education

School flew group of staff to Ibiza for a meeting

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Langdale Free School has been criticised for its lack of transparency (Picture: Getty; Google)

A school has denied financial mismanagement after trustees were flown to Ibiza for a board meeting.

Langdale Free School in Blackpool has been slammed by a government watchdog for failing to declare the costs of the overseas trip in their audited accounts.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) investigated the school after an anonymous tip off in relation to trips to Ibiza for trustees.

A report found Langdale should have reported the cost of flights to Ibiza, paid for by a company called Montague Place, but did not.

Langdale’s funding agreement says Montague Place and its connected companies are allowed to charge the trust £50,250 a year for ‘corporate services’.

However, because the school didn’t include details of the trip in the accounts, the spending decision could not be scrutinised by auditors.

Board members have been flown to Ibiza for (Picture; Google Maps)

The report said: ‘The costs incurred for the flights to Ibiza, for a board meeting, should have been reported in the audited accounts as a related party transaction.

‘This is therefore a breach of the 2017/18 academies accounts direction, which specifies that  Transactions with related parties…must be disclosed fully and openly so that the users of the accounts can gain a proper understanding of them, and any issues that might have influenced them.

‘Some transactions may attract public interest and so disclosure provides accountability and transparency to the public, and demonstrates that potential conflicts of interest are being identified and managed.’

Langdale used to be a private pee-faying school ran by Montague Place, but switched to a free school in 2013.

Free schools are funded by the government but they aren’t ran by the local authority, meaning trustees have greater control over how the school operates.

For example, free schools can set their own pay and conditions for staff, rewrite the national curriculum as well as change the length of school terms and the school day.

School leaders claim the trip to Ibiza cost less than £900 (Picture:alextihonov.com)

The school have not said what the meeting to Ibiza was for.

However, they claim the report ESFA report is ‘full of inaccuracies’.

The chair of Montague Place, Mark Peters, said the criticisms on charges for corporate services were ‘simply not true’ and the trip to Ibiza cost less than £900 – which he said was less than the cost of board members travelling to and staying in Blackpool for two days.



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