The education department is to spend almost £1m on an interim restructure to rebuild ’fractured’ relations with teachers.

Reforms include the creation of series of new officer roles and a £100,000 annual secondment fund.

Tynwald this week unanimously approved an implementation plan for the ’interim organisational framework’.

The reforms follow a damning report into the Department of Education, Sport and Culture which exposed a ’fractured’ relationship between island schools and education officials.

In its 111-page report, Beamans Management Consultants recommends the setting up of a Manx education board to manage the delivery of education, separate from policy and inspection.

However, the DESC and its Minister Dr Alex Allinson have held back on that recommendation.

The report to Tynwald instead outlines an interim restructure with a review of this in 12 months’ time to consider whether a board is needed.

The DESC said it requires a maximum contingency funding of up to £477,308 a year in 2021-22 and 2022-23 to fund the additional costs of the interim structure.

This includes a £100,000 annual secondment fund to allow teaching staff to work within the department’s central team to ’deliver strategic projects into schools’.

In Tynwald, Dr Allinson insisted there will be ’no fudge on funding’.

In order to address the issues highlighted in the Beamans review, a central policy hub is proposed - a policy, strategy and governance division.

An education advice and support division will also be established.

Among the new roles to be created will be an interim governing body project officer, an interim quality assurance and inspection project officer plus a head of business change.

The existing director of corporate services role will be ’repurposed’ to become deputy chief executive.

Dr Allinson told Tynwald why a secondment fund was important: ’One of the issues Beamans highlighted was that disconnect from schools.

’So if we can use the best brains, the best minds, the best ideas from schools and incorporate them in that central policy and strategy I think we can do far more.’

In his foreword to the report to Tynwald, he said: ’I acknowledge that resetting and rebuilding relationships to create a new culture for the future will take time.

’However, I firmly believe that by implementing this plan, improving communications, and with the continued commitment of all staff, we can repair and improve the current situation and see benefits relatively quickly.’