The NAO says the EFA distributed more than £50 billion to local education providers in England in 2012/13. The EFA is also “responsible for the oversight of financial management and governance in open academies, and for major capital programmes in the education sector.”

This proposed investigation into the EFA follows an earlier NAO report which found that £1 billion had been overspent on the academies programme.

The NAO also intends to review the establishment of Free Schools.

MPs have received complaints about the heavy-handed approach of some academy brokers and one MP described tactics as being from the “Vito Corleone textbook”. So, what did the FoI response show?

1 The DfE has contracts with 37 brokers.

2 Brokers don’t receive performance-related pay. This is contradicted by a clause in the broker contracts*: “Post contract Award key performance indicators will be discussed and agreed with the Contract Manager”.

3 The DfE declined to reveal broker remuneration citing protection of “commercially sensitive information”.

4 Any broker engaged after 23 August 2012 who works for longer than 6 months must assure the DfE they are paying the correct taxes. Brokers engaged before this date will only have to make this assurance when existing contracts are renewed. Although it’s pleasing that the DfE insists on this assurance, existing brokers and those who work for less than 6 months can still be paid via personal service companies to reduce tax liability.

5 Brokers are not employed by the Crown therefore they are not bound by the Civil Service Code.

6 Brokers are contracted “to provide education advice services”.

So what are these “education advice services”? Brokers are required to:

1 Act on behalf of the DfE to broker sponsored academy projects.

2 “Support and challenge” Local Authorities, sponsors and schools from the time when schools decide to become academies (voluntarily, under pressure or by force) until the Academy Order is issued.

3 “Develop, recommend, monitor and evaluate potential sponsor strategies from a diverse group of organisations.” This is supposed to “help raise standards [ie test results] and transform educational provision.” “Diverse group of organisations” does not rule out for-profit providers.

4 Have “practical and detailed understanding of successful transformational strategies, thorough (sic) an excellent understanding of best practice”. BUT this “best practice” must be within the Academies programme so lessons learnt from, say, the London Challenge would be ruled out.

5 “Represent the views” of the DfE. In other words, act as agents of propaganda promoting academies as the only route to school improvement. If this doesn’t work the Education Secretary can compel schools to convert.

6 “Champion the Academies programme and its benefits (sic)” for pupils, staff and locals.

It appears, then, that academy brokers are freelance advisers, not bound by the Civil Service Code, who act as DfE agents to push the Academy programme. Their rate of pay has not been revealed but according to the FoI response it doesn’t include performance-related bonuses. However, the contracts say that “key performance indicators” would be considered. Brokers are supposed to be aware of “best practice” regarding school improvement but contracts show there’s only one option: academy conversion. But we know from the research of Henry and others than academy conversion is not a sure-fire answer.

UPDATE: 14.29

I’ve since discovered that schools minister Elizabeth Truss thinks academy brokers ARE subject to the Civil Service Code.  This is from Hansard: “The departmental brokers have contracts with the Department that state their terms and conditions. They are not paid on results, and they are subject to the civil service code of conduct.”

Thanks to Warwick Mansell’s tweet for pointing this out.

*Broker contracts can be downloaded here and here.

One particular story caught my eye. It was in the Telegraph and concerned the academy brokers. These are representatives of the DFE who move in on schools that are allegedly failing and forcibly convert them to academy status. I say representatives because it turns out that  they don’t actually work for the DFE. They are consultants and paid through personal service companies which pay corporation tax rather than income tax.This is in spite of the fact that Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has said that this practice should be outlawed by government departments.

Recently the Conservative leader of Lancashire County Council complained to the Secretary of State about the activities of these people. So who are they? One name that comes up frequently is that of Jacky Griffin. She featured heavily in the forced conversion of Downhills Primary School and several other governing bodies who are being bullied by the DFE into converting to academy status have mentioned her name to me. She was also involved in the last Labour government’s moves to encourage academies and trust schools as part of the BSF building programme.

Here is a little bit more information about Ms Griffin, in which she is listed as a consultant at the DFE and a Director of Griffin Taylor Consultancy Ltd. And here is some information about her company’s financial position. As it is an exempt small company, with only two directors, facts are limited but one thing seems clear,the DFE consultancy business is a very comfortable one.

