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Three more deputy directors appointed to support regional schools commissioners

Four deputy directors have now been appointed to support regional schools commissioners and their rising workload.

Schools Week revealed last week how the new senior civil servants were in the process of being appointed.

We reported that Maria Dawes, head of school effectiveness at Babcock Education, was the first deputy director appointment.

Names of three other appointments have now been circulated to academy trust chief executives.

Anne Casey, principal at UTC@MediaCityUK, will support Vicky Beer, RSC for Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

Casey, formerly head of ICT at the Education Funding Agency, was appointed as principal of the college, for 14 to 18 year olds interested in a career in the creative industry, in 2013. It opened last year.

Dame Kate Dethridge (pictured above), headteacher at Churchend Primary Academy in Reading, will support North West London and South Central London RSC Martin Post.

Dethridge is already a member of the headteacher board for the region, is a national leader of education and was chair of the expert group looking into teaching assistants standards.

She is also a board member of the Freedom and Autonomy for Schools – National Association (FASNA).

Jonathan Lewis, assistant director of learning, skills and education at Northamptonshire County Council, will support Tim Coulson, the East of England and North East London RSC.

He previously worked at Peterborough City Council as assistant director for education.

That leaves four deputy director posts still to be announced.

The Department for Education said last week that other appointments will be announced by the relevant RSC when they are completed.

An applicant pack for the role also stated there will be a ninth deputy director who will lead a national team and support schools commissioner Sir David Carter.

It also stated deputy directors will be paid around £95,000 and appointed on three-year fixed-term contracts, with a possible extension of up to a year.

That means the new posts could cost the DfE more than £850,000 a year.

The advert states the roles could be part-time or a job share.

Schools Week reported in February that staff and administration costs rose to more than £650,000 per region this year.

The staffing expansion comes as RSC offices prepare to take on extra work with the government’s proposals to academise coasting schools, as well as schools in council areas deemed underperforming or unviable.

The DfE is also searching for a new RSC for the West Midlands after Pank Patel quit last month.

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5 Comments

  1. So does this make a total of 18 administrators to potentially oversee 20,000 English schools? i.e. 1000 schools per person. With 180 teaching days per year it would take about 6 years for them just to say hello to the Headteacher of each of the schools they supervise. In their spare time perhaps they could help out our 3 working Border Force ships patrolling 7000 miles of UK coastline.

    Do our politicians have any clue about how to actually make things happen, rather than spin a load of cods-wallop?

  2. Well, that UTC@MediaCityUK has been a raging success hasn’t it? I’m sure the principal is delighted to share her winning formula with other hapless headteachers. Has there every been a bigger waste of public money that the UTC programme generally?

  3. Dawn Mason

    The Local Education Authorities managed very well – so you take away one level of ‘bureaucracy’ and add another unproven layer, and add the complication of possible conflict of interests. What a mess!