Hank Roberts reveals how he blew the whistle on giant bonuses at his school – and what it means for the rest
It is not only bankers who have been raking in huge bonuses. It is not very often that an order is laid before Parliament to deal with a situation in one school. And it’s not very often that the two are linked. But they were earlier this year at the school I teach at, Copland. This is a large foundation status secondary school in Brent, north-west London. The parliamentary order was necessary to enable the local authority to suspend head teacher Sir Alan Davies, deputy head (finance) Dr Richard Evans and accountant and legal advisor Columbus Udokoro over allegations of the misappropriation of school funds.
The story started when I sent a dossier of evidence under whistleblower legislation to Schools Secretary Ed Balls, the Audit Commission and Brent council. Local authorities retain the ultimate financial responsibility for foundation schools, although that is not the case with academies.
At the teaching union conferences at Easter, I revealed that, last year, Copland’s head teacher had received an £80,000 bonus on top of his salary in excess of £100,000. In fact, to my knowledge, he had received at least £195,000 in bonuses. The deputy heads also received at least one bonus – of £45,000 each.
In the course of a television interview, the head conceded that he had been paid between £310,000 to £320,000 over the past two years. The auditor’s investigation subsequently revealed that, in one year alone, he had received £403,000. Did this make him the highest paid teacher in history?
When I and two other school union representatives were suspended, protests by teachers, parents and pupils were held outside the school. The main slogan was: “Books not bonuses”. One hundred and eleven staff signed a petition demanding our reinstatement. Unions agreed to ballot for strike action. Legal advice was sought. Letters of support flowed in from all over the country. However, before the strike was held, the local authority, with the support of the Government, took action. The head, the deputy head of finance and the bursar were suspended. We three union reps were reinstated and all the charges against us were dropped.
More revelations followed, including the mysterious sale through Sotheby’s of paintings donated to the school.
Some crucial questions for state education arise from this episode. Where else is this sort of thing going on? The Audit Commission’s recently submitted evidence to the House of Commons schools select committee said: “The commission wants greater supervision from local councils which have ‘distanced themselves’ from monitoring school budgets.” It also wants to see more financial audits conducted.
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: “It would be disastrous if the bonus culture, which blighted the financial services sector, infected the state schooling system. We are appalled at the prospect of secret deals that result in huge sums of public money being unlawfully paid to school leaders instead of being spent on pupils’ education. We call for an immediate investigation into such payments and tighter regulation to ensure that a bonus culture does not creep into our schools”.
Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT wrote to The Times about the issue. She said: “We need to learn from what has taken place in the private sector and not spread poor practice. Bonuses have driven irresponsibility, reckless decision-making and greed. Bonuses distort performance because people do just what is necessary to secure the bonus. They bring some of the worst elements of the private sector into the public.”
The privatisation of the management of state education will multiply the opportunities for corruption. Even if it didn’t, the result is still that taxpayers’ money is swelling the coffers of private companies.
The sickness of the bonus culture has spread to state-funded schools. The vast majority of head teachers are honest. A minority, as with all humanity, are not. The more lax the system, the more acquisitive the culture, the more people will be led down the road to perdition.
In academies, there is no limit on head teachers’ salaries. There’s a bonanza – a gold rush at the top. Through the academies’ exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, we won’t be able to find out about any excesses. Taxpayers’ money, which should be spent on children’s books and employing more teachers, is going increasingly to those at the top, distorting the whole value system of state funded education. The public service ethos will be replaced with the motivation of private gain if we let it. I trust we will not. l
Hank Roberts is a member of the ATL executive
