‘Highly questionable’: Mossbourne Federation spent £400,000 of public money on legal fees amid safeguarding probe
Mossbourne Federation’s CEO, Peter Hughes. Photograph: Mossbourne Federation
A Hackney academy trust spent £400,000 of public money on legal costs in response to a safeguarding review that eventually backed up pupils’ claims of a ‘punishment no matter what’ regime.
The staggering sum shelled out by Mossbourne Federation was revealed recently by investigative news site Education Uncovered.
A Freedom of Information (FoI) request showed that the trust spent the equivalent of nearly £500 for every pupil at its Victoria Park academy – the subject of Sir Alan Wood’s scathing review – on its own barrister-led inquiry and on solicitors to handle questions about the school’s practices.
Jim Gamble, who oversaw the investigation as Hackney’s independent safeguarding children and young people’s commissioner, described the £400,000 outlay as “highly questionable”.
Mossbourne Federation also accidentally released its internal deliberations about the FoI request, according to Education Uncovered.
In emails discussing whether to not to provide the total amount spent on legal fees, a senior figure at the trust conceded: “If we have to comply (and I agree, we probably do), then we have to.”
The Federation’s response to the FoI request stated: “The total cost to the Mossbourne Federation of the Independent Review and report written by Anne Whyte KC was £191,267.
“Information on the number of days worked by Ms Whyte and any other contributors to the report, and the cost per day, is not information Mossbourne Federation holds.
“Other expenditure on legal services in respect of the safeguarding review on Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy totals £209,220.”
That means that the total spent by the trust on legal fees prompted by the safeguarding review was £400,487.
The FoI submission was prompted by a line in Sir Wood’s report that raised concerns about the trust’s use of a then-unspecified amount of public money on legal fees.
Sir Alan Wood. Photograph: supplied
Sir Alan’s safeguarding review substantiated complaints about the school’s behaviour practices, including shouting and public humiliation that created a “climate of fear”.
He also took a swipe at the Mossbourne leadership’s reluctance to engage with the investigation, leaving any interactions to be handled by solicitors.
The Federation, meanwhile, launched a review into its own complaints and safeguarding processes, led by barrister and part-time judge, Anne Whyte KC.
White concluded that the trust’s procedures were “generally fit for purpose” but expressed a number of concerns.
Commenting on Mossbourne’s decision to commission its own review, Sir Alan said in his report: “Four working days after the [safeguarding review] was instigated, the Federation Board confirmed the Federation’s intention to instruct a King’s Counsel to undertake a ‘parallel internal review’, a step reportedly taken on the advice of the Department for Education (DfE) …
“In July 2025, the independent safeguarding children commissioner [Jim Gamble] criticised the decision for this review, communicating the following via the Federation’s solicitors: ‘Furthermore, while the appropriate use of public funds is an issue for the Federation, it was highly unusual (and in my view unnecessary) for the Federation to engage a legal firm to act as its single point of contact for the review.
“Moreover, despite me articulating my concerns about the King’s Counsel