Panorama.2019.03.25.The.Academy.Schools.Scandal
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00:00On Panorama Tonight, a scandal in English schools.
00:05We investigate two academy trusts.
00:08I just want people to hear what happens in academies,
00:13the corruption that goes on behind those doors.
00:17We hear from two headteachers turned whistleblowers.
00:21I can't stay here and watch what they're doing to my school.
00:25We uncover evidence of organised cheating in exams.
00:30She sort of walked past, looked at my test and then she stopped.
00:34And she just pointed at it and went,
00:36that's the answer and told me the answer.
00:39And we ask, why is nobody holding academy bosses to account?
00:44I know that you organised and allowed cheating across the trust.
00:48Can you tell me why you did that?
00:50Mrs Davies, the parents and the children deserve answers.
00:53What would you say to that?
01:15Last year, Panorama exposed an education scandal.
01:20The money should have been spent on the children.
01:238,300 schools have become academies,
01:27paid for by the taxpayer but run by private trusts.
01:32We showed how some academy trusts have exploited the schools they run
01:37and how the government has failed to supervise them.
01:40This can never, ever be allowed to happen again.
01:45After the first programme, we were contacted by lots of unhappy people
01:49working in academies.
01:51Headteachers, senior management staff, as well as parents and governors.
01:55They all claim that academy trusts are damaging their schools too.
02:03I'm going to see the headteacher of Aspire Academy in Essex.
02:07Dev Garfield is turning whistleblower,
02:10even though she knows it might get her fired.
02:14Hi. Hi, Brona. Lovely to meet you.
02:17Come on in, have a seat.
02:19Her deputy head, Catherine Webb, is risking her job by speaking out too.
02:24We watched the programme and we started texting each other at the time,
02:28just saying, oh, my God, this is kind of our story.
02:30It just made us feel that we weren't really on our own
02:33and that perhaps it is a bigger problem.
02:35How big a step was it for you?
02:38How big a step was it contacting us?
02:41Huge. Huge.
02:43In many ways, it's almost career suicide for people.
02:46I've never spoken out against my bosses before and in such a public way,
02:50but we've tried to do it the proper way, through the proper channels,
02:55but we've just not been able to get anywhere
02:58and we've been pushed into a corner.
03:00It's for our children. Yeah.
03:03OK, so this is primary, where we have about 20 students.
03:07Aspire takes children who've been excluded from mainstream schools.
03:12I remember sending my dad that picture.
03:14Deb and Catherine helped to set up the academy in 2014.
03:18That was just great.
03:20Our kids have quite often had a raw deal from education
03:23and to see them have a brand-new school that had been built for them,
03:27it was lovely to see.
03:30The school's finances were fine.
03:33Then, in December 2017, Aspire joined a multi-academy trust
03:38to improve the education on offer.
03:42The bills immediately stopped being paid.
03:48We got a notification for further action,
03:50notice to disconnect our gas supply,
03:52notice to disconnect our electricity,
03:54notice to disconnect our water supply.
03:56Notice to disconnect our gas supply,
03:58notice to disconnect our electricity supply.
04:01We've got our final demands now on our fire alarm monitoring.
04:06Overdue balance reminder notice for our telephones.
04:11Immediate suspension of service for our sanitary bin disposal.
04:15These are all red notices, right? These are your final demands, right?
04:18Absolutely. A solicitor's letter here for our cleaning company.
04:22Notice of disconnection for our text messaging for parents,
04:25which is part of safeguarding.
04:27And we've got disconnection notices for our water company as well here.
04:31Before the trust came on board, were you meeting your demands?
04:35Yes, we've always run our accounts really well.
04:38We've never owed anybody anything because we've had the funds there to pay it.
04:44The trust that took over Aspire is called TBAP.
04:47It runs 11 schools for excluded pupils
04:50and got almost £17 million from the taxpayer last year.
04:55The trust says it provides outstanding alternative education
04:59and has transformed the lives of over 4,000 young people.
05:09One of TBAP's schools featured in this BBC series.
05:15It showed just how tough working with excluded kids can be.
05:21This is the man who set TBAP up.
