Public appointments - tory takeover?

JessM - As a long-retired career civil servant I witnessed the break-up of the old style civil service and its replacement by an army of quangos, executive agencies, boards, and private companies both national and foreign, all charged at great expense with the job of doing huge dollops of public work previously done by civil servants or local authorities.

These new organisations were, and still are, often staffed at senior level by armies of friends, family, sycophants, cowboys, spivs, crooks, political animals and windbags, all on very generous salaries and terms. Ministers of all colours kept, and keep, long lists of political appointees and the suspicion was, and is, that these people will do exactly as they are told to by their political masters, or face the music. There is nothing democratic about it.

The sad consequences of this we see around us all the time these days, and I haven't even touched on the evils of privatisation. The Gove business is so typical of this outsourcing of government responsibilities, made worse by an Education Minister who is not fit for his job anyway.

All political parties do this so I'm not greatly exercised by Gove's actions - what does send my BP up is the revolving door of the great and good, Lord this and Dame that, who are appointed to head Qangos and the like.

They move from one cushy number, often via the House of Lords, to another. The same names over and over ..... Dame Suzy Leather, Dame Liz Forgan, Baroness Neuberger, Lord Chris Smith, Lord Chris Patten, etc.

This is about wanting an OFSTED that does not criticise academies and free schools. Fairly transparent I think.

Making sure they get everyone in place before the next election.
Why does nobody try to stop Gove with all his changes?
He seems to write a new curriculum every term.
There was an article in the Guardian education section about schools being phoned up by academy brokers before being told that their Ofsted report was bad. Academy brokers are employed by the DfE. In the same paper was a report about an academy chain where the heads and governors of two thirds of the schools have been removed within three weeks of takeover. It's the KEMNAL trust, the third largest chain.

Someone should be looking into this. There should be an ombudsman for education. Who inspects Ofsted?

I was under the impression this lady had a three year contract that had come to an end so I can't see what all the fuss is about. I also think that in positions such as these (OFSTED) then it is a good idea to change the people at the top every 3-4 years or so.

No, I thought her contract had come to an end so doesn't have to be renewed if someone else could do the job ?better?

DH calls it the "Merry-go-round", no-one ever falls off however incompetent they prove to be, they just jump onto the next seat coming along.

If we have a Government in power I would expect that they would appoint people of the same persuasion in the "top jobs" otherwise you could end up with a situation like the USA and have a stalemate over important issues.

And I do think the old days where Civil Servants carried out the policy decisions of Government was cheaper and better.
Yes Minister.

Gove apparently said she had done a superlative job. 3 years in a post like this not long - 2 terms would be about right I think. He has one of his cronies who has run an Academy company lined up for it.

And are we surprised?

Michael Gove was Secretary of State for Education from May 2010. Sally Morgan was appointed as head of Ofsted in 2011. Therefore Gove must have appointed her.
He has nothing but praise for her while she has been head of Ofsted. Therefore it is purely political to remove her now. He knows he will not be Head of DfE after next year, so is getting his yesman in now on a three year contract.
Whatever he does is just so obviously political. It's time education was taken out of politics. He now wants all state schools to be like private schools. Why does he not put the same money into them?

I agree with gillybob. The contract had come to the end. That's all.

Seems to have surprised most other people though.

They all do it - Blair Government did it as well.

I can't agree with ' contract had come to an end, that's all' even Gove has praised her work has her deputy has. So the question is why not renew her contract ? Cammeron doesn't think a three year contract is enough, he wants to renew his after a five year stint.

Will Gove get rid of heads of schools which are improving? Surely he isn't miffed because his free schools have been criticised by Ofsted

margaretm74 The recent stalemate, as also the ones before, happened because of elected, not appointed, representatives from different parties stubbornly refusing to compromise until the very last minute. Political appointees are quite different – usually vested interests such as oil company or mining executives in charge of the environment.

Point taken absent! Just seems a bit odd to me to appoint people who may have diametrically opposed views to the ones you wish to implement.

Perhaps they have something else in min d for her

OFSTED is not supposed to be an implementing body for the secretary of state is it. It is supposed to oversee schools that are publicly funded and assess their teaching and learning, as fairly as possible, according to an agreed standard methodology. If the sec of state aggressively promotes a new kind of school, as this one has, if there is not a relatively independent OFSTED that is allowed to get on with its work - i.e. one without any day to day interference in their judgements, then how is the public to know whether or not these new schools are

a/ better than other types of schools
b/ no better than the others
c/ worse than the others
d/ an utter disaster

This move makes Gove look worried - worried that the mad dash to free schools and greatly increased numbers of academies is not going to prove to have wrought the miracles he claimed they would.
If he was confident, surely he would have left the team to carry on without his interference.

So let me get this straight.

A conservative Minister gives a 3 year contract to a Labour 'person' and he is now being accused of a 'Tory Takeover' because he does not extend her contact. .

If he was hell bent on stuffing his department with Tory's he would never have given her the job in the first place on that sort of rational thought, or irrational thought as I think the case may be.

Quite ridiculous, she should accept her contract is not being extended, as do many other's in her situation. It is perfectly normal for changes to be made, even in government you have reshuffles every now and then don't you.

On the basis of this story being so partisan it could be said let's get rid of all the Labour cronies in the Lords and Quangos Blair and Brown managed to stuff to the gills. That would just be whining for the sake of it.

What is Labour saying, there is no party permitted to run these departments, etc other than Labour?

Come on Pogs, you are being ridiculous.
The head of the CQC is now an ex-Tory MP who lost his seat in an election. He is now saying that unless the NHS gets privatised it is going to go bust. What a surprise.
About the only person of any importance who can hold the government to account is the chair of the public accounts committee. What's the betting she's the next one to go.

Pogs, why did you put person in inverted commas?

Tory Lords, 221.
Labour Lords,221
Liberal Lords, 90+

Why is it that Brown and Blair stuffed it to the gills?
They were just catching up, iy seems to me. Anyway, Brown and Blair are hardly Labour, they are New Labour, which means Tory to most Labour supporters.

The current government seem to be systematically removing all women from senior posts heading quangos etc. So perhaps it is a misogynist in disguise.

Jess

Genuine question.

Which quangos are systematically removing women from senior posts.?? Are there no male senior posts being removed. By removed do you mean sacked before their contract is completed or their contract is not renewed, or both.

When she was appointed to this post three years ago it was early days for the con/lib government , now the Tories are coming into their own, if they had won the election I doubt she or other Labour Party members would have been considered

To take this argument to "grass route" level my DGC's school will not and has never appointed a governor that is not a member of the Labour Party. IMHO this stinks to the heavens !