Where now for controversial current DfE policies, after Nick Gibb’s exit?

Could some of the most controversial Department for Education policies currently on the stocks have an uncertain future, now that the minister most closely associated with them has been moved on?

Two related initiatives, on initial teacher education and teachers’ professional development, would appear at least to face extra behind-the-scenes turbulence given the surprise departure last night of Nick Gibb, who has served as a schools minister in the Department for Education throughout most of the last 11 years of Conservative-led government.

The move, which from his tweet revealing it appears not to have been of Gibb’s choosing, might also cast some doubt on the future of what could be called “the network”: the repetitively familiar cast of external policy advisers frequently appearing in DfE policy groups and in work with agencies such as Ofsted and Ofqual, often on initiatives associated directly or indirectly with the now-suddenly-erstwhile schools minister.

The detail

The revelation that undoubtedly the most significant education minister since 2010 below the rank of secretary of state – perhaps more significant than many of them – was leaving came in the wake of the much-less-shocking afternoon announcement that Gibb’s nominal boss, Gavin Williamson, had been sacked.