Declarations of interest - Robert Pritchard Trustee

Dear Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy, Cowes,

I would like to make a Freedom of Interest Request (FOIR) to obtain clarification of the declarations of interest for Robert Pritchard, a governor of Cowes Enterprise College.

The current declarations of interests on the Cowes Enterprise Website state that Robert Pritchard, a community governor, is also a Trustee of 'a small MAT in Leeds' from 1st September 2023 to ongoing.

FOIR - Please could the Cowes Enterprise College provide further details by providing the name of the small MAT in Leeds that Robert Pritchard is a Trustee for.

Thank you for your time to to process this FOIR and if you require any further information or clarifications please do not hesitate to ask.

Yours faithfully,

Gary

Dear OAT - Data Protection Officer,

Thank you for your request for clarification of my request and I can confirm my real name is Gary Symonds.

I believe the Academy Trust Handbook 2023 does require for each trustee and local governor serving at any point over the past 12 months, their full names, date of appointment, term of office, date they stepped
down (where applicable), who appointed them, and relevant business and financial interests, including governance roles in other educational institutions so although the entry for Robert Pritchard does declare being a Trustee of a small MAT in Leeds it doesn't fully disclose the name of the MAT, which would be relevant.

I am mindful Robert Pritchard served as a National Director for the Ormiston Academies Trust until the end of 2023 when they retired and was retained as a consultant for a period of time, I'm unaware if that arrangement continues but I believe it is important to ensure all declarations of interest for all governors is accurately maintained in a reasonably up to date record in order to avoid possible conflicts of interest.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Symonds

Dear Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy, Cowes,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy, Cowes's handling of my FOI request 'Declarations of interest - Robert Pritchard Trustee'.

Thank you for your reply to my FOIR made on the 10th June 2024.

I would like to submit a Request for Internal Review of the Ormiston Academy Trust's refusal to process my FOIR.

To recap a brief history of my request as follows:

10-06-24 - FOIR submitted to Cowes Enterprise College (CEC) an Ormiston Academies Trust College.
11-06-24 - Request for clarifications of the FOIR from Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT).
12-06-24 - Clarifications submitted to the OAT.
14-06-24 - Response from the OAT issuing a refusal notice.

My original request consisted of a short FOIR as follows:

'Please could the Cowes Enterprise College provide further details by providing the name of the small MAT in Leeds that Robert Pritchard is a Trustee for.'

The background to the request is that the governors Declarations of Interest for Robert Pritchard seem to be ambiguous. I have included the link to to the online declaration as follows:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406170427...

For clarity I repeat the declaration for Robert Pritchard here:

Member: Robert Pritchard (community)
Confirmed: 02-11-23
Entity: AMAT
Nature: Trustee
Notes: Trustee of a small MAT in Leeds
From: 01-09-23
To: - (ongoing)

In my clarification of the 12-06-24 I pointed out that the Academy Trust Handbook, a statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State for Education states as follows:

Clarification - "I believe the Academy Trust Handbook 2023 (ATH) does require for each trustee and local governor serving at any point over the past 12 months, their full names, date of appointment, term of office, date they stepped down (where applicable), who appointed them, and relevant business and financial interests, including governance roles in other educational institutions so although the entry for Robert Pritchard does declare being a Trustee of a small MAT in Leeds it doesn't fully disclose the name of the MAT, which would be relevant."

Compliance with the ATH is a mandatory requirement of the OAT funding agreement with the Secretary of state.

The abbreviation/acronym of the Entity 'AMAT' seems ambiguous as it does not fully identify the Entity that Robert Pritchard is a Trustee of. Since submitting my FOIR I have been guided to view the pages of the 'Accomplish Multi Academy Trust' (similar abbreviation/acronym in their web presence) which is based in or near Leeds and is a small MAT. However there is no mention of Robert Pritchard registered on their 'Trustees & Members' register. This can be confirmed at the following link:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406140341...

This could be an oversight of the AMAT or verification that the entry for Robert Pritchard in the CEC Declarations of Interest for governors is ambiguous and clarification would be beneficial, hence I believe to satisfy the requirements of the Secretary of State's statutory requirements should be expanded to ensure clarity of the identity of the AMAT quoted.