Last year the government did provide some information about the tax arrangements of off payroll consultants and employment agencies. Here is a link . It would appear that the daily rate paid to personal service companies is slightly less than that paid to employment agencies,  but in return the  identities and addresses of the consultants are not provided. Does anyone else know who they might be?

(A later article by Chris gives the example of Ashfield School receiving an extra £943,000, 10% of this budget, and this time suggests overall £174m extra will go to academies due to DfE blunders. However this data is for 2012/13 and is not included in the NAO £1 billion. It is additional to it.)

Despite the evidence Chris Wormald, Permanent Secretary at the DfE, insisted that no extra money at all went to academies overall. If some got more than they did before (as was clearly the case) than others must have got less.

£1 Billion Overspend Yet None of It Went to Schools!?

It is hard to believe this is true, that effectively some schools converted and got less funding than before. Certainly none appear to have complained about it. However, if true, this is surely even more damning. The DfE claimed at the Public Accounts Committee that of the £1 billion extra that was spent, none of it ended up in schools.

That was the extraordinary message that the head of the Department for Education brought to MPs: They had spent an extra £1 billion and yet none of it had ended up in teaching and learning, or in bringing any educational benefit to the nation’s children.

The NAO report makes clear (p23) some of this wastage. £43 million was spent on “pre-opening funding to converter academies” (presumably legal costs and the like), as well as the £279m to pre-opening and startup funding for sponsored academies. Another £43 million went on central DfE administration costs. Then there was £92 million spent on insurance costs.

The insurance funding was needed because academies were no longer covered by local authority insurance. One would have hoped that somebody would have spotted that insuring individual schools would be far more expensive than insurance for all schools in a borough, but this seems to have come as a surprise and have led to tens of millions of extra costs.

A Catalogue of Failure

This wasted £1 billion deserves extra coverage. The National Audit Office produced a carefully worded but clearly critical report. The Public Accounts Committee produced a damning report about the waste of public funds, agreed by a committee on which the majority are Conservative MPs.

Chris Wormald justified the spend on the basis that the academies programme was the government’s main improvement programme. In response the Public Accounts Committee stated that whether this was value for money would depend on the “impact on educational performance”. As I’ve written before, the evidence to date is clear. The bulk of the £1 billion was spent on converting already Good and Outstanding schools. On average the GCSE results for these schools had risen in the year before conversion but fell in the year after they became academies – suggesting the money was indeed wasted. (Figures at the bottom of this post.)

So what do the figures show?

Free schools which grew from existing schools received little capital funding. Batley Grammar School received just £177,567 for refurbishment. Sandbach Free School, however, received half-a-million for a new building. This could be justified because Sandbach was over-capacity*. However, the speedy construction contrasts with the process set up for schools requiring maintenance. These have to bid under the Priority School Building Programme (PSB) for funding. 587 schools bid for PSB money – less than half (261) were successful. 219 of these will be funded through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which will tie them to contracts for such things as maintenance for years.

Another existing school, Maharishi Free School, an all-through school with a capacity of 180, received over half-a-million. The Maharishi Free School has had a troubled beginning – it’s been twice censured by the Schools Adjudicator and failed to administer Key Stage 2 Sats in 2012.

Eden Primary School (capacity 210 with 30 pupils at present) received £6 million. Etz Chaim Jewish Primary, capacity 222, which has 76 pupils aged 3-6 (Ofsted), was granted £6.5 million.

Two primary free schools run by the Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust (CHAT), Kingfisher Hall and Woodpecker Hall, received a total of nearly £11 million.

Stour Valley Community School, a secondary free school, was granted £5 million to establish a school in an area with surplus places. Last year it was claimed that Stour Valley received funding for the full capacity of 540 pupils when it only had about 185. This raises the question: how many other free schools were, and continue to be, funded to their full capacity when they have empty spaces?

Langley Hall Primary Academy, Slough, (school full and has a waiting list according to local press) received just over £4.5 million. Over £2 million purchased a listed building for the school. According to the local paper, the Academy wants to purchase another listed building, now lying derelict, to act as a canteen. The local Council anticipates a growing demand for primary school places in Slough and hopes free schools may be established. However, it notes that the provision of free schools is decided by the Department for Education (DfE) not the Council and there could be a surplus of places initially which would make existing schools vulnerable.

