Free school letters are published after long legal battle

Two years ago, former teacher Laura McInerney requested application forms submitted by groups who had applied to open free schools, and the decision letters sent to both successful and unsuccessful applicants.

After the DfE refused to release the information she appealed to the Information Commissioner who found in her favour and ruled that the information should be made public.

However, the department then called for a judicial hearing which took place this summer.

At this hearing, the tribunal ruled that the request was vexatious because of its scale and the amount of work it would have meant for the DfE in redacting documents.

Following this tribunal, Ms McInerney submitted a new request asking for the decision letters which the DfE had sent to applicants.

The department has now published the letters which were sent to successful applicants.

However, it has told Ms McInerney that it is not releasing the letters sent to unsuccessful applicants.

The letters which have been published include the acceptance letter sent to the Kings Science Academy, in Bradford, one of the first wave of free schools to open, but which is now engulfed in a financial scandal over fraud allegations.

The decision letter to the school shows that before it opened, Education Secretary Michael Gove wrote to the bidders saying their case “had been fully assessed and judged to be sufficiently strong in all areas to proceed to the next stage”.