Catholic View

Intriguing Catholic Education Office Appointment

Eric Hodgens

23 September 2008.

Nancy Bicchieri, a lawyer, was appointed Deputy Director of the Melbourne Catholic Education Office in August 2008 and takes up her appointment at the end of September.

Many had been hoping that the new Deputy would be a person of rich experience in education and Catholic education in particular. Ms Bicchieri is neither.

Many had been hoping that the new Deputy would have diplomatic skills and experience to facilitate dealings with governments.

This appointment is critical because of the re-structuring of the CEO leadership which took place during 2006. An article entitled “Melbourne ’s Catholic Education Office Leadership Transformation”, published in November 2006 and available on this site, outlines this re-structuring. Several key persons in the CEO leadership team had been eliminated or demoted. The Director’s position was vacant. Stephen Elder had been appointed Acting Director out of the blue bypassing more qualified and experienced senior staff.

Stephen Elder’s appointment as Acting Director alarmed many priests, principals, teachers and CEO administrators. He  has little education qualification or teaching experience and very little Catholic education experience. He also lacks accreditation to teach in Catholic schools and the separate accreditation to teach Religious Education in Catholic schools. He has no theological training or qualification. He has not demonstrated an understanding of church relationships or church policy.

To complicate matters Stephen Elder is identified with the Liberal Party. He held a Liberal seat in the Victorian parliament during the Jeff Kennett administration. He got a Liberal staff job with David Kemp after he lost his seat in the election that brought Steve Bracks to power. The Director’s task includes consulting with State and Federal governments on funding. Clearly, being aligned with one party complicates this task.

 Concern about the possibility of his being appointed Director was expressed at a CEO consultation day with the priests who are the proprietors of Catholic primary schools. Archbishop Hart assured the priests at a meeting of his Priest’s Council that the search for the next Director would be an open one.

Stephen Elder, nonetheless, was appointed Director by Archbishop Hart on 20 December 2006 – without any public advertisement or selection process. The eve of Christmas timing, after the schools had broken up for the summer holidays, cloaked the widespread consternation which the appointment caused.

The period since Mr. Elder’s appointment has been notable for lack of vision and leadership. This is hardly surprising in the light of his lack of qualifications listed above.

The Director’s office is an ivory tower. Consultation is minimal. Consultation with governments has been confrontational and political rather than diplomatic. This has not been helped by the Liberal leanings of Archbishop Hart and Cardinal Pell.

There was an expectation that the impasse would be obvious to the leadership of both the CEO and the Archdiocese of Melbourne. The solution would be the appointment of a Deputy who would be thoroughly familiar with Catholic education in Melbourne and be a politically neutral diplomat who could take on the task of contact with governments.

The appointment of a lawyer to the position of Deputy goes counter to those hopes. The rationale being spread around is that the leadership team needs a lawyer because of recent trends in educational administration. Very strange when legal consultants abound. What it really needs is qualification, competence and experience in Catholic Education - at the top.

Let’s hope that Ms Bicchieri is a very good listener to a demoralized CEO administration and a very fast learner of diplomatic skills for dealing both with staff, politicians and the various levels of church authorities.  

Melbourne’s Catholic Education Office Leadership Transformation

16 November 2006

The Melbourne Catholic Education Office makeover is now almost complete. The leadership team has been disbanded.

Susan Pascoe, the former Director of Catholic Education, has left Catholic Education after being sidelined to the job of Chief Executive of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV).

Fr. Brendan Reed, a former Deputy Director, is now totally out of Catholic Education and his job dissolved. An unclear advisory role was offered in its place. He saw this as unmanageable and offered a resignation which was immediately accepted. This leaves the CEO priestless for the first time in its history.

Vincent McPhee, the other Deputy Director, has had his position dissolved and been assigned the lesser position of Assistant Director.

The top position now rests with Stephen Elder who catapulted to prominence when Susan Pascoe was sidelined. His position is currently Acting Director of Catholic Education while the process of selecting a new Director moves on. Since he was an applicant for this position back in 2002 when Susan Pascoe was appointed, and is clearly favoured over more experienced CEO staff, he is in the box seat for selection this time round.

