The questions start...

Wednesday 07 August 2019

Within hours of the announcement that Guernsey's new Director of Education had resigned from her post before she even formally started work, official questions had been sent to the President of Policy and Resources demanding answers over P&R's involvement in the running of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture.

Deputy Carl Meerveld was first off the blocks to make his concerns over the latest development in the saga encompassing ESC official - with five questions aimed at finding out exactly who is running the under-fire committee and who makes the decisions over senior appointments to run our education systems.

Pictured: Rule 14 questions are a tool States members can use to force committees to answer questions in the public arena. 

Deputy Meerveld acted within hours of the announcement that Laurie Baker had decided to withdraw from the most senior role in education locally, citing "a change in family circumstances" - in the same statement issued to the media she insisted her decision was not linked to the recent furore surrounding the appointment of a Head of Curriculum and Standards. 

Pictured: Laurie Baker. 

Mrs Baker was appointed in April, to replace the former acting-Director of Education, retired headteacher Andrew Warren, who had filled the role for less than a year to help out while a permanent post-holder could be recruited.  

At the time of her appointment, ESC said Mrs Baker "has a thorough understanding of education practice; school leadership; local authority education policy delivery; the Ofsted inspection framework; and area-wide oversight of standards of education from nursery to post-16, special schools and alternative provision."

She was based in London before her planned relocation to Guernsey, where she had been the Director of Education Quality & Strategy at Hillingdon Borough Council since April 2015. Although she has been doing some part time work ahead of her move to Guernsey, she had not yet started her role full time when she made the decision to withdraw. She is expected to continue working with ESC on a part time consultancy basis until a replacement is recruited.

P&R's statement, released yesterday, confirmed that committee will take the lead on appointing a replacement for Mrs Baker. And although ESC had commented on her appointment, P&R has sought to make clear that it, as the senior States committee, takes the lead on senior civil service appointments.

However, the statement released yesterday did not offer any comment from ESC or the committee President Deputy Matt Fallaize, who had previously welcomed Mrs Baker's appointment. The States press office confirmed no statement would be forthcoming from ESC on the withdrawal of the most senior post holder in education locally just weeks before she was due to start work full time.

This has led Deputy Meerveld to pose the questions above, which P&R now has 28 days to answer in writing.

Deputy Meerveld has described the statement on Mrs Baker's decision to withdraw from the post as  including a "curious statement" over P&R's involvement.

"From this statement it appears that P&R are making decisions on behalf of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture with regard to senior staff recruitment and assuming control of recruitment processes," he said.

Pictured top l-r: Deputies Matt Fallaize, Carl Meerveld and Gavin St Pier.