Gove facing more questioning over DfE handling of fraud case

Labour frontbencher Kevin Brennan has submitted a fresh Parliamentary question about the way in which the Department for Education (DfE) dealt with allegations against the Kings Science Academy in Bradford.

A DfE audit found that the school had submitted fabricated invoices to claim just over £10,000 of public money.

It reported the matter on April 25 with a call to Action Fraud, a national call centre which handles cases. However the case was wrongly recorded by Action Fraud as an information report and was not passed to West Yorkshire Police for criminal investigation until the end of October – and only after the allegations had been leaked. This led to major controversy as MPs including Mr Brennan, a shadow education minister, questioning exactly what information the DfE provided when it reported the case.

The DfE has previously said it holds no records of the call it made to Action Fraud. However Ministers have also insisted “all critical information” from its own audit investigation was passed on to the fraud centre.

Mr Brennan has now asked: “In the absence of any DfE record of the duration of, or notes concerning, the content of the telephone call to Action Fraud in April 2013, on what basis has he concluded that all the critical information regarding Kings Science Academy was passed on to Action Fraud?”

When asked about Mr Brennan’s question a DfE spokesman said: “We followed all correct procedures in reporting this incident. Officials supplied Action Fraud all the critical information on its findings of potential fraud in April. All of the actions of the department were confirmed as correct by the police at the time. This was Action Fraud’s error and they have apologised for it.”

The Yorkshire Post has revealed the DfE was told on September 5, seven weeks before the matter was leaked, that the case had been classed as an information report and that more information was needed in order for police to be able to launch an investigation. An email exchange obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that when the DfE asked for an update on the case it was told by Action Fraud that the case had been recorded as an information report. It said that more information was needed and that a police investigation would rely on the matter also being reported as a potential crime. The email also invited the DfE to provide more information.

The DfE did nothing to rectify this until after the matter was leaked. On October 25 the DfE published an investigation report into the Kings Science Academy, which had already been leaked to Newsnight.

The department issued a statement at the time which said that it had informed the police who decided no further action was necessary.

A week later it came to light that the matter had been wrongly recorded as being an information report by Action Fraud. At this point it was referred to West Yorkshire Police which is now investigating.