Still no idea on costs, or savings

Friday 23 November 2018

Guernsey's one school/two sites model of secondary education remains an uncosted project - publicly at least, despite questions being asked at the latest public scrutiny hearing.

Deputy Chris Green chaired the panel yesterday as they put a series of questions to the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture.

He described the hearing as, "the latest instalment in our series on the transformation of public services generally and, in particular, on the Secondary education reforms."

This hearing focused on some key issues which are already in the public domain and raised some new areas of concern for Scrutiny he said.

There were seven main issues discussed said Deputy Green, and these focused on agreements between the States and the Grant Aided Colleges, how much the redevelopment of States run secondary schools will cost, projected savings from the one school/two site system, the reasons behind choosing Les Beaucamps and Baubigny as the two sites for the one school model, why the Grammar school site was not chosen, the forecast overspend of ESC this year and further discussions on ESC's 2018 budget.   

Pictured: The Committee l-r are Deputy Matt Fallaize, Deputy Mark Dorey, Deputy Rhian Tooley, Deputy Peter Roffey and Deputy Richard Graham. 

With regards the three private colleges, Deputy Green said while it's been confirmed an agreement has been signed between the States and the Grant Aided schools it is not being made public yet, which he said is "apparently due to the reluctance of the latter not the former."

Deputy Green said; "the Scrutiny panel was not impressed by this secrecy and is calling on the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture to consider making the agreement public."

Pictured: St Sampson's High and Les Beaucamps High schools currently occupy the sites which will be used when the one school/two sites model is introduced. 

The hot topic for Education remains the plans to move to a new system of secondary education, with two sites identified for the one school model. However, Deputy Green - who sat on the former Education Department which successfully led the debate on ending selection at 11 - said, "there is still no clarity on how much it will cost."

Deputy Green said questions persist over the amount needed in terms of capital expenditure, to extend the two current school sites to enable them to take more pupils. ESC is still working on these costs, but Deputy Green said he's been led to believe it will be very costly.

"The Committee may well put a range of figures into the policy letter that will be debated in June of 2019 rather than a single figure," he said. "We are led to believe that the figure will be in the tens of millions at least."

Deputy Green said he's been left feeling like there is also still "no clarity on the projected general revenue savings that might be realised once the one school/two sites model is fully operational. Again, these figures are still being worked up by the Committee."

Pictured: The Guernsey Grammar School is expected to close completely in the nest few years.  

The Scrutiny hearing confirmed that the decision to choose the Les Beaucamps and Baubigny school sites was based on a political decision which had taken into account four separate factors: the costs, the existing facilities, geography and the possible disruption to pupils. Deputy Green said these factors were not weighted in any way but he has raised concerns about the future of the Grammar School site. 

Deputy Fallaize said that using Les Beaucamps and Baubigny was "the least expensive two school model" while he also told the panel that the Les Varendes site had not been chosen becuase it would need more than £20 million invested in it to make it fit for purpose, while the building works to extend the site could not be done without disrupting the current year groups.

However, Deputy Green said the Scrutiny panel felt "it was surprising that the Les Varendes site had been excluded bearing in mind the fact that it a central site, it has good road infrastructure, it already has a functioning sixth form centre and it already has sporting facilities and playing fields next to the site."

Pictured: ESC is going over budget for this year - but not by as much as they had predicted. 

When it comes to money, ESC has confirmed it will go overbudget this year, but the Scrutiny hearing found it will be by less than had been predicted.

ESC said it will be down from a £3.8 million overspend to around £2.9 million. That's as a result of "changes at the Education Office and from non-recurring savings that cannot necessarily be repeated," said Deputy Green.

Accusations that the transformation work at ESC have failed was also denied by the committee President, Deputy Fallaize, who accepted that for 2019 ESC has been given a big increase in its revenue budget but Deputy Green said "he denied that this increase in expenditure was proof that ESC had failed at “transformation” hitherto."

Pictured: The two school sites at the centre of ESC's transformation plans.