Stricken academy trust lifts the lid on its recent “crisis”, as it closes having reported a deficit of nearly �2.5 million

An academy trust which had run one of the largest chains of free schools in England was expected to have ceased operations this week, having just reported a deficit of approaching �2.5 million.

Chapel Street Community Schools Trust, a Christian organisation which had run five free schools and two other academies,reported in its just-published accounts that it was due to have lost its final institution on Monday, August 31^st. Its six other schools were handed to other trusts earlier this year, after Education Uncovered revealed in February that the organisation was to be wound up.

It is unclear what happens, now, to Chapel Street’s debts, with the chain having just published annual accounts for 2018-19 – seven months after these were due to have appeared on its website – which state that four of its schools, as well as its central headquarters, were carrying deficits.

Its final set of accounts, as an organisation running schools, give a vivid insight into the “crisis” the organisation had been going through in the run-up to losing those institutions.

This includes revealing how trustees had been taken by surprise when the previous year’s set of accounts – which had already looked dire – were found to have presented an overly optimistic picture of its financial situation.