Head promotes themselves to 'Executive Head' and CEO of trading subsidiary

[Talkinpeace]

So the head awards themselves an increment or three for 'enhanced responsibilities'
One of the deputies is promoted to 'Head of School' presumably with a nice pay rise
The trading subsidiary files abbreviated accounts so its not clear where the funding comes in from, but its destination can be inferred.

More ways for Academy heads to extract cash from the schools budget
taking advantage of the lack of LEA oversight
no more LEA or public sector audit
and that the turnover is below the national company audit threshold (because part of it has been split off)
Convenient.

Who do we complain to about this skimming of the education budget with absolutely no oversight or accountability?

Who do we complain to about this skimming of the education budget with absolutely no oversight or accountability?

As the person who should hold them to account is the one who is facilitating this, sadly, there is no-one .

At some point in the future, this scandal will break into public consciousness. There will be lots of hand-wringing, and then nothing will be done just like the profiteering in other industries

I agree with your concerns. But I'd point out that a similar case happened in Devin a couple of years ago with an LEA controlled school. :(

Russians
but in an LEA school there is oversight (albeit often poor)
these academies get to choose their own level of oversight and sack any auditor who does not play along ....

My DCs secondary has subsidiaries, but they don't take money from the school budget, but add to it. The cost of training teachers, adds income to the school; as do various other nice little earners (training TAs etc.).
The old Head is now an Executive Head, but now runs two schools (brought in to turn the other one around).

My only complaint is that whilst Deputy Heads are usually very good, Assistant Heads tend to be full of ideas but not really be good with parents/students.

Talkin' - you may have forgotten but you don't need to tell me anything about auditing My point was that crap LEAs are also a problem, not that academies potentially aren't. It's all very depressing. When they write the story of what went on under this government that whole 'Lloyd George knew my father' period will look like kindergarten.

The unlamented DA had their faults.
But academies can pick teeny firms to can be leant on to keep that £30,000 of fee income (as per the published accounts)

Exec head across two school - no great shakes. But why the job title changes within the school

And the accounts of the subsidiary - yup it turns a buck, but it pays its directors, over and above the £100k that the head already gets from the school ....

Russians Do you think a bookie would give us good odds on predicting the meltdown?

It's going to give Private Eye loads of good copy. They already run a whole page of 'dodgy local government stories' every issue, education is about to create a whole new section for them. Executive chief high banana bobbins.

Unless you wish to allege that the trading subsidiary is breaking the law the destination of any profit it makes is the charity that runs the academy. The head, of course, does not award himself a pay rise. That would be the trustees. If the directors of the subsidiary are also trustees of the academy they should not be paid for acting as directors.

Is it still the case that there is no mechanism existing for academies to move back under LEA control?

Fucking farce. Another one.

Sooner rather than later some of these academies and free schools are going to go pop financially, leaving local authorities to pick up the pieces whilst the shareholders in the academy companies disappear over the horizon having extracted the maximum benefit from the millions that Gove is throwing at them. And this sort of conduct is only bringing that day forward.

So far as complaints are concerned, I guess the official avenue is the DfE, but don't hold your breath - it just isn't in Gove's interests to admit that this sort of thing goes on. Otherwise the best route will be something like the Guardian, Independent or Private Eye.

Academies are run by charities. They don't have shareholders.

I repeat that, unless there is criminal activity, any profits made by the trading subsidiary go back to the charity. If the directors of the subsidiary are trustees of the charity they should not be paid simply for acting as directors. Having said that I would agree that there may be a case for tightening up the law around payments to charity trustees and/or improving enforcement of existing laws.

I think it is generally the case that academies pay their leadership teams a higher proportion of their budget than non-academies do, isn't it? It seems fairly predictable, really - increase the bargaining power of those in the positions of power and responsibility and they will use that to award themselves more money. Somehow, paying them more is supposed to result in them being more successful at getting everyone underneath them to work harder and more effectively for them, for less and less share of the pay.

And, of course, there aren't enough HTs to go round, so you can always show how little you care about the school you are actually at by threatening to move on somewhere else unless you get what you want. Constant changes of leadership don't do a school much good.

That may be so prh47bridge, but academies have still become very lucrative businesses, particularly it appears for those associated with chain academy groups (see links below). There doesn't appear any way for parents to get their voices heard. The chain group trust appoints the principals, appoints the HT's and appoints the chairs of local governing bodies, therefore no one listens. There doesn't appear anyway for an academy to leave the chain group so the gravy train continues, with as performance reports have shown, little benefit to students.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jul/20/education-school-academies-michael-gove

onthewight.com/2013/03/30/academies-enterprise-trust-barred-by-dfe-from-taking-on-new-schools/

I think it is generally the case that academies pay their leadership teams a higher proportion of their budget than non-academies do, isn't it?

I'm struggling to find figures. Those I have found say that 10% of academy heads are paid more than the maximum normally allowed for their region compared to 4% of heads of other types of state funded school. According to the NAO heads in secondary academies were on average paid £6,600 more than other secondary heads last year. This is probably distorted by a few heads earning far more than average - there were six earning more than £200k in 2010-11 (the normal maximum is £105k outside London, £112k in London).

On the other hand academies have a higher budget than other types of school, partly because their income is not top-sliced by the LA and partly because some have found ways of generating additional income.

So yes, academies pay their leadership teams more than non-academies but I don't know whether or not this is a higher proportion of their budget.

Oh well, who cares about parents, anyway? Let them eat free schools.

Are academy schools and free schools included in the national school benchmarking figures provided by the DfE, which allows schools to compare how they allocate their resources? Or is this limited to LA schools? And how much detail is there in these figures? And if academies and free schools are exempted from this, isn't that a bit... bad?...

wellInever2 - Yes, AET have certainly pushed the boundaries on payments to trustees. I don't know whether or not they have overstepped the mark - it is impossible to tell without access to information that is not currently in the public domain. But their actions have at the very least been ill advised even if they have remained within the rules. If they have broken the rules appropriate action should be taken against them.

Note that most new academies are not part of any academy chain. The current government has encouraged outstanding schools that convert to do so without a sponsor.

rabbitstew - The intention is to include academies. The DfE's intention is to update the performance tables with financial data drawn from the abbreviated accounts they submit to the EFA. They seem to be running late on that. All non-financial information is already in the performance tables.

prh47bridge

I'm pleased that the government is encouraging outstanding schools to convert to academies without a sponsor, but what about those academies that are currently caught up in the money making chain academy machines. When will they be rescued!!

The school in question in a non chain converter.
The "Auditors" are a very small local firm of accountants who will not say boo to any client that pays them over £40,000 in fees so there is no truly independent oversight.
The governing body do indeed vote through pay rises, but chances are the 'executive head' had them firmly over a barrel.