MP pushes for answers in free school scandal

A COALITION MP is to demand answers from the Home Secretary over a fraud bureau’s failure to ensure claims of fabricated invoices at a free school were subject to a criminal investigation.

Bradford East Liberal Democrat MP David Ward is to ask why the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) did not pass the case on to West Yorkshire Police after finding it had been wrongly recorded as “for information only”.

The Yorkshire Post revealed last month that the NFIB realised the allegations against the Kings Science Academy, in Bradford, had been wrongly recorded as information when it should have been treated as potential crime.

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A Department for Education audit report has alleged the school submitted fabricated invoices to claim just over £10,000 while it was being set up. The DfE passed the matter on to Action Fraud – a call centre which deals with financial crimes in April last year. But Action Fraud wrongly recorded the matter as an information report before it passed the matter on to the NFIB.

The Yorkshire Post’s report showing the NFIB had spotted the error but then done nothing to ensure the matter was investigated prompted Mr Ward to write to Home Secretary Theresa May to demand answers.

The NFIB is said to have noticed the Kings Science case had been wrongly classified during an audit check in June last year. A spokesman for the bureau, run by City of London Police, has said the matter had been corrected as a crime report but only “from an audit return perspective” meaning it was not then passed on to West Yorkshire Police.

However Home Office Minister Karen Bradley has now replied to Mr Ward saying: “All reports identified as having been misrecorded as information, which in fact amount to a crime, have been reintroduced into the automated scoring and tasking system to assess if they should be disseminiated for investigation.”

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She also said the NFIB has been able to correct mistakes dating from 2012.

Mr Ward said: “If procedures were in place to correct errors from 2012, then why, when an error was discovered in the case of the Kings Science Academy in June 2013, was this not rectified and investigated straight away?”

The free school is now being investigated by West Yorkshire Police but it was only passed to the force after the allegations were leaked to the public last October.

The Yorkshire Post has also revealed that the DfE was told by Action Fraud in September that the matter was only being dealt with an information report but then did nothing to rectify this. Action Fraud is said to have only realised it had wrongly recorded the case as an information report after the matter had been leaked to the public.