i know i can't personally carry on running the school hello. welcome to bbc news — as a tbap school. broadcasting to viewers lanita carter was once in north america the hairdresser of the r&b star, and around the globe. but claims that in 2003, he tried i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: 0n the day that britain to force her into sexual activity. i can't stay here and watch was meant to leave the eu, r kelly dnies 10 counts mps prepare to vote yet again of aggravated criminal sexual on the government's brexit deal, abuse. but only part of it. what they're doing to my school. now on bbc news, it's panorama. everything that we've worked for, on panorama tonight: for five years, has just been ploughed into the ground at the moment. a scandal in english schools. to see it happening in front donald trump speaks publicly for the first time since the mueller we investigate two academy trusts. of you is really difficult. report was released, claiming his political opponents ijust want people to hear i'm even thinking about leaving used the probe to try what happens in academies, education altogether, i don't think i could do it again. and illegally seize power. the corruption that goes a remembrance service has been held in christchurch in honour of the 50 people killed in two mosque attacks. on behind those doors. you're one of the strongest people i have met. i am sorry. we hear from two headteachers turned whistle—blowers. i can't stay here and watch prime ministerjacinda ardern what they're doing to my school. was among those who spoke. we uncover evidence of organised cheating in exams. whatever i do in my life, this will be my most proudest thing i have ever done. she sort of walked past, i am so proud of aspire, so proud of my kids and the staff. looked at my test and she stopped, the staff are incredible. and she just pointed at it, went "that's the answer"

and told me the answer. and it's a shame that it's come to this, really. and we ask: why is nobody holding the next day, deb garfield went academy bosses to account? i know that you organised and allowed cheating across the trust. can you tell me why you did that? off sick with stress. the government insists its flagship educational policy mrs davies, the parents is driving up standards. and the children deserve answers, i think people perhaps forget how what would you say to that? big the changes have been over the last seven or eight years. so as a system it is improving. i'd like it to improve quicker but we are seeing enormous transformations across the system. last year, panorama exposed but we've investigated two academy an education scandal. trusts run by high—profile managers and we've found the government the money should have been failed to prevent serious spent on the children. problems in both. tbap is surviving on taxpayer hand—outs. 8,300 schools have become academies, it's still being run paid for by the taxpayer, by seamus 0ates, the boss who failed to spot a £2.4 million deficit. but run by private trusts. we showed how some academy trusts have exploited the schools they run, and how the government has failed to supervise them. and silver birch trust

this can never, ever be will close down next week. when it schools are transferred allowed to happen again. to another academy trust. we think the department after the first programme, for education is quite embarrassed we were contacted by lots of unhappy about what is happening because there has been very little people working in academies. sanction against anybody who has headteachers, senior management overspent money or acted staff, as well as parents inappropriately in terms and governors. they all claim that academy trusts of running the school. so they need to step up and make are damaging their schools too. sure there are sanctions against people so they never run a school again. two head teachers have risked i'm going to see the head teacher of aspire academy in essex. everything to blow the whistle. deb garfield is turning whistle—blower, even though she knows it might get herfired. suzanne barham, says she'll never work for an academy trust again. ijust want people to hear what happens in academies. the corruption that goes on behind those doors. hi. it should be all about the children hi bronagh, lovely to meet you... her deputy head kathryn webb is and not a ploy to make money. risking herjob by speaking out too. we watched the programme once again, we have exposed how some and we started texting each other at the timejust academies are failing our children. saying, "oh my god". have some academy trusts are failing this is our story. itjust made us feel that we weren't really on our own and that perhaps it is a bigger problem. how big a step was it contacting us? to protect public money and how

huge. in many ways it's almost career suicide for people. the government is failing to hold i've never spoken out academies to account. against my bosses before and in such a public way but we've tried to do it the proper way, through the proper channels but we've just not been able to get anywhere and we've been pushed into a corner. it's for our children. aspire takes children who've been excluded from mainstream schools. deb and catherine helped to set up the academy in 2014. our kids have quite often had a raw deal from education and to see them have a brand—new school, that had been built for them, was lovely to see. the school's finances were fine. then, in december 2017, aspire joined a multi academy trust to improve the education on offer.

the bills immediately stopped being paid. we got a notification for further action. a notice to disconnect our gas supply. a notice to disconnect our electricity supply. we've got a final demand now on ourfire alarm monitoring. 0verdue balance. a reminder notice for our telephones. immediate suspension of service for our sanitary bin disposal. these are all red notices, right? these are your final demands, right? absolutely. a solicitor‘s letter here for our cleaning company. notice of disconnection for our text messaging for parents, which is part of safeguarding. and we've got disconnection notices for our water company as well here. before the trust came on board, where you meeting your demands? —— were you. yes, we have always run our