05:24Good afternoon, everybody. My name's Seamus Oates
05:27and I'm CEO and Executive Head Teacher of the TBAP Multi-Academy Trust.
05:31Seamus, first of all, just give us an idea of...
05:34Seamus Oates is a high-profile manager.
05:37Seamus Oates is a CEO of a chain of schools for excluded children.
05:42But there are questions around how the trust has spent public money.
05:47In 2018, the trust had fewer than 700 pupils.
05:51But there were 18 members of staff earning more than £60,000 per year.
05:57In total, they were paid £1.8 million.
06:01Seamus Oates received salary and benefits of around £220,000.
06:08All those big salaries leave less money to pay the school bills.
06:12These are not small amounts. These are thousands of pounds.
06:15They've built up pretty much from December when we moved over to the trust.
06:18This is what we deal with every day.
06:20And as a headteacher, when I should be in my school working with my students,
06:23I'm having to speak to sisters, I'm having to speak to people
06:27who come to the door demanding their money,
06:29saying they're going to take their fire doors back.
06:31That's the level we're operating at.
06:33People coming into the school looking for money.
06:35Yeah, absolutely.
06:38Our evidence shows unpaid bills piling up in other TBAP schools as well.
06:43So the government is giving the trust a bailout of £1.6 million.
06:49It's not the only academy trust with financial problems.
06:53One in 20 are in deficit.
06:56That's around 500 schools.
07:00These parents also got in touch after watching our first programme on academies.
07:06They had concerns about another academy chain, the Silver Birch Trust.
07:11It runs four primary schools in the London area.
07:15The lady in charge, the CEO, was laid off.
07:18She was laid off because she didn't have a job.
07:21She was laid off because she didn't have a job.
07:24She was laid off because she didn't have a job.
07:27The lady in charge, the CEO, was a lady called Pat Davis.
07:30Almost as soon as she'd come in, our headteacher resigned.
07:34The governing body...
07:36We had no meetings, we had no powers.
07:38You weren't given any data, no paperwork?
07:40Yeah.
07:41We were told finances wasn't our remit anymore.
07:43We turned from governing body, holding the school to account
07:46and having all the information and making decisions,
07:48into a local advisory committee.
07:51And we were told quite clearly that we were not to have any information about finances.
07:56It was now the trust board that were holding the school to account,
07:59but Pat Davis was on the trust board also, so she's holding herself to account.
08:03There's a bit of a conflict of interest there.
08:09Mrs Davis.
08:10This is Patricia Davis, the woman who ran Silver Birch.
08:14Sorry to interrupt your assembly.
08:16She's another high-profile manager.
08:18If you'd like to come in the middle of us.
08:22Congratulations, you have been named Headteacher of the Year 2011.
08:37She set up Silver Birch in 2012.
08:41A whistleblower soon raised concerns about how she was spending public money.
08:46Silver Birch was investigated in 2014 and serious failings were found.
08:53But the government allowed Patricia Davis to stay in her job and take on more schools.
09:01Her salary and benefits increased to £250,000 a year.
09:07She also gave jobs to her relatives.
09:11The social worker at one of the schools was Pat's daughter.
09:16There was also head of school at Chingford Hall was her husband.
09:21And was it openly recognised by Pat that this was her daughter?
09:24No.
09:25The first I heard of it actually was when the interim consultant head said to me
09:29that he'd never seen so many family members working in one organisation before.
09:37It's not just parents who are unhappy with the way Patricia Davis ran Silver Birch.
09:45Hi, Suzanne. Hello.
09:47Suzanne Barham was Headteacher at one of the trust's schools until she resigned in 2017.
09:55The culture was that you did exactly what Mrs Davis wanted you to do.
10:02No questions asked.
10:05She says she left because she was bullied and undermined by Patricia Davis.
10:11You are in constant fear of losing your job.
10:15Knowing that there was members of Mrs Davis' family working there,
10:19friends of hers, saying the wrong thing.
10:23Which I did do on a number of occasions.
10:26And I was promptly taken into her office and given a good telling off.
10:31You know, and as a grown woman, to be humiliated like that.
10:36I spent many days in tears.
10:39That's what it was like. It was hell.
