Local MP intervened against seemingly popular local option in forced academy case, FOI disclosures show

A local MP intervened in a high-profile forced academy case, arguing that it should not be sponsored by a trust which has links to a local authority, documents finally disclosed under freedom of information in the extraordinary case of the Barclay School, Stevenage, reveal.

Stephen McPartland, the Conservative MP for Stevenage in Hertfordshire, held a meeting with the schools minister, Nick Gibb, within weeks of officials approving the sponsorship of the Barclay by the Herts for Learning multi-academy trust.

At the meeting and at a subsequent one with Lord Nash, at the time the academies minister, McPartland proposed an alternative academy sponsor: the Meller Educational Trust, sponsored by the businessman, and reported Tory party donor, David Meller.

In the event, the comprehensive was taken over a month ago by Future Academies, the London-based trust sponsored by Lord Nash himself, though the decision to do so was taken after he stepped down as academies minister.

The freedom of information disclosure also shows, remarkably, the chair of Herts for Learning multi-academy trust (HfL MAT) writing to the government’s regional schools commissioner, Martin Post, to ask him whether or not the trust had been “removed” from sponsoring the Barclay, nearly two months after the decision had actually been taken.