Elder goes

The head of Victoria’s Catholic education sector has resigned amid an investigation into a workplace complaint.

After 13 years in the top job, Catholic Education Melbourne and Catholic Education Commission of Victoria executive director Stephen Elder will step down for a “period of rest and renewal”.

The resignation was confirmed in a statement from Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli, who thanked Mr Elder for his “dedicated and loyal service to Catholic education”.

Earlier this month, Mr Elder, a former Liberal MP, went on leave after the church hired external consultants KordaMentha to investigate a workplace complaint.

In a statement released at the time, the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne said Mr Elder would be "absent from the office for a period of time while an internal complaint associated with workplace matters is examined".

Mr Elder was instrumental in securing billions in extra funding for Catholic schools from the federal government during the recent Gonski 2.0 negotiations, but his tactics displeased some members of the church.

Mr Elder was also accused of creating a rift between the independent and Catholic school sectors, which had previously worked together to secure the best funding deal for their students.

He alleged independent schools had made fraudulent claims for students with a disability, been privy to "special deals" with the government, and misused capital works funding.

The charities commission launched an investigation this year over Catholic Education Melbourne's intervention in the Batman by-election.  The education body sent home letters with students and made robocalls endorsing Labor education policies.

He sits on a range of boards associated with the Catholic church.

Archbishop Comensoli said Mr Elder had successfully campaigned to secure a fairer funding deal for Catholic schools and had driven reform across the sector.

There was no mention of the workplace complaint in his statement.

Jim Miles will act as executive director of Catholic Education Melbourne.

Oh, and did you notice explosion in private school fees news released on Boxing Day? They call it putting out the trash when politicians do it...