An academy trust spent almost £20,000 renting a two-bedroom flat for its chief executive – and won’t say whether it got government approval for the deal.

Floreat Education Academies Trust spent £15,000 renting the flat, near to Floreat Montague Park primary school in Wokingham, for Janet Hilary. The rental, which incurred another £4,000 in utility, council tax and “other charges”, ran from August 2018 to August this year.

Fraud police have now launched their own formal investigation into allegations  involving public money at a high-profile multi-academy trust (MAT).

The investigation into the Bright Tribe Trust is being carried out by City of London Police – which is the country’s lead force for major fraud investigations.

The force told Tes it had decided to start a formal investigation after its fraud unit completed a review of a file relating to Bright Tribe which had been passed to it by Cumbria Police.

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-fraud-police-start-formal-bright-tribe-probe

Just 7 per cent of academy trusts and large academies met a new apprenticeship recruitment target in the first year of its existence, new figures have revealed.

The public sector apprenticeship target came into force for schools last March, requiring all individual institutions and trusts with more than 250 employees to recruit 2.3 per cent of their workforce as apprentices every year.

Academies managed an average score of 0.9 per cent in the 2018-19 financial year, according to new data published by the government today.

The accelerated conversion of schools into academies has made “little difference” to pupil outcomes, according to economists.

A report from the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), ahead of next month’s general election, found that the expanded academies programme, rolled out by the coalition government in 2010, has “not been successful for the most part”.

This is true for both primary and secondary schools, the research suggests.

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-forget-academisation-and-recruit-teachers