Union chief raises question over chair of governors at Kings Science Academy

A UNION chief has questioned how Ministers were able to mistakenly think a senior figure in the Tory party was the chairman of governors at one of the country's first free schools for 12 months.
Kings Science Academy. Pic James Hardisty.Kings Science Academy. Pic James Hardisty.
Kings Science Academy. Pic James Hardisty.

Kevin Courtney, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers has said that questions surrounding governance at the Kings Science Academy, in Bradford, still need answering following a court case.

The Department for Education has previously said that it believed that Alan Lewis was the chairman of governors at Kings from October 2011 after being told this by the school after it opened. However the DfE said that it discovered 12 months later that it had been misinformed by the school and that in fact no chairman appeared to have been in place for its first 12 months.

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At the time Mr Lewis was the vice chairman of the Conservative Party. The Kings Science Academy was also built on land belonging to his company, Hartley Group, in a deal worth around £6m over 20 years.

Alan Lewis.Alan Lewis.
Alan Lewis.

Mr Lewis was named as the chairman on the school’s website. He has always denied that he was ever the chairman at the school and said previously that the reference to him on the Kings website was a mistake which was rectified as soon as it was brought to his attention. Hartley Group declined to comment on the NUT’s letter.

The company has previously said that if Mr Lewis had been a governor at Kings he would have been listed as a director of the KISA trust, which ran the school, at Companies House and he was not.

In the letter Mr Courtney said: “How can the DfE wrongly believe that a senior figure in the major political party of the Government of the day was the chair of governors at one of its first free schools. “Furthermore, having failed to understand the true nature of the governance arrangements at the school what lessons has the DfE learnt to ensure such a situation cannot arise in future.”

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The letter from the NUT highlights a parliamentary motion put down by former Bradford East MP David Ward which said that Mr Lewis had been listed as the school’s chairman of governors on Kings website, prospectus, in an application to open a new Kings free school and on the Conservative Party website.