Jobs for nobs: DfE tries to cover up flawed recruitment process that awarded plum job to the odious Toby Young

[noblegiraffe]

It has been found that the appointment process for the Office of Students board, the body who will be overseeing higher education, was flawed.

The Commissioner for Public Appointments who investigated the appointment process also said that the DfE minimised or delayed requests for information by his office.

As well as Toby Young being given the heads-up about the job by Jo Johnson, it was admitted that no one looked into his social media history, despite the social media history of the student candidates for the board coming under high scrutiny.

In addition, the preferred candidate for the student role was rejected by Downing Street Special Advisers because they didn't want a candidate with links to the NUS.

Relevant extracts from the investigation here twitter.com/i/moments/968202293328957440

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43209695

Toby Young is still Director of the New Schools Network funded by the DfE.

Yes indeed Noble. The New Schools Network website says this about its Director Toby Young:

"Toby Young is the co-founder of the West London Free School, the first free school to sign a funding agreement with Michael Gove. He is an associate editor of the Spectator and the author of several books. His teaching experience includes working as a teaching fellow at Harvard and a teaching assistant at Cambridge."

Yet, the Guardian wrote the following on 3 Jan when Toby was having a little trouble:

"Young acknowledged on Tuesday that the Department for Education’s (DfE) claim that he had held teaching posts at two of the world’s most illustrious institutions, Harvard and Cambridge, were not accurate.

“I taught undergrads at Harvard and Cambridge and was paid to do so but these weren’t academic ‘posts’ and I’ve never made that claim,” he told the Guardian.

Defending Young’s appointment to the newly set-up Office for Students (OfS) on Monday, the department told the Guardian that his “diverse experience includes posts” at the institutions.

In a separate statement, it said he was a “teaching fellow” at Harvard and a “teaching assistant” at Cambridge. Young was a student at those institutions when he carried out the work."