£1billion of title deeds for schools transferred to private companies

[BeingAMumIsFun]

Before the election councils in England held the title deeds to schools and land valued at over £2.5 billion

But most people don't know the very fine print of the academies bill means

1. The title deeds of the school and the land are transferred to a private company when the school becomes an academy

1. Michael Gove borrows £25,000 to pay the legal fees for the private companies to ensure the title deeds are transferred from the council (us taxpayers who paid to build the schools - to these private companies)

So far £1billion of title deeds for schools have been transferred from taxpayers - with Michael gove increasing the deficit by £481,750,000 - just for legal fees to transfer ownership of the schools from councils to private companies

So who has the title deeds now

Tory party member Philip Harris has his hands on £millions worth of title deeds. (Philip Harrismade donations to David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. He is considered to be one of his personal friends

Stanley Fink, another friend of Cameron has donated £2.62m to the Conservative party and David Cameron made Fink a Lord as soon as he came to power, and David Cameron has since made him Tory Party Treasurer and also handed his company £millions title deeds for schools

And today David Cameron has told us, as well as changing the law to transfer state assets to Tory party members (and I thought only China did that) - now he is changing the laws to allow them to start selling the Land

Just so you know - Stanley Fink - his company states in their accounts - any extra money - his company has a policy to transfer the funds to the Cayman Islands - via a stockbrokers that Stanley fink just happens to be on the board of

Now if I remember correctly the directors of southern cross did the same thing with care homes - selling them off - the money disappears offshore the company goes bust and pensioners left high and dry (with taxpayers expected to step in)

Well Cameron has just announced Tory party members who have their hands on the title deeds for our schools and the school land can start doing the same thing

And just to be clear - Stanley Fink's company accounts for the schools also state - if Stanley fink's company controlling the schools, the school budgets and the title deeds goes bust - Stanley Fink (Tory party treasurer on the Times rich list) only has to pay £10

Academies are not about education - they are about asset stripping and English parents and children, will find themselves, just like the pensioners and their families who were left without facilities due to the very rich directors of Southern Cross selling off the assets and disappearing in to the sunset

Do MIchael Gove and David Cameron shout from the rooftops that they are spending £25,000 per school to cover legal fees to transfer the title deeds to Tory Party members - no

I wonder why not - could it be they don't want England's parents to know the real intentions of the academies bill - it's not about education - it is about asset stripping by Tory Party members - thanks to David Cameron, Michael Gove, every Tory MP and every LIberal MP

These are your schools - they do not belong to the Tory Party (well they do now)

Ask Michael Gove if your council gets the money when they sell off school land

Ask Stanley Fink (ARK SCHOOLS) - will this Tory Party treasurer be selling playing fields and as his accounts state, the money be transferred to the Cayman Islands (with his stockbrokers taking a cut along the way)

Serious questions - £1billion worth of assets stripped -- £half a billion in legal fees to pay for it (which we the taxpayers must pay back as Gove had to borrow the money)

Peppercorn rent is normally defined in the contract. I have some where I literally recieve a peppercorn. For others it is defined as £1 per annum.

If it is as you say and the land has transfered for anything less than open market value then it will contravene state aid laws. If you feel that you have a legal challenge then refer it to the european commission for a determination. A really easy way to check the landownership is with the land registry. I suspect that you will find it is on a leasehold.

"Under the Academies Act 2010, if the academy closes any land that has been transferred reverts to the LA."

Where precisely do you read in the Schedule 1 Land Transfer section of the 2010 Act that land is automatically and always transferred back? The Act includes several possible options for the land, all down to the whim of the SoS and none of them binding.

Hi @BeingAMumIsFun - please could you provide a source for all the numbers you cite in your first message? I'm particularly interested in the £1 billion claim. Thanks

No it doesn't, not all of it

Yes it does, all of it. If it fails to do so it is in breach of charity law.

