Hereditary principle kicking in at Harris Federation

England’s second-largest academy chain has underlined its position as in the control of a single family, as the wife and a son of its “sponsor” have joined him at the highest level of its governance system.

Lord Harris, the Tory peer and donor and founder of the company Carpetright, after whom the Harris Federation is named, has been joined as a “member” of the 50-school, London-based chain by his wife, Lady Pauline Harris, and his son, Peter Harris, its website confirms. They are the only three members.

Members are, according to the Department for Education, similar to shareholders in a privately-owned company. Their powers include the ability to appoint and sack trustees, who in turn carry out the strategic oversight of the organisation.

In 2019, Education Uncovered revealed how Lord Harris was in ultimate control of the Harris Federation, with the right not just to appoint fellow members and trustees, but with that power – which currently sits with him in his position as “principal sponsor” of the trust - passing to other family members upon his death.

The Harris Federation’s current articles of association state, in a clause which dates back to the establishment of the trust in 2007: “In the event of the death of Lord Harris of Peckham, his wife, Lady Harris, shall replace him as Principal Sponsor. If at the relevant time Lady Harris is deceased or unwilling or unable due to physical or mental incapacity to act as Principal Sponsor his son, Martin Harris, shall replace him as Principal Sponsor.

“If at the relevant time Martin Harris is deceased or unwilling or unable due to physical or mental incapacity to act as Principal Sponsor Lord Harris of Peckham’s other on Peter Harris shall replace Lord Harris as the Principal Sponsor.”

The Principal Sponsor’s role carries with it the power to appoint up to 32 trustees – meaning the governance of this entire chain of schools is essentially in the control of one person, and will be so even when the “principal sponsor” role passes from Lord Harris to a family member. Lord Harris, aged 78, is also the long-serving chair of its trustees.

The Harris Federation’s total income in 2019-20 was £220.8m, its recently-published accounts revealed, with core General Annual Grant funding at £186m. As with all academy trusts, the overwhelming proportion of its income comes from the taxpayer, meaning that this is essentially a publicly-funded, but privately controlled, organisation.

The Harris Federation’s website notes that both Lady Harris and Peter Harris were appointed as members on February 12^th, 2021, joining their husband/father as the only three people in that role.

They have replaced outgoing members Philip Saunders, a director of the trust since 2007, and Paul Jacobs, who became a trustee only in 2018. As I reported in 2019, Jacobs was at that time – and still is – a director of Tapi Carpets and Floors Limited, a company which was founded by Lord Harris’s son, Martin, while Saunders is a former director of that firm.

Saunders and Jacobs are currently the chair of the Harris Federation’s finance and audit committees, respectively.

“The Harris Family” have their own page on the Harris Federation’s website. Here it is stated: “As our Sponsor and Chairman, Lord Harris takes a personal role and interest in every Harris Academy [sic] generously supporting them financially and with his time. He and his family are regular visitors to our Academies.

“Lord Harris’ self-made success as a businessman is an inspiration to our students and his entrepreneurialism is thoroughly reflected in the can-do culture of our Academies.”

Harris is the second-largest academy chain after the United Learning Trust, which is an offshoot of the United Church Schools Trust, an Anglican charity.  

In 2019, Education Uncovered also revealed that the Harris schools were among at that time nearly 200 state-funded academies – educating more than 100,000 pupils – which were in the control of wealthy businessmen via their governance structures. With some of these chains expanding since then, the figure may have crept up.

Academy mergers, ie takeovers, still happening, despite covid

In fact, another academy chain which still appears to be in the ultimate control of a businessman “sponsor” has been revealed only this month as possibly expanding through swallowing up another, smaller, trust.

The Leigh Academies Trust, based in Rochester in Kent and currently numbering 28 schools – this in itself is an increase of more than 20 per cent in terms of its school numbers in the past 18 months – is poised to “merge” with the smaller Brook Learning Trust, Kent Online reported.

Brook Learning Trust (BLT) currently has three secondary schools: the Ebbsfleet Academy in Swanscombe, the Hayesbrook School in Tonbridge and the High Weald Academy in Cranbrook. According to widely-read former headteacher and Kent blogger Peter Read, all three BLT schools had been struggling, including over pupil recruitment.

Read’s blog was broadly favourable about Leigh Academies Trust (LAT), which currently controls 15 primary schools, 10 secondaries, one “all-through” institution and two special schools.

However, the trust is not a stranger to controversy. This included a takeover of Paddock Wood primary near Tonbridge and nearby school Horsmonden primary in 2019 which drew a petition of nearly 500 signatures in opposition.

This row saw LAT’s chief executive, Simon Beamish, writing to the lead education councillor on Kent County Council, Roger Gough, to accuse him of taking an “agnostic” view on academisation. Nevertheless Sir Paul Carter, a former leader of the council, last year rejoined Leigh as a trustee.

Beamish has also drawn controversy for regularly featuring in the list of top-20 most highly-paid people in the academies sector.

LAT’s recently-published accounts for 2019-20 show Beamish’s remuneration rising again, from £225-£230,000 to £235-£240,000. That was a rise in the range 2.1 to 6.7 per cent. Perhaps most striking, however, was a big surge in his employer’s pensions contributions, from £30-£35,000 to £45-£50,000. This was a rise of a minimum of 29 per cent, and a maximum of an eye-watering 40 per cent. Overall, then, his remuneration including pensions went from £255-265,000 to £280-£290,000, a rise – in terms of this total cost to the taxpayer - in the range 5.6 to 13.7 per cent.

Beamish’s pay alone has rose by at least £50,000 over the three years to August 2020, its accounts show, with it having been £180-£185,000 in 2016-17. That is an increase over the three years in the range 27-33 per cent.

