Questions for the Education Select Committee on Tuesday

Here are some questions that could be put to the first panel of the Education Select Committee on Tuesday: witnesses:
Frank Green, Schools Commissioner, Department for Education
Sir David Carter, CEO of Cabot Academies
Robert Hill, Education Consultant (Author of 'The Missing Middle')



The purpose of this first panel is to consider: 'the role of the Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs), including discussion of initial appointments, the operation of head teacher boards, the scope of the Commissioners' role and competencies of the middle tier.'

Background
According to Laura McCinerny and Matt Hood the key roles of the middle tier in each region (led by the RSC) would be to:
1. Decide if new schools should open or existing ones expand
2. Broker support if a school is in need of intervention (because of financial, teaching, leadership problems, etc).
3. Change the management of a school if its performance has taken a turn for the worse
4. Close a school where there are performance or falling roll issues
The ultimate sanctions of the RSCs are to 'broker support', call for the transfer of schools between chains, or to wind up schools if they are failing.
Many of these will still depend on the finances of the school being relatively strong.

Some questions:
Sir David Carter will be overseeing the South West Region. This includes St Aldhelm’s Academy in Poole, Dorset.  According to press reports the school lost £1.1 million in an email scam and is reportedly paying back £75k per week to the Education Funding Agency.

The TES version of this story also said that St Aldhelm’s Academy Trust had been given a financial notice to improve, could see its funding agreement terminated, must pass a "special resolution" to allow its sponsors to step down and the DfE will appoint new sponsors to oversee the running of the school.

As an RSC would Sir David expect to play a role in this situation?

Would you expect chains like Cabot to consider taking on schools in a financial difficulties - would this put other schools in their chains at greater financial risk?

If a financial crisis occurred in an academy chain like Cabot, what sort of financial support can be provided?

Do you expect primary academies to have school business managers - would this make them less susceptible to financial fraud/crises (July 2013 - '90% of secondary schools are believed to have access to an SBM, the corresponding figure is 40% for primary schools' - page 30 of the Governments Review of Efficiency in the Schools System)?


Tracking ability to give financial support
Cabot Learning Trust said it charges a base 2.8% of academy income (page 40 of accounts) and the charges per school range between £302,000 to £44,000 per year.
How does this compare to other chains across the UK and local authorities?

Is this something an RSC would monitor?
How much financial support would an academy chain be expected to provide to one of its schools in serious financial difficulty - at risk to other schools in the chain - before the government steps in or the chain is allowed to wind-up the school?

If a chain charges less for its central services does this mean that it is less able to financially support any of its schools that get into financial difficulty - or are there other mechanisms for sharing funds between schools in a chain?



Employment of family members:
The appointment of family members into roles without proper competition was criticised by an EFA investigation into to the Education Fellowship Trust.

On page 59 of the Cabot financial statement under 'Related Party Transactions' it says Claire Carter, wife of David Carter, is employed as head of the CLF Teaching School mentioning a pay increase from £45k to £55k.

Would it be your role to investigate these kinds of appointments/pay rises if questions were raised about them? However fair or open the appointment of a family member might be - do you think it is best for publicly funded bodies to avoid employing family of senior managers?



Elections to Headteacher boards (HTBs)
(Lord Nash said elections to HTBs are due in June - he also said 'watch this space' about two commissioners yet to be elected. The spaces don't appear to have been filled yet.)

Would the head teacher of a school in a chain have to get permission from the chain to stand in an election to a board from Cabot or Leigh academy chains? How would the chain compensate for the time spent on an HTB by one of its heads?

As an RSC would you expect your head teacher board to be fairly split between heads of academies in chains and heads from independent academies? Is there any mechanism in place to ensure that will happen?



Transparency:

Frank Green, Schools Commissioner, Department for Education - your former  Leigh Academy does not currently provide a working link to its finances.

St Aldhelm's was unable to provide a working link to its financial statements.

David Carter: your chain publishes a pdf image of your accounts which means it cannot be searched or text copied - this seems to be common practice for all academies, is there a legal reason for this or could we get them published in their more user friendly original formats?

United Learning Trust would not provide financial statements saying that the official publication date has not arrived (all of these statements should have been finalised in December)  - a copy was provided after being asked for it via a Freedom of Information request.

Are financial statements supposed to play an important role in the scrutiny of trusts - if so, is this disparity of practice acceptable?