The OAT has refused my request quoting Section 14(1) of the FOIA. The OAT then goes on to state their reasons.

As part of my Request for Internal Review I would like to submit my reasons why I believe the FOIR is valid and in the public interest, referring to the OAT's reasons for refusal.

(1) Burden - the OAT state that the request imposes a burden on the Trust to respond to. However given that the Secretary of State issues statutory guidance that the full names, date of appointment, etc as in the clarification mentioned above - and that the Secretary of State requires this information to be published online on the web sites of Academy Trusts the full information should have been freely available to the public anyway without the need to submit an FOIR to obtain the full description of the AMAT entity and declarations of all other interests that may be relevant.

(2) Motive - the OAT questions the motive of the FOIR. My response is that the motive of the FOIR is to obtain clarification of the entity Robert Pritchard is recorded as being a Trustee of as well as all other possible declarations of interest that are relevant. This would assist the OAT in ensuring records are clear and un-ambiguous and comply with the statutory requirements of the Secretary of State for Education.

(3) Value or serious purpose - the OAT questions the value or serious purpose of the FOIR. My response is that the value or serious purpose is to ensure all governors and academy trusts comply with the statutory guidance of the ATH and clearly and un-ambiguously publishes all the interests of governors so as to comply with their funding agreements with the Secretary of State for Education.

Within my clarification I also mentioned that Robert Pritchard, previously employed as a National Director of the Ormiston Academies Trust, retired at the end of 2023 and was retained as a consultant for a period of time, although I was unaware it that arrangement continued as the time of the request.

The announcement by the OAT of the above is at the following link:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406170457...

Therefor I believe in order to fully comply with the ATH, the register of declarations should include the above, with any dates they stepped down as the CEC register is is created by Sunita Yardley-Patel (OAT Company Secretary & Head of Governance) and appears to be dated 14th June 2024 in the filename.

In further detail of why I consider the FOIR to be in the public interest I refer to further OAT policies as follows:

It is a requirement of the OAT's funding agreement to comply with the ATH which states a Register of interest document is made available to the public on their websites. The OAT has a number of policies that appear to acknowledge that requirement as follows:

Sunita Yardley-Patel, Head of Governance & Company Secretary for the OAT, is the author of the Ormiston Academies Trust Scheme of Delegation, a mandatory policy dated December 2023. A copy of the document is at the following link:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406121912...

Within the document it is stated that the OAT will comply with their funding agreement as follows (section numbers quoted):

5.7.21. Be transparent with governance arrangements
5.7.22. Publish the trust’s governance arrangements in its governance statement and in a readily accessible
form on its website
5.7.23. Ensure governance documents are available for public inspection

10.7. The main tasks and responsibilities of the local governing body are detailed in the Decision-Making Framework and the LGB Terms of Reference.

For clarification of Section 10.7 a copy of the the LGB Terms of Reference quoted are at the following link:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406170516...

It can be seen relevant Sections state as follows:

7.3. Any governor who has any duty or personal interest (including but not limited to any personal financial
interest) which conflicts or may conflict with their duties as a governor shall disclose that fact to the
governors as soon as they become aware of it. A governor must absent themself from any discussions
of the governors in which it is possible that a conflict will arise between their duty to act solely in the
interests of the academy and any duty or personal interest (including but not limited to any personal
financial interest).

7.4. Interests should be declared on the governor forms pack at least annually at the first meeting of the
academic year. The clerk should be notified of any change to this declaration throughout the year.

7.5. Those serving on local governing bodies are accountable to the Trust Board and must ensure that at
all times they act in good faith and in the best interests of the academies and the Trust. Members of
the local governing body must comply with the Trust’s Business and Pecuniary Interest policy.

The LGB Terms of reference policy is also authored by Sunita Yardley-Patel and is dated September 2022.

The Terms of Reference also refer to a Business and Pecuniary Interest Policy, a copy which is available at the following link:

https://web.archive.org/web/202406170634...

