The chairmen of the governance boards of States schools – which were set up last year – called for Education, Sport & Culture to be allowed to keep every penny of the £2.2m. a year of public money currently paid to The Ladies’ College and Elizabeth College which is likely to be handed back after the colleges announced this week that they had been offered a huge financial gift by a philanthropist.
‘We are not asking for new money,’ they said in a joint letter sent to politicians yesterday.
‘We are asking that money already committed to educating Guernsey’s children continues to be spent on educating Guernsey’s children.’
States committees are under a direction to strip £20m. out of their annual budgets by 2029 and the Assembly is part way through a debate about how to deal with a hole in public finances estimated at between £50m. and £100m. a year.
But the chairmen of the States schools’ governance boards do not want to see the public money saved as a result of the colleges’ gift diverted into general savings or other committees’ budgets.
Their call won the backing of ESC president Paul Montague.
‘It won’t be a surprise to anyone that I fully support the sentiment of the letter we have received from governance board chairmen,’ said Deputy Montague.
‘While too early for us to make any commitments about this money, considering a number of processes still need to be completed, including a States debate, investment in all our young people is crucial for our future.
‘The governance boards have been working closely with schools and have seen what could be done with more funding.’
The eight chairmen of the governance boards claimed there had been a significant decline in the share of States spending going to education over the past few years.
Their analysis indicated that spending on education fell by about 18% between 2012 and 2013, after inflation was taken into account, whereas total States expenditure increased by about the same percentage, at a time when the number of children aged under 15 decreased by less than 4%.
They said that schools were ‘now facing increasing pressures, including rising numbers of children requiring additional and specialist support, recruitment and retention challenges, attendance issues and significant pressures on the estate’, which the money likely to be returned by the colleges could help alleviate.
‘We are particularly concerned about children whose needs fall between mainstream provision and the threshold for specialist support – sometimes described as the ‘missing middle’ – as well as the need to improve staffing stability and address the condition of school buildings,’ they said.
They have asked ESC to make four commitments to States schools: retain the £2.2m. within the education budget; issue that commitment before new legal arrangements with the colleges are finalised; develop a reinvestment plan in consultation with the governance boards; and report annually on the use and impact of the funding.
The signatories to the letter were Andrew Ogier, Anna Rivers, Elizabeth Dene, Ian Carter, Jon Buckland, Robert Sillars, Stuart Jehan and Yvonne Hodder.
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