Last updated at 13:38, Wednesday, 11 May 2011

The Richard Rose Central Academy has been in the red since it opened in September 2008. This week the extent of the debt was revealed in figures from the quango that is settling it.

Richard Rose Central Academy

The Young People’s Learning Agency has already paid out £3.9 million to the academy, and the school is set to receive another £1m in order to balance its books.

The money came from a £8m pot available for academies in financial trouble.

Unlike standard state schools, which can reach agreements with local authorities, they have to stay in the black.

Only five other academies across the country asked the YPLA for money and they received just under £2m between them.

Manchester Enterprise took the most with an £846,000 handout.

Mike Gibbons, chief executive of the Richard Rose Federation, which runs the school, says the need in Carlisle was greater because of unique circumstances.

Creating an academy, merging two secondary schools or planning a move into a new building are all aims that are considered difficult enough as stand alone projects.

Those involved in setting up the central academy were trying to do all three at once.

It proved too much. Within four months of opening the school had been placed into special measures and the Richard Rose Federation hired a new management team to bring matters under control.

Mr Gibbons, a former head of Carlisle’s Trinity School and senior civil servant, was brought in, as was headteacher Russ Wallace, who had a pulled four schools out of special measures during his 30 year career.

It took just 20 months to show Ofsted that the central academy had been transformed.

Then the concerns about finances which were put to one side while educational issues were resolved had to be addressed.

When it comes to the specific issue of the school’s budget problems, Mr Gibbons blames salaries and associated costs for the bulk of the deficit.

St Aidan’s and North Cumbria Technology College had their debts wiped when they merged into the academy – and Cumbria County Council was left to pick up the tab.

But the academy still had two sets of staff on its payroll.

Bosses tried to reduce numbers but it just added to the turmoil which was sweeping the school.

So when Mr Gibbons took over it was decided to delay staffing cuts until the crisis was over – with the Government agreeing to cover the costs via the YPLA.

Some have said it’s a nonsense to ban academies from running at a deficit, then bail them out when they do.

And unfair to the other schools who are struggling to sort out their own debt.

Alan Rutter, secretary of Cumbria’s branch of the National Union of Teachers, shares this opinion.

And so do many of his members.

Mr Rutter was at a meeting of Cumbrian headteachers, yesterday and unsurprisingly the subject of the bail out was discussed.

He told the News & Star: “It left a very bad taste in the mouth.

“It seems an inordinately large amount of money for one school, it could have cleared the deficits of every school in Cumbria.

“I understand the problems at the academy but there are plenty of other schools that have had serious problems and they didn’t get bailed out.

“A number of headteachers at the meeting made the same point.”

The YPLA, which funds academies and educational provision for 16-18 year-olds, takes a different stance.

A spokesman said: “Many academies have opened taking over schools that were ion long term educational and financial failure and putting this legacy right will take several years.

“During that period the YPLA, on behalf of the Department for Education, works with academies to support them in their recovery.”

Mr Gibbons says he is grateful for the Government’s faith in Richard Rose, which has been repaid in the form of its growing success.

The academy’s £31m new building on Lismore Place was described as “the finest new school I have ever seen” by shadow education secretary Andy Burnham.

Attendance is up and exam results are improving.

Last summer 55 per cent of pupils got a minimum of five GCSEs at grades A* to C.

Mr Gibbons said: “The two Richard Rose academies are making substantial progress. We’re one term into one fabulous building and one term away from another at Morton. We are moving fast towards standards of achievement that match the excellence of the buildings.

“There has been rapid progress over the last two-and-a-half years. More rapid than anyone could have imagined. In February 2009, we were facing one of the most difficult educational situations in the whole country. At that stage students where crowded on an inadequate site, standards were obviously low and the Central Academy was deemed to be very deeply into special measures.

“The new leadership made three promises to the local community – to be in our new building by January 2011, to leave special measures as quickly as possible and to raise standards as quickly as possible. All these promises have been kept.

“The Richard Rose Federation is very grateful and very appreciative that the Government allowed us to postpone tackling the staff restructure until we were in our new building and out of special measures.

“Our promise to the Government was that as soon as our objectives were achieved we would tackle restructuring in order to clear an accumulated deficit, this we are now doing.”

The YPLA did place a condition on the payments to Richard Rose – that measures were taken to ensure that the debt does not build up again.

Unforeseen demands on funds aside, Mr Gibbons is satisfied that the steps being taken will lead to financial stability.

Some savings will be made thanks to the fact that the new building has been designed to be cheaper to run.

The wage bill will also be significantly reduced.

Mr Gibbon’s restructuring programme is going to lead to the loss of 70 members of staff through redundancy, early retirement and contracts not being renewed.

This is on top of the 34 jobs that went in 2009 – most were teaching posts.

At Easter it was agreed that a further 22 teachers would go at the end of the summer term.

The other 48 jobs that have been axed belonged to support staff such as technicians and teaching assistants, they will leave at the end of June.

Mr Gibbons praised the attitude of academy workers during consultation on the latest cuts and said: “I have been very impressed by the dignity and professionalism of staff throughout this entire process.”

One of the main reasons behind the academy’s disastrous early days is thought to be the speed at which it was created.

NCTC and St Aidan’s were not supposed to become one school until September 2009 but the merger was brought forward a year.

While the new school was still under construction, about 1,600 youngsters were crammed into the NCTC in Harraby.

It was only ever supposed to house 900.

The Government gave the academy an extra £2.8m when it was put in special measures.

Most was spent on works to add classrooms and make the Edgehill Road site safe.

Carlisle MP John Stevenson says that the decision to fast-track the merger was, in retrospect, probably wrong.

However he is keen to look forward and believes the Government was right to offer financial aid when it was needed.

Mr Stevenson said: “I think that the leadership of the Richard Rose Central Academy have done an excellent job in turning round what was an terrible situation.

“There has been government support and I think it’s important to have continuing government support to the point where the academy is on stable footing, then like every other academy it will have to live within its means.

“We have an opportunity in Carlisle to improve education and you can see that coming through in the results, not just from the Richard Rose academies but from other schools as well.

“We must continue to encourage this, to improve and realise the aspirations of our children for the future.”

First published at 11:27, Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk