Alan Davies loses knighthood as Copland strike for 8th time

 

Making the point about privatisation and appropriation of public money

 Sir Alan Davies, former headteacher of Copland Community School, was stripped of his knighthood today in a belated response to his involvement in a financial scandal. Also today Copland teachers held their 8th strike over redendancies and academisation.

From the Brent branch of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers:

The disgraced former headteacher of Copland Community school in Wembley has been stripped of his knighthood. Alan Davies had been found guilty of false accounting at Southwark Crown Court in October last year. He pleaded guilty, although at the very last minute, to six counts of false accounting, and was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment suspended for two years.

Before the trial proper commenced a deal was proposed by the defence. Keir Starmer, former Head of the Crown Prosecution Service was involved and a deal was struck.Sir Alan agreed to plead guilty to 6 of the eight charges – the six least serious, false accounting – in return for the two most serious - conspiracy to defraud and money laundering - being dropped. Davies was not cleared of the charges of conspiracy and

money laundering as the case regarding these allegations was not heard as part of theplea bargain deal so the charges were dropped.

Hank Roberts, the whistleblower who exposed the bonus payments and other irregularities through a detailed dossier, had led calls for Davies to be stripped of his knighthood following his conviction and had written to the Prime Ministers office asking the Forfeitures Committee to take action. A spokesman for the Cabinet’s Office confirmed that Davies has had his knighthood annulled.

Hank said: “This is brilliant news. At least there is some justice in the world even though getting him to court and getting to this stage has taken a very long time. Every day it seems there is another financial scandal involving our schools. Something is radically wrong and I believe it is connected with the break-up of the state education system and allowing greater controls to individual heads and governing bodies. I know that not just myself but an overwhelming majority of staff, parents and pupils will be glad this action has been taken.”

Davies, who was knighted for his services to education in 2000, was tried alongside Dr Richard Evans, 55, former deputy head, Dr Indravadan Patel, 73, ex-chair of governors, Columbus Udokoro, 62, former school bursar, Michelle McKenzie, 53, ex-HR manager and Martin Day, 58, former-vice chair of governors. As part of the plea bargain agreed the charges against them were dropped.

As reported at the time of the court case, when sentencing Davies, Judge Deborah Taylor said: “Your dishonest behaviour represents a fall from grace. You have failed in your duty as head of the school – in failing to ensure proper, transparent management, and, more importantly, you lied about it and resorted to dishonest fabrication. What sort of message did that send to the children?”

 
Meanwhile ARK headquarters in Kingsway, Holborn in central London was the target of a protest

by a group of teachers from Copland Community school in Brent protesting about ARK’s proposal to take over their school. They were taking strike action over propose compulsory redundancies that have been totally unnecessary. ARK continues to cut as many of the current staff as possible before September while hiring two new extra assistant headteachers and one deputy headteacher. This is even before any funding agreement has been signed.

Two of the protesters dressed as fat cat spivs and in a lively exchange explained why they, as hedge-fund speculators, (ARK is run by hedge-fund managers) would want to run schools. The answer from the protesters was to make even more “loadsa money” from their state schools take over. Hank Roberts, ATL Immediate Past President made the clear argument for state education and against privatisation despite being ‘harangued’ by one of the fat cats. Passers by were clearly entertained by this spectacle and interested in the message.

Earlier there had been a joint ATL, NASUWT and NUT picket at the school in Wembley which was addressed among others by the NASUWT National President Geoff Branner. He praised staff for their support, commitment and resolve. This was Copland staff’s eight strike in total, six against being forced to become an academy and  two against the proposed compulsory redundancies.

‘I’m an Ark Academy apologist. Get me out of here!’

Copland staff  and parents underwhelmed by  ‘consultation’ process.  

Guest blog by 'Participatory Democracy'

Copland staff have always been a little sceptical about ‘consultation’, possibly since ex-Head Davies once announced to a full staff meeting (on applying for Trust status) : ‘the consultation period is over’, having omitted to do anything to indicate that it had ever actually begun. So when various Ark representatives, including the Ark Academy Head, Dame Delia Smith OBE, and IEB members fronted a ‘consultation’ meeting for Copland staff last Thursday, no one was expecting them to get a warm reception. And that’s exactly what they didn’t get. Still, as almost all the staff had only ever seen one member of the IEB before, it was, if nothing else,  a chance for them to get a glimpse of this year’s latest  new bosses. Or, as one ‘deleted’ teacher put it: ‘it’s always nice to be able to put a face to your redundancy notice’.

Sir Alan Davies gets 18 month suspended sentence for false accounting

Former headteacher Sir Alan Davies of Copland Community School, Wembley received 12 month sentence suspended for two years today on 6 charges of false accounting.

Full story on Kilburn Times website HERE

The ATL and NUT in Brent have issued the following statement:

Today in Southwark Crown Court Sir Alan Davies, who yesterday pleaded guilty, although at
the very last minute, to six counts of false accounting, was sentenced to one year's
imprisonment suspended for two years. In passing sentence the Judge said that he showed
‘dishonesty with criminal intent’ and that his conduct was ‘disgraceful’. She made it clear that,
had he not pleaded guilty, his conduct would have resulted in an immediate custodial sentence.

