Ministers ‘failed to share findings on fraud’

The Department for Education (DfE) published a report into the Kings Science Academy, in Bradford, last month which revealed the someone at the school had admitted that fabricated invoices had been submitted to the Government to claim thousands of pounds of public money.

The highly critical report was dated May but only published 18 days ago after a draft had been leaked to the media.

It was published along with a comment from the DfE saying they had passed the matter on to the police who decided that no further action was required.

However, questions from the Yorkshire Post revealed that an administrative error at the UK’s national fraud reporting centre meant the report from the DfE was treated as being for information meaning no criminal investigation had taken place at that stage. The DfE reported the matter with a phone call to Action Fraud on April 25. However, the administrative error only came to light earlier this month. West Yorkshire Police is now investigating.

Coun Ralph Berry (Lab) Bradford Council’s executive member for children’s services, has said the DfE should have shared its findings with the council earlier.

“It has been made clear to local authorities by Ofsted that councils will be held to account for how well we support and challenge all the schools in our area, including free schools and academies.

“But how can we perform this role if we are not told what is going on? We want to help. We want to work with all schools in the city and we have a duty of care to these Bradford children.”

In response to this, a DfE spokeswoman said yesterday: “The Education Funding Agency is responsible for financial management in all free schools and academies, which is why it carried out the investigation into the Kings Science Academy. The full report has now been published online.”

The report which was published on the DfE website last month has been redacted in places.

It found that someone at the school had admitted that fabricated invoices had been submitted.

The report by the Education Funding Agency, an arm of the DfE, identified £86,335 of a lead-in grant of £182,933, given to the school by the DfE to help it set up, which had not been used for the purpose intended.

The report said invoices totalling £10,080 had been submitted for rent of an office even though the accommodation costs had been waived by the building’s owners.

On Monday, Education Secretary Michael Gove faced public questions over the issue for the first time. He responded to Labour MPs by criticising standards of education in Bradford which he said had been appalling.

Mr Gove accused Labour of “complacency” over the quality of local authority-run schools. “All they can do is talk cynically about those idealists trying to improve state education,” he said.

Labour responded furiously, with Shadow Education Minister Kevin Brennan accusing the Education Secretary of sitting on the “damning report” for five months.

Labour MPs and Mr Gove also clashed over the level of accountability faced by free schools.

The Education Secretary insisted that free schools and academies were subject to greater scrutiny than those under local authority control.

He highlighted that free schools have to file accounts and appoint an accounting officer while local authority schools do not.

However, Coun Berry said the case of the Kings Science Academy highlighted the need for councils to be able to hold free schools to account.

“Well placed local expertise is a much better solution than us just relying on the man from the ministry,” he added.