Ian Comfort

Ian Comfort is a British educator and lawyer. He 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 [1] a newly-created academy trust. In 2008, he was appointed as the first Chief Executive of the newly formed Edutrust, a Multi-academy Trust chaired by Lord Amir Bhatia, which was renamed as E-ACT in 2010.

In 2012, Ian Comfort became the Group Secretary and General Counsel of Academies Enterprise Trust, which at that time was the largest Multi-Academy Trust in England. He took over as CEO in Sept 2013.

In June 2015 Ian Comfort was reported as earning £220,000 per annum,[2] which was the second highest pay of CEOs in England leading Multi-Academy Trusts[2] In 2017, Schools Week reported that his salary had risen to £236,000[3]. 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[4] By comparison the CEO of the Harris Federation was reported as earning £420,000 for a smaller trust with 29 good or better schools.

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.[5] His claims were later supported William Stewart, News Editor of the TES, [6] and Warwick Mansell, writing for the Cambridge Primary Review Trust[7]

In announcing his intention to step down as CEO in 2017, Schools Week reported that during his tenure as group chief executive, the percentage of good or outstanding academies in the trust has increased from less than 26 per cent to 68 per cent, In primary schools, the number of good or outstanding academies has increased from 22 per cent to 84 per cent, with over 8,000 more children now receiving a good education[8].

Research published by the Education Policy Institute in July 2016 , confirmed that the trust was in the top 10 per cent of academy trusts nationally for primary education and performing significantly above average in all areas[9].

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[10]. In 2017, Ian Comfort was appointed to the board of the Middlesex Learning Partnership, a multi- academy trust, and took up the role of chair in 2018[11]. In November 2018, Ian Comfort was appointed to the board of the Rodillian Academy Trust[12]. In February 2019, Ian Comfort was appointed to chair the Corporation of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College[13].