This policy is also a mandatory policy authored by Sarah Vout, Head of Finance and the relevant sections are as follows:

4.20. It is the responsibility of the principal to ensure that the local governing body, academy senior
leadership team and all budget holders have completed the annual declaration. It is the
responsibility of the Company Secretary to ensure that the board of trustees, head office senior
leadership team and budget holders have completed the annual declaration. All new appointees
to relevant roles must complete a declaration of interests on the date of appointment.
Declarations must be updated annually thereafter each September.

4.21. It is the responsibility of the individual governor or staff member to ensure the information given
on the Register of Business and Pecuniary Interests (template available; appendix 1, interests
form, appendix 2 (staff), appendix 3 (governors)) is up-to-date and accurate.

4.22. The Principal/Company Secretary will ensure that the governor/trustee Register of Business
and Pecuniary Interests for the academy/trust is published on the academy/trust website.

5.3. Individual members of the board of trustees, and of local governing bodies, who fail to identify
and declare any conflicts of interest, will also fail to comply with their personal legal responsibility
to avoid conflicts of interest and act only in the best interests of the school and its pupils.

7.1. Each declaration of business and pecuniary interests will be recorded on the academy’s Register
of Pecuniary Interests.
7.2. This form will allow all governors and any relevant employees to identify any business,
commercial or financial interests they have which might give rise to potential conflicts of interest.
7.3. Details of each interest will be recorded on the register, including the following:
▪ The name of the business
▪ The nature of the business
▪ The nature of the interest
▪ The date the interest began

7.11. The Register of Business and Pecuniary Interests will be published publicly on the
academy/trust website; however, the business interests of staff members may be omitted from
the published copy, unless they are also a governor or relevant staff member.

7.14. The board of trustees is responsible for keeping their register of interests up-to-date through
regular review

12.1. Any member of the board of trustees or local governing body who fails to reveal information to
enable the governing board to fulfil its responsibilities may be in breach of the Code of Conduct
and, as a result, be bringing the trust into disrepute.

12.2. The board of trustees or local governing body will consider suspending a governor if they fail to
declare information which brings the trust’s reputation into question.

Within a previous FOIR to the OAT via WDTK the response to a request acknowledges that the OAT uses a service called Governor Hub. This service provides assistance to Academy Trusts to comply with governance requirements. Within the response the OAT acknowledges as follows:

The current Board portal is called GovernorHub and it is
designed specifically for the education sector (other portals are for
corporate or other public sectors) therefore the functionality is
straightforward and focussed given that governors are volunteers.

Followed by a complete transition to using the GovernorHub would be completed by 2023.

A link to the WDTK FOIR is as follows:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

A link to the GovernorHub service is as follows:

https://governorhub.com/

Public Interest:

It appears to me that full declarations of interests of governors and their publication online is a legal requirement. In view I believe if the declarations for Robert Pritchard are incomplete or ambiguous it would be reasonable to submit an FOIR to obtain clarifications and a comprehensive list of all declarations of interest for the benefit of the public in general.

The OAT have refused to confirm or deny the existence of the information request. If the OAT continue that refusal I believe it is in the public interest to request the involvement of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) so their decision notice can reflect that the full information should be declared by all governors and published online or not.

If the decision notice reflects that they they do hold the information and that it should be published for the benefit of public accountability then they may consider that the OAT are preventing public access to information they are entitled too and may be a concern for the Secretary of State for Education who requires it to be published.

If the decision notice reflects that the OAT does not hold the information requested it may reflect that the requirements of governors to declare all interests to the register has not been met and any other interests that are not published have not been entered into GovernorHub and I believe that may also be a concern for the Secretary of State for Education and the OAT

Finally, for future responses to this FOIR I would like to request the OAT, if attaching documents to responses to do so in either Portable Document Format (PDF) or Open Document Format (ODF). This is because the refusal notice document is a MicroSoft Word Template document requiring Windows OS and MicroSoft Word licencing to open. I do not hold the required MicroSoft licences and possibly many members of the public do not as well so it would be appreciated if any documents presented can be viewed universally regardless of OS or document viewer software.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/d...

Yours faithfully,

Gary Symonds