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The distribution of a Education, Sport & Culture Committee media release through the States' social media channels has raised questions, after the original wording relayed political opinion as public information.
The opening line of an Education, Sport & Culture Committee press release was copied across to the States of Guernsey's social media pages.
It stated that: "An amendment to the Government Work Plan seeks to re-insert the much-maligned two-school model 'front and centre' to the debate on the future of Secondary and post-16 education."
The post was met with outrage by some readers, who accepted the implication that an amendment by Deputies Tina Bury and Adrian Gabriel was being used as a back-door to the so-called two-school model, which is currently 'paused' pending review from the current ESC Committee.
"What a farce public have pretty much made it clear how they feel about 2 schools," said one comment on the States's own social media feed, while another stated "What the F".
If this account is going to relay political views on behalf of certain government committees, rather than confining itself to relaying public information, then islanders should know what criteria are in place.
— Simon De La Rue ???? (@sjdelarue) March 22, 2021
Who decides who can use this facility and when? The CM? The CEO?
Questions have been raised about why the States - as an organisation - appeared to be promoting one committee's political opinion. It raised concerns, which went unanswered, about whether this was a one-off error. Or, if not, how the apolitical organisation, led operationally by civil servants, could be used to channel political views.
The States went on to edit the text of its Facebook post and deleted its original twitter release before re-uploading.
Commenting on a Twitter thread, a States spokesperson said: "The SoG accounts promote all media releases from all Committees. In doing so we give a brief overview of the content. We deleted and reposted simply to make it crystal clear it is the Committee for ESC’s position."
Deputy Bury is proposing an amendment to Educations request to 'clear the decks' of all educational policy agreed by the States last term, including the approval of the one-school-over-two-sites model.
The Committee for Education, Sport & Culture says that it is concerned that an amendment to the Government Work Plan seeks to drag its work backwards. Read more at: https://t.co/5wTZf5lrnk pic.twitter.com/185EyvZmRD
— States of Guernsey (@Govgg) March 22, 2021
Pictured: The States of Guernsey re-uploaded its Twitter post after it received complaints about its partiality. The updated text clearly attributes the sentiments expressed to the Committee for ESC, unlike the previous post
It states that: "In order that the States’ members can make an informed decision about the future structure of secondary education, this amendment adjusts existing resolutions to make them more flexible so that the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, as soon as practicable, finalise and publish a comparative review of models of secondary education on a like-for-like basis, at the same time or before it publishes its policy letter on 10 May 2021, as proposed in the requête submitted by Deputy A C Dudley-Owen and six other members for debate in February 2020.
"The amendment supports the Committee by ensuring it can include any models or criteria which the Committee wishes to include."
It has been opposed by the ESC Committee, however Deputy Bury questioned the manner in which these objections were conveyed.
"The Committee for Education, Sport & Culture has this taken the unusual step of issuing a press release in response to my amendment [and the committee] has characterised that amendment in a way that I believe is misleading.
"Using language that I found surprising in an official SOG media release, the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture suggests that my amendment seeks to ‘re-insert’ the two-school model ‘front and centre’ into the debate on secondary education. My amendment does nothing of the kind: it just asks that the review that the Dudley-Owen ‘Pause & Review’ Requete called for is published as originally intended, in the interests of transparency and good governance."
I was gobsmacked when I read it.
— Yvonne Burford (@YvonneBurford) March 22, 2021
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