Exclusive: DfE fails to update Regional Schools Commissioner register of interests for almost a year

The Department for Education has failed to update its public record on the interests of its Regional Schools Commissioners and their Headteacher Boards for nearly a year, Education Uncovered can disclose.

A spreadsheet setting out these interests – which range from past and present involvement with particular schools to positions held by relatives– has not been amended since June 27^th, 2017.

With two of England’s eight Regional Schools Commissioners having left their posts since that date, these two former RSCs remain on the spreadsheet with their interests declared, but their successors – those actually in the job, since September last year – do not feature.

In addition, the records in relation to members of Headteacher Boards, accessible via the same spreadsheet, have also not been changed since last June, before last autumn’s elections to the posts.

This means that the 640 lines of data on Headteacher Board (RSC/HTB) members’ interest appears to relate entirely to previous members of these influential bodies, rather than the current ones.

The revelation seems likely to provoke yet more controversy over the position of the RSCs and HTBs, notwithstanding a victory this morning for campaigners for more openness, as the DfE said it would publish their decision-making documents.

There has been widespread criticism – voiced again in a guest blog piece appearing on our site today – that the system is too secretive and prone to conflicts of interest.

The revelation seems likely to provoke fury among some parent campaigners who seek to hold RSCs and HTBs to account for decision-making, against the backdrop of being barred from meetings where those decisions are taken, with still no immediate prospects of that changing.

In addition, the DfE seems to be vulnerable to accusations of not practising what it preaches, in relation to academy trusts.

In its current Academies Financial Handbook, the DfE states that: “boards of trustees should keep their register of interests up-to-date through regular review”.*

Yet the currently-available register (viewable from this DfE webpage) sets out the interests of two Regional Schools Commissioners – Tim Coulson and Rebecca Clark – who left their posts for academy chains last September.

The interests of their successors, Lisa Mannall and Sue Baldwin are not listed. So the public has had no information on the interests of these individuals, often taking controversial decisions about which organisations take over schools,  throughout at least the first eight months of their time in post.

Meanwhile, the DfE’s register of interest on the associated Headteacher Boards, which usually comprise eight either elected or appointed figures, appears even more dated.

The information relates entirely to the boards as they were before the last set of elections, whose results were announced last October.

Even this old information appears to be incomplete, with the records of only 52 individuals serving on this board seemingly present.

But the boards appear to have changed fundamentally in October, meaning the interests of very few current board members will have been published.

The DfE did not dispute the fact of the information being dated, saying only that it was working on updating the records and that these would be published “in due course”.

Given that the DfE seems to be failing again on transparency – and if it can’t get basic record-keeping right, what does this say about oversight of the sector as a whole? – this episode seems worth a “2” on this website’s transparency scale.

 *Whether all of them are actually doing so, and what happens if they don’t is another question, of course. I’ve recently come across quite a high-profile trust which didn’t seem to have up-to-date records. This may be touched upon in an upcoming story.