Insulting people, that's a mature way to go about debate then, prh47bridge

The post to which I was referring was making a number of clearly ridiculous allegations. Lifeinthemix apparently believes that academies are indoctrinating children with New Zionist myths in preparation for activation of the New Order. She also believes that Alpha courses come from Masonic Alpha Lodges which run the Commonwealth. She also believes that Womens Lib was funded by the British Corporate Crown front family (whatever that is) so that women could be taxed and to destroy the family unit on behalf of the corporate state. Do you really want me to take those allegations seriously and rebut them?

The Cayman Islands are a tax haven. The only reason for putting your money there is to avoid UK taxes. Looks like we taxpayers are being forced to transfer assets to a tax-dodging company - at a peppercorn lease ie for the grand sum of a tenner a year or thereabouts

As I have already pointed out ARK have not transferred a single penny of taxpayers money to the Cayman Islands nor does ARK hold any money there. ARK Schools, the charity that runs the academies, does not dodge any taxes. ARK, its parent charity, owns a Cayman Islands company that holds some of its funds in an investment trust. Money flows from the parent charity to ARK Schools. ARK Schools do not pay anything to ARK.

Where precisely do you read in the Schedule 1 Land Transfer section of the 2010 Act that land is automatically and always transferred back

It is in Section 7 of Schedule 1 but you need to understand how that interacts with other relevant legislation and funding agreements. You are correct that the Act allows the Secretary of State to choose from several options. Two of those options transfer the land back to public ownership, the third requires the Academy Trust to purchase the land at market value. i.e. the value at the time they purchase, not the value at the time the academy was set up.

However, if you are denying that this government are not looking to carve up state education and work out how private companies can make a profit out of state education I think you are deluding yourself. None of the programmes brought in are not to improve your child's education, whatever is being said. It is about cutting budgets so schools become attractive propositions to business.

Agree, that's exactly their agenda, gorillawitch.

Whether it's director and consultancy payments, IT and other procurement through related companies or curriculum development there is already money being made - academy brokers themselves are earning £250,000 per year. But it's future profits that draw in private providers - you can see the attempts of global outsourcing firms like Capita or cut-price private providers GEMS to enter the market from the list of failed free school bidders. Chains of prep schools don't make them much money, apart from property portfolios, but triple the size of the school and force children into it and there's glimpse of profit in the future if they can position themselves and sit tight. Why else would Conservative donors and bankers like Lord Nash or Theodore become interested not only in operating academies but working at the top of the DfE to help create the market conditions when their own children are educated privately? Altruism?

Two of those options transfer the land back to public ownership, the third requires the Academy Trust to purchase the land at market value.

Except I learn from a colleague that Schedule 1 Land Transfer section of the 2010 Act was amended with effect from 1 February 2012 by the Education Act 2011.

Paragraph 15 provides that where an Academy holds publicly funded land for the purposes of the Academy, and the Academy ceases to be an Academy (whether or not it also ceases to be an educational institution), the SoS may make one of the following directions (para 15(3)):

(a) That the land be transferred to the local authority, subject to any
payment by the local authority as the SoS may determine;

(b) That the person holding the land pay the SoS or the local authority
the whole value of the land (or part of it);

(c) That the land or part of it be transferred to another Academy,
subject to any appropriate payment;

(d) That the land or part of it be transferred to any governing body,
foundation body or trustees of a school on payment of an
appropriate sum.

No mention of "the value at the time they purchase, not the value at the time the academy was set up."

Michael Gove has already said he is not averse to profit making schools so it isn't exactly a hidden agenda. I know some people are ideologically opposed to this. My own position is more pragmatic. If profit making schools produce worse outcomes for pupils or cost the taxpayer more I am against them. However, if the outcomes for pupils are better than non-profit making schools and the cost to the taxpayer is no more I don't have any objection. After all, people already make money supplying equipment and services to state schools. I know a number of people who have become multi-millionaires in this way.

