Professor's lessons need to be understood

Pull aside 15 senior civil servants and politicians, ask them searching questions about strategy, transparency and communication with an expectation of candid 360-degree awareness and cracks are bound to open up.

When some of the interviewees are former staff who have had the rough end of a period of huge upheaval there is going to be evidence of friction.

It is clear that Education has not been plain sailing since the new committee took over in 2018. A massive project got under way with little detailed preparatory work. They knew where they wanted to get to, but not how to get there.

In their determination to succeed, some high-profile staff fell by the wayside. The committee, under huge pressure to deliver, focused on the prize and failed to take everyone with them.

However, valuable though the Staite report is for its analysis of not just Education’s failings but those of the States as a whole, it is a snapshot in time, not the full picture.

To look at that two-year period in isolation is to miss the point.

Education was long due a shake-up. Successive committees over decades had failed to wrest control from senior civil servants who regarded the department as their fiefdom and politicians as distractions.

As a result, the Grange House offices were run with little thought for the taxpayer and voter.

One consequence of that was the refusal to open up and admit how badly some of the States secondary schools were really doing.

That lack of transparency and accountability had to be broken up and it has taken years to achieve.

In the process, there were no doubt some blameless casualties. Staff who should have been allowed time to adjust to the new world but were not given a chance.

The committee says it has learnt from its mistakes. Perhaps. But with the election just two months away it will be up to a new States and a new committee to implement Professor Staite’s lessons.