I covered Mr Webb's sudden departure from KCC here in 2014, and his most famous case here, after which he wrote a private letter, seen by the Kent Messenger, acknowledging that KCC had behaved illegally. The KM article gives a vivid description of his approach. My article, entitled 'Disappearing Primary Heads, Part Six, gave two other examples where he struck in the same way following what appeared to be a KCC policy at the time. Part Four of the series has the National Association of Headteachers passing a motion at their annual conference, proposed by the Kent Branch: 'Conference calls upon National Executive to highlight the number of school leaders being forced from their posts through spurious and unacceptable means by the bullying actions of some local authorities who seek to remove experienced and skilled head teachers to make way for academy sponsorship or other forms of school governance'.
My initial article on the theme was published in April 2014, and features another headteacher, marched out publicly by Mr Webb just before an Ofsted Inspection, allowing KCC to put the blame on her leadership for the poor result. In this case, governors stood up for her and she was reinstated. The article continues: ‘The headteacher joins a select but growing group of headteachers from primary schools where the head has "disappeared" before OFSTED contrary to the protocol in the KCC document’, followed by a list of such schools. The concern of many was not that KCC was taking action to improve standards, but rather the manner of publicly humiliating headteachers who in most cases had given their best to their schools.
To my great surprise, even after I had criticised him so publicly, Mr Webb emailed me after his departure from KCC. In the message he offered to give me inside details of the Council's failings, suggesting his dislike of the Council trumped any feelings he might have had towards me, but unsurprisingly, I felt unable to accept. Remarkably, I was alerted to his roles in Suffolk and Essex by enquirers, concerned about his actions in the roles he took on, searching him out on the internet and coming across Kentadvice.
I could go on but my immediate thought is about Mr Webb’s role as a County Councillor. I guess that Roger Gough, Leader of the County Council, who was Cabinet Member for Education during his period as Principal Primary Adviser, is fully aware of his record and will consider carefully whether to use him as a Member in an education capacity, where there are still headteachers with long memories. His Committee Appointments certainly steer clear of the education area.
