A school educating Birmingham‘s expelled children was paid nearly twice the fee per pupil as a nearby top public school – despite an official report concluding the council did not know if children were taught anything in unsupervised ‘home study’.
Independent school Flexible Learning (FL) was paid more than £4.5million in three years by Birmingham City Council despite having no written contract, according to an internal audit marked ‘official – sensitive’, which was leaked to MailOnline.
The report said an arrangement had been made where permanently excluded pupils were automatically placed at the school based on a small site in Hockley, central Birmingham if no places were available at the City of Birmingham School (COBS).
Auditors at the now-bankrupt Labour-run council also said there was a ‘safeguarding risk’ for the approximately 50 children attending the school as the council was not keeping track of them as well as they should have.
The cost to the city council averages to £30,000 per pupil per year, nearly twice the cost of one of Birmingham‘s most expensive public schools, King Edward’s School, which has fees of around £17,000 a year.
Independent school Flexible Learning (pictured) was paid more than £4.5million in three years with no written contract, according to a Birmingham City Council audit marked ‘official – sensitive’, which was leaked to MailOnline
This graph shows Birmingham Council paid Flexible Learning £30,000 per pupil per year – compared to public schools in the city who have fees nearly half as high and the UK average public school fees and average state school spending
FL charge the city council £30,000 per pupil per year, which is nearly twice the cost of one of Birmingham’s most expensive public schools, King Edward’s School (pictured), which has fees of around £17,000 a year
The amount charged by Flexible Learning is around three fifths that of Eton College, one of Britain’s most expensive boarding schools, which has fees of around £50,000 per year.
A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the average spend on British pupils in state schools was around £8,000 per year – and fees in the UK’s public schools are around £15,200 per year on average.
Flexible Learning School, run by head Shamim Akhtar, saw its bank balance rise from less than £26,000 in 2018, to more than £760,000 by 2021, according to Companies House records.
Birmingham City Council launched an audit after the school wrote during the 2020/21 complaining that more than £1million worth of invoices were unpaid. These were later paid after they had been checked.
The school charged ‘questionable’ rates of £25 an hour for unsupervised ‘home study’, the report claims, adding that the council had ‘no records of agreed prices’.
It also said that the council was ‘vulnerable to error’ as the invoice checking process had ‘limitations’ as the authority maintained ‘no records’ of placements, apart from a few held before December 2019.
Council officers, who had since left, had established an automatic system provide places at Flexible Learning when a pupil appeared on a City of Birmingham School waiting list, the report said.
It added that no one in the council was overseeing the commissioning of individual placements and that Flexible Learning ‘decided on required provision in conjunction with the pupils’ parents, as BCC had not established a process for consultation or agreement’.
The council was not ‘adequately’ fulfilling its legal duty as commissioner as is required under guidance from the Department for Education.
Only two pupils were still attending the school by the time of the report as arrangements had been made to move around 50 pupils out of FL to COBS in September 2021.
Pupils received differing total hours of education, a significant proportion of which were claimed to be ‘unsupervised “home study” ‘, the report said.
Auditors recommended the council ‘establish the legitimacy or otherwise’ of the claims on invoices issued by the school for unsupervised ‘home studies’.
Flexible Learning School (pictured), run by head Shamim Akhtar, saw its bank balance rise from less than £26,000 in 2018, to more than £760,000 by 2021, according to Companies House records
The report also says that a May 2021 invoice record from FL, showed that pupils received 20 hours a week of education (a significant proportion of which was ‘home study’) – less than the DfE’s recommendation of 21 to 25 hours per week.
The school charged £75 per hour for a group of three pupils and £25 per hour for online tuition and home study, according to the report.
The report said that no one in the service area could explain exactly what was provided for these teaching arrangements. Auditors were ‘particularly concerned’ about home study and questioned whether it was good value for money if there was no tuition or supervision of pupils.
A source told MailOnline that a process of reconciliation was started to ascertain if pupils were being taught during ‘home study’ but due to a lack of data most invoices ended up being paid.
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘The Exclusions Team no longer commissions any places with the Flexible Learning Group.
‘It concluded a settlement agreement with Flexible Learning in resolution of a dispute which had arisen between the parties.’
MailOnline has contacted Flexible Learning School for comment.
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