Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/622/9474
From The Socialist newspaper, 28 April 2010
No trust
TEACHERS AT the Crest Boys Academy in Neasden, north London, took strike action on 21 April in protest at the school trust's decision to sack seven staff.
The academy school has failed to attract the required number of pupils and has therefore been overfunded by the department for children, schools and family by £1 million.
However, the teachers' unions say they were promised that there would be no redundancies when the education charity - EACT - became the school's sponsor last September.
EACT gets £50 million from the government for its eight sponsored academies.
EACT's director general, Sir Bruce Liddington (appointed schools commissioner by Tony Blair and in charge of the entire academies programme, serving in the role until its abolition in 2007), is the highest paid education executive in the country with an annual salary of £265,000.
He also received a 5% bonus this year.
According to the three teachers' unions involved in the strike action, EACT have taken £279,000 from the school budget for 'management costs' which according to The Guardian, includes a claim by Liddington of £1,436 for two nights in luxury hotel suites.
Academies are state funded but privately sponsored by businesses or religious charities and are run independently of local authorities.
They are part of the privatised future for education as seen by both Labour and the Tories.
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In The Socialist 28 April 2010:
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