Academy trust lauded by Cameron falls apart but government still wants all English schools academised

Last Updated: May 11, 2016By
David Cameron praised Nolan and Perry Beeches in 2013 as a ‘brilliant team’ [Image: WPA Pool/Getty Images].

David Cameron praised Nolan and Perry Beeches in 2013 as a ‘brilliant team’ [Image: WPA Pool/Getty Images].

It should come as no surprise that any organisation praised by ‘dodgy’ David Cameron has collapsed due to financial mismanagement.

This particular trust is facing an increasing debt mountain – which This Writer notices the Department for Education is being left to handle.

Apparently it is hoped that new sponsors can be found for the five schools involved, but that hardly seems likely if a debt liability is involved.

It seems likely the taxpayer will be forced to pay the bills.

And that still doesn’t guarantee that anyone will come along to save the schools, meaning pupils there will have to cope with the possibility of having their education yanked out from under them, alongside the usual stresses of our increasingly-unwelcoming education system.

This leaves us with one very important question:

Why in the name of all that is wholesome does Education secretary Nicky Morgan want to force all English schools into conditions that could lead to a similar plight?

The Birmingham multi-academy trust once celebrated by David Cameron as among the best in Britain has collapsed, leaving the five schools it runs with mounting debts and an uncertain future.

Parents and staff at the Perry Beeches academy chain in Birmingham will be told on Wednesday that Liam Nolan, the trust’s guiding force, has resigned from the organisation as executive head, having earlier stepped down as the trust’s chief executive after an investigation uncovered financial mismanagement.

An “exit statement” from the trust obtained by the Guardian reads: “Liam Nolan has presented his resignation from the post of CEO/executive headteacher at the Perry Beeches academy trust. He has made this decision to allow the necessary changes required to move the trust forward.”

Nolan had been absent on sick leave since Easter.

The trust’s governing board is also to step down, leaving the management of the trust’s five schools in the hands of the Department for Education (DfE) until new academy sponsors can be found.

Source: Academy trust lauded by Cameron falls apart as executive head quits | Education | The Guardian

ADVERT




Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

latest video

news via inbox

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

8 Comments

  1. NMac May 11, 2016 at 7:51 am - Reply

    It seems that insolvency for the companies and personal bankruptcy for the Directors is looming. What provisions has our corrupt government made for such a catastrophic, but foreseeable, situation?

  2. John May 11, 2016 at 8:03 am - Reply

    It is similar to the mess Green left behind at BHS, where pension liabilities of half a billion pounds look likely to fall upon taxpayers to meet.
    The use of PFI contracts to build “new” schools and hospitals is similarly designed to shift the burden of profiteering onto the shoulders of the UK taxpayers.
    This is asset stripping of the state on an organised industrial sale.
    It represents a sort of reversed Dissolution of the Monasteries on a massive scale.
    Cui bono?
    The Tories, through financial donations from their newly enriched friends.

  3. David May 11, 2016 at 8:18 am - Reply

    Think of a word to describe the tories education policy: corrupt, stupid, incompetent, ignorant. Whoops, that’s four words already and I have to go now – don’t have time to think of another twenty.

  4. Dez May 11, 2016 at 9:21 am - Reply

    Totally typical of the Cons driving their privatise everything thinking with the usual overspending and financial mismanagement typically then tipping their excremental project back to the tax and rate payers to clear up. Sure it probably did do well when the funding was adequate and they could pay for good staff and generous management salaries but that is not typical of the real world of schooling where cut backs and over run classes drown the day-to-day efforts. As usual with these hair brain ideas the cash dries up,because of the high pays, and you and I end up paying for it. The acadamies are not dead ….they have just parked it up for a while…. they will be back as they are with the NHS privatisation roll out thinking no one will notice.

  5. casalealex May 11, 2016 at 12:28 pm - Reply

    http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/09/nicky-morgan-chaotic-mess-academies-u-turn

    I am unconvinced. This government purportedly will not ‘force’ schools to become academies, Unfortunately I do not believe them. Mark my words, this will carry on surreptitiously as per usual with their other so-called ‘u-turns’.

  6. John May 11, 2016 at 1:26 pm - Reply

    Toby Young jumping ship; now this.
    Does this mean the whole academy mess is unraveling in Thicky Morgan’s lap?
    The finances of this particular ponzi scheme has never been convincing to me.
    It has always seemed obvious that even with growing numbers of school children in Britain, adding-on so-called academies would exceed public financing capability.
    Add to this the fact that many of the new academy CEOs are awarding themselves wholly unsustainable salaries and perks’ packages – and it becomes completely obvious that the whole financing basis for academies is completely unsustainable.

  7. mohandeer May 11, 2016 at 5:37 pm - Reply

    Isn’t this the same Nolan who paid himself two million over two years? If it is the same case, it is hardly surprising the trust is broke.

    • Dez May 12, 2016 at 6:34 pm - Reply

      good call. Would be good to find out what he decided his expertise and vast knowledge was worth…..more than this failure could pay long term. What did he pay himself with of course all the nice to have add ons like pensions, cars maybe, discreet account or lucrative tax arrangement no doubt.

Leave A Comment