Academy, investigate thyself

What happens when a union contacts the Department for Education to complain that it is “extremely worried about the behaviour of an academy chain’s management”? Nothing, to judge from a paper trail sent my way by a London branch office of the National Union of Teachers.

This particular chain, though relatively small, is growing and seems to be becoming increasingly influential in this part of inner London. Outsiders unfamiliar with the way oversight works in relation to England’s academies scheme works might think that at least a cursory investigation would have taken place in this case. 

But the correspondence set out below makes clear that this did not happen, since the government view is that the responsibility to investigate in such cases rests with the academy trust itself- even in cases where it is the trust’s management which is being complained about. 

In April, the union’s division secretary wrote to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (EFSA, the part of the DfE which funds and notionally oversees academies), as follows: 

“Dear Sir/Madam,
I am extremely worried about the behaviour of an academy chain's
management. As a caseworker for the NUT I have experienced on two recent occasions
(this year) this same school bullying NUT members.