Is the DfE keeping files on “education experts” who criticise their policies? Part 1

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Strange stories about the DfE in the Observer

In September, the Observer published a story entitled “Revealed: UK government keeping files on education critics’ social media activity“.

Some of the details were about the shenanigans around speakers at DfE-funded conferences, and particularly the attempted dropping of the Early Years consultant Ruth Swailes as a keynote speaker at an event. This didn’t seem to add much to previous stories about the excessive vetting of speakers at events organised by civil servants or funded by government. However, the most sensational parts of the story were about the DfE monitoring of their critics:

Swailes, an independent consultant who advises schools and nurseries on early years education, was so shocked that she filed a subject access request, requiring the DfE to disclose any documents it held on her.

The results, which she received at the end of the summer, revealed that the department kept a file on her. It included critical tweets she had posted about Ofsted, England’s schools inspectorate, and noted that she had “liked” posts promoting guidance on teaching young children that was written by educationists rather than the government.

She said: “They have tried to silence me. What they did could have ruined my livelihood and still has the potential to.”

In support of Swailes, many other education experts who are known for challenging the government have now requested similar information about themselves. At least nine individuals have received what they describe as often very lengthy “files” on their views and social media activity. Some, including headteachers and university academics, are still waiting for responses.

It then lists the comments of several other Twitter users who had been discussed by figures in the DfE.

Another article entitled: “‘It felt like a dictatorship’: UK teaching experts hit out at government bid to cancel them” added to the names and the drama, but still did not fill in many more details. The following month, another article appeared: “UK government keeping files on teaching assistants’ and librarians’ internet activity“:

Exclusive: Department for Education monitoring social media posts from England-based staff for criticism of its policies

The government has been monitoring the social media accounts of “dozens” of ordinary teaching staff, including teaching assistants, and is keeping files on posts that criticise education policies, the Observer has learned.

Two weeks ago, this newspaper revealed how the Department for Education is monitoring the social media activity of some of the country’s leading education experts. Now evidence has emerged that the monitoring is much more widespread, covering even the lowest paid members of staff.

Ordinary teaching and support staff said this weekend that they were “gobsmacked” and angry after discovering that the department had files on them. Many outraged educators have rushed to submit subject access requests [SARs] compelling the DfE to release any information it holds under their name, after discovering there were files up to 60 pages long about their tweets and comments challenging government policy or the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.

Both times, social media was full of shocked comments and comparisons to various shades of dictatorship. Some of us, however, thought there was something fishy.

Who was the DfE alleged to have been monitoring?

Partly, it was who some of the “monitored” were. Every name in the two stories that appeared in September belonged to somebody who had blocked me on Twitter. There can be many reasons for this. Still, I think it’s fair to say they overwhelmingly tended to be people who were both controversial and prone to seeing themselves as the victims if anyone disagreed with them. How would people, who tend to feel mistreated when teachers, such as myself, argue with them or challenge their authority, react to the possibility of criticism from within the DfE? Might they feel driven to seek out and complain about anyone in government who didn’t defer to their expertise or respect their contribution to educational discourse? I think a deep dive into who they are is best saved for a subscriber-only post, but if you’ve been on Edutwitter long enough you would probably have seen some reason to be sceptical of at least some of them. In some cases, you might even laugh out loud at the suggestion that they had wanted an open debate but the DfE had prevented this.

What was the DfE actually doing?

The second reason for scepticism about the story was the lack of detail. Large files were being kept, but there was very little detail about what was in them. The things that the monitored individuals most objected to were mentioned in the reporting, and some more examples could be found in Twitter conversations, but what were typical items in the files? Did all the files contain the same sorts of things? Did any of the files show why the records were being kept? So few relevant details were available that some of us began wondering whether files were actually being kept. A Subject Access Request (SAR) asks for all information a government department or agency holds on you. Making the request creates a file. Is it possible that some of these files were only created because of the SAR and that no such file existed beforehand? Of course, if somebody was unknown to the DfE, the SAR would come back with nothing, but an individual could have been mentioned in writing by somebody at the DfE without it being remotely sinister. Some of those mentioned are likely to have had direct correspondence with individuals at the DfE. Somebody could legitimately be mentioned in emails or the minutes of meetings, and even if they are criticised then that does not mean the civil servants who did so are in the wrong. It seems good if DfE civil servants and ministers are watching and sharing the education debate on social media. Don’t teachers often complain that they think policymakers are ignoring them? Without details of when each of the files was created, for what purpose, and what they mainly consist of (rather than the most scary-sounding examples), it’s difficult to judge whether anything unexpected had actually been revealed.

Stay Tuned

So who was right? The Observer’s story, or the sceptics? Freedom Of Information requests to the DfE, apparently made by people who believed the Observer’s story, shed some light on this, and I will discuss these in Part 2.