An investigation into the appointment of the Head of Curriculum & Standards can now commence - with redacted information

The Scrutiny Management Committee is continuing its investigation into Education, Sport & Culture with redacted information.

The SMC is investigating the appointment of the Head of Curriculum & Standards after questions were raised about the hiring process. It requested the relevant information on the 7th August.

Head of the Committee Deputy Chris Green has released the following statement: “My Committee has been frustrated by the delays in receiving the relevant documentation but is pleased that the first stage of an independent review can now be progressed.

"My Committee reiterates our collective view that the review process must be unimpeachably independent if the issues are to be examined effectively. It’s worth remembering that we wish to commission an independent person to do this review. That independent individual will now consider the evidence and determine if a full examination of key witnesses shall take place early next year.”

President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, Deputy Matt Fallaize, has released the following statement:

"Since the SMC announced its review we have been eager to provide everything we hold and to redact or omit nothing. The week before last I wrote to the President of the Scrutiny Management Committee, Deputy Chris Green, asking him to identify an officer of the SMC or a reviewer to whom our full set of unredacted papers could be provided. The SMC has not yet identified how this could be done in a way which is lawful and in particular does not breach data protection legislation or the employers' duty of confidentiality to employees. 

"Therefore, mindful of the SMC’s deadline for the papers to be submitted, we provided them to officers at the Office of the CfESC and to the Law Officers who are completely independent of the Committee. The lawyers’ advice is that the papers need to be redacted because some participants – not members of the Committee but others – have not given permission for their personal data to be disclosed for the purposes of the SMC review. Therefore the Law Officers have kindly offered to work through our papers and make the necessary redactions so that we can at least submit everything we hold in a lawful way even if at the present time the SMC can’t advise us how to submit them in an unredacted form. 

“We hope to receive the redacted papers imminently and then we will submit them to the SMC, but we will still work with the SMC to try and find a way of submitting them in an unredacted way. We have nothing to hide and we would rather every word of every email and every document be available to the SMC’s reviewer. If a way can be found to do this we can provide the unredacted papers immediately because they have been held at the Office of the CfESC for nearly two weeks.”