Multi-academy Trusts

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Kramer

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

To reassure the noble Lord, an academy trust is scrutinised not only by the Department for Education; we are co-regulators with the Charity Commission and, when a person becomes a trustee of a trust, he or she is also a director, as in company legislation. We expect the highest levels of probity, and we act when that does not happen.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Storey’s initial Question implied, wrongdoing, abuse and mistakes are nearly always exposed by whistleblowers rather than by any official monitoring mechanism. From my work with the APPG on Whistleblowing, it is very evident that whistleblowers in this area rarely know to whom they can safely complain or report. Retaliation is exceedingly common. Would the Minister make some effort to look across this field and see whether there can be real improvements, because it is the whistleblowers who are helping keep the system clean?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness is correct that whistleblowers play an important part in the regulation of the system, but I assure her that that is not the whole story at all. We rely on the external audit reports that we receive from auditors and we issue financial notices to improve wherever we come across wrongdoing. However, I am happy to look into whistleblowing procedures to ensure that we are protecting their interests when they are used.