Lilac Sky Schools Academy Trust; The end to a profitable enterprise

The nine Lilac Sky Academies in Kent and East Sussex have just two three more days before the unlamented Lilac Sky Schools Academy Trust (LSSAT) closes down on Government Instruction and the schools are handed over to other Academy Trusts. The Trust Website still records the Board of Directors as those who saw the Trust to its financial ruin and were then removed, being replaced by Regional Schools Commissioners appointees six months ago.

Puffed up to the end, until just before the end of term, individual Trust Websites were self-congratulatory about their schools’ achievements with not a word about the change of Management apart from a brief notice buried away last July which reads– “Lilac Sky Schools Academy Trust has decided that in order to serve the needs of our children we should seek an alternative Trust to take over the running of some of our schools” – perhaps an odd way to describe events.

The nine academies were left to share a two million pound deficit at the end of 2014/15 (this year’s account still to come) which are reported as debts to be passed on to the successor Trusts. A fairly unwelcome Christmas present!

LSSAT probably reached its acme in November 2015, when it boasted on its website that it had won a Department for Education contract to support Regional Schools Commissioners in eight RSC Regions, including  the South East, which would probably have come in very handy as the latter included all nine LSSAT Academies except that Government never activated it (see below). 

This would have been invaluable as it was surely a major conflict of interest. In the event, it appears that government belatedly realised there was an issue and no services were requested, the Contract being terminated in November 2016 (response to FOI Request). The FOI request also reveals that‘the EFA is reviewing financial management and governance at the trust. This work is currently ongoing and we have no further comments to make at this stage’. 

However, LSSAT did better with East Sussex County Council, being awarded a Contract worth £200,000 to 'Deliver improvements in schools, colleges and settings' until August 2018. Given the poor performance of several of the East Sussex Lilac Sky Academies, it is very surprising the contract was awarded in the first place and one can only hope this arrangement is proving better value.

The downward slide started just a few months later when the Trust was ordered by the DfE to break its connection with the Lilac Sky Companies which had been providing profitable services to the academies....

You will find a full list of Lilac Sky Academies in my first article,  ‘Lilac Sky Academy Trust: The End of the Road’ written in July, and can follow the scandal through three other articles to ‘5 Live Investigates Lilac Sky’. Both of these articles contain links to other scandals involving the group, notably the Furness School closure, where the school was left with a £1.6 million deficit, with KCC initially strongly praising their work, although more recently describing their actions as ‘outrageous’.

Schoolsweek reported that the £2,000,000 deficit at the end of 2014/15 (which is unlikely to have got smaller since then) will be picked up by the new sponsors. My previous articles explain the loss as arising through the arrangement to provide services by the profit-making Lilac Sky Schools companies (now renamed Education 101 and Henrietta Le Forestiere Schools (no website yet) in an attempt to remove the toxicity of the name) which depart from this scene scot-free.

At Thistle Hill Academy, on the Isle of Sheppey, Vicky Averre-Beeson, daughter of the founder of LSSAT, who had been Principal of the academy amongst other roles, having held a number of other senior short term roles in the Trust, jumped ship as soon as the closure was announced and presumably has found another niche. The Headquarters of LSSAT moved from its original site in Chelmsford to Thistle Hill as still recorded on the Academy website, although it moved back to the Averre-Beeson farm estate some months ago. 

I understand that Stephen Capper, Principal of Knockhall Academy, one of the nine schools of LSSAT, lost his job on the last but one day of the Autumn Term, possibly asked to leave by the new owners, the Woodland Academy Trust. Mr Capper took up post from his previous position, having taken Futures Community Academy, a secondary school in Southend into Special Measures just before Lilac Sky took Knockhall over. He won’t have been the only one to go.

Contributions Welcome

Please feel free to let me know of your experiences with LSSAT as a parent, member of staff (I understand current staff contracts forbid contact with the media at pain of instant dismissal but this sanction disappears at the end of this week), or other. You can do this either by direct email (I am happy to keep your details confidential), or by using the comment form at the foot of this page. This story really should not finish without a proper epitaph.