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Free schools charity faces probe over impartiality

1 min read Education
Labour MP Lisa Nandy is to lodge a formal complaint with the Charity Commission over concerns about the impartiality of the New Schools Network.

The charity, established last year by Rachel Wolf, former adviser to Education Secretary Michael Gove, has been given a £500,000 Department for Education (DfE) grant to advise parents and teachers on setting up free schools.

But Nandy, formerly policy adviser at The Children's Society, believes the charity is incapable of giving impartial advice, since its original aim was to increase the number of independent state schools.

"How did public money come to be given to an almost brand-new organisation run by someone who used to work for Gove?" she said.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said she also plans to complain. The New Schools Network is "hand in glove" with the Conservative Party, she said.

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