As I reported in 2019, LAT sees its members chaired by the businessman after whom the organisation is named: Sir Geoffrey Leigh. It had been spun out of one of the Conservative government’s City Technology Colleges, called Leigh CTC, which itself had been named after Sir Geoffrey after what LAT’s website describes as his “generous personal sponsorship” while he was chairman and managing director of Allied London Properties PLC.

LAT’s articles of association describe Sir Geoffrey as the chain’s “principal sponsor”, with the right both to be a member himself and to appoint up to five additional members.

As Peter Read’s blog points out, and as this website has observed following other cases of two trusts announcing “merger” plans, in fact what tends to happen is that the larger trust simply takes over the smaller one. Kent Online reported that LAT’s takeover of BLT is due to go before the government’s local Headteacher Board for approval next week.

In other “merger” news, the seven-school Bright Futures Educational Trust has announced that, as of March 1^st, it has already joined forces with the five-academy Dunham Trust.

Before this month, Bright Futures was running three secondaries, three primaries and a special school across the North Western local authority areas of Manchester, Blackpool and Trafford, while Dunham had four primaries and a special school, all in Trafford.

It is not possible to tell from the release how the new control of the trust will work. But Bright Futures would seem to be the bigger organisation, given the number of secondary schools which were already on its books.

Bright Futures has also attracted controversy in the past: in 2017, the TES reported how it owed the government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency more than £4.5 million. At that time, it had nine schools, so up to this month it had had two fewer than that, and the “merger” with the Dunham Trust constitutes the first new schools to join it in nearly six years, meaning the resultant trust is instantly nearly twice as big in terms of academy numbers than it was last month.

In 2016, in a Guardian piece I wrote how Bright Futures had been struggling with two of its three secondaries – Cedar Mount and South Shore academies -both in special measures at the time, and with Labour MP Lucy Powell calling for them to move to another trust. Both have since improved to Ofsted’s “requires improvement” rating.

As I’ve reported in recent months, a small trust in south London called the Charter Schools Educational Trust, which currently controls two secondaries and a primary, is set to grow by swallowing up a smaller academy trust of two primaries, alongside an existing maintained school. https://www.educationuncovered.co.uk/news/149121/school-applies-to-become-an-academy-the-day-before-parents-are-told-of-its-plans.thtml

A reader asks whether this is a sign that a consolidation of academies into smaller numbers of larger trusts is continuing, despite Covid-19.

As I reported last year, although the pandemic has understandably slowed academy conversion numbers, it seems to have brought only a small pause to the DfE’s academies activities. These developments would suggest mergers continue to be very much on the cards – in fact with academy conversions declining even before coronavirus, they may be trusts’ main growth mechanism -  although it will remain interesting to track developments on the ground.

Another trust revisits extended day plans

If you once had plans to introduce controversial extended day plans to your schools, the message of recent months seems to be: try, try again.

That, at least, is the upshot of new developments at an academy trust which was featuring extensively in these pages in the first two years of Education Uncovered.

As I and notably Guardian writer Aditya Chakrabortty wrote, a huge campaign in support of Waltham Holy Cross primary school in south Essex not joining NETAT – short for the National Education Trust Academies Trust – built up in 2018 and 2019.

This did not stop Waltham Holy Cross academising under NETAT in November 2019.

One of many aspects of the takeover which was annoying parents at the time was NETAT’s proposal that an extended day should be introduced. As I reported in December 2018, a packed community hall event in opposition to the takeover had seen teachers and parents enraged after a letter from NETAT in favour of lengthening teaching hours appeared on the school’s website, just before Christmas and months before the protracted takeover went through.

In the end, NETAT appears to have backed off on its extended day plans for Waltham Holy Cross, given the community reaction. But now they are back on the agenda.

In a letter to parents sent earlier this month, NETAT said it would be consulting on plans to lengthen the school day at Waltham Holy Cross to bring the school into line with its other primaries in the Harlow area. These proposals had come about not at its instigation, but prompted by staff, it said.

“When Waltham Holy Cross converted to an academy, parents were promised the trust would not impose the extended school day model,” the letter stated. “The request to extend the school day has come from teaching staff at Waltham Holy Cross who are all in favour of the model.”

Teachers will not get paid for their extra hours’ work, which translates as three hours and twenty minutes per week. However, the letter said that, to compensate them, the trust would extend the school’s half-term breaks in the summer and autumn terms by a week each, from one week to two weeks, as well as slightly lengthening the annual Christmas break for schools.

At least this extended day plan, then, sees some compensation to teachers for the extra hours worked. Last month, I reported how London-based Future Academies – yet another academy chain controlled by a wealthy businessman – had introduced an extended day for its primary schools last year.

This had been a revisit of proposals which had first been mooted back in 2016, but ditched after protests from parents and staff, only to re-emerge seemingly prompted by Covid-19 and arguments that children needed to spend more time on their learning to catch up on lost education.

I understand that teachers at the primary schools have not been paid for their extra work. Future has been consulting on continuing with the scheme, whereby pupils finish at 4 or 4.15pm, for another year, although its latest consultation acknowledged that its operation this year had had “challenges” for pupils and staff.

One of the upsides from possibly ditching the approach, Future’s consultation stated, would be that: “the reduced amount of time spent in school avoids the problem of children struggling to concentrate at the end of a long school day while allowing children more time at home with their families to enjoy after-school enrichment”.

It seems as if NETAT might be firmly committed to its scheme’s introduction at Waltham Holy Cross, notwithstanding the “consultation”. If so, it will be interesting to watch this development.