With the back-drop of the disappointing steep decline in Island Key Stage 2 SATS results VentnorBlog covered on Tuesday and the CP ran as their front page story on Friday, Retired Hack is on the investigation into how much of our money the Isle of Wight council is spending on a one-man consultancy which is supposed to be raising educational standards here. It all starts with the background. Ed
Background
Roger Edwardson doesn’t like commuting. Or so he likes to tell us.
After a couple of years of working hundreds of miles from home, only seeing his wife and kids at weekends, he’s had enough. At the age of 56, and with, let’s assume, a generous public service pension to fall back on, it’s time to retire.
So in May, 2005, Roger tells the Coventry Evening Telegraph: “One thing I won’t miss is the commuting. I’ve been commuting weekly from Newcastle and I won’t miss getting up at 5.30am on Monday to fly to Coventry and hanging around at Birmingham Airport on Fridays waiting for a plane back.”
Setting up a company
Things aren’t, however, quite as they seem. Roger’s plans for life after Coventry City Council are altogether more lucrative than golf and gardening. He uses his notice period to set up a company, and register it in Newcastle. It’s called Roger Edwardson Education and Childrens (sic) Services Ltd.
Before you can say Jack Robinson, Roger pops up in another part of the country many miles from Newcastle. No, not the Isle of Wight (not yet). This is Grimsby, HQ of North East Lincolnshire District Council, whose deputy director of learning he has become. It’s not entirely clear what his commuting arrangements are, although by train you’re looking at three hours-plus each way, change at Doncaster.
And of course it’s not actually Roger going up and down on that train, it’s his company. He just works for his company, you understand. And there’s a very good reason for that. Roger’s long and no doubt illustrious career in local government (Cambridgeshire, Durham and Newcastle before Coventry) has earned him a tidy pension, payable from age 50 if he chooses. The only little catch is, you can’t take that pension if you go off and get a well-paid job with another authority. Do that, and they cut your pension. Calamity.
Isle of Wight
Anyway, the corporate Roger stays at NE Lincs for a little over four years, then it’s time to move on again. Where to this time? Home to the wife and kids at last? Well yes and no. It is probably time to wind down, but down in the Isle of Wight, they’re making him an offer he can’t refuse.
Come and do a stint for us, they say. We need a Head of Learning and Achievement. Someone to drag our exam results off rock bottom. We’ll pay top dollar, we’re known for that down here, and not only that, we’ll find a way round this commuting nonsense. Fly down when we need you, we’ll stick on an extra 75 quid a week expenses to help with that. Suddenly all that hanging around at airports doesn’t seem so bad after all.
We reckon Roger’s generous expenses, bringing his total contract up to £117,368 (up from a reported £86,000 when he joined last year), covers a return trip back home – plane, Red Jet and a few taxis – every two or three weeks. But does that mean they’re paying him to come down here to work every few weeks for a few days, or to go home to Newcastle every so often? Makes a lot of difference, doesn’t it?
(Details of the invoice payments above £500 made to Roger Edwardson Education are viewable in Armchair Auditor)
How much time on the Island?
The Council’s been asked how many days a month he’s actually at work on the Island. They’ve gone a bit coy about that. This is all we could get out of our friend in the Press office.
“He is also entitled to reclaim the cost of attending any meetings on behalf of the council on the mainland. His attendance at these meetings is approved by his line management. He is also required to work on the Island during the working week.”
No answer – came the reply
And who might his “line management” be? The Council’s management structure tells us that Roger reports directly to the IW Council chief executive, Steve Beynon. And who agreed that £75 a week? No answer at all on that one from the council press office, but look again at who the line manager is. That’s another £75 that can’t be spent on delivering a public service.
The press office is a bit more forthcoming, though, on Roger’s professional prowess. “Mr Edwardson is a highly experienced and skilled education officer,” he gushes. “Part of his work has included co-ordinating a programme to improve the Island’s performance in terms of GCSE results. This year these results showed an uplift of 12 percentage points – the biggest ever improvement achieved on the Island.”
Hold on a minute
Hold on a minute there. Those exams, they’re the 2010 ones, right – the ones the kids sat the previous May and June, results last August? And when did Roger start work here? January 2010, four months before the exams. More than three-quarters the way through the two-year GCSE course. That’s stretching it a bit, isn’t it, Gav?
What about the teachers? What about the pupils, for that matter? And this 12 per cent uplift. That was for A* to C passes. But that’s not the way the government measures GCSE success any more, and hasn’t been for a while. They want to know how many kids get good grades at English and maths.
So how did the IW do in that performance table, five A* to C including English and maths? Not too brilliantly, actually. The score in Roger’s first year was 45.5 per cent, 7.9 per cent behind the national average of 53.4 per cent. In 2009, the corresponding deficit was 8.2 per cent – so a relative advance of 0.3 per cent. Rather takes the shine off things, doesn’t it?
Key Stage 2 SATS results drop
And now of course there’s been another chance to measure Roger’s performance against the cost of employing him, with the publication of the Key Stage 2 SATS results for children aged 11. What depressing reading they make. A five per cent drop in pupils reaching the expected standard in English; a full 10 per cent drop in the rate for expected achievement in maths; and a seven per cent drop in those gaining the expected grades in both English and maths – and all of this in the context of national data which shows a continuing improvement.
Roger’s contract on the Island, which shows no signs of being performance-related, ends at the end of next year. After that he may or may not head for the fireside and slippers. But whenever retirement does come, it will almost certainly be comfortable. And he’ll be in good company. Dave Burbage Consulting Ltd, aka Dave Burbage, Strategic Director, Resources, is another very well-paid and well-pensioned IW Council officer.
Sham retirements: A National problem
And there may be more. The press office, asked directly whether Roger was in receipt of a public service pension, ignored the question. But sham retirements are rife in the higher echelons of local government and they’re costing big money.
All public-sector pensions are back in the firing line, and it’s clear that more pain is imminent for local government workers and others. It won’t just be those at the top, and it certainly won’t be those with their pensions already in payment. It’ll be the huge bulk of workers whose pension would be nothing to write home about anyway, and for whom setting up a consultancy company to get round the rules was never an option.
Image: Comedy Nose under CC BY 2.0