I will say again that my interest is in keeping to the facts. As I said on another thread, both supporters and opponents of academies have a tendency to make statements that are at best debatable, at worst completely untrue. And I would include the government in that. That does not make for a sensible debate.

mcquade - You've missed out some important words. 15(3)(b) actually says that they must pay the value "as at the date of direction", i.e. the value at the time of purchase.

prh47 How would they make a profit?

People do indeed make fortunes supplying equipment to schools whilst taking them for a ride. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16441186.

Aren't the Academies themselves meant to make a profit, not just help other companies get rich?

The people I know who made fortunes supplying equipment weren't taking anyone for a ride. They were providing good products at a reasonable price - better than schools could get from other suppliers.

At the moment no, the academies are not meant to make a profit. An academy must be run by a charity. As for how a school would make a profit, that would be for them to decide. Evidence from those countries such as Sweden that have profit making schools shows that it is achievable without cutting corners.

'If profit making schools produce worse outcomes for pupils or cost the taxpayer more I am against them'

Young people have been rioting in Chile and Sweden where profit-making has been introduced and there is increasing evidence of increased segregation. There is little evidence of better results - or according to the Academies Commission report it is mixed, sometimes worse, elsewhere statistically slight.

The problem in the UK is the dire record of outsourcing of essential services in terms of falsified reporting, poor value for money and failure to deliver. Think G4S (Olympics security), Serco GP out of hours service in Cornwall, the shambolic handling and complete lack of due diligence by a ministry that 'was not an intelligent customer' in the court interpreters contract. Do you think the DfE would be a more intelligent customer?

If the sponsorship of academies has been a 'beauty parade' completely lacking in rigour, no wonder we have academy heads involved in expenses scandals and cronyism - but introduce profit making into the mix and it won't be thousands of pounds wasted but more like the millions, and large risks involved in the other fiascos.

This is one of the best threads ever and should be published ideally in the Guardian and Telegraph as it shows how you always need to delve into the facts before jumping to conclusions and always read the underlying law and regulations.
It also shows how much people will seek to misrepresent things to con people into taking a particular view.*
Well said, Xenian and PRH.

The facts were jumbled in the OP so phr47bridge was entitled to dispute them. But it is an old thread from back in August 2012 which I assume was based on rumours about the £1 billion overspend on academies before the NAO report came out. That did turn out to be true, although land transfer costs were more to do with insurance and legal costs of transferring 125-year leases. Freehold can also be transferred directly from councils to academy trusts in some cases though. Now I'm off to watch 'V'.

The lack of financial transparency in Academy schools is the greater issue.

DCLG are forcing all Councils - and hence LEAs - to publish details of all spending over £500
but the DfE is exempting schools from this requirement.

"Lighter Touch" regulation has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster in the financial world and yet Gove is bringing it into education.

Has anyone come across similar issues with Church of England schools

Gather that government funding is obtained, then funding & land & new school is paid for by local authority, is then given as donation to Church of England!

New schools are free schools or VA schools.

Free schools are funded by the DfE. There are legal restrictions so that any land that was purchased with public money cannot be disposed of without the DfE's permission. The land reverts to DfE ownership if the school closes.

Arrangements for VA schools are between the LA and the school. In the cases of which I am aware the LA is leasing the land and buildings to the school.

What is the status of a Church sponsored Free School

If it's a brand new free school (ie not an existing VA school converting to a free school) then it is the same as any other new free school, regardless of whether the trust is - say / the diocese of Lambeth, a parent group or inded ARK .

Why is this thread linked to currently in the news on MN when the most recent post was almost 2yrs ago? When you click on the link for "school title deeds to be privately owned" this zombie comes up.

Why are MNHQ linking to zombie threads?

This what I mean, just in case it's unclear. I clicked the schools thread as it caught my eye when I was on another (which actually is active).

Maybe because the issue has just been brought under the spotlight by the new education white paper? Yesterday I read a blog by Michael Rosen about exactly this matter.

ZOMBIE ZOMBIE ZOMBIE

There are plenty of newer threads, with less inaccurate/astroturfy titles, which could be chosen as the featured thread on academies.

(I posted on this one three and a half years ago!)