The NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations (P&C) will be axed and replaced with an entirely new governance structure, commencing from October 2014, the NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has announced.

Stella Gray

Piccoli made the announcement in May after months of internal disputes within the P&C, and stated that local P&C‘s will not be affected by the changes.

”All parents, carers and community members are encouraged to continue to participate in local P&C‘s. However, only parents and carers of current public school students will be able to vote or be elected to the new federation,” Piccoli said.

The proposed legislation will divide the state into 16 areas to ensure equal geographical representation anda new governing body will be elected which will then select a seven member executive committee to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the federation.

“Once the legislation is proclaimed, I will appoint an administrator who will temporarily take charge of the organisation, its staff and assets, and arrange for the election of a new, representative governing body,” Piccoli said.

The changes follow months of internal conflict at the P&C.

In an attempt to oust incumbent federation president Lyall Wilkinson, Sharryn Brownlee and two other women took control of the federation’s headquarters and staged an overnight sleep-in last month.

The dramatic sleep-in resulted in Wilkinson applying for a Supreme Court injunction to force Brownlee to return any documents she seized.

Following the incident the federation issued a public statement revealing that ex-members of its State Council had unlawfully entered the office of the federation‘s headquarters, adding fire to the growing feud between Brownlee’s breakaway P&C group and the federation president, Lyall Wilkinson.

“These people are known to the organisation and have wrongfully claimed that they are officers of the State Council,” the statement read.

“These people could have at any time since November 2013 applied to a court of law to have this claim substantiated. These people have chosen not to pursue their claim through the judiciary.”

Publicity Officer for the P&C federation, Rachel Sowden, said court proceedings were still in place, albeit funded privately by federation officers individually and not the federation itself.

”We would be looking to make sure that P&C‘s across NSW have access to services, and we are working with administrators to make sure services are restored as soon as possible,” Sowden said.

Sowden said the P&C had made appeals to Adrian Piccoli to intervene last year.

“We are disappointed with the minister. We contacted him back in September and suggested a way forward to him, we asked him to step in and allow changes, but he said he couldn’t.”

President of the Killara High School P&C, David Jordan, who has established a parents co-operative independent of the federation, believes the roots of the federation’s problems date back years and are a symptom of its increasing obsolescence.

“Schools on the North Shore have been battling with lack of space and I don’t think that anything the minister is going to do will change that. I don’t know if the minister really talked to mums and dads and school P&C‘s to find what they really needed,” Jordan said.

”Personally I don’t think it’s going to change too much, I think it’s like swapping deck chairs on the Titanic.”