ANYONE reading extracts from the letter of resignation put forward by the former chairman of the GTA University Centre is entitled to ask: what on earth is going on?

His account of what appears to have been a particularly bruising encounter is clear, precise and unemotional.

It also suggests that the reception he and the GTA chief executive received at the hands of the training agency’s trustees was ‘unnecessarily belligerent’, ‘inappropriately hostile’ and at times ‘humiliating’.

If his account is correct – and two of the higher profile trustees involved in the meeting did not dispute it when approached for comment – then islanders might conclude that some of the behaviours displayed were inappropriate, particularly since all those involved are supposed to be working together for the benefit of upskilling Guernsey’s workforce.

Perhaps the real question is why the Commerce and Employment minister and the director general of the Financial Services Commission chose to get involved in the first place.

Yes, they are both directors of the GTA. They are also trustees and they are also key to the agency’s most significant sources of funding.

So who were they actually representing when having a discussion that led to the resignation of a man who has worked selflessly for the GTA?

Islanders and the thousands of them who use the centre should be under no illusion. This is a power struggle for control of the GTA University Centre which, as an independent partnership with government and industry, has done so much to help its students acquire new skills and qualifications.

Yes, it needs to change just as times and its funding model change.

But the controlling board is made up of those who largely fund it and, more importantly, decide what courses it provides on the basis of need.

If they are happy with what the GTA does, what so concerns the trustees?

Again, the conclusion islanders will draw is that the university centre isn’t sufficiently subservient to government and that two public figures who hold the purse strings demand to call the shots.

Will the other independent board members stand up to that? If they don’t, it will spell the end for what has been called a jewel in Guernsey’s crown.