Education: we need to understand how deep this crisis is

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Education, Sport & Culture have managed to plunge themselves into the Guernsey equivalent of special measures – Policy & Resources subjecting Education’s officers and politicians to what’s coyly referred to as an oversight group.

That’s basically a bunch of P&R minders sitting on Education making sure the department finally starts doing its share of the heavy lifting when it comes to transforming the way it provides educational services and making clearly identified savings.

Yes, it’s unprecedented. So was the statement by Gavin St Pier, as Le Prumier de Giernesi, that he and P&R were disappointed ESC had failed to control its budget.

It’s worth remembering, incidentally, that when ESC president Paul Le Pelley insists they are on top of their spending he’s merely reading what his own minders put in front of him.

So what needs to be understood is just how deep a crisis there is at Education. One well-placed government source described the department bluntly, using the military phonetic acronym ‘Charlie Foxtrot’, and which politely translates as something disastrously mishandled.

More importantly, moving ESC into a local version of special measures demonstrates how completely trust has broken down between P&R, its money meisters and Education.

Within the States, only Education has failed to make the requested budget cuts – despite having had significant savings opportunities handed to it on a plate by PwC. Instead, it has actually asked for a budget increase.

What has particularly inflamed central government is Education’s response to the criticisms of its financial performance – a refusal to recognise that savings are there to be made and are essential to the island’s efforts to rebalance its books.

This includes redeploying some of the 70 bodies in central services, tackling the high cost of the College of Further Education and its multiple sites, ending the lack of control over the grants that are given out, and the way Beau Sejour is managed.

In this context, Education’s communications strategy – a mix of lash out/claim department is cut to the bone/wring hands over lack of understanding of problems only they have – is not regarded as helpful. Quite the reverse.

While this could all be seen as mildly amusing, a department unable to recognise its own deficiencies while blaming everyone else for its woes, there is a very serious side.

The lack of trust in Education that the department has managed to generate means its policy initiatives are questioned at every turn. The future of education itself is in utter turmoil and it’s affecting staff morale.

In particular, it can’t recruit a new chief officer because the job is now regarded by candidates as too toxic.

So while it’s sad to have to put this into such context, it does at least explain why Education, Sport & Culture has been placed in special measures and the urgent need to turn it around.

TALKING of difficult situations, let me stick my neck out and make (for me) a rare diagnosis: if the Medical Specialist Group persists with plans to move to Park Street, it could prove quite injurious to its partners’ wealth.

The reason, especially for anyone thinking this is a bit of a non-story, is that the 50-odd consultants forming the MSG are now on a collision course with the States of Guernsey.

Well, if that’s what they want as a private business I suppose, so be it… Except that the taxpayer is effectively the MSG’s only customer.

The £100m. we plan to give the specialists over the next five years represents about 95% of their total income, which means – you might think – that the client’s view carries some weight.

An indication of how serious this is was given by Deputy St Pier last week when he said: ‘I was extremely disappointed and frustrated to learn of the MSG’s planning application to move its primary base to Park Street. The plans will not improve patient care one iota – and the location may actually degrade the patient experience.’

Phew. Strong stuff by any standards and, a bit like Education, the underlying issue is trust. And money.

Guernsey took a ground-breaking step back in 1995 when it contracted with the MSG for it to provide a consultant-led secondary health care service, free at the point of delivery and funded by a sort of health tax/insurance premium.

It’s not been hiccup-free, but for most of us it’s worked well and contract renegotiations have centred on patient outcomes, timely treatment and value for money.

For government, then, it’s a partnership. No States, no MSG. Other consultants are available to look after islanders in the absence of MSG.

A key part of the latest renegotiations centred on cost and, like government itself, reducing what we’re charged.

As I understand it, relocating from Alexandra House, the purpose-built centre at Les Frieteaux, St Martin’s (a stone’s throw from the Princess Elizabeth Hospital) was not mentioned during pretty intense discussions over charges and performance criteria.

Longer term, Health wants to see the consultants co-located at the PEH site. It makes sense, after all, to have the specialists on hand where the action is.

Plus, and this is key, the cost of accommodation directly influences the price of the contract. And we were already paying through the nose for Alexandra House at around £1m. a year.

Why? Because the company owning it was formed by some of the MSG founding partners, who leased it back to themselves as a sort of double earner/pension fund for later.

We can only suppose that something has now broken down in that arrangement in that the MSG, under pressure to reduce costs to the States, feels it can operate more cheaply (profitably?) from new premises.

Government is brassed off for two reasons. Firstly, the capital cost of that new building will be met by taxpayers purely for the benefit of the MSG’s partners.

At the same time, suitable free accommodation is available at the PEH. I say free because it wouldn’t make much sense for the States to charge MSG to use those PEH premises, only for the consultants to claim that rent back via higher charges, would it?

So MSG could move cheaply to the far more convenient location of the island’s main hospital rather than spending multi-millions on Park Street.

Yet they’re playing hard to get, so perhaps there’s more money in speculative property deals than in patient care. Who knows?

The second reason why government is so angry over this is convenience for patients. Co-location is central to health development plans and, as Deputy St Pier put it: ‘Doctors working from and reducing their absence in a hospital makes perfect sense, after all – especially as some of them are already there now anyway.’

That’s actually a coded reference to the time it can take for consultants to reach the PEH, even when on call, so putting them in Park Street with limited parking would hardly be an improvement.

From a States of Guernsey perspective, moving MSG to the PEH should equate to a £900,000 a year saving to the taxpayer.

A move to Park Street, however, would kill off that opportunity of a saving on rent AND negatively impact on patient care.

That’s at the same time as government is reappraising how and why it delivers services under the transformation project and is rationalising its property portfolio.

So MSG’s decision to convert new, arguably worse, headquarters using taxpayer funds cuts across that and questions whether this is truly a partnership or just a commercial contract of convenience for consultants.

For these reasons, my reading is that the MSG’s bedside manner on this one has really enraged Frossard House, which now expects the specialists to withdraw their planning application for Park Street.

I’m obviously not privy to the ‘…or else…’ aspects of this, but I note from the MSG’s annual report that the existing contract with them expires at the end of the year.

If the new one hasn’t yet been signed, I’d be a bit nervous of provoking a client offering me £100m. for the next five years.

Richard Digard is a freelance writer, consultant and a former editor of the Guernsey Press.

richarddigard@guernseypress.com