Free Schools

Debate between Bill Esterson and David Ward

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing this important debate, which has identified the need for a pause for thought on the due diligence processes that apply prior to the opening of free schools. I will talk about the case that I know best, the Kings science academy, which is relevant to today’s debate because The Daily Telegraph hailed it in September 2011 as coming closest to the Prime Minister’s vision of what a free school should be.

Many would agree—I certainly do—with greater freedoms for our publicly funded schools around the curriculum, staffing, opening hours, holidays and so on. Those would be generally acceptable to many people across the political divide; many of us are up for it. However, what else would the Minister deem acceptable in the name of freedom? How far can schools go?

At the Kings science academy, a principal with no experience even as a deputy, let alone a head teacher, was appointed without an interview. Is that acceptable to the Minister? Prior to the new build, £460,000 was invested in temporary accommodation at an old school of which the principal’s father was a trustee. Is that acceptable? Insurance was paid on the school—a temporary provision—to an insurance company set up by a trust of which the principal’s father was a trustee. Is that acceptable? The principal himself was shown to be a director of that insurance company, although he claimed that that was a mistake. Is that acceptable?

A benefactor—more correctly referred to by the hon. Member for Gateshead as a beneficiary—called Alan Lewis, who happens to be a vice-chairman of the Conservative party, provided a site containing warehouses that were largely derelict and empty, but then received £10 million-worth of public money to build the new school. We have now heard that he will receive £6 million over a 20-year period, after which the building reverts back to his sole ownership. That same person, at the time of the negotiations on the lease payments on the new building, was chair of the governing body. Is that acceptable to the Minister?

An accountants’ report in the summer of 2012—the accountants brought in were those of, guess who, Alan Lewis—identified widespread financial irregularities dating back as long ago as the period before the school’s opening, but the Education Funding Agency did not send in the external assurance team until a scheduled visit took place in December 2012. It waited for a scheduled visit! Is that acceptable to the Minister?

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman is describing a disgraceful and worsening litany of what has happened at the school in his constituency. Is there a way of providing oversight that would avoid all those terrible things that he is describing?

[Mr Ward]

My great concern is that the oversight is not wanted, because were it in place, it would ask the awkward questions that people do not want to answer. We do not see what we do not look for.

An internal audit investigation team at the beginning of 2013 concurred with the accountants’ report—by now six months old—and identified fraudulent claims for Department for Education funding; the appointment, without interview, of the principal’s mother, father and sister as school staff; payments to the principal of pension contributions due to the Teachers’ Pensions agency, claimed from the DFE; and much more. Yet the principal was not suspended. Is that acceptable to the Minister?

Thanks to John Roberts at the Yorkshire Post, we know that the DFE is blaming an administrative error for the failure of the police to investigate, when only a week before the Department had claimed that the police had decided not to investigate. Is that acceptable? When told by the police that they did not have enough information to proceed with an investigation, the DFE failed to send them the full and damning audit report. Is that acceptable? We were told that the police did not get the audit report, because they did not ask for it. The audit report, available in May 2013, was not published until 25 October, just before the broadcasting of a critical “Newsnight” investigation into the school. Is that acceptable?

When the DFE was questioned about what action it intended to take following the publication of the report, the Department replied that—wait for it—the school had launched its own investigation and that any disciplinary action was a matter for the school. Is that acceptable? In answering that particular question, will the Minister bear in mind that the principal’s brother is on the disciplinary committee?

My questions are not rhetorical; they require answers. Are those things acceptable? Is that the level we have fallen to in terms of accountability? Finally, if all those things are acceptable in the name of freedom, will the Minister tell me just how corrupt a free school has to be to be unacceptable?

How many more schools are like the one I have been talking about? Are we talking about the tip of an iceberg? Earlier, the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) talked about a wonderful school with great governance arrangements, but, in truth, how do we know? We know clearly from the Kings science academy that when matters were wrong and wrongdoing was taking place day in, day out, they did not come to public attention. We simply do not know the answer to the question of how many more such schools there are, but it makes you think, doesn’t it?