Back to the Briefing notes menu
The story so far
June 2023: The Education, Sport and Culture Committee brought a full review of the Education Law to the States two years ago. It was withdrawn for further consideration after a barrage of successful amendments. See Briefing Note: Education Law Review.
February 2025: ESC returned to the States with one key part of that review – governance boards for each school (plus the Sixth Form Centre and the Guernsey Institute). Policy paper.
To reassure members who were concerned that not enough authority was to be delegated to the boards, ESC proposed creating an investigation committee to examine the issue. A Deputy Roffey amendment proposing greater devolution of powers was rejected 7-27 and the original propositions, including the investigation committee, were approved.
3 September 2025: The new ESC committee, led by Deputy Paul Montague, considered the issue and decided to push forward with their predecessors plans. At the early September 2025 meeting, they put forward the enabling legislation for governance boards. The Education (Guernsey) Amendment Law, 2025 removes the requirement for the old school committees and substitutes the new governance boards.
Deputy Haley Camp lodged a sursis motivé to the Amendment Law, seconded by Deputy Rob Curgenven, aiming to “prevent premature approval” by introducing a delay. The sursis was defeated 7-27 and the law will take effect once it has royal assent.
25 September 2025: The enabling legislation agreed on 3 September only establishes a framework. How the governance boards are to work in practice needs to be set out in an ordinance. (Ordinances are a lot easy to vary than primary legislation, allowing for flexibility in the operation of the boards in the future). This is why The Education (Governance Boards) Ordinance, 2025 is scheduled for the 25 September meeting.
There are two amendments proposed. The first is from Deputies De Sausmarez and Bury, limiting the number of governance board meetings the Director of Education can attend. ESC intends that the Director may attend any meeting. The amendment limits this to one per year, unless there are extenuating circumstances.
The second amendment is from the ESC committee. It adds a section to more clearly set out the purpose of the governance boards and removes the requirement for an Education Staff representatives on the boards.
Both of these amendments are to address concerns about the degree of independence and autonomy that the boards will have. Those concerns are laid out in this article by Horace Camp. (Note, this is an opinion piece).
In the meantime
The governance boards have already been created. But these are termed ‘interim governance boards’ as the relevant legislation hasn’t yet had States approval. Initially, the interim boards were piloted using members of the ESC committee and officers. Community, staff and parent governors have now been recruited. ESC advertised for eight chairs in April 2025. They have recruited five and are currently engaged in a second round of recruitment for the other three.
What are governance boards
The new governance boards replace the parish-based School Committees which have a limited remit.
If approved by the States, each board will comprise:
– Chair (same person working across a cluster of boards) – experienced member of the public appointed by Education Committee and paid a nominal annual retainer
– Head teacher and Deputy Head Teacher
– Education Office representative – appointed by Director of Education (could be deleted, see ESC amendment)
– Parent Governor – elected
– Staff Governor – elected
– Associate Governors – including a Community Governor – appointed by Education Committee
– Employer Governor (Institute only)
– Student Governor (Institute only)
The Director of Education may attend a meeting, with appropriate notice (could be restricted to one a year, see DeSaus/Bury amendment).
Minutes of all meetings will be submitted to ESC for review.
Chairs will all be members of a Council of Chairs.
All members will have comprehensive mandatory training and access to optional training modules, plus support and advice from the Education Office. There will be an Education Governance Handbook.
Costs will be met from savings within the existing ESC budget.
The new boards will no longer include politicians.
Devolution
A key area of sensitivity in these proposals is the degree of autonomy that the new boards will have.
The Mulkerrin Report in 2011 recommended the English system of ‘Local Management of Schools’. Mulkerrin said that “the degree to which education is controlled at the centre is a major weakness”.
In the 2023 Education Law debate, Deputies Roffey and Soulsby laid a successful amendment which directed ESC to consider far greater devolution of powers to the new governing bodies. Deputy Roffey repeated his amendment in the 2025 debate but it was defeated.
In the June 2023 debate, ESC argued that many of the functions that might be devolved – HR, IT, procurement – are managed centrally for the whole of the States by P&R. They also favoured a staged transition, particularly as there has been so much upheaval in education in recent years. They proposed creating an Investigation and Advisory Committee committee to “assess the further delegation of responsibilities and devolution of resources to governance boards, including a cost benefit analysis”. [Note: that committee would have two non-voting members…]
To understand both sides of the argument, read:
Roffey: Why school governors shouldn’t have to look over their shoulders (20 Dec 2024, Guernsey Press)
Dudley-Owen: Handing powers to school boards too soon could be ‘disastrous’ (21 Dec 2024, Guernsey Press)
Other useful information
Back to the Briefing notes menu
