Some basic information is all we want for Christmas
It’s three days until the large man in the red suit arrives, and the responses from the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association (PMSA) have started arriving in inboxes, but are they the genuine, heartfelt messages we were hoping for?
Like many interested stakeholders, I assumed the business of the four PMSA schools (Brisbane Boys’ College, Clayfield College, Somerville House, and Sunshine Coast Grammar School) were being managed appropriately, and compliance and reporting guidelines and deadlines were being met. After all, the schools are very prominent Brisbane both in the education and wider community, and they have long and proud traditions, and impressive individuals as alumni.
That was until in mid-October when we had shock resignation of a respected principal with years left on her contract, and rumours of private and identifying data of individual donors and directors of the Somerville House Foundation apparently being copied and removed from Somerville House. Then there was the reputational damage of those text messages and a certain business meeting.
After the shock and the inevitable ‘how can this happen again’, I looked into the compliance and reporting information available publicly for stakeholders. As a fee-paying parent, I wanted to know how much of the fees I pay go to administering the PMSA.
Unfortunately, the information I was able to access publicly, in particular about Somerville House, raised more questions than it answered. I looked at the available information from:
The relevant schools’ websites;
The PMSA’s website
MySchool data
The data registers published by the Non-State Schools Accreditation Board (NSSAB) and
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) website.
I was after key pieces of information about the continuing financial viability of each school, the reporting of the governance body particularly in relation to related party arrangements and remuneration, and the appropriateness of the structures that governed each school. Essentially, I was looking for:
An audited or verified financial statement for each school;
An understanding of the value of each Councillor and School Councillor’s remuneration and related party benefits including fee discounts and the like; and
The School Council Subcommittee Charters so I could determine how the individuals are selected to ensure appropriate experience and expertise on these committees.
I didn’t get much satisfaction from public information on the various websites, so I emailed the PMSA directly to ask for the annual reports. I offered to pick up hard copies if they didn’t have soft copies, or they could email me the soft copies. No luck.
I asked on the Facebook page for help finding the annual reports, which are tricky to find.
Finally, after waiting for more than six weeks, I thought I’d outline here my queries, the PMSA response, and how that stacks up against the publicly available information:
Question number 1 – Financial information per school
It would appear the PMSA response refers to parts of the ACNC registers or website that may not be publicly available? I’m not sure how to reconcile their response to the information currently and publicly available as they state. Some screen shots from the ACNC Register:
2. Question Number 2 – Remuneration and Related Party Benefits.
3. Question number 3 – School Council Charters
4. Conclusions
These are only three of the queries raised with the PMSA, seeking further and more complete information. But these questions are the most fundamental.
To be clear, I’m not seeking personal information about salaries or performance, nor am I seeking commercial-in-confidence information.
What I asked for is information that should be provided as a matter of course, and would be provided by a transparent and open organisation that intended to engage with stakeholders honestly.
Frustratingly, after more than six weeks, there has been no attempt to engage stakeholders in any governance reform process. Rather, we’ve been stonewalled at every turn and what small amount of information the PMSA is putting out is not reconcilable with other publicly available information.
Calls to reform the PMSA go back at least until the 1970s, but have been increasingly loud since 2010.
The PMSA claims it is attempting to reform its governance processes. However, it has already completely ignored the many and varied requests that have been made to the PMSA, the Churches, and the Moderators over a lengthy period.
To paraphrase William Gladstone – one of Britain’s great democratic reformers of the 19th Century – reform delayed is reform denied. It is time to reform this anachronistic institution and introduce world’s best practice governance for our much-loved schools. The provision of the information asked for in this blog is merely a first, small step towards that goal.
