In theory, the process for those bidding for the contract for Teacher’s TV should be reasonably well advanced, except that Gordon Brown’s restructuring of the DfES has thrown a spanner into the timetable. By the end of July the tenders were supposed to be in, but it now looks as if the deadlines will been pushed back by as much as a month to allow for the changes at the DCSF. This means that rather than having a decision by November, it is now likely to be late December or even early 2008 before any decision is announced.

Oh, and Caroline Wright the DCSF Board observer has still not attended a meeting for the last seven months. Rumour has it that her department, which was under serious pressure for failing to perform before the departmental reorganisation, is now under even greater scrutiny. After two failed restructures it’s amazing that Wright is still in post, but many insiders see this as proof that she is ‘fireproof’ because of her ties to the Permanent Secretary David Bell from when they both worked at OFSTED. Maybe this job is a poisoned chalice as the incumbent before Wright was Michael Stevenson?

One interesting snippet in the last Board paper (May) is that Pricewaterhouse Coopers have been appointed to do a corporate governance review. From what we can see it has looked like there is quite a gap between where the Board would like to see the channel going and where the current consortia seem to want it to go.

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