Education Reform Programme

Background

Education in Jersey is the responsibility of the Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department (CYPES).  

In 2019 an independent review commissioned by the then Minister for Education examined pupil attainment and school funding in Jersey. The Independent School Funding Review (ISFR) report published in October 2020 concluded that: Overall, there is a significant gap between current provision and the aspiration for a world class education system.  

The ISFR report assessed that additional annual funding of £8.5 million was required for education in Jersey and that other pressures in the education system added a further £3.1 million of deficit at that time. The proposed additional £11.6 million for the statutory education system, based on the 2019 budget, represented a 13% uplift.  

In 2021 the Government of Jersey launched the Education Reform Programme (ERP). The initial funding for the ERP was approved in the Government Plan 2021- 24 for a four year period to 2024 and recurring thereafter.  

The ERP was formally closed in March 2024 with any remaining works forming part of business as usual for 2024. The additional funding associated with the ERP is now part of the core budget of CYPES.  

The ERP was intended to deliver:  

• higher attainment and achievement for Jersey’s children and young people  

• improved wellbeing and mental health for Jersey’s children and young people  

• higher standards of teaching and support for students with additional needs  

• more efficient use of public money in the delivery of education, with better targeting of funding for the students that need this most  

• improved relationships with local business, and a strengthened economy; and  

• improved reputation of schools, the workforce and the Government of Jersey.  

One of the objectives of the ERP was to commission an independent review of inclusion. In December 2021, the UK’s National Association for Special Educational Needs (nasen) published its review of Jersey’s practices and policies concerning inclusion.  

This identified that the prevailing approach to education in Jersey was based on separating provision and that there was an opportunity to move to a continuum of inclusion. The 50 recommendations from the nasen review were integrated into the ERP.  

 The Government Plan 2023-26 approved additional funding specifically targeted at inclusion of £6.1 million for each year of the Plan from 2023 and recurring thereafter.  

Scope

This audit has evaluated whether the Government has taken and is taking an approach to reforming education that:  

• has clear short-, medium- and longer-term objectives derived from high quality evidence and robust risk analysis  

• is designed to demonstrate improved educational outcomes; and  

• is delivering value for money.  

The audit examined the primary school provision comprising 22 non-fee-paying State primary schools funded by the schools funding formula, two fee-paying State primary schools funded by the average weighted pupil formula (AWPU) and two fee-paying grant subsidised schools.  

The audit examined secondary school provision comprising four non-fee-paying State secondary schools which cover the 11-16 age group, and one for the 14-18 age group, two fee-paying State secondary schools funded by AWPU and two fee-paying grant subsidised secondary schools. The audit also covered two special schools.  

The audit did not examine private schools which receive no Government funding.  

Conclusions

Key findings 

When the ERP was established there was no articulation of what was meant by a ‘world-class’ education system.  There was an absence of an Education Strategy setting out what the Government expected to achieve to deliver its ambition of a ‘world-class’ education system and the Government did not specify the expected standards for such a system. 

The ERP Board undertook effective project management and tracking of funded projects.  The ERP Board focussed primarily on the ISFR recommendations relating to financial governance and new and existing services.  The ERP Board did not adopt the same approach to monitoring and tracking the policy development options that had been recommended as these were not prioritised for delivery by successive Ministers. 

A high standard of financial governance was adopted for allocating the additional ERP funding in accordance with the recommendations in the ISFR report.  However, while the individual projects had clear principles and rationale for implementation, and some had clear indications of the way that results might be measured, there was no clear quantification of outcomes that were expected.  The financial governance for monitoring how the money was actually spent, and the benefits realised as a consequence, are less clear.   

The ISFR report identified a set of policy options that could have significant impacts on both outcomes for children and for the funding system. It is the implementation of new policies that is likely to have the most impact on outcomes.  While work has been progressed in five of the eight policy areas identified, at the time of my fieldwork the Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning had determined that the remaining three areas will not be pursued. These areas are: reviewing the approach to academic selection; considering options for partnerships, mergers and leadership models; and reviewing the relationship between the Government and fee-paying schools. 

One of the ISFR recommendations was to develop a Digital Strategy for Education. A digital strategy was drafted in 2023 covering a number of different areas to address the significant technical debt in education. Some actions have been completed but much work remains. A high level delivery plan was drafted in September 2025 to highlight progress to date and set out what remains to be done.  The delivery plan does not however set out Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or resourcing.   

The primary objective of the ERP school funding formula project was to implement a radically simpler funding formula so all schools and colleges have transparent and equitable budgets and the funding system is flexible for the future.   This has been partially achieved. 

Following the allocation of £5.5 million of additional funding the schools budget deficit of £3.31 million for 2020 was reduced to a surplus of £240,000 during the first two years of the ERP.  Since then, the overall schools’ deficit position has deteriorated year on year.  The forecast has ranged from an overspend of £3 million to an overspend of £4.6 million over the first nine months of 2025.  The reasons for the largest variances in school spend as reported to the Education Finance Group in June 2025 are staff funding pressure and the costs of inclusion. There are significant issues at the two special schools whose financial position has gone from a deficit of £114,000 at the end of 2022 to a forecast deficit of £2.34 million at the end of 2025.  

Schools with reported deficits had not been required to prepare recovery plans at the time of my fieldwork, although a process is now being developed.  A new financial oversight process for schools has been implemented from May 2025. 

Several projects to develop new services and to enhance existing services were identified as part of the ERP.  Funding of £17 million was awarded to these projects across four years.  The work to better differentiate pupil support need based on proximity to English was a key part of the change in service. The results show that overall, there has been a reduction in the attainment gap for multilingual learners (MLL) from 2020 to 2024 at all stages of education. 

In her report the C&AG found it difficult to map some of the funding allocation for the Inclusion Programme to establish whether the 50 recommendations in the nasen report have been fully implemented. The recommendations tracker being used for the nasen report only includes 27 out of the 50 recommendations.  For five of the 27 recommendations, the rating in the tracker was ‘red’ at the time of my fieldwork.  

The Government has set out a vision for building an Inclusive Education and Early Years system in Jersey. This is published on the Government website and sets out the vision for inclusive education, inclusive education principles, details of the Charter published in different languages as well as guidance and activity kits for schools, nurseries and other education and learning settings. 

The Government website refers to building a plan of action to achieve the vision which is intended to be put in place over the coming years.  It refers to seven areas of activity in a five-year plan to be implemented by 2027. 

Conclusions 

While the overall aim of the ERP was to ensure that Jersey had a world-class education system, the Government did not define what the metrics for a ‘world-class’ system would look like or specify expected standards.  Instead a decision was made to implement the ISFR recommendations to deliver improvement without an absolute benchmark. 

Some of the structural changes that would deliver a more efficient and sustainable education system have not been progressed through the ERP.  Much of the current structure remains historical.  

With now known falling birth rates there will be an excess of provision. This is already presenting as a key issue for primary schools, and, coupled with selection of learners at the age of 14, creates duplicity and additional costs in the system.  Going forward, the funding of the fee-paying sector and the relationship of the fee-paying sector with the wider system will need careful consideration.  In addition, greater clarity will be required as to the role that Highlands College plays in the overall strategy. 

The next phase of the ERP, which is currently being developed, should include a focus on curriculum, inclusion, workforce development, early years investment and refinement of funding models.  As part of the next phase of the ERP it will be important to sustain good quality data in order to allocate and track resources in the most appropriate way and to define a clear strategy for achieving world-class education in Jersey.