The above figures once again demonstrate that funding appears quickly for free schools while money for existing schools is slower to obtain. Where free schools are established in areas where there is a shortfall of school places, such costs could be justified. But such expenditure cannot be a good use of taxpayers’ money where there is a surplus already.

79 free schools have been opened – 24 in September 2011. Yet the DfE released figures for 18 schools only. Sites have been purchased and some of these free schools are in refurbished temporary accommodation. The cost of this must already be known. The Government should release them.

Spreadsheet downloadable here.

*Figures from Edubase unless otherwise stated. Disclaimer: Edubase figures may not be up-to-date.

The Public Accounts Committee today reports that a £1 billion overspend at the Department of Education “has been caused by the excessively complex and inefficient academy funding system”. Despite having a majority of Conservative MPs, the Committee has delivered a report that is highly critical of the government’s flagship academy programme and suggests widespread waste of public funds.

The report notes “£350 million extra paid to Academies which was not recovered from local authorities”, that the Department does not really know whether academies received more money than they should have and that other costs, such as academy insurance, have not been brought under control

Note: The full PAC report is available here and the Press release here

Was this £1 billion overspend worthwhile?

“The value for money of the Academies Programme will ultimately depend on its impact on educational performance relative to the investment from the taxpayer, comments the report”. So far the evidence suggests we have not got value for money for that £1 billion overspend.

The MPs pointed out that £400 million had been taken “from funds for intervention in underperforming schools” and put instead into academy conversion. Chris Wormald (Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education) replied: “The Government took a very conscious decision that its major school improvement programme was the academies programme.” (p32)

“The government spent the best part of £1 billion not on underperforming schools but on converting schools that were already Good or Outstanding”, explains Henry Stewart, co-founder of the Local Schools Network, who gave evidence to the Committee. “Those schools saw their GCSE results rise in 2011 but in 2012, after conversion and the £1 billion spend, the results actually fell.”

Lack of Accountability

The MPs on the committee were shocked to discover a lack of financial accountability among academies. Academies that are part of chains, for instance, are not required to make public their expenditure at an individual school level. Conservative MP Richard Bacon described this lack of accountability as “mind-blowing” and commented that “they could hide something by taking a little bit from several pots, and the parents would never know at the individual academy level.”

(see p41 of the report for Richard’s frustration with the evidence being provided)

The report makes clear that this must change: “the Department must insist that every Academy Trust provides it with data showing school level expenditure, including per-pupil costs, and with a level of detail comparable to that available for maintained schools. The Department must then publish this data so that proper judgements and comparisons can be made by Parliament and the public.”

The Public Accounts Committee highlights a range of dangers. It finds governance, compliance and oversight arrangements for academies are inadequate and “remain vulnerable to failure”. It is worried that forthcoming staff cuts at the Department for Education “may threaten effective oversight”. And it finds there is confusion about the “roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of different organisations across the changing schools system”. It worries that interventions in failing academies may be delayed because it is unclear what is the role of local government, central government – and the academy or academy trust itself.

“The report highlights the dangers of the new educational landscape”, explains Henry Stewart of Local Schools Network. “Under local authorities the system is transparent and generally robust. The report makes clear that there is nowhere near the same clarity over academies, with many dangers of lack of a lack of accountability and oversight.”

A call for evidence not ideology

“It is time that the government turned to evidence rather than ideology to determine how to improve our schools”, continues Henry. “If it were to look at the evidence of what leads to educational success, such as the remarkable transformation in London, it would find (as Ofsted did) that it has little to do with school structures. Instead it is about effective leadership, collaboration between schools and teacher development. If the government took a fraction of the time and money it has devoted to academies and free schools and spent it on programmes like London Challenge, then we could see a similar improvement across the country.”

Henry Stewart’s evidence to the committee is contained within the PAC report.

