Information regarding a Board Meeting
Dear Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust,
I would be grateful if you could send me the following information regarding a Board meeting of the Trust.
It was reported in the press, and, it seems, confirmed by the Trust in public statements including a letter to parents, that Andry Efthymiou was removed as Chair of the Trust in December 2014 or thereabouts.
Please confirm:-
That Ms Efthymiou was removed by the Board, the date, time and location at which the Board meeting at which she was removed took place, the number of days notice given of the meeting, and whether the notice contained the information that her removal would be part of the business of that meeting, who the members of the Board were at the time of that meeting and which members of the Board were in actual attendance at the meeting. Please disclose any declarations of interest made by Board members in connection with that meeting, that is, any, at that time, current on going declarations and any declarations together with any declarations made at that meeting. Please also confirm whether the decision to remove the Chair was, as reported by the press, unanimous.
Please also identify the clerk to the Board at the time of the meeting, and identify who took the minutes if that a separate person from the clerk.
(All this information should be contained in the agenda and minutes of this meeting, and so either this request could be satisfied at minimal cost and time by providing me with a copy, or , the information is easy to extract.)
Yours faithfully,
David Barry
Dear Mr Barry
We are writing to acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information Act
request both dated and received by Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust on 22^nd
April 2016.
Day one of the 20 working day timescale for response commences on the next
school day following the date of receipt as per Section 10(1) of the Act.
Regulations 3(2)(a) and 3(2)(b) of The Freedom of Information (Time for
Compliance with Request) Regulations 2004 make provision to disregard from
the response timescale, any working day which is not a school day.
As with all requests, there will be an assessment of the information
sought and if we consider that any of the FOI Act exemptions apply, it may
not be released. You will be informed if this is the case.
We will of course attempt to respond as soon as practicable and within 20
working days, disregarding the forthcoming May Bank Holiday from the
timescale.
Regards
Neil Murphy
Governance Manager
Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust
[1]cid:image001.png@01CE3A93.613415D0
Email: [2][email address]
Web: [3]www.chat-edu.org.uk
References
Visible links
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.chat-edu.org.uk/
Dear Mr Barry
Freedom of Information Request (Ref: R15160007)
Further to our acknowledgement, we are writing in response to your Freedom
of Information request received by Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust on 22^nd
April 2016.
You are seeking information with regard to a meeting of the Board of
Trustees in relation to the removal of Andry Efthymiou from the Board. We
can confirm that we hold this information however our response acts in
part, as a refusal notice as per Section 17(1) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.
With regard to a significant amount of the information you are seeking, we
consider that the absolute exemption under Section 21 applies.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Section 21; Information accessible to applicant by other means │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant │
│if it is information which the public authority or any other person is │
│obliged by or under any enactment to communicate to members of the │
│public on request, whether free of charge or on payment. │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The majority of the information you are seeking is already accessible in
the public domain and available in the Department for Education
investigation report available on the gov.uk website. Please see the
following web link
[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
Whilst the minutes and content of an extraordinary board meeting are
neither intended nor is there a requirement for publication, in order to
be as helpful as possible and to further clarify the information already
in the public domain, we can confirm that an extraordinary Board meeting
with ‘Resolution to remove the Chair’ as an agenda item was requested on
2^nd December, agreed on 9^th December and held on 16^th December 2014 at
10.00 in the Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust Conference Room.
Mr Marino Charalambous, Dr Donald Graham, Ms Bernadette Lappage, Professor
Anthony O’Hear and Ms Ann Zinkin were the Board members in attendance
further to the Education Funding Agency’s request that those who did
attend were fully independent members of the Board of Trustees.
Representatives from the Education Funding Agency were also present. There
was no business or other interests pertinent to that meeting which could
be considered a conflict.
The Board were provided with and considered a statement from Ms Efthymiou
in the meeting in which it was unanimously agreed that she would no longer
be involved with Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust or any of the CHAT schools.
The company secretary took the minutes.
We trust our response is useful to you
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your Request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of this response and
should be addressed to Donald Graham, Chair of Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust
Board c/o Cuckoo Hall Academy, Cuckoo Hall Lane, Edmonton, London N9 8DR
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF. Telephone 0303 123 1113 [2]www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely
Neil Murphy
Governance Manager
Cuckoo Hall Academies Trust
[3]cid:image001.png@01CE3A93.613415D0
Email: [4][email address]
Web: [5]www.chat-edu.org.uk
References
Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
2. http://www.ico.org.uk/
4. mailto:[email address]
5. http://www.chat-edu.org.uk/
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