accounts really well. we've never owed anybody anything because we have always had the funds there to pay for it. the trust that took over aspire is called tbap. it runs 11 schools for excluded pupils and got almost £17 million from the taxpayer last year. the trust says it provides outstanding alternative education and has transformed the lives of over 4,000 young people. one of tbap's schools featured in this bbc series, it showed just how tough working with excluded kids can be. this is the man who set tbap up. good afternoon, everybody. my name's seamus 0ates and i'm ceo and executive head teacher of the tbap multi academy trust. seamus oates is a ceo of a chain

of schools for excluded children. but there are questions around how the trust has spent public money. in 2018, the trust had fewer than 700 pupils. but there were 18 members of staff, earning more than £60,000 per year. in total, they were paid £1.8 million. seamus 0ates received salary and benefits of around £220,000. all those big salaries leave less money to pay the school bills. these are not small amounts, these are thousands of pounds. they've built up pretty much from december when we moved over to the trust. this is what we deal with every day. as a head teacher, when i should be in my school working with my students, i'm having to speak to solicitors, i'm having to speak to people who come to the door demanding their money, saying they're going to take

theirfire doors back. that's the level we're operating at now. people coming into the school looking for money? yes, absolutely. 0ur evidence shows unpaid bills piling up at other tbap schools as well, so the government is giving the trust a bail out of £1.6 million. it's not the only academy trust with financial problems. one in 20 are in deficit — that's around 500 schools. these parents also got in touch after watching our first programme on academies. they had concerns about another academy chain, the silver birch trust, which runs four primary schools in the london area. the lady in charge, the ceo, was a lady called pat davies. almost as soon as she'd come in, our head teacher resigned. the governing body, we had no meetings, we had no powers. we weren't getting any data, no paperwork.

yeah. we were told finances wasn't our remit any more. we turned from a governing body holding the school to account and having the information and making all the decisions, into a local advisory committee. and we were told quite clearly that we were not to have any information about finances, it was now the trust board who were holding the school to account. but pat davies was on the trust board also, so she's holding herself to account. there was a bit of conflict—of—interest there. so sorry to interrupt your assembly. she set up silver birch in 2012. so sorry to interrupt your assembly. congratulations, you have been named head teacher of the year, 2011. applause she set up silver birch in 2012.

a whistle—blower soon raised concerns about how she was spending public money. silver birch was investigated in 2014 and serious failings were found. but the government allowed patricia davies to stay in herjob and take on more schools. her salary and benefits increased to £250,000 a year. she also gave jobs to her relatives. the social worker at one of the schools was pat's daughter. there was also — head of school at chingford hall was her husband. and was it openly recognised by pat that this was her daughter? no. the first i heard of it actually was when the interim consultant head said to me that he'd never seen so many family members working in one organisation before. it's not just parents who are unhappy with the way patricia davies ran silver birch.

suzanne barham was head teacher at one of the trust's schools until she resigned in 2017. the culture was that you did exactly what mrs davies wanted you to do, no questions asked. she says she left because she was bullied and undermined by patricia davies. you are in constant fear of losing yourjob, knowing that there was members of mrs davies's family working there, friends of hers, saying the wrong thing, which i did do on a number of occasions, and i was promptly taken into her office and given a good telling off. you know, and as a grown woman, to be humiliated like that, i spent many days in tears. that's what it was like, it was hell.

patricia davies didn'tjust give family members jobs at silver birch. this is the caretaker‘s house at chingford hall school. in 2016, the caretaker was moved out and the trust spent £99,000 renovating the property. we've discovered patricia davies then moved her daughter in rent—free. it shows how easy it is for people running trusts to exploit the system. that's just beyond the pale. you cannot have personal benefit from taxpayers's money like that, it should never be allowed and thatjust seems to me to be completely wrong. there is no justification for doing that. you shouldn't be employing your own

relatives, you certainly shouldn't be putting them up rent—free. i can't see anyjustification for that whatsoever. it is looking a lot more tired than the last time i was here. it's been three months since i first visited aspire, the school that's struggling to pay the bills after being taken over by tbap trust. the school deals with the most troubled children, so it often gets damaged, but now, there's not enough money for repairs. the radiator seems to get a very hard deal here. yeah, they do, that one gets fixed most days and this door got a bit of a kicking by one of our students and it's split down the edge. the company we used to use for the fire doors we can'tuse anymore because we hadn't paid them. it now doesn't close, so you have to give it a good pull. it's notjust the

building suffering. deb garfield's deputy, catherine, has gone off sick because of stress and now tbap is cutting jobs because it is short of cash. this trainee teacher has just been told she may have to leave aspire. we're literally numbers on a spreadsheet, that can just be deleted without any thought. oh, it's horrid to watch. yeah. but reducing staff numbers in a school like this can put students at risk. so we've got a member of staff on each leg, a member of staff on each arm and one behind. it takes a lot of teachers to restrain or separate fighting students. i thought, i honestly thought when i was on the floor with that kid, i thought i was going to get seriously hurt. and that was it. i tried to protect him so much.