Notes

Converter academies: % achieving 5 GCSE A-C grades including English and Maths

2010: 68.2%
2011: 69.8% (before conversion for 655 of 680 schools)
2012: 69.5% (after conversion)

(A small fall but a £1 billion spend should perhaps have led to a rise)

Ofsted report on London Challenge: http://bit.ly/VLBSTd

On Tuesday afternoon of the February half-term holiday I was in school. As a result of predicted falling rolls I was working on draft paperwork for staffing redundancies to wipe out a predicted £115,000 deficit at the end of the 2013/4 financial year. The phone rang – it was BBC Devon. They had just received a press release on the announcement of the proposed site for the new Route 39 “Free” School. Would I be prepared to give my reaction on the following Wednesday morning? Here is my reaction:

We are constantly reminded that we live in a time of austerity and that every penny of our tax counts, (especially as we have another austerity budget today). Surely it is nonsense to build a fifth secondary school, when the current four in this area all have capacity? In addition, they are all facing financial pressures due to falling rolls and the poor per pupil funding allocated to children in Devon and Cornwall, which our local politicians seem powerless to change during this Parliament.

The DfE has a consistent line that “Free” Schools are only being built in areas where there is pressure on school places. (Search the internet for information on the Free School in Beccles in Suffolk for a similar case.) Where is the demonstrable pressure for increased school places needed between the secondary schools of Bude, Holsworthy, Great Torrington and Bideford? All four of the latter are faced with predicted falling rolls, because of a decline in the number of secondary school age children in this geographical area. Budehaven School has already been through the redundancy process as a result of falling rolls and Holsworthy has just started, because of falling rolls.

What can you do to help? I ask you to complete the Route 39 Community Consultation questionnaire  at the bottom of the page AND CLICK “NO” to question 3 on the basis that it is a complete and utter waste of public money:
3. Do you agree that the Route 39 Academy Trust should enter a funding agreement with the Secretary of State of Education, so that the school can open in September 2013

The “Free” school organisers have stated that they have 100 Year 7 places on offer for September 2013. To date we believe they have about one-third of this number of pupils – about a single class. Remember we have small primary schools in this area struggling to survive, because they are not economically viable. So what on Earth are we doing subsidising a secondary school of a similar size to a single class primary school with public money?

Having trumpeted the fact they would have 100 Year 7 pupils for September 2013 and being undersubscribed the organisers have now turned to “poaching” current Year 7 pupils to start a Year 8 – never publicised in their plans. This will have a further de-stabilising effect on the other schools in the area.

Throughout this article I have placed “Free” in inverted commas. These “Free” schools are anything but free in financial terms. They are incredibly expensive. We believe the initial grant for start up costs to be approximately £300,000 to enable appointment of a head teacher from January 2013, for example. Public money is allegedly being spent on renting industrial units at the Milky Way site until the new build school is ready. Wouldn’t you much rather that this public money was spent on resources for pupils currently in schools in the local area? This “start up” money would more than wipe out Holsworthy Community College’s projected budget deficit arising from falling rolls.

From September 2013 the “Free” School will be awarded £125,000, as they only have a single year group in the school – again more than my predicted deficit budget at the end of this financial year and the £125,000 will be spent on non-existent pupils. The “protection” is on a sliding scale and lasts for four years until they are “full”, i.e. they have 5 year groups, not necessarily 600 pupils. (Interestingly if the “Free” School accepts pupils in Year 8, one would assume the £125,000 will be reduced to the second year of operation amount.)

In discussions on the proposed “Free” School in the media my allegation that the proposed “Free” School would de-stabilise current provision in the area has been countered with the argument that the “Free” School proposals will enhance educational provision. What follows is a tangible example of the negative impact of these proposals on real children and teachers.

We are predicted to have 130 children arriving in next year’s Year 7 from September 2013. 130 pupils would warrant 5 forms of entry. However, 10 of the proposed 130 appear to be going to the “Free” School in September leaving us with 120 pupils. 120 pupils do not justify five teaching groups economically, although of course they do educationally. So I am faced with the dilemma of disadvantaging the new Year 7 by having larger groups or keeping five groups and paying for this by reducing provision higher up the school. Irrespective of how the problem is solved, a teacher is likely to lose their job. (I doubt they will be re-deployed to the “Free” school.) Is this what the parents choosing the “Free” School for their children accept as the cost of their “parental choice”? Do they really wish to disadvantage provision for other children in the area, so that their children can attend a school in rented industrial units?

