Should a company that oversaw the consultation on a controversial sponsored academy conversion also have been advising the would-be sponsor on public relations?
The question arises after correspondence was released, through a freedom of information request, between senior figures at the Inspiration Trust academy chain and the man who handled interactions with parents before the trust’s takeover of the Hewett school in Norwich.
Consultant Jonathan Haslam was appointed, through his company HaslamDodd, to collect and report on survey responses and preside over public meetings during the consultation this summer. Most respondents rejected Inspiration, but the Department for Education still allowed the chain to take over the Hewett last month.
Before the consultation, in May, the interim board then running the school told parents HaslamDodd had been appointed to “ensure the consultation process is impartial”. There is no suggestion that Haslam failed to record consultation responses accurately.
However, in an email on 20 April to Inspiration’s chief executive, Dame Rachel de Souza, Haslam said he and his consulting partner, Sheree Dodd, “believe the consultation should be an opportunity for IT [Inspiration Trust] … to share and celebrate success, extend the range of supporters and ambassadors and open up/diversify its profile”.
In an email two days later to Sir Theodore Agnew, Inspiration’s chair, Haslam set out a series of apparent public relations “key messages” for the trust.
For example, Haslam suggested the trust should say it “respects the history of the Hewett and [sic] restore it to its former position of No 1 in Norwich”. He also advised Agnew on how to deal with the local paper, the Eastern Daily Press.
Campaigner Lynsey White, who received the Freedom of Information response, said: “The emails show that HaslamDodd were pushing the Inspiration Trust’s agenda. That’s not what we were told during the consultation.”
Haslam denies any conflict of interest. “The clearest possible demonstration of our independence can be found in the 95-page [consultation] report, which faithfully reflected the views of respondents,” he tells us. “Our contact with Inspiration Trust was entirely proper.”
And if the correspondence were not enough to enrage opponents of the takeover, the new chair of governors at the Hewett has been revealed: Dame Rachel de Souza.
DfE takes potshot at anti-academy campaign
“Headteachers hit back at enemies of academies,” warned a DfE press release sent to journalists last Tuesday. Five pages mainly of criticism of campaigners fighting “forced academy” conversions followed.
But when the document was released to the public the following day it had been toned down markedly, with the headline redrafted to the much milder “Have your say on measures to transform failing schools.” So what changed?
By the time we went to press, the DfE had not provided an answer.
We were also interested in its claims in the release that campaigners had physically attacked the former Downhills school in Haringey, north London.
The school’s sign was indeed spray-painted (as our picture shows) after its new managers, the Harris Federation, changed the name. But the “Save Downhills” campaign denies being responsible for this. It said via its Twitter account: “We did not deface sign. We put up a plaque,” referring to a spoof decoration, attached to the school’s wall, marking its closure. The DfE had not offered any evidence for its finger-pointing before we went to press.
The DfE’s release – or releases – saw it arguing for new powers to get tough on “coasting schools” and to remove all consultation from communities in cases where a school is lined up for academisation having been deemed to be failing. One parent said this would at least make their lack of a voice more obvious.
Momentum builds over school ‘asbestos crisis’
Asbestos should be removed from all schools by the end of the next decade, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has recommended.
The conclusion by the all-party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health comes in a report on the “asbestos crisis” it says faces many buildings in the UK. It quotes figures, also cited in May by Education Guardian, that at least 70% of schools have the substance on site.
The group, led by the Labour MP Ian Lavery, is calling for asbestos to be taken out of all buildings by 2035, with “public buildings and educational establishments, such as schools” to be prioritised for action by 2028.
The group has no law-making power, and the DfE’s position, based on advice from the Health and Safety Executive, is that asbestos in schools is safe so long as it is not disturbed. Removing all asbestos would be expensive.
However, there may be momentum building up behind the issue, with ministers having bowed to campaigners in the spring and published a review on school asbestos policy.
