States back move to maintain taxpayer funding for colleges

Various options to cut funding were rejected by the Assembly yesterday, including the Education Committee’s proposal to scrap all financial support by 2031.

Instead the States backed a proposal originally put forward as an amendment by Deputies Gavin St Pier and Peter Ferbrache to maintain and cap the colleges’ grant at its value at the end of the current funding agreement next summer – nearly £3m. a year.

The St Pier/Ferbrache plan – which also included increases in the grant in line with inflation but reductions should pupil numbers fall, as well as a five-year notice period of future changes – was dismissed by Education president Andrea Dudley-Owen as ‘the least favourable of the amendments on grant funding’ but was opposed by only six of the 35 members who do not sit on her committee.

Deputy Dudley-Owen said the amendment would unhelpfully ‘bake in’ increases in the States’ subsidy per pupil which had been agreed in 2017 only as a temporary measure to assist the colleges during the island’s transition from the 11-plus system.

But Deputy Chris Blin summarised the prevailing tone of the debate when he described the amendment as ‘the best way forward – a compromise which provides stability while recognising the need for change’.

On another bruising day in the Assembly for Education, Policy & Resources president Deputy Lyndon Trott credited Deputy Dudley-Owen with doing ‘a good job in difficult circumstances’, but went on to criticise some of the figures in her committee’s policy letter as ‘balderdash’.

David De Lisle was also unimpressed by the figures, which he said failed to mention that the colleges’ overall income from the States had reduced considerably in recent years, but he was even more critical of the committee’s oversight of States schools.

‘People are choosing at great cost to themselves to put their children in private education because the States system is not working for their children as they see it,’ said Deputy De Lisle.

‘They speak of the effects on students of multiple teachers per subject each year, leading to poor class discipline, and the enormous cost of staff turnover and the disruption to children’s education.

‘Doing away with the grant to the colleges is reckless to the future of our young people and our economy. The colleges provide very good value for money and substantial benefits to the community.’

The financial circumstances of parents with children in the colleges was again a common theme in debate, as it had been the previous day, after Education emphasised statistics showing that most parents with children in States schools had much lower household income.

Deputy Tina Bury admitted that she had been on ‘quite a journey’ since the policy letter was published.

‘My natural starting point was pretty cold to the idea of our money being diverted from States settings to private fee-paying schools,’ she said.

‘But through attending the presentations put on by Education and the colleges, and meeting the Elizabeth College principal and reading all the emails sent to us, I have warmed somewhat to the arguments coming from the private sector.

‘I will admit that I had a bias that the three colleges were full of wealthy families. But my viewpoint has changed and that bias has been shifted. I think it’s a good thing to have one’s mind opened to new ideas and different ways of thinking.’

Deputy Lester Queripel said he empathised with parents who had explained to States members in the weeks leading up to the debate that they ‘have to work not just one job but two to afford to keep their children at the colleges’ and recalled working long hours himself while bringing up a family.

‘When you are in that position, you hope and long for some kind of certainty and balance, and I’m going to support this amendment on the grounds that it is pragmatic, fair and reasonable,’ he said.

Deputy Trott claimed the Assembly would be ‘reducing more families’ choices’ by cutting grants to the colleges.

‘Choice is not a dirty word. It should be a fundamental principle of the manner in which we approach debates of this nature,’ he said.

‘We know how many families with students in these schools are in the lower three quintiles of income. These are not toffs. These are hard-working families.’

Deputy St Pier accepted that many members disliked one or more of the elements of the funding package outlined in his amendment, but he argued it was ‘clearly the pragmatic way forward’, given Education’s failure to come up with proposals acceptable to the Assembly.