Ian Comfort

^[1]Career history

Ian Comfort began his career as a Maths teacher and youth worker. He progressed to become Director of Community Education for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and then Chief Education Officer for the City of London, where he became actively involved in the Government's Academy programme. He moved from the City in 2006 to become the Chief Operating Officer for Ark Schools ^[2] a high performing academy trust. in 2008, he was appointed as the first Chief Executive of the newly formed Edutrust,^[3] a Multi-academy Trust chaired by Lord Amir Bhatia,which was renamed as E-ACT in 2010.^[4] Ian Comfort left Edutrust under controversial circumstances. His contract was ended amidst claims that he was being victimised for being a whistleblower. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, following a significant period of being at home on full salary.^[5] In March 2009, soon after Ian Comfort left Edutrust, David Bell, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Children, Schools and Families wrote to the Secretary of State advising of the outcome of an investigation that identified financial irregularities and Governance concerns at Edutrust^[6] . That letter stated that Lord Bhatia had been asked to resign as chairman of Edutrust. The letter also identified financial irregularities involving payments to the Ethnic Minority Foundation (EMF), an organisation chaired by Lord Bhatia^[7]. In 2013, the BBC reported that Lord Bhatia was accused of misappropriating funds from EMF^[8]. Lord Bhatia was also suspended from the House of Lords in 2010 and 2013 for wrongly claimed expenses^[9]

In 2012, Ian Comfort became the Group Secretary and General Counsel^[10] of Academies Enterprise Trust, which at that time was the largest Multi-Academy Trust in England.^[11] Following the retirement of David Triggs, the previous CEO in Sept 2013,^[12] Ian was promoted to Group Chief Executive for Academies Enterprise Trust, London Academies Enterprise Trust^[13] which is a subsidiary trust within the AET family, containing 4 secondary schools and Unity City Academy Trust.

During his career with AET Ian Comfort led the organisation through a period of controversies. In 2014 there was an OFSTED inspection which accused the Academy chain of having low expectations and failing its pupils.^[14] Ian Comfort robustly denied those findings and AET "criticised inspectors' findings as "unfairly negative" and (said) that "turning a school around takes time"".^[15] However, when OFSTED returned to reinspect the chain, this led to a further report criticising AET in February 2016, for "mediocre performance" and for still "failing too many of its pupils."^[16] This "damning indictment" and "sharp rebuke" as the national press referred to it,^[17] was once again rejected by AET as "unfair". Ian Comfort disagreed and explicitly rejected OFSTED's views and stating that "We have been a strong advocate of the policy to allow Ofsted to inspect multi-academy trusts, but are disappointed that the significant achievements of the trust and our schools have not been sufficiently recognised in the letter published this morning."^[17]

His claims that OFSTED appeared to be unfairly negative towards AET appear to be validated in an independent report published by the Education Policy Institute in July 2015^[18]. That report showed that for the period 2013- 2015 AET had performed well in primary education and was actually in the top 10% of academy trusts and local authorities nationally being 17= out of 218 trusts and authorities and outperforming organisations such as ARK. Performance at secondary education was not as good but could not be seen to be as poor as reported by Ofsted. AET was positioned at 111 out of 174 trusts and local authorities outperforming trusts such as the Cabot Learning Federation, who's CEO, Sir David Carter was appointed as National Schools Commissioner and Ormiston Academies Trust, neither of which had been subject too similar criticism by Ofsted.

Under Ian Comfort's leadership AET also was involved in controversy about why the academy chain shrank in size. In September 2014 Ian Comfort announced a downsizing of the Academy chain, which saw it reduce from 77 Academies to 68.^[19] It has been claimed in the press that it was because the academy chain had expanded too fast and Christine Blower the head of the NUT stated “It is obvious that AET’s rate and scale of expansion was unsustainable and that it is unable to adequately support its schools."^[17] However AET denied that it had been 'banned' from expanding and insisted that it had instead chosen to "pause and consolidate".

In the summer of 2014 Ian Comfort led a proposal for a Joint Venture with PWC, which would have led to the largest outsourcing of school services within England. Following a letter of concerns on 10 Jun 2014, from 8 main teaching unions, the proposal was dropped.^[20]

In 2015 Ian Comfort also directly contradicted the Government (DfE's) claim that Academy status creates extra freedoms for headteachers, by claiming that headteachers of Academies had significantly less freedom than headteachers of non-academies.^[21] His claims were later supported William Stewart, News Editor of the TES, ^[22] and Warwick Mansell, writing for the Cambridge Primary Review Trust^[23]

By March 2016 Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of OFSTED, was criticising excessive salaries for CEO's of Academy chains as a "poor use of public money" referring to Ian Comfort's salary by stating that "Given these worrying findings about the performance of disadvantaged pupils and the lack of leadership capacity and strategic oversight by trustees, salary levels for the chief executives of some of these MATs do not appear to be commensurate with the level of performance of their trusts or constituent academies, with one chief executive's salary reaching £225,000."^[24] Dia Chakravarty, from the TaxPayers' Alliance stated "Taxpayers don't begrudge just rewards for good results but far too often taxpayer-funded salaries are handed out to fat cats irrespective of performance. Parents will want to keep a very close eye to make sure that it really is good value for money."^[25] Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: ‘It is becoming increasingly difficult for some academies to justify paying their chief executives and heads such high salaries.^[26]

In June 2015 Ian Comfort was reported as earning £220,000 per annum,^[27] which was the second highest pay of CEOs in England leading Multi-Academy Trusts^[27] In 2017, Schools Week reported that his salary had risen to £236,000^[28]. However, that report also noted that he was responsible for the largest trust in England with over 36,000 pupils, that he was responsible for considerably more good or better schools than any other academy trust (45) and was receiving the lowest pay per good or better school of any academy CEO^[29] By comparison the CEO of the Harris Federation was reported as earning £420,000 for a smaller trust with 29 good or better schools.

Ian Comfort left AET in the Spring Term of 2017^[30]. Over three years during his tenure as Group Chief Executive, the percentage of good or outstanding academies in the trust increased from less than 26% to 68%. In primary schools, the number of good or outstanding academies in the trust increased from 22% to 84%, with over 8000 more children receiving a good education^[31]. He receive significant praise for his work from many headteachers: "He has been a superb leader for the trust and has used his educational knowledge to move us forward - the results speak for themselves. He has been a fantastic role model for me and I'd like to thank him for all of his hard work for the staff, parents and children in the trust" John Szynal, Executive Principal, Maltings Academy, Essex; "Ian is well known and well respected amongst the staff in our schools and his departure is a loss to AET. He has brought tremendous balance to our work and, with a single focus on high standards and positive outcomes for the pupils we serve, has enabled schools and leaders to challenge themselves and others with innovative and creative approaches to learning and school improvement." David Worrall, Executive Principal, Trinity Primary Academy, Noel Park Primary Academy, London; "In 2003 the Headteacher author of 'When Reservoirs Run Dry' spoke of leaders in education as 'Striders, Strollers or Stumblers.' Ian has been the AET's Giant Strider!" Jon Gillard, Principal, Aylward Academy, London;"Ian Comfort has been a champion for all the learners in all AET academies. He has worked tirelessly to ensure every child has a place in a good school. His passion and support will be missed." Kate Holland, Principal, Charles Warren Academy, Milton Keynes.^[32]

In 2017, Ian Comfort was appointed as chair of Sutton Education Services, a company set up by the London Borough of Sutton to manage its education service. The company changed its name to Cognus later in 2017^[33].

References