10:49Patricia Davis didn't just give family members jobs at Silver Birch.
10:55This is the caretaker's house at Chinckford Hall School.
10:59In 2016, the caretaker was moved out and the trust spent £99,000 renovating the property.
11:09We've discovered Patricia Davis then moved her daughter in, rent free.
11:16It shows how easy it is for people running trusts to exploit the system.
11:23That's just beyond the pale.
11:25You cannot have personal benefit from taxpayers' money like that.
11:29It should never be allowed and that just seems to me to be completely wrong.
11:33There is no justification for doing that.
11:36You shouldn't be employing your own relatives.
11:38You certainly shouldn't be putting them up rent free.
11:40I can't see any justification for that whatsoever.
11:47It is looking a lot more tired than when the last time I was here.
11:51Yeah, it is.
11:52It's been three months since I first visited Aspire,
11:55the school that's struggling to pay the bills after being taken over by TBAP Trust.
12:03The school deals with the most troubled children, so it often gets damaged.
12:09But now, there's not enough money for repairs.
12:12Radiators seem to get a very hard deal here.
12:14Yeah, they do. That one gets fixed most days in various ways.
12:18And this door got a bit of a kick in by one of our students and it's split down the edge.
12:22So the company we used to use for the fire doors, we can't use anymore because we haven't paid them.
12:29It now doesn't close, so you have to give it a good pull.
12:40It's not just the building that's suffering.
12:42Deb Garfield's deputy, Catherine, has gone off sick because of stress.
12:48And now TBAP is cutting jobs because it's short of cash.
12:53This trainee teacher has just been told she may have to leave Aspire.
12:59We're literally numbers on a spreadsheet that can just be deleted without even any thought.
13:07Oh, it's horrid to watch.
13:10But reducing staff numbers in a school like this can put students at risk.
13:15So we've got a member of staff on each leg, a member of staff on each arm and one behind.
13:21It takes a lot of teachers to restrain or separate fighting students.
13:28I honestly thought when I was on the floor with that kid, I thought I was going to get seriously hurt.
13:36And that was it. I tried to protect him so much.
13:41There's been times recently where there's been an uneasy feeling of we've just got to manage this carefully
13:48because there's not enough of us right now to be safe.
14:00TBAP says it has the very highest standards in maintaining a safe environment.
14:05And that it has implemented robust risk assessments when reducing staff.
14:16The Trust is in serious debt.
14:19And we've uncovered new evidence about the way the Chief Executive, Seamus Oates, has managed public money.
14:27I'm interested in any time you spent working in TBAP.
14:30And any information you have on their financial situation really in the last few years.
14:36TBAP's public accounts were found to be inaccurate.
14:40So I've been talking to insiders who know what went on.
14:45Do you know if there was financial problems before that?
14:50They say TBAP's accounts were deliberately falsified to make it look as if the Trust was in debt.
14:56They say TBAP's accounts were deliberately falsified to make it look as if the Trust was in good financial shape.
15:03So you're saying that everyone, right up to the CEO, Seamus Oates, everyone knew that?
15:10The sources independently gave matching descriptions of how the books were cooked.
15:18What the sources told me is shocking.
15:20They said that when finances were tight, that the Trust simply made up figures to make the accounts look better.
15:28And they told me that the head of the Trust, Seamus Oates, knew all about it.
15:35TBAP says this is false.
15:38It says it ran into financial difficulties due to a lack of external funding and poor internal financial systems.
15:46And that it responded with robust measures to improve its finances,
15:51including the complete overhaul of its financial controls and systems.
15:59TBAP says there's been no personal wrongdoing by staff.
16:04The Trust told the government it had a £750,000 deficit.
16:10But an external team discovered the debt was actually £2.4 million.
16:18900 emails about unpaid bills hadn't even been opened.
16:24It's a financial shambles.
16:27Seamus Oates has taken a pay cut.
16:30But why is he still running the Trust?
16:33He took his eye off the ball.
16:36And the governance was not strong enough to blow the whistle on him quick enough.
16:41That's what happened.
16:43It sounds like more than weak governance, Minister.
16:46It sounds like someone not only took their eye off the ball, but completely missed the game entirely.
