By Gavin Mackintosh-
A phenomenal figure of £340,000 funding from the British government meant for schools was shamefully wasted in 2017 on schools that never took off at all, The Eye Of Media.Com has heard. The revelation is very disturbing, breaking public trust in funding meant to be used for educational development in schools.
The British government has done well in the past few years in raising the standard of education across primary and secondary schools in many boroughs in the Uk. Many schools are still struggling to meet the new standards, but a lot of progress is being made. The Eye Of Media.Com is proud of the efforts made in improving education, but when greed and corruption sets in, we must cry foul!
A number of academies are being investigated for alleged money fiddling, including the now defunct Bright Trust Academy, who are accused of making repeated false claims for building and maintenance grants. The Floreat Eucation Academies Trust, founded by the now health minister Lord James O’Shaughnessy, also lost £340,000 meant to set up new primary schools in London .
The ambitious plans were dumped in March 2017, but over a year later, nobody has publicly been held to account for the wastage. At least, not publicly, who knows what goes down when these big guns meet for a glass of wine behind closed doors? The Department of Education launched an investigation into the financial activities of Bright Trust as recently as last month, but we are not aware of any serious consequences resulting from those investigations. Perhaps, the Department of Education would say the consequences have taken place silently, but they should take place publicly, if at all they have taken place.
The investigation may not be completed yet, and if so, the world and his wife would want to hear about it when they are completed. The flopped primary schools are among 44 free school projects cancelled without any teaching at all between 2013-14, and 2016-17, despite the money being for the purpose of creating another good school. The revelation raises alarming questions about the extent to which some powerful people connected to the government act with impunity.
The Eye Of Media.Com discovered the phenomenal financial squander from Researchers associated with School Week last week and began investigating it. School Week researchers presented a Freedom of Information request to show the trust was handed £220,000 in revenue funding for the planned Floreat Collindale primary. The trust also received another £120,00 for the Floreat Southall primary. Efforts by The Eye Of Media.Com to probe the story have so far yielded nothing substantial.
Inquiries made to the Department of Education and Ofsted has not produced anything conclusive in the way of answers or accountability. Representatives of Ofsted rightfully stated that the Department of Education handle financial matters relating to funding, after one of their representatives was combative with the editor of this publication who was also probing the allegation of financial mismanagement. A statement from Lord Agnew, the Parliamentary Under Secretary Of State For The School System, was sent to The Eye Of Media.Com:
It reads:
”We take the use of public money very seriously and will not tolerate those who try to exploit the system for personal gain. Academies have to provide more information on their accounts than other schools and the most recent published financial audit found that more than 95% trusts had no issues.
Where funding is given to a trust for a specific reason, it must be used for that purpose and we have clear rules and systems in place to hold them to account if we are not satisfied – including terminating funding and recovering money that has not been spent in the agreed way, as we have done with Bright Tribe Trust.
We will continue to clamp down on financial wrong-doing if it arises and are giving the Education and Skills Funding Agency more powers to tackle this, including making trusts declare all related party transactions and seek approval for any transaction over £20,000”.
The Eye Of Media.Com has not heard any evidence of a clamp down on those responsible for the squander, although this does not mean various parties have not been held to account quietly in private. calling for a full account of the £340,000 squandered, where did it all go?Our sources say the British government were also forced to write off £745,000 of cash given to Southall College for costs associated with setting up the abandoned Floreat Southall School.
The trust also had to close down Floreat Brentford primary school in February, due to “critically low” funding and problems with temporary building. Other abandoned free schools includes four UTCs costing a total of £1.07 million. Burton and South Derbyshire UTC and UTC Guildford each cost over £400,000.
Another free school -The Birmingham-based Perry Beeches Academy Trust – which cost the government £270,000 was shut down by ministers in January over financial irregularities.One of the biggest flops of British government funding for schools was theGladstone School, cancelled in May 2016, with a huge loss of £656,312. The principal was reportedly on a huge salary of at least £78,000 , but the school was scrapped.
What happened to all the fat cats who benefited from the huge government funding is anybody’s guess. One thing for sure is that we will keep our eyes on this investigation, which will not be going anywhere, not anytime soon.