We asked Standards Not Tiers for their response to the news that Steve Beynon has accepted the position as Chief Executive of the Isle of Wight Council. Ed
Standards Not Tiers is not surprised that Mr Beynon has decided to move out of Children’s Services to take up the post of Chief Executive Officer of the Isle of Wight Council.
We believe that current education reforms, seemingly introduced on a whim by David Pugh at the last moment on the 19th March, were not what he had expected to be working on when he came to the Island and they bear little resemblance to any of the options that he came up with in the most recent round of proposals.
Having already committed to Patrick Joyce’s option one in 2007 he now finds himself in the potentially embarrassing situation of having to justify a plan that is completely the reverse of what he was justifying only a year ago.
We expected him to resign following the turnaround on the 19th March.
Now though, so late in the day and at such a crucial time in the reorganisation, Mr Beynon’s resignation from his post as the lead officer on education is extraordinary and indicates deep divisions between him and his political masters who we think are trying to pacify a capable and professional officer who has become a casualty of their political ineptitude.
For the Authority to now have to find a suitable replacement for Mr Beynon right in the middle of a reorganisation that many feel is completely beyond the Authority’s capability, beggars belief.
