Senior civil servants ‘don’t know very much about education’

Officials moving between government departments has “eroded” capacity in the civil service, the head of England’s largest academy trust has warned.

Sir Jon Coles, the chief executive of United Learning, told the Schools and Academies Show that senior civil servants at the DfE “just don’t know very much about education”.

Coles, a former director-general for schools at the department, said: “There’s an issue with DfE capability, which is not political [but] about the civil service”.

He said he remembered a time when “the school people…spent their entire lives working on something about education – they built a career around that and they had real depths of expertise”.

But a new trend of “moving around between departments” had become “valued in the civil service”.

“So you’ve got a lot of very senior people in the department who are just as bright, just as capable, just as well-motivated as anybody ever has been…[but] just don’t know very much about education.

“The civil service’s ability to identify serious problems, work out what the policy solutions are, propose them, and be proactive has disappeared.”