Disgraced ‘superhead’ Liam Nolan leaves one-year principal’s job after just three months

Janet Downs's picture
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It’s nearly two years since Liam Nolan, CEO of Perry Beeches Academy Trust (PBAT), left under a cloud.  PBAT had been slapped with a Financial Notice to Improve and two critical reports had been published which, among other things, described an arrangement between PBAT, a third party and Liam Nolan Limited, a company with one shareholder, Liam Nolan.   

The Education Funding Agency said this deal with Liam Nolan’s company not only breached academy finance rules but also contravened Treasury guidance ‘about the employment and contract arrangements of individuals on the avoidance of tax’. 

Nolan, one-time cheerleader for the academies and free schools programme, was appointed in July 2017 to be principal of The Ruth Gorse Academy, Leeds on a one-year contract.  Sir John Townsley, CEO and Accounting Officer of The Gorse Academies Trust, told Private Eye  'Having met with Liam, we feel he has been humbled by his experience ...'.

Duly humbled, Nolan began his one-year job in September.  But a letter sent to parents on 13 November (download here ) said Nolan’s contract was ending after three months by ‘mutual agreement’.

The reasons for this early termination are not known.

In the meantime, Liam Nolan Limited was being wound up.  It finally dissolved on 1 September 2017.  The Return of Final Meeting (1 June 2017*) lists the ‘capital distributions’ made between March 2016 and March 2017.  These were all payments to the firm’s one shareholder, disgraced superhead Liam Nolan, totalled £106,284.18p.

PBAT academies have now been rebrokered

*available from Companies House

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