Anyone who has ever slaved over a new set of lesson plans, only to have it all go down the drain when a new edict emerges from Sanctimony Towers, will be able to sympathise with poor Chris Wells, DFES mandarin. Being introduced at a conference last week, delegates were told he had managed the Tories’ nursery voucher scheme, then “consequently led the work under the new government to replace the scheme”. Let’s just hope that Wells does not put his finely-honed dismantling skills to use during his two-year secondment as assistant director of Greenwich education authority, starting in October.