposals for ‘far greater devolution of powers to school governing bodies’ before they are made permanent and without the need for a temporary investigation committee.

‘The current policy letter [from ESC] asks the States to establish a new education governance system before deciding what kind of governance that system should deliver,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘Rather than change the legislation now and hope that it matches the eventual outcome of future work to decide the role the governing bodies will perform, the more logical approach would be to direct ESC to return to the States with proposals for the kind of governance that the States may want to support, and then design the governance system that will best deliver it.’

He agreed that the amendment effectively re-presented his successful motion of 18 months ago, which the States agreed by 22 votes to 14.

Deputy Roffey claimed ESC was putting forward ‘a smoke and mirrors plan’ aimed at setting up ‘emasculated school governing bodies’ which would remain indefinitely. Deputy Heidi Soulsby, who seconded the 2023 amendment, said ESC was ‘kicking things down the road’ by setting up a new investigation committee.

The control and oversight of States schools has been a controversial issue since an external review carried out in 2011 claimed that schools and their children were being let down by outdated centralisation and bureaucracy.

Several deputies who favour reform want States schools to have at least some of the independence and management control enjoyed by the island’s grant-aided colleges.

ESC has claimed that devolving powers to schools too quickly could ‘de-stabilise the education system’ and pointed out that functions such as finance and recruitment, which some deputies want devolved to schools, fall under a different committee, Policy & Resources.

‘There is nothing to prevent ESC from continuing to delegate its school governance responsibilities to the interim governance boards as currently established,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘There is also nothing to prevent ESC from establishing a sub-committee to inform its recommendations.

‘However, the new investigation committee proposed in the original propositions is unnecessarily costly and time consuming. It is reasonable to assume that if work commences straight away proposals can be brought before the States far sooner than September 2026 without incurring costs of up to £100,000.’

P&R has not declared its position on ESC’s policy letter. However, before he was elected to his current role, P&R president Deputy Lyndon Trott said he would back a motion of no confidence in ESC if it failed to follow amendments approved by the States in the 2023 Education Law debate.