16:51Yes, I mean, I'm not going to defend poor financial management to that extent.
16:56But I think the important thing to say is that we do have the resources to intervene very intensively when these things happen.
17:03And we are monitoring their performance very closely.
17:12But the government has repeatedly failed to spot serious problems.
17:17Take the Silver Birch Trust, where Patricia Davies employed her husband and daughter.
17:26It runs Longshaw Primary School in London.
17:30In 2017, parents and pupils accused teachers of cheating during the SAT exams, the tests that are used in school league tables.
17:42On the last day, the children stormed out of the door when the bell went.
17:48And quite a few of them were screaming, like, we've done well, we've done well, we've got great marks, we're going to pass.
17:53And we're standing there as a group of parents thinking, well, how do you know?
17:57And then the boys were quite vocal as, you know, they thought it was funny, they thought it was hilarious.
18:02We cheated, we cheated, they let us cheat. Skipping up the hill, screaming it out.
18:09Kelly's daughter, Sophie, sat her maths test that day.
18:14The kid would go, Miss, I don't understand this, and then the teacher would just go around and tell them the answer.
18:21And did you get told any answers?
18:23Yeah.
18:24Can you remember any of the questions that you might have been told an answer for?
18:28There was a koala one in the maths.
18:31Can you show me what it is?
18:36That one.
18:37This one. And did she tell you, or did she just give you a hint?
18:42She sort of walked past, looked at my test, and then she stopped.
18:46And she just pointed at it and went, that's the answer, and told me the answer.
18:51What do you think to that?
18:54Oh, so annoying. I just looked at her like, what are you doing? This is a test.
19:04The cheating allegations were investigated by a government agency, and the exam results were allowed to stand.
19:12But now, the school's former headteacher has agreed to come clean.
19:18She says she was ordered to cheat by the trust's chief executive, Patricia Davies.
19:25We were sort of told, or directed, to go and work with specific children, to give them a little help, shall we say.
19:36And when you say help, does that mean given answers?
19:39Yeah. Those children were given answers.
19:45When you've been asked to do that, Suzanne, and you've done it, how were you feeling?
19:50Awful. You know, you just, you know it's not what should happen, you know it's the wrong thing, it's not going to help the children.
20:03Suzanne Barham says she was also instructed to cheat on the SATS reading test.
20:09Mrs Davies called me into her office, and it's a reading paper, so you know, you can't read it to them.
20:16And she said, I want you to read it for them.
20:19So I said, what do you mean read it? The questions?
20:23She said, no, I want you to read it for them.
20:27I said, but it's a reading test.
20:30She went, yes, I know.
20:32You did what Pat told you to do, otherwise you knew you wouldn't have a job.
20:36And so I read that paper.
20:44We put the cheating allegation to Patricia Davies and the Trust, and neither of them denied it.
20:51Suzanne Barham says the data from other test results was also falsified at three schools in the Trust.
21:00They would say, oh, change that one.
21:03They would say, oh, change that one, change that one.
21:07So they would literally give me the sheet of paper that the actual results were on,
21:14and then they would cross them out and right next to it what they wanted me to put in.
21:18How often do you think you were asked to put in data that was either inaccurate or changed?
21:26Every time there was a standard test being done.
21:32So it would have been three lots of data, three years.
21:36And every time it was changed?
21:38Yeah.
21:40And every time it was inflated?
21:42And tell me, what's the implications for the Trust or the benefit for the Trust in doing that?
21:47Well, the benefit for the Trust is that their results are continually looking really, really good.
21:54In actual fact, high, very high 80s, into the 90s, consistently, year upon year, very near hundreds.
22:09Suzanne Barham tried to warn the government about all the problems at Silver Birch more than a year ago.
22:17She collected statements from 28 members of staff.
22:21The Department for Education says it's investigating, but it still hasn't contacted the whistleblowers.
22:29Why has no one contacted her in order to follow through with that complaint?
22:34Well, the work isn't finished. I think that's the important thing to say.
22:38And I'm sure the Teacher Regulation Agency will want to talk to some of these whistleblowers.
22:42And indeed, I will encourage my own officials to do the same.
22:51New trustees are now running Silver Birch.
