Digging around in the undergrowth of schools reform in England
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by Warwick Mansell
Documents underline researchED’s position as a for-profit company between 2013 and 2017. Image: iStock/Getty Images
ResearchED, the conference organisation for teachers spearheaded by the government’s behaviour adviser Tom Bennett, started out as the “trading name” for Mr Bennett’s for-profit company, contract documents have revealed.
In a revelation which helps to fill in the detail as to the otherwise somewhat mysterious nature of the organisation since its foundation 10 years ago, ResearchED was described as a “conference based teacher training business,” as its founder bid for a government professional development training contract.
ResearchED still appears to be providing no information on its legal set-up on its website, despite having sought donations from conference-goers in recent months, while Mr Bennett himself has not responded to requests for comment from Education Uncovered. So the contract information helps in building up an outline of the nature of the organisation through its history.
ResearchED, of which Mr Bennett has always been the public face, has hosted conferences around the world promoting schools-focused research since its foundation in 2013.
As Education Uncovered reported last September, as of 2017 the organisation was describing itself in an official document as a “charity,” though by 2021 this was no longer the case.
Since registering at Companies House on April 19th, 2017, it had been a company limited by guarantee – so not distributing shares – but with changes in 2021 having both ensured that the “charity” references were removed in its articles of association and, seemingly, made it very much the creature of Mr Bennett, who was given the right to appoint its controlling members.
Now Education Uncovered can reveal what was said about the organisation in contract documents which were published in relation to the Department for Education’s Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund (TLIF), a pot of money for organisations bidding to offer professional development to teachers in disadvantaged areas. Mr Bennett’s company, Anvil Education, was one of the successful bidders.
TLIF was announced in October 2016 by the then recently-appointed Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, with a brief to support high-quality professional development for teachers in areas facing the most challenges in England.
Anvil Education Limited, a for-profit company set up on May 27th, 2013 with Tom Bennett as its only director and shareholder – from 2020, Mr Bennett has co-owned the company with an Anna Bennett - was one of eight successful bidders for TLIF funding in its first round. In its case, this was to run training programmes designed to help school leaders and teachers improve classroom behaviour.
Documents in relation to this successful bid are available on the government’s “Contracts finder” website. The main one is the actual contract between the Secretary of State and Anvil Education. The date of October 2016 appears throughout this document.
Page 57 of the contract, under “Implementation Plan”, stated: “This project [for TLIF] is well supported both pedagogically and organisationally. The lead tutor and course designer [Tom Bennett] is the Director of researchED (trading name for Anvil Education), which has for four years been operating in seven countries. researchED is a conference based teacher training business that started with one conference in 2013 in the UK, then 4 in 2014, 13 in 2015, 15 in 2016 and 16 in 2017.
“This growth has been managed in a simple business model with the director managing a rotating team of volunteers and sub contractors. All conferences have been brought in on budget and on time.”
Another document, published alongside the Anvil TLIF contract and with its document properties stating it was created on December 4th, 2017 by Mr Bennett, also offered details on researchED. It stated: “Tom Bennett has been a behaviour coach for ten years, has written and designed a very successful online behaviour training program [sic] with the [company] TES Global, ran the TES behaviour advice forum for several years, and has lectured on behaviour in schools around the globe…
“Through his organisation researchED, he has built and run low-cost training conferences for teachers in three continents. 10,000 unique participants have attended these events, including 8000 from the UK.”
A third document, again published alongside the TLIF contract, stated: “Tom Bennett…has previously started a hugely successful conference business (researchED) which has had over 10,000 unique participants in seven countries since 2013..researchED was started entirely using social media, and has since been mentioned in Parliament and referred to extensively in academic and published literature.”
This helps establish, for the first time in public* as far as I can see, a clearer picture on researchED’s legal set-up throughout its 10-year existence.
The statement that the organisation was a “trading name” for Anvil Education as of 2016 makes clear its nature during that initial period, before its registration at Companies House.
So, the chronology appears to go as follows. From May 2013 until April 2017, researchED was run by Mr Bennett as a company limited by shares, so a for-profit organisation. That said, and despite the number of people attending its conferences, during this period Anvil never seems to have registered much of a profit: successive abbreviated accounts filed at Companies House show net assets as of May 2014,15,16 and 17 of £57, £1,758, £157 and -£42,477 respectively.
From 2017 onwards, researchED has been a company limited by guarantee. Companies limited by guarantee do not distribute shares. In in its incorporation document, filed at Companies House in April 2017, it was listed throughout as a “charity,” though it never seems to have been registered as such at Companies House. At this point, the organisation had six directors, Mr Bennett having been joined by Daisy Christodoulou, Alex Quigley, Rebecca Allen, Sam Freedman and Dylan Wiliam.
Ultimate control of researchED appeared to have shifted, as of 2017, from Mr Bennett being in sole charge via his ownership of Anvil Education, to, in this case, the six directors seeming to have equal powers, the 2017 document stating that each of them would be the first members. (Members are akin to shareholders of a for-profit company, with powers including the approval of changes to its constitution, and the ability to sack and appoint trustees/directors).
In December 2018, Mr Bennett had also tweeted that researchED was “applying for charity status”.
However, the organisation appears never to have been registered as a charity.
Instead, a new set of articles of association for researchED, dated September 21st, 2021, see it no longer being described as a charity, though it remained a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.
And Mr Bennett was clearly back in what looked like ultimate control, with these articles stating: “The Members of the Company shall be Tom Bennett and such persons as Tom Bennett admits as Members.”
The statement that, in its first years, researchED was the “trading name” for Anvil Education means there is, then, now an outline of the nature of the organisation, and who has been in charge, throughout its history.
From 2013 to April 2017, it was a for-profit company under the sole legal control of Mr Bennett. From April 2017 to September 2021, it was a company limited by guarantee which was at least describing itself in its constitution as a charity, though it never appears to have attained charitable status, with ultimate control having broadened out to be in the hands of six directors.
And from September 2021 onwards, it has no longer been calling itself a charity, though has remained as a not-for-profit organisation, with Mr Bennett having re-assumed ultimate legal control.
Why does this matter?
As argued before, when I wrote back in September about the legal changes at researchED between its 2017 and 2021 constitutional document, this matters because of transparency.
No part of researchED’s website, as far as I can see, sets out the legal set-up of the organisation. This seems particularly to be an important omission given that researchED was as of last year seeking donations alongside conference bookings. As I wrote last September, when booking a ticket for researchED’s annual conference in London that month, at £64.49 including VAT, I had also been asked to consider donating to researchED**.
It would be reasonable for anyone considering a donation to know more about where the money is going, and who has been in charge of this organisation throughout its history.
It is also interesting that, while before its foundation there was discussion of researchED as filling what could be seen as a public need – Michael Gove’s former adviser Sam Freedman wrote in 2013 that he had been in discussion with the science writer Ben Goldacre about setting up a “grassroots” conference organisation for teachers - in fact from its outset it had been set up as a company privately-owned by Mr Bennett. Again, this is interesting context, though perhaps it is not surprising, during an era of Conservative government, that a private company in the control of one person should fill that perceived void.
*It may be that the legal set-up of researchED throughout its history has been explained for public consumption at some time in the past. But I cannot find any references, despite the organisation having been subject to extensive debate.
**It may be that researchED is not currently, or no longer, seeking donations: this week I clicked on details about all conferences currently listed as upcoming on the organisation’s website, and was not invited, this time, to make a donation alongside the event admission fees.
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