I can not draw any other conclusion than to say that I see the Route 39 Free School as a complete and utter waste of public money in a time of austerity. I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Education to enquire as to the start up costs to date of this “Free” School and specifically the cost of purchasing Steart Farm as a location. I was told to contact the Local Authority, which did make it sound immediately that I was being “fobbed off”. The LA responded immediately, as expected: they have no involvement in the land purchase process – so why was I told to contact them? Someone in the Department for Education must know the answer, but clearly does not wish to provide it without a delay. My freedom of information request to the Department for Education was returned saying basically that they would release the figure, when they are ready. Why, when it is public money? We believe the figure is £2.9 million. Having invested this sum already, it seems inevitable the capital build money will be granted. The planning application is with Torridge District Council and starts with a statement that the presumption for any Free School application should be an automatic “yes”.

So what can you do to help? I urge you again to complete the Route 39 Community Consultation questionnaire at the bottom of the page AND CLICK “NO” to question 3:

3. Do you agree that the Route 39 Academy Trust should enter a funding agreement with the Secretary of State of Education, so that the school can open in September 2013

All views expressed in the above response are personal but heartfelt ones.

D. J. Fitzsimmons
Wednesday 20th March 2013

1 That an independent appeals service should be set up.

2 That academies publish comprehensive data, including the socio-economic background, of pupils who applied and those who were admitted.

3 The Schools Adjudicator should analyse this data to identify possible socio-economic segregation.

Some academies were not sufficiently accountable or responsive to parents. The Commission recommended:

1 Academies should produce public reports annually.

2 This should apply to academy chains.

3 Funding agreements with sponsors should be reviewable every five years instead of the present seven.

4 Funding agreements with sponsors should be cancelled if the collected data raises concerns and if the local authority recommends the removal of a sponsor.

It remains to be seen how many of these recommendations will be implemented by the Government.

Proposals by the BBG Parents’ Alliance and Serco had been turned down by the previous Secretary of State, Ed Balls*. A report commissioned by Balls found that the school would have a negative effect on other schools in the area. Nevertheless, the present Government has given the school the go-ahead. BBG Academy Trust plans to convert an existing Birkenshaw middle school, BBG Academy, from a 3-form middle school to a 5-form secondary free school in September 2013.

Ethos, a website magazine published by Serco, gives details but doesn’t make it clear whether Serco will be involved in running the school. However, an article in the local press is clear: Serco will run the school on behalf of the Trust. Presumably, it will be like IES Breckland where the Trustees signed a ten-year contract worth £21 million for a Swedish profit-making education provider, IES, to run its free school.

IES has just been acquired by private equity firm, TA Associates. The Swedish Government is so concerned about the motivation and long-term commitment of the for-profit companies involved in Sweden’s free school that it has launched an investigation. Bertil Ostberg, State Secretary for Education in Sweden, told the BBC that he feared there was a conflict of interest between the needs of children for a good education and the needs of shareholders for a financial return.

BBG Academy’s website doesn’t mention Serco’s involvement which is strange considering the Trust running the school was called BBG-Serco Academy Trust until April 2012 according to Companies House. Why is the Trust being so coy? And how many more free schools are being promoted by for-profit firms such as Serco?

*pp111/12, Benn, M, 2011, School Wars: The Battle for Britain’s Education, Verso.

Each time money has been spent on PR, consultants, website design, leaflets and leafletters, hire of halls for public meetings, etc. The DfE have refused to give the information and are now saying that this is because the information will be given when the school opens in September 2013.

The new Michaela School Group website contains the information that it has obtained premises in North Wembley – rather a long way for a pupil to travel from Tooting Broadway! This underlines the lack of transparency and political bias that has crept into the DfE but also, more seriously, the waste of money and the undermining of a local authority’s ability to plan sensibly. Tooting has a surplus of secondary places, so has North Wembley. The need for places is elsewhere.

Given the National Audit Office’s conclusion that £1 billion has been syphoned off from the general education budget to fund these vanity projects, I have to wonder how much has gone into black holes like this.