The new government has pledged to publish a long-secret report into one of the country’s most high-profile academy scandals, but is keeping quiet on when it might emerge.
It comes as Oldham council ordered education secretary Bridget Phillipson reopen an inquiry into another scandal, which also happened on the Conservative party’s watch.
The Lilac Sky Schools Trust was closed in 2016. Its nine schools were rebrokered as the government investigated financial “impropriety”.
Last year the government barred the trust’s founder and chief executive Trevor Averre-Beeson and his successor Christopher Bowler from managing schools, citing “inappropriate conduct”.
Government troubleshooters found “significant irregular financial and governance practice” at the trust.
Annual accounts detailed spending on luxury alcohol, council grants paid straight into Averre-Beeson’s consultancy bank account and severance paid to staff who were then hired as consultants the next day.
The government has repeatedly refused to publish its report, previously claiming the investigation was ongoing eight years later.
However, after Averre-Beeson’s failed attempt to overturn his ban, the government has said: “We plan to publish the outcomes of the Lilac Sky case now that legal proceedings have concluded.”
But the Department for Education would not commit to a publication date.
Academy scandals fall to Labour
While there are far fewer academy scandals, Lilac Sky is one of a few hangover cases now in Labour’s in-tray.
Two other investigations into Bright Tribe and SchoolsCompany trusts also sit unpublished.
A freedom of information request last year found 11 trusts “subject to ongoing investigation activity by the ESFA”.
The government has pledged to publish investigations within two months of conclusion, apart from where this could prejudice any legal or regulatory investigations.
Another case was reignited last week after Oldham demanded ministers launch a new inquiry into “previously unanswered financial irregularities” at the collapsed Collective Spirit Free School.
The school closed in 2017, alongside the linked Manchester Creative Studio, after Ofsted revealed safeguarding failures and allegations of financial irregularities and mismanagement.
A government investigation published two years later found that a payment of more than £500,000 from the schools to the Collective Spirit Community Trust, a company linked to trustees, breached rules.
Millions of pounds was also paid to companies linked to founder Raja Miah.
But the DfE warned that investigators encountered “substantial difficulties” establishing “any reasonable audit trail of financial transactions or evidence to assure the regularity of funds spent by the trusts”.
‘Unanswered questions’
The council wants the government to launch a “comprehensive investigation into financial irregularities previously unanswered, including the holding to account of any individual(s) accountable (and) or complicit in wrongdoing”.
The motion stated “victims of this mismanagement, former pupils, parents, carers, and former employees still seek answers, accountability, and closure”.
It added: “Although an investigation was carried out and subsequent report was published … [it] found many questions remain unanswered, with responsibility for potential wrongdoing going unaccounted for.”
Miah said he was “not at all surprised” by the motion. He accused the council of “having attempted and failed to have me silenced for exposing their role in the cover-up of the grooming and gang rape of Oldham children”.
He would “welcome a full public inquiry”, and told our journalist if we did not include his full right of reply he “will come for you the same as I have for other reporters involved in aiding the Labour party to have me silenced”.
He also said he had “exposed” Marc Hince, the leader of the council’s independent group who had proposed the motion, for dressing in a military uniform with Nazi symbols. Hince said this was for a re-enactment more than a decade ago.
MPs Jim McMahon, Lucy Powell and Angela Rayner – all ministers in the new government – have previously called for full investigations into the Collective Spirit saga.
The DfE did not want to comment. But more generally, a spokesperson said: “The overwhelming majority of academy trusts deliver a high standard of financial management and governance, but we are clear that strong accountability is non-negotiable.”
“To strengthen the system of oversight further we have committed to bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system to make the system fairer and more transparent, and to enable intervention when schools and trusts are not performing to the required standards.”
Latest data shows less than 1 per cent of trusts are subject to a notice to improve and that 99.8 per cent of academy trust accounts receive clean bills of health.
