Time for the 'musketeers' to fall on their swords

EDUCATION'S stance until this weekend had been clear.

The musketeers' motto of 'all for one and one for all' was ringing loud as they stood united against calls for them to resign and get a fresh mandate from the States following the selection debate.

Now it is beginning to look a bit more like 'all for one, and each man for himself,' with

Deputy Marc Leadbeater sensibly announcing he would resign at the weekend.

Sensible, because the choice is now clear if the committee wants to avoid all the disruption and uncertainty that clinging on will cause.

At this stage, with the motion in play, it matters little what your view on the ability of the committee is.

The rest of the committee must resign and seek a fresh mandate from the States at this week's debate, which begins today.

Instead of drawing the process out until mid-January when they will face a vote of no-confidence anyway, this will either allow them to continue with the backing they need, or allow a new committee to begin the work that is required with fresh impetus.

Education's president and vice-president made a great play on Friday about the timescales involved and why this meant they should be given until June to come up with the way forward.

When pressed on why they should not stand aside now and get a fresh mandate swiftly, they stressed that the board all had different complementary skills – in essence they were a unit and they did not want to risk losing one or more board members.

But now one has gone of his own volition, holing that argument.

Another thread that they relied on, that the new board could not possibly be in place until January, perhaps February, also fails to stack up.

The States can speed up any election process should a vote of no-confidence be successful.

They have also stressed the wider impact on other States committees.

There are fewer States members, and all but one is currently on a committee.

To elect a new Education, Sport & Culture board would therefore cause a ripple effect, with people having to leave other committees, and their places filled by members that would then have to be brought up to speed on the work being done.

But is that any argument to allow a committee to limp along without the support – as it now appears – of a significant number of States members, from new to old, including at least two on the senior committee?

The ultimate conclusion of that thought process is that there would never be any movement in any of the committees, no matter what they did or however incompetently they acted.

This is also a test of a new system that was meant to deliver leadership.

Policy & Resources president Gavin St Pier has now gone public with his belief that the board should stand aside, a position that would have been made clear in private some days ago.

There are no powers to hire and fire under the consensus model, potentially leaving the gloriously awkward situation of a president and a committee that have lost the support of P&R, lost the support of other presidents that they have to work with, clinging on.

One of the worst scenarios that could play out would be for a narrow vote in favour of Education following a bruising a no-confidence motion, with senior members going against the committee.

The committee has already begun working up its plans for the switch to an all-ability secondary system, with eight options in play.

It wants to involve all States members, unions, teachers, head teachers, anyone with a stake in what happens.

But it has also put in place an almost impossible timetable to deliver, which it is now using as justification for resisting calls to go.

Its timetable is driven too much by the desire to get a place on the list of capital projects more than it is about devising the best system in the best way.

The capital prioritisation debate happens in June, so the committee has set itself that as the latest date in which to finalise its report on the new system and the number and type of schools it needs to deliver it.

Knock off a couple of months for the report to be published ahead of the debate, and the squeeze quickly becomes apparent.

But it is not beyond the wit of even a deputy to include La Mare as a provisional project within the list, with a giant asterisk that says should it not be needed, than the States can look again at its priorities.

While to some the issue is about whether a committee with a majority against all-ability education can deliver it, to others there are wider competency concerns at play.

These include what is happening with universal pre-school education, which has become anything but universal.

There remain tensions between the political board and the senior management team at Education – it was not that long ago those burst out into the public arena, with Frossard House having to step in to move things forward.

Among the board there is still a strong feeling that they were misled by staff over what could and could not be done with pre-school education funding when they first set foot in the office – signing off a deal they did not agree with in their first week.

Education, Sport & Culture have insisted they are almost as one on the vast majority of issues across their wide-ranging mandate.

But while it is true they have many more things to do than selection, there is no other issue that is anywhere like the magnitude in terms of the impact it has.

All members need to set aside what they think about selection now and demonstrate that they have full confidence in the team that is being asked to deliver.