so there's been times recently where there's been an uneasy feeling of "we've just got to manage this carefully because there's not enough of us right now to be safe". tbap says it has "the very highest standards in maintaining a safe environment". and that it has "implemented robust risk assessments" when reducing staff. the trust is in serious debt, and we've uncovered new evidence about the way the chief executive, seamus 0ates, has managed public money. i'm interested in any time you spent working in tbap

and any imforation you have on their financial situation in the last few years? tbap's public accounts were found to be inaccurate so i have been talking to insiders who know what went on. do you know if there were financial problems before that? they say tbap's accounts were deliberately falsified to make it look as if the trust was in good financial shape. so you're saying everyone, right up to the ceo, seamus 0ates, everyone knew that? the sources independently gave matching descriptions of how the books were cooked. what the source has told me is shocking. they said when finances were tight, the trust simply made up figures to make the accounts look better. and they told me the head of the trust, seamus 0ates, knew all about it. tbap says this is false. it says it ran into financial difficulties due to a lack of external funding and poor,

internal financial systems and that it responded with robust measures to improve its finances. including the complete overhaul of its financial controls and systems. tbap says there has been no personal wrongdoing by staff. the trust told the government, it had a £750,000 deficit. but an external team discovered the debt was actually 2.4 million. 900 e—mails about unpaid bills hadn't even been opened. it's a financial shambles. seamus 0ates has taken a pay cut. but why is he still running the trust? he took his eye off the ball and the government wasn't strong enough to blow the whistle on him quick enough, that's what happened.

it sounds like more than weak governance, it sounds like not only someone took their eye off the ball but missed the game entirely? i am not going to defend poor financial management to that extent, but the important thing to say is that we do have the resources to intervene intensively when these things happen and we are monitoring their performance very closely. but the government has repeatedly failed to spot serious problems. take the silver birch trust, where patricia davies employed her husband and daughter. it runs longshaw primary school in london. in 2017, parents and pupils accused teachers of cheating during the sat exams. the tests that are used in school league tables. 0n the last day, the children stormed out of the door when the bell went and quite a few of them were screaming, we have done well, we have done well! we have great marks, we are going to pass. as parents, will a saying,

how do you know? the boys were quite vocal, they thought it was hilarious. we cheated, we cheated! they let us a cheat. skipping up the hill. —— skipping up the hill, screaming it out. kelly's daughter sophie sat her mathematics test that day. the kid would go, "miss, i don't understand this." then the teacher would just go round and tell them the answer. did you get told any of the answers? yes. can you show me which one you were given the answer for? there was a koala one in the maths. can you tell me what it is?

did she tell you or just give you a hint? she walked past and looked at my test and she stopped. she pointed at it and said, that's the answer and then told me the answer. what do you think of that? i was so annoyed, i looked at her — what are you doing, this is a test. the cheating allegations were investigated by a government agency and the exam results were allowed to stand. but now, the school's former head teacher has agreed to come clean. she says she was ordered to cheat by the trust's chief executive, patricia davies. we were sort of told or directed to go and work with specific children to give them a little help, shall we say. when you say help, do you mean give them the answers? yeah. those children were given answers.

when you've been asked to do that, suzanne, and you've done it, how were you feeling? awful. you know, you just... you know it's not what should happen and it is the wrong thing and it's not going to help the children. suzanne barham says she was also instructed to cheat on the sats reading test. mrs davies called me into her office and it is a reading paper, so you can't read it to them. she said "i want you to read it for them". isaid, "what do you mean, read it? the questions?" she said "no, i want you to read it for them". i said "it's a reading test".

she said, "i know. have a job". —— you did what pat told you to do otherwise you knew you wouldn't have a job". so i did read the paper. we put the cheating allegation to patricia davies and the trust but they denied it. suzanne barham says the data from other test results was also falsified from three schools in the trust. they would say, oh, change that one, change that one. they would literally give me the sheet of paper, that the actual results were on, and then they would cross them out and write next to it what they wanted me to put in. how often do you think you were asked to put in data that was either inaccurate or changed ? every time there was a standard test being done. so it would have been three lots of data in three years. and every time it was changed and inflated ?

yes. what's the implications for the trust or other benefit for the trust in doing that? the benefit for the trust is their results are continually looking really, really good. in actual fact, very high 805, into the 90s, consistently, year upon year, very near hundreds. suzanne barham tried to warn the government about all the problems at silver birch more than a year ago. she collected statements from 28 members of staff. the department for education says it is investigating, but it still hasn't contacted the whistle—blowers. why has no one contacted her in order to follow through with that complaint?

the work isn't finished, that is the important thing to say. i am sure the teacher regulation agency will want to talk to some of these whistle—blowers and i will encourage my own officials to do the same. new trustees are now running silver birch. we've obtained minutes that show them talking about a bombshell regarding the finances. the minutes reveal they were shocked at the lack of financial control and that the trust was approaching insolvency. they also say that patricia davies was offered the chance to resign, 00:23:32,699 --> 2147483051:48:31,064 despite there being evidence 2147483051:48:31,064 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 of gross misconduct.