£600k savings with ESC plans

Wednesday 14 December 2022

Changes to secondary education will save £600,000 a year, with some of the money put straight back into other initiatives.

Education, Sport & Culture President, Deputy Andrea Dudley Owen was facing questions in the States this morning in the wake of her committee abandoning a contract with RG Falla to work on the post-16 campus at Les Ozouets. It then yesterday announced that La Mare de Carteret would house the Sixth Form Centre for at least a year as a result.

She told the States that it was too early to say what the cost and time implications of ending the contract would be, but both ‘might be’ impacted.

Pictured: Students at the Sixth Form Centre and La Mare de Carteret High school will swap places in 2025 for a year at least.

“The reorganisation of secondary education is expected to release around £600,000 of recurring revenue savings, by operating more efficient, slightly larger, roughly equal sized schools,” said Deputy Dudley Owen.

“In addition to this, there will be cost avoidance as we will no longer be maintaining a school building that is rewatching the end of its life span.

“Because our 2021 Policy Letter had promised that, in the medium-term, the new model would be no more expensive than today’s revenue costs, as part of our ongoing budget reprioritisation workstream we have made - and will continue to make - a targeted reinvestment of some of these savings into initiatives that improve educational outcomes.”

The Guernsey Institute will generate further annual savings of between £800,000 and £1.1m. 

About £220,000 of these have already been made.

She was answering questions by Deputy Gavin St Pier and said that until the issues with RG Falla emerged they were on track to complete the reorganisation of secondary and post-16 education by September 2025 and within the agreed budget.

Pictured: Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen was answering questions from Deputy Gavin St Pier about the latest education plans.

"We believe that the need to contract with a different construction company might impact both time and cost," she said.

Education will provide updates when the situation becomes clearer, she said.

The committee plans to temporarily move the Sixth Form Centre to La Mare in September 2025.

“We are satisfied, after consultation with the senior leaders of the secondary school partnership, that temporarily housing the Sixth Form Centre at La Mare de Carteret will have minimal impact on those students."

She confirmed that no teachers would have to work in more than one location as a result and said it was important to note that up to 70 per cent of teaching from the Sixth Form Centre takes part in the 11 to 16 part of the building.

She made no comment to a question from Deputy Adrian Gabriel about what level of confidence the community could have in the committee to deliver its mandate.