An anonymous donor has cleared a primary school’s six-figure budget gap, leading to complaints from other school heads about unfairness and lack of transparency.
The mystery donation to Hove Learning Federation, which in October had a deficit of £670,651, was revealed at a meeting of school representatives last night.
A year ago, the federation, which West Hove Infants and Hove Junior School, were considering joining an academy chain, which would have led to the government clearing their deficit. In January, it decided to remain under the control of Brighton and Hove City Council.
At the Schools’ Forum meeting last night, council chiefs were asked if they were intending on asking for the return of the £40,000 of emergency funding the school was given as an incentive not to academise in the light of the recent donation.
Collectively, the city’s other schools are expected to be more than £8 million in the red by the end of the academic year, with 24 schools over budget.
This forecast has fallen by £750,000 since October, mostly because of this single donation.
Schools’ Forum chair Rachel Kershaw, the head of St Margaret’s CofE School in Rottingdean, said the £40,000 awarded to Hove Learning Federation was the biggest contingency grant any of the city’s schools were given this financial year.
She said: “Will we be moving to get that money back and redeploying it to schools that are in much more challenging circumstances?”
Council head of education Richard Barker said if circumstances change then there needs to be a conversation about the additional funding. He reminded the forum the council does not have any control over donations.
He said: “The council has a responsibility to ensure things are done in an appropriate manner, in a legal manner.
“All of those safeguardings around a financial transaction, those things are the responsibility of the local authority, it does not control the impact of an individual’s decisions.”
Fairlight Primary School headteacher Damien Jordan said the Education Endowment Fund states any donation above £100,000 for a state school is “extremely unusual” and more than £500,000 is “rare”.
Mr Jordan said: “If the council is saying it’s about equality and equity, knowing who it is and where it us will allow others to make a decision about, is it equitable and equal.
“We potentially have now people thinking they can give donations to offset whatever’s happened financially, historically, but also now we’re privately funding state education.
“You always have been, but my parents donating a tenner sometimes is them doing the best they can. Suddenly, a private individual giving a significant amount, does that then skew the council’s policy on how it deals with things.”
Mile Oak Primary School headteacher Luke Lording, said: “There are other schools in the city where people are struggling with redundancies and offsets to try to scrape back to that zero (no debt) line. That doesn’t feel completely fair.
“There’s no transparency, which means it’s hard for us to judge. It could be completely fair, but I feel the forum deserves some transparency around it.
“It feels uncomfortable that a person can say, ‘I’m doing this but no one can know about it’.”
In a statement, Hove Learning Federation said: “Hove Learning Federation has received a financial donation that clears our debt and significantly strengthens our financial position, for which we are extremely grateful. The donor has requested anonymity, which we respect.
“We have been fully transparent with Brighton and Hove City Council throughout, and everything has been managed correctly and openly through appropriate processes.”
October’s financial report showed the federation’s schools have a lower than city average proportion of pupils receiving free school meals and with an education health care plan (EHCP).
The report did not distinguish between the junior or infant schools, but one has 92 per cent of its places filled and the other 88 per cent. The majority of school funding is based on pupil numbers. In total, the schools have more than 1,100 pupils.
A spokesperson for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “This donation to Hove Learning Federation strengthens the schools’ financial position and supports their continued focus on delivering high-quality education for local children.
“We respect the donor’s wish to remain anonymous.”
The huge anonymous donation to Hove Learning Federation highlights the Matthew Effect in education: schools already in relatively stronger positions often attract additional resources, widening the gap between them and those in greater need. Without transparency and equitable redistribution, such acts risk reinforcing systemic inequalities rather than alleviating them.
A huge donation to Hove Primary shows the Matthew Effect: schools with advantages often attract more resources, widening gaps instead of closing them.
Whilst the council aren’t in control of donations, they are obliged to ensure various checks are in conducted. Particularly around assessing conflicts of interest or unlawful quid pro quo. I would anticipate that BHCC ensures an enhanced due diligence review is logged, and in preparation for an external audit.
The BHCC spokesperson should also make a statement that the council are satisfied that any checks, including anti-money laundering, has been met.
Benjamin, how would it be money laundering?
Anyway I was just laughing about the article and then absolute sourness from the other head teachers. Instead of being happy for one of their fellow schools, it’s straight to conspiracy and sour grapes. What Luke Lording said is hilarious, I bet he wouldn’t be calling for that if the money landed in his schools bank account.
There is a very simple explanation for this. Someone who is wealthy has seen something they feel is unjust, has put their hand in their own pocket and said charity starts at home. Good for them. Should be more of it.
Give your head a wobble mate!!!
Every school in the country would take a huge private donation in a heartbeat. Oh Private schools do daily!!!
But not all would need it to pay off such a vast debt and not all would even be considered by mystery donors. Or to add to the large amount given to them by the Local Authority as part of a mystery deal last year.
What you should be asking is why the mysterious donor didn’t give it to the most deprived school in the city if they really wanted to make a statement about “something they feel is unjust”.
What we need now is Scooby Doo and Mystery Inc to come investigate. They will probably find it was Jacob the Janitor and he would have got away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids.
Money Laundering is often conflated with Proceeds of Crime, as the checks are normally described as AML. The same checks would be carried out to ensure no “dirty” money was donated.
The donor will not be truly anonymous but probably does not wish to be in the public eye. As the article above demonstrates the green eyes of envy are never far away…
Easily Dave, money laundering is just the process of making the proceeds of crime look legitimate. High-value donations can be attractive for that because they create a clean, socially acceptable paper trail. Large payments into a public body must always undergo AML and governance checks, because that’s how public finance works.
Couldn’t agree more Dave!
The schools have already gone through redundancies, a site closure and then the potential academisation. It’s been a really tough few years.
The £40,000 from the council was given to the school to help cover the costs incurred after the closure of the Connaught site and move of the infant school to Holland Road. This wasn’t the schools choice, as far as I’m aware.
I think it’s amazing that someone has decided to help the school in this way. If any of the headteachers mentioned in the article had been gifted a donation like this, I’m sure they wouldn’t be implying there was anything untoward about it.
Ask yourself why these issues took place? The potential academisation was proposed by who? It wasn’t the Council and it wasn’t the Academy. So if every school threatens to become an academy will they get £40k and possibly a rich donor?
You should read what EdUKateOr wrote. It is where the phrase “the rich get richer” comes from.
And this donation sets a dangerous precedent for state education and for the Council in Brighton.
Will we end up with the roundabout at the Pier receiving donations from by Admiral Insurance? And therefore it would be in their interest to build it badly to cause more crashes.
What amazing news for the school and their hard working staff. It must be good news for the councils financing of schools across the city as I’m sure having the school with the largest debt cleared reduces financial risk and budget pressure on all schools. Surely if quality due diligence has been conducted it is better to have the donation than no donation? The school are quite clear there are no strings attached to the donation.
Independent diligence being okay (because the school’s word doesn’t mean anything in this instance), that is an exceptionally generous offer. I want to be clear; whomever the donor is, they should be proud of their generosity.