GUERNSEY’S entire Education Department faces external review. Chief Minister Mike Torode confirmed the wide-ranging probe yesterday as the former head of Le Rondin School told how the department had failed in its efforts to frighten, silence and discredit her.

On Tuesday, an employment tribunal ruled that Jane Stephens had been unfairly dismissed from her post in January last year.

She said the evidence had demonstrated the lack of preparation by Education managers for the opening of Le Rondin in September 2005.

Significant failures in decision-making had made it impossible to meet pupils’ needs that first term.

The Education board had adopted a ‘Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton’ approach to the building’s numerous defects, said Mrs Stephens.

‘They expected the States, the media and the public to be convinced by their repeated ﾓon time and on budgetﾔ mantra,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t on time and I doubt that many people were convinced.’

That performance had, she said, stripped the board of all political credibility.

‘If Education’s contempt for the opinion of others is to end, then the ﾓno blameﾔ culture of the managers and politicians responsible for the service must now become an ﾓaccountabilityﾔ culture.’

The mismanagement of the project and cover-up attempts had, she said, damaged the establishment on a Fallagate scale.

Relating to her dismissal, Mrs Stephens said director of education Derek Neale and the senior management team, with the exception of Deputy Dan Le Cheminant, had stooped to acts of undignified desperation in their attempts to cover up their actions.

They embarked on a 17-day employment tribunal knowing that they had acted collectively in concealing important evidence.

‘The employment tribunal has cost a great deal of taxpayers’ money and the ﾓdefenceﾔ orchestrated by Education personnel was foiled due to the courage of my witnesses and their determination to speak the truth.’

Civil servants within the department and other education professionals central to her sacking should be ashamed of themselves, she said.

‘They might in future remember that it only needs people without evidence to support their opinions to indulge in malicious gossip for the abuse of power to flourish.’

Appropriate action should, she said, be taken to restrain officers and others identified by their own testimony at the tribunal as perpetrating misinformation and using her to take responsibility for their own failures.

‘This belated action will protect other staff from any repetition of my treatment,’ she said.

‘Our children deserve more trustworthy providers of education.’

It had formerly been thought that only senior management would be subjected to outside assessment, a review first called for in June by Lt-Bailiff Richard Southwell when rejecting Mrs Stephens’ judicial review request.

Deputy Torode said that the Policy Council had spoken to several professional bodies and agreement had been reached with one, but the cost was prohibitive.

‘For four or five weeks now we have been in discussion with another entity in relation to getting the review done without incurring that sort of ‘six-figure’ expense,’ he said.

‘I would have preferred that we had been able to get the review going some time ago, however I could not sanction the huge sum of money that we were quoted.’

Scrutiny chairwoman Jean Pritchard had been kept informed, he said.