In the wake of the furore over Education’s aim to shut St Andrew’s School, a whistleblower has contacted Midweek Murphy to tell the truth about the way in which the decision was made.
This individual, who has been intimately involved with the consultant-driven, FTP cost-cutting project from the early days, says he is ‘sickened’ by the way it has ‘betrayed’ the people of Guernsey.
‘Education claims that they want to close the school for the good of the children, because they will get a better education in a bigger school,’ Chris told me*. ‘That isn’t true. It is about hacking money out of the budget. It always has been.’
Chris said that Education’s argument about multi-form entry schools being better than single-form entry, like they have at St Andrew’s, was only added later, to justify the decision.
‘The whole process sickens me, because it is driven by the FTP consultants, who are paid on results, and results for them means cuts. They are trying to close a good, successful, local parish school, loved by parents, children and the community, for the sole reason that it represents a ‘quick win’ in terms of a cut.
‘I grew disenchanted, because if they had the balls from the start to say that they wanted to close the school because they needed money for the FTP process, I would have sympathised with them. I would have been upset, because St Andrew’s is a brilliant school. But I probably wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now, and speaking out about it.’
What Chris says is corroborated by documents which can be found on the States’s own website.
If you search for the numbingly dull term ‘Fundamental Spending Review’ you will find a document which glories in the enticing title: ‘Fundamental Spending Review Phase 2 Annex.’ It was compiled by the high-price firm of consultants who were in on the FTP project at the ground floor. They were called Tribal, which makes them sound like an urban dance collective. But they really aren’t. They have changed their name since, presumably to remove any confusion.
So, on page 18 of this document it talks about ‘the rationalisation of the state-run primary schools,’ and suggests that it can save the suspiciously precise sum of £4.56m over five years. Not surprisingly, it does not show any working out, as our maths teachers always used to tell us to do.
Again not surprisingly, there is no mention of how you can improve education by bussing children to bigger schools miles from their homes.
The date of the report is July 2009, just a few months after the States’s first, failed attempt to shut the school. Chris said that the ‘evidence’ suggesting that multi-entry form schools are better for children than single-form entry schools was commissioned later, to justify the decision that had already been made.
‘It was utterly cynical, and a whitewash of the truth,’ said Chris.
Of course everyone already kind of knew that this fat-headed, ham-fisted proposal was everything to do with money, and absolutely zilch to do with what is good for children. Chris’s testimony from inside government proves what everyone already assumed. It was also corroborated by a senior Deputy, who is all for closing the schools, who told me this week: ‘Despite what the Education Minister insists, this is all about saving money.’
The truth is that Education are making an arbitrary cut to satisfy a short-term financial target imposed by the FTP consultants. It is exaggerating the savings to be made, and the grand claims of vast sums which can be rescued for the Treasury are already beginning to unravel. It makes no sense in the long-term.
Our children are sacrificed to feed the consultants’ hunger for fees and will cost Guernsey taxpayers more in the long run.
When the youth population of Guernsey ticks up again in a few years, which the sonic wave of demographic change insists will happen, we will have to open another primary, because the new Frankenstein schools won’t be big enough.
Whoever runs Education then will look at a map of Guernsey, and wish they had another school right in the middle of the island. Approximately where St Andrew’s stands now, the same place where a school has stood since 1741, and which they closed for no better reason than it helped a consultant hit a short-term accounting target.
Closing this school will be an unforgivable act of vandalism.
If it goes goes through, it will be the day the States of Guernsey died of shame.
* Not the source’s real name.