Anti Academies Alliance “A good local school for every child” Big Business. Academies. The financial scandal. ££ You’ve got your own private helicopter. £ You have a sprawling country estate £ which can serve as your base at £ weekends, and/or a lavish city centre £ townhouse. You might have a collection £ of supercars, or fund a stable of horses ££ to compete in showjumping events. £ So: what’s next? £ Well, how about operating your own chain £ £ of schools, with the bonus that they will be £ funded almost exclusively by the taxpayer? Back in the 1990s, when I started schools educating more than 100,000 covering education, when almost by WARWICK pupils. all state schools were still subject MANSELL David Ross has been prominent in to local democratic control, this Journalist and the news in recent weeks, it having been scenario would be nigh-on founder of Education initially reported that the co-founder of unthinkable. Uncovered website Carphone Warehouse had paid Yet, incredibly, a structure is in £15,000 towards Boris Johnson’s operation through which wealthy controversial post-Christmas holiday in individuals have been given in many frequently in recent years, as more the Caribbean with his partner, Carrie cases almost complete ultimate control details have emerged about how what is Symonds. of groups of schools with publicly- essentially a private system of control of This story had come after a “David funded budgets now running in some state-funded schools, via the academies Ross” was listed as having made exactly cases into the hundreds of millions of scheme. this payment in Johnson’s entry in the pounds. And as far as I can see, almost Before we get to the history, perhaps House of Commons’ Register of all of these people are middle-aged or it would be as well to outline some of the Members’ Financial Interests. A elderly white males and many of them backgrounds of the businessmen who, spokesman for Ross then reportedly are donors to the Conservative Party. my delving into academy constitution told the Daily Mail that this was How on earth did this happen? It’s a documents and government data have question I’ve found myself asking revealed, are now in ultimate control of continued over >>> Anti Academies Alliance £ ££ >>> continued from front page Baron Harris of Peckham, 77, £ founded the high street furnishing incorrect, with Ross only having called £ company Carpetright before getting an accommodation company to set up involved in “sponsoring” state schools. the stay, rather than funding it himself. With a fortune estimated at As should be clear, Ross has had a approaching £300 million, the Tory close relationship with the Prime £ peer has donated more than £900,000 Minister over the years. In what would £ to the party. Last summer, he gave be seen as extraordinary if it did not fit a £60,000 to three Conservative pattern as set out in this article, Ross leadership party contenders: £10,000 gave £250,000 to the Conservative to Dominic Raab, £20,000 to Michael Party on the eve of Johnson’s general £ Gove and £30,000 to the winner: David Ross of Carphone Warehouse£ fame. election victory, Electoral Commission Tory funder , runs a chain of 34 schools with Johnson. Harris and his wife own data revealed. 13,000 pupils. world-class show jumping horses with His previous donations to the party, the family of another Conservative peer since 2006, totalled £166,000; Ross and donor, Lord Kirkham. also donated £10,000 to Johnson’s As I revealed last November, office during the latter’s Tory leadership £ Constitution documents for the 48- campaign. Going further back, he gave school, 36,000-pupil Harris Federation £40,000 just before David Cameron’s £ show that Harris’s title of “principal government was elected in 2010. sponsor” and with it more or less Ross’s family hails from Grimsby, £ complete control of the governance where his grandfather ran a seafood £ structure of this chain of schools business. Ross, aged 54, is the £668m operating in and around London will, man (according to the Sunday Times staggeringly, pass to his family on his Rich List) who co-founded Carphone £ death. Warehouse with Charles Dunstone, a The list goes on. Another Tory peer, friend from their days at Uppingham, Philip Harris (Baron Harris). Tory peer and 41 £ Lord Agnew – who until half-term was funder, runs an academy chain of schools. the 400-year-old private school in the minister overseeing the whole Rutland where fees today run close to system – is a privately-educated £40,000 a year. “Harris’s title of businessman who found success in Ross also presides over an academy insurance and told the Eastern Daily trust, bearing his name, which runs a ‘principal sponsor’ Press in 2013 that he had outsourced chain of 34 schools, educating 13,000 and with it more or jobs from Ipswich, where