The judge was also minded to make a compensation order against Davies regarding the costs
of Brent's investigation. However, she was informed that Brent Council is considering
pursuing their costs through the civil court.

Before the trial commenced a deal was struck, involving Keir Starmer, Head of the Crown
Prosecution Service.

Hank Roberts said, “It appears that a school can set up a company, and legally pay the
headteacher hundreds of thousands of pounds out of the pupils education budget for project
management. At the moment technically legal it may be, but shouldn't a headteacher of a
secondary school paid over £100, 000 a year expend their energies on the children's education?

And shouldn't this legal loophole be closed? Sir Alan has been found guilty and sentenced and
now has a criminal record. That at least is some justice.”

Lesley Gouldbourne said, “What action is going to be taken to get back the money lost from
the kid's education? What action is going to be taken to remove his knighthood? ” 

Sir Alan Davies pleads guilty to six charges of false accounting but conspiracy to defraud charges dropped

Sir Alan outside Copland with David Cameron

Sir Alan Davies, the former headteacher of Copland Community School in Wembley, on trial at Southwark Crown Court today, pleaded guilty to six out of the eight charges against him.

He was on trial with others for allegedly misappropriating school funds from the school to a total of £2.7 million. The six charges were for false accounting.

He had originally pleaded not guilty. Observers suggest a plea bargain  might have been struck whereby the charges of conspiracy and money laundering were dropped for him to plead guilty to the lesser charges.

Hank Roberts, the original whistleblower, said:

He has admitted to six charges of false accounting after years of claiming his innocence. Why has it taken four years to bring this to trial? It's a school not a multinational. He wasted thousands and thousands of pounds of tax payers money by maintaining this façade of innocence causing a lengthy and expensive Brent Council and 'Fraud Squad' investigation”.

I was justified in my whistleblowing. Scrutiny and oversight of school finances has seriously been tightened up in Brent and to some extent around the country. The growth of academies and free schools, however, is only making the problem of adequate oversight worse.

Lesley Gouldbourne, Joint Brent Teachers Association Secretary, said:

It has taken four long years but at last the truth has come out. Now he should pay back Brent the cost of the investigation and lose his knighthood.

In its coverage of the story the Kilburn Times LINK states:

William Clegg QC, defending, said it was agreed with the prosecution ‘that all monies paid to Sir Alan were honestly paid to him and honestly received by him'.

Sir Alan will be sentenced tomorrow on the six false accounting charges to which he pleaded guilty.

Copland Community School recently failed its Ofsted inspection and an Interim Executive Board was appointed to replace the governing body. There have been two teachers' strikes over moves to force the school to become an academy.

Summer Blues for Copland staff and students

Copland Community School's summer term ended on a rather depressing note yesterday despite the news that the school may get money for a rebuild. We are no longer surprised when money suddenly becomes available when a school converts to academy status- all part of Michael Gove's agenda of carrot and stick (bribery and bullying).

A whistle blower commenting on the rebuild money on the Kilburn Times website:

Excellent news for students, parents and staff that a new school is to be built. However, builders can only build a school in the bricks and mortar sense. Anyone present at the final staff assembly today, when up to 60 staff left, would be aware that the pair of wrecking balls who have just taken over management of Copland will have to develop skills of a rather less agricultural nature if they are ever to hope to build a school in the sense of a community of shared interests working in an atmosphere of trust and support towards a shared educational end. Significantly, the new head and his assistant absented themselves from today's goodbyes.

Earlier I had been sent a message that put Cllr Michael Pavey's report of a 'refreshing and uplifting meeting with parents at Copland tonight. They want change for their kids: better teaching and better results' into context. 

Of course any group of parents would want the latter, and why not. As the message said:

Must be new regime fans then because everyone else wants worse teaching and increasingly terrible results, of course. Obviously everyone wants the same thing: the question is whether alienating the entire staff indiscriminately, acting on the tittle-tattle and prejudices of the  outgoing failed management, shedding 40 odd teachers and not replacing them, etc etc is the way to achieve this. Reality is, eg, Art was being dropped completely and leaving staff not replaced. When it was pointed out by staff that Art  got good results the decision was changed and they said they'd recruit new staff. Job was advertised, only one candidate turned up, completely unsuitable, post is unfilled. Shambles. Many similar examples. Good staff are being driven out. Most so demoralised that any alternative is preferable to coming back in September.

Michael Wilshaw, head of Ofsted said: 'If I hear staff morale is bad, I know I'm doing something right.' These over-literal clones/clowns seem to have taken this to mean:  'Complete demoralisation of staff is an absolute prerequisite of doing anything right.' It's obviously an attractive notion as achieving demoralisation of staff is a lot easier than achieving any positive good.

The source said that the meeting with parents was badly organised and union members leafleting the meeting had to show parents in and guide them through the security system. Teachers were not represented and a stand-in for one of the most active and vocal parents, who was on holiday,  was not allowed to speak as she was a teacher and 'this would not be appropriate'.

On the rebuild my informant commented:

There are Harlesden residents who are now grandmothers who were promised a new school by Sir Alan Davies when they were in Year 7. I suspect a Good News smokescreen: Lions, Ashes, Tour de France, Royal Sprog, Copland Rebuild.

More to the point was that I heard today of another young Head of Department who has decided to leave.

 It clearly won't be a relaxing holiday for many Copland staff and students.