22:55We've obtained minutes that show them talking about a bombshell regarding the finances.
23:02The minutes reveal that they were shocked at the lack of financial control and that the Trust was approaching insolvency.
23:09They also say that Patricia Davies was offered the chance to resign despite there being evidence of gross misconduct.
23:21Patricia Davies has now resigned, but she could have been stopped earlier.
23:27Would you accept that the DfE were already aware that there were problems there from 2014?
23:32Why did they not act sooner?
23:34I think it's a fair criticism that you level at me that the Department wasn't tough enough in its early inquiry.
23:40The fact that she was warned of any misdoings then and chose to ignore them I think is a very serious reflection on her behaviour.
23:51Patricia Davies told us she was not able to respond to our questions and she didn't explain why.
23:59But is that really good enough?
24:02She's accused of misusing public money and organising cheating in exams.
24:10Mrs Davies, my name's Bronagh Munro. I work for the BBC.
24:14I want to talk to you about Silver Birch Trust.
24:16I want to ask you why you run the Trust into the ground.
24:18Where did all the money go, Mrs Davies?
24:21Mrs Davies, I know that you organised and allowed cheating across the Trust.
24:26Can you tell me why you did that?
24:28Mrs Davies, the parents and the children deserve answers. What would you say to that?
24:40Mrs Davies, would you like to answer some questions, please?
24:56Mrs Davies is clearly a Trust Manager who feels that she doesn't have to account for the way she spent public money.
25:03It's now been four months since I first visited Aspire, the Academy for Excluded Pupils.
25:10The TBAP Trust says it has now paid many of the overdue bills.
25:15But Headteacher Deb Garfield is facing further budget cuts.
25:20I know that I can't, personally, afford to go back to school.
25:24Everything that we've worked for, for five years, has just been ploughed into the ground at the moment.
25:30And to see it happen in front of you is really difficult.
25:34It's not easy.
25:36It's not easy.
25:38It's not easy.
25:40It's not easy.
25:42It's not easy.
25:44It's not easy.
25:46It's not easy.
25:48It's not easy.
25:50It's not easy.
25:51To see it happen in front of you is really difficult.
25:55I'm even thinking about leaving education altogether. I don't think I can do it.
26:00Deb, you're one of the strongest people I've met.
26:03I know, sorry.
26:04I know, sorry.
26:16No matter what I do in my life, this will always be my most proudest thing that I've ever done.
26:21I'm so proud of Aspire.
26:23I'm so proud of my kids.
26:25I'm so proud of my staff.
26:27My staff are incredible.
26:29And it's a shame that it's come to this, really.
26:34The next day, Deb Garfield went off sick with stress.
26:40The government insists its flagship educational policy is driving up standards.
26:46I think people perhaps forget how big the changes have been over the last seven or eight years.
26:52So as a system it is improving.
26:54I'd like it to improve quicker, but we are seeing some enormous transformations across the system.
27:00But we've investigated two academy trusts run by high-profile managers.
27:06And we've found the government failed to prevent serious problems in both.
27:12TBAP is surviving on taxpayer handouts.
27:16It's still being run by Seamus Oates, the boss who failed to spot a £2.4m deficit.
27:25And Silver Birch Trust will close down next week when its schools are transferred to another academy trust.
27:34We think the Department of Education is actually quite embarrassed about what's happening
27:39because there's been very little sanction against anybody who's overspent money or acted inappropriately in terms of running the school.
27:46So they need to step up and make sure that there are sanctions against people so they never run a school again.
27:52Two headteachers have risked everything to blow the whistle.
27:57Suzanne Barham says she'll never work for an academy trust again.
28:03I just want people to hear what happens in academies, the corruption that goes on behind those doors.
28:11It should be all about the children and not a ploy to make money.
28:21Once again, we've exposed how some academies are failing our children.
28:27How some academy trusts are failing to protect public money.
28:32And how the government is failing to hold academies to account.
28:43Following the secret team who cleaned the internet, Storyville reveals its dirtiest secrets on BBC iPlayer now.
28:49And it's ten years since it rocked Westminster. BBC2 remembers the expensive scandal that changed Britain.