he would have pupils. He controls the schools’ been paying “£1,000 a month for governance via a separate charity that less complete control people with low skills” to India, where a has the right to appoint trustees, and of the governance maths graduate could be paid £70 a which also bears his name (these month. institutions are “academy schools run structure of this chain Agnew founded the 13-school, 6,600- by my foundation,” as Ross put it in an of schools operating pupil Inspiration Trust, which runs Evening Standard article in 2016). academies in Norfolk and Suffolk, in In 2008, Ross provided a helicopter in and around London 2012. Although he stepped down from for Cameron to fly from London to West will, staggeringly, pass its governance structure during his time Yorkshire and back. He has been known as minister, until 2018 there were only to drop in on “his” academies by to his family on his three controlling members of this trust: helicopter, as confirmed in a breathless Lord Agnew, his wife Clare and Agnew’s tweet from a David Ross school back in death.” long-term business associate, David 2015, which helpfully featured a picture £ Tibble, who now chairs the chain. of what it said was a visitor the school Agnew’s friend, Lord Nash, another was “honoured” to see, literally £ privately-educated Tory peer and donor dropping in. whom Agnew took over from as But Ross’s story is far from out of the £ £ academies minister, runs yet another ordinary. Consider, next, the case of trust, this one called Future Academies. Lord Harris, who controls England’s Nash, whose fortune originated in second-largest chain of academies. ££ private equity, controls this chain of “A good local school Anti Academies Alliance for every £ child” ££ nine schools in central London and influence on the part of the taxpayer, Hertfordshire and 6,000 pupils with his £ though it is clear that it has no wife, Caroline. £ involvement in day-to-day governance) The list of these prominent academy control of business “sponsors”, or “sponsors” who have had financial heavily influenced by them. This is dealings with political parties involves likely, however, to be a conservative – if mainly, though not exclusively, the you pardon the pun – estimate. For, Conservatives. Sir Rod Aldridge, for ££ with thousands of academy trusts to example, the former boss of the keep track of, I have come across a outsourcing firm Capita, who presides couple of others since which boost the over nine schools dotted across £ numbers still further. England, stepped away from the As a journalist, this all makes for a Irvine£ Laidlaw, Tory funder, controls a six-school company in 2006 following controversy group of academies. very different angle from which to come over a loan to Labour. at, in the covering of education policy, Finally, what, as a government, do compared to what might have operated you do with another businessman who in the past, when “sponsoring” schools reportedly admitted taking part in in this way was virtually unknown. So orgies with prostitutes, and who stood £ how did we get here? down from the House of Lords Well, in fact even by the 1990s the seemingly to avoid being resident in the £ template for this policy had been set, if UK for tax purposes? only on a very small scale, by Margaret Again, the answer seems to be: you £ £ Thatcher’s Conservative government. It let them preside over a chain of state- introduced the concept of business funded schools. “sponsors” taking over the governance Irvine Laidlaw, 77, attended the fee- £ of schools through the City Technology charging Merchiston Castle School in Lord Agnew, Tory peer, and a controlling trust Colleges policy which produced 15 such Edinburgh and then, in his sixties, sold member for 13 schools. His Tory peer friend Lord colleges from 1988-1993. (Lord Harris his conferences and training businesses Nash (who took over from him as Academies was in at the beginning.) Minister) runs a chain of nine schools. for £768 million in 2005. He gave the As AAA supporters may not need Conservative Party £3 million in 2007. reminding, Tony Blair’s New Labour He had a lucky escape off the coast of “Margaret Thatcher’s then adapted the idea, introducing 203 Maine in 2009 when his helicopter “city academies” by 2010 to replace crashed en route to his 182ft luxury government “failing” inner city comprehensives and superyacht Lady Christine. The Daily introduced the “break the cycle of deprivation”. Telegraph reported in 2013 that he was “Sponsors” would get the right to set putting his £17m collection of sports concept of business school curricula, pupil admissions and racing cars up for auction. ‘sponsors’ taking over teachers’ pay and conditions. Local Laidlaw controls a six-school group authorities would lose control. of academies, educating 4,000 