oh dear, another v embarrassing free school débâcle

[edam]

This time involving the Tory party deputy chairman. Serious financial mismanagement to the tune of £90k. Can't link as on tablet but see BBC news, king's science academy Bradford.

Tory bigwig Alan Lewis's company trousers £300k a year in rent for the site. And the Tories have the cheek to call the unemployed scroungers!

travelling
when Kingston has the same number of > £80k managers despite managing 48 schools as Hampshire did with 600 schools, the problem is one of management and the need for a new ILEA, not one of needing Free Schools and academies.

THe London school place crisis is acute and was utterly predictable
a version of ILEA opening classes and schools as needed would have cured it

but we also have this insane self imposed government rule that "on sheet " borrowing shall not exceed 90% GDP
even though PFIs commitments push it to 300% GDP
which means that the UK government refuses to take out dirt cheap borrowing to do essential stuff
DAFT DUMB DAFT DUMB

LA support for schools doesn't exist here! LA advisors are no longer employed directly by the council, but as an 'educational charity' - a learning trust. I'm not sure how the funding works!
The trust employs most of the same advisors (enabling a bit of cherry-picking on the way!) and is The trust is overseen by an 'executive director' with auspicious career links.

Timely article. We all want LAs.

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/03/free-schools-schools

Another academy/free school sponsor under investigation over its finances and exam marking here. Tory MP Nadine Dorries is very concerned.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24821378
no shit sherlock
inspect academy chain companies in the same way as leas

No shit Sherlock indeed.

We should keep a tally of academies in trouble/being dodgy... must be dozens of them.

DAFT DUMB DAFT DUMB

The government is currently paying nearly £50bn per year in interest on its debt. If we had no debt we could double the amount spent on schools without any increase in taxes. Are you seriously suggesting that we should increase the debt even further? None of the parties is currently suggesting that.

For what it is worth, Labour's policy is pretty much indistinguishable from that of the current government. It suits all political parties to pretend that the government has implemented much larger cuts than those planned by Labour but the truth is that they haven't. The difference is less than 0.5% of total government spending.

My personal wish is that the parties would be honest about this and that the government would stop talking about "paying down the nation's credit card" (they aren't) and "reducing the deficit" (they are but most people think that means "reducing the debt" which they aren't).

But the UK's debt - of around 90% of GDP is lower than most comparable countries - and that is only because of the fiddles of PFI creating off balance sheet finance.
Investment is a good thing to borrow for (if the Government buys a £300m hospital it costs £400m, but through a PFI it costs £1,300m )

£50bn is less than the taxes lost because of Gideon's changes in tax allowances for Controlled Foreign Companies, let alone LLPs - each year

But the UK's debt - of around 90% of GDP is lower than most comparable countries

I don't know where you get your figures from but that is nonsense. According to the OECD our government debt as a proportion of GDP is higher than Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland amongst others. It is above the Euro area and on a par with the US (which has the advantage of having the world's reserve currency).

Investment is a good thing to borrow for if you can afford it. It is not a good thing if the result is to push your borrowing costs beyond what you can afford. Both businesses and countries have gone bankrupt through borrowing more for investment than they could afford. And of course the more you borrow the higher the interest rate goes as the lender is concerned that you will be unable to service your debts. That applies for countries just as much as anyone else.

I also don't know where you get your figures for the changes to CFCs and LLPs. The CFC changes cost £1bn a year according to the treasury. I haven't seen any independent analysis that suggests it will be significantly higher than that, let alone as high as £50bn. The LLP changes will plug existing loopholes and should therefore raise revenue.

Roughly 10p in every £1 we pay in taxes goes to pay interest on the government's debts. That is why none of the major political parties shares your view that we should push borrowing even higher.

UK Government debt has not risen significantly over the last few years
but then of course PFI does not appear.
www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/global-debt-guide
I get my info about CT changes from the trade press : the treasury are hopeless

But as even the DfE say that Free schools and Academy conversions are an expensive way to make more school places
reshuffling Gove is an unequivocal "good thing"

I agree all the analogies about credit cards and leaky roofs are really simplistic. But I object most of all to money being wasted on an ideological backdoor attempt to privatise public services - from schools to the court/probation system - without a mandate or even a robust tendering system (assuming the public or stakeholders like judges actually agreed with it). Most of the free schools that actually have pupils in them (more than one form in primary or 100+ in secondary) are managed by academy chains yet there was no proper competition or consultation on the sponsor at a local level.

Now Michael Wilshaw, the education select committee and 91% of parents with children at free school want to see more oversight by LAs and Ofsted, and if Gove or Nash resists this, it is highly suspect.

Even the Economist article to which you link shows that UK government debt is one of the worst of the world's largest economies. Only Japan and Italy are worse.

And I've been searching for press items (including in trade press) that suggest the CFC changes will reduce the UK's tax revenue by 10% (i.e. £50bn). I haven't found any. Total corporation tax revenue is £40bn. So you are suggesting that the CFC changes would more than wipe out all corporation tax receipts which is clearly nonsense.

tell you what
I'll stick to UK Gaap and you stick to the Admissions code.

Corporation tax revenue is, of course, nothing to do with UK GAAP or the Admissions Code.

Total CT receipts in 2012/13 were £39.5 billion, down from £42.2 billion the previous year. If you have a source that disputes those figures and suggests that a change which doesn't affect most companies can result in a loss of £50 billion CT revenue per year I would love to see it.

CFCs and LLPs impact on much much more than CT - they impact on VAT, CGT, stamp duty, IHT, income tax and NI going back to the daft decisions made by Broon and compounded by Gideon.

School funding is a drop in the ocean compared with it and schools is what this thread should be about.

Come and chat tax on the UKBF - I have the same name there.