- The EFA is not legally separate from DfE in order to avoid data sharing problems which the magazine said 'was previously a problem for the YPLA...'
- The EFA isn’t in the same situation as bodies such as Ofsted... 'You don’t have the same reason to have a separate legal entity for a funding body'.
- Financial irregularities can never be eliminated completely: 'The important thing is that you’ve got a system which responds quickly to problems when they emerge; that’s the really critical thing with the system we’re trying to build.'
- '...we have got very good procedures in place for dealing with whistle-blowers... we certainly don’t just rely on whistle-blowers... every part of the private and public sector gets information about problem cases from whistle-blowers, so there’s nothing unusual in our operation.'
- He said the EFA had plans to use a computer analytics programme to spot financial irregularities. Adding that issues like falling pupil numbers would ring alarm bells.
- The piece also points out that the EFA's annual financial statements provided early warnings about two big fraud cases in the sector: in its 2012/13 accounts (published Jan 2014) the EFA referred to Haberdashers' Aske's Federation and a £1.1m fraud in an unnamed academy, (presumably St Aldhelm's)
(The first local press story about fraud at Haberdashers' Aske's emerged in July - its source was a letter to parents from the school.)
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