Shake-up possible in national programme

The Government plans to expand the number of National Leaders in Education (NLE) – successful headteachers who are sent into struggling schools to raise standards.

However Wakefield Council’s investigation of Outwood Grange has found that its NLE work has caused “confusion” within the school. Auditors have accused Outwood’s chief executive Michael Wilkins of considering his NLE role to be “private consultancy work”.

The review also questioned why payments for NLE work were made to a private company said to be set up to Mr Wilkins “for tax purposes” rather than as additions to his salary.

Since the Yorkshire Post revealed that Wakefield Council was investigating Outwood Grange’s finances the authority has been contacted by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) which runs the NLE programme.

Now the council is preparing to hold talks with NCSL over the key findings of its review which “might inform future national guidance” over how the programme is run.

A NCSL spokesman said: “We will review all the information we receive from Wakefield Council in order to determine whether we need to update any of the information we publish.”

The spokesman said it was not the NCSL’s responsibility to monitor how individual NLE contracts were drawn up. A Department for Education spokeswoman said it was down to governing bodies or local authorities to decide how to pay and monitor NLE services.