Public appointments - tory takeover?

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

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

Seems to have surprised most other people though.

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

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?

And are we surprised?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.