pupils, the governance of The first sponsors were obliged to in England’s North-East, via a trust schools... Tony Blair’s invest money in the schools as a which is named after him. As in the case condition of gaining such influence. of the Harris Federation, its New Labour then Labour scrapped that requirement. And constitution lists Laidlaw as the school’s adapted the idea, then, of course, following Michael “principal sponsor”, ultimately in Gove’s arrival in 2010 the new control of its board – and thus its entire introducing ‘city Education Secretary pledged to put governance structure – via the ability to “rocket boosters” under the academies appoint and dismiss trustees. academies’.” project and the number of schools with Overall, on counting up “their” the status accordingly soared: there are schools and pupils up in the latter part now more than 9,000 academies. of last year, I calculated that there were ££ This two-stage process, then – the 189 academies, educating more than arrival of “sponsors” who were handed 100,000 pupils, which were either in sweeping powers over a few schools in the more or less complete (I only say cases where it was argued that “more or less” as the government £ retains some distant, theoretical ££ £ continued over >>> “A good 2020 local school for every

Anti Academies Alliance child” # March

>>> continued from inside Parents and staff opposed the change to academy status at extraordinary change was needed, Barclay School in followed by the exponential expansion Stevenage. of the academy model so that it became the government’s favoured approach for all schools – has left us where we are today. That is: businessmen have been given in many cases more or less complete power over state-funded schools through their governance structures, now on a scale which means this is a major element of education in England. Surveying the constitutional documents of organisations such as Harris, which see the current “principal sponsor” or his descendants handed the right to appoint up to 32 directors of the schools’ controlling board, or the Laidlaw trust, or even the former chain 18 (sometimes) commerce and industry of David Meller, a businessman who “Of speeches during bring to the state education sector. If stood down from the eponymous trust, the two-hour crisis they want to put their time, energy and where he had been allowed to appoint reputations into taxpayer-funded multiple directors, in the wake of meeting, not one was schooling, who is anyone to begrudge controversy over the Presidents Club in favour. One parent them? affair in 2018 and has now seen his To which the response is: “support” schools handed to the Nashes’ Future said: ‘No-one has any for the state sector is one thing. But why Academies, it is hard to avoid a simple right to challenge have they been handed so much control conclusion. over schools so many of use and fund? This is that this is a structure of what they do’.” Where is the voice of the citizen, the essentially private control, often by child, the family and the community in wealthy individuals with political all of this? Why, in setting the direction connections. the government’s plans to transfer its as to how state-funded schools operate, When you add in the fact that local comprehensive, the Barclay have the views of a few wealthy academies are now set up through School, to Future Academies. individuals – often seemingly sharing contracts agreed in private between Of 18 speeches during the two-hour very similar world views and life trust boards and civil servants, and that crisis meeting, not one was in favour. histories – been allowed to take decisions about which schools are Barclay parent Peter Hawkins said precedence over those of everyone else? handed to which trusts are taken Future’s governance structure, which the The structures on which behind closed doors, it is clear that this Nashes dominate, meant: “No-one has academisation has been built is an essentially private structure of any right to challenge what they do.” desperately need to change. influence over one of our most There was indeed nothing this significant publicly-funded services, community could do, and the Barclay l This is an adapted version of an with very little independent oversight. duly academised the following month. article, jointly written with Clare That this is not an abstract argument All of this is justified, these academy Sambrook, which first appeared on the was underlined for me during a church “sponsors” would argue, because of the openDemocracy website in December. hall meeting held in January last year, expertise and passion that these Warwick Mansell runs the website as community voices rang out against successful sons of (often) finance and Education Uncovered.

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