The two deputy directors were told of their demise mid September. But no official announcement was made. Since then the rumour mill raged for six weeks.  At the end of October a fax arrived clarifying some facts but raising other questions. Poor communication and absence of transparency has characterised this whole Catholic Education saga since it began with the sacking of the Victorian Catholic School Association at the end of December 2005.

Catholic bishops have been brought up in a culture that insists that they are boss and do not have to answer to anyone. Many bishops resent being questioned and are reluctant to have open discussion. They rely on personally chosen compliant advisors. They have not learned that the world at large now expects open debate, transparency and accountability.

The result is a cultural standoff.

The bishop whose deliberation and decision is questioned is angry and affronted.  Those affected by his decision feel angry and abused. Look at the never-ending mess created by the USA and Irish bishops over their mishandling of clergy paedophilia.

This scenario has characterised the realignment of the CEO leadership.

The Melbourne Catholic Education system is the fourth largest in the country after the NSW, Victorian and Queensland State systems. To administer such a large outfit the leadership must be highly professional and experienced in the areas of educational theory, personnel management and educational administration. They also must be known and at home in the higher echelons of Catholic, state and private educational networks.

Change was inevitable with the departure in 2003 of Mgr. Tom Doyle and the retirement of Peter  Annett. Susan Pascoe was an excellent successor with Brendan Reed and Vin McPhee being groomed for succession.

So, three key educational leaders have been neutralized by diocesan authorities without any consultation in the halls of Catholic Education administration. And now the leadership lacks expertise and experience in key areas including, ironically, the one which receives most lip service from the hierarchy – religious education.

The diocesan kitchen cabinet consists of key personnel from the offices of the Archbishop, the Vicar General and the Diocesan Finance Office. Nobody in those offices is expert on education, religious education or educational administration. Yet, this is where the reshuffle was organized.

The new Acting Director, trained as a primary teacher at the Victorian University of Technology, soon moved into politics. His contact with educational administration was political. He was Jeff Kennett’s Parliamentary Secretary for Education during the controversial three years following the 1996 Victorian elections. Having lost his seat in the 1999 elections he was given a Liberal Party job in Canberra under David Kemp - Minister for Education in the Howard government. In 2001 Mgr. Doyle gave him a position in the Melbourne CEO.

Mgr. Tom Doyle, during his long term of leadership, was acknowledged for his ability to work cooperatively with all sides of politics. This political non-alignment has been a major positive aspect of the work of the CEO.

The Catholic Education system differs from most catholic organizations. It is responsible to the local church in the person of the bishop. It is also responsible to the governments which provide the bulk of its funding. This gives it a separate financial responsibility and corresponding financial independence which seems to have been a red rag to the episcopal bull and the Diocesan Finance Office.

The long delayed fax to Parish Priests, Leaders of Religious Congregations and School Principals arrived after office hours on Friday 27 October. It quoted a review of the Catholic Education Office of Melbourne which had been done after the separation of the roles of Executive Officer of the CECV and the Director of Catholic Education. There were no details of who commissioned or conducted the review or its terms of reference. Stephen Elder signed the fax although, as Acting Director, he had previously indicated that his role was more that of caretaker.

So, who took the decisions?

The upshot is that we have lost a most experienced Catholic Education administrator, Susan Pascoe, and our most trained and experienced religious education expert, Brendan Reed. There is nobody to match them in those areas in the CEO.

The Catholic Education Office of Melbourne administers the fourth largest educational system in Australia. Historically it has led the way in vision, planning, effective relations with governments and transparency of administration. In less than a year diocesan bad management, non-consultative planning, lack of communications and half-truth publicity have come together to leave a Catholic Education Office which has lost its key visionaries and is confused and demoralised.

We are told that the review recommended a more flatly structured Executive Team. What it has given us is a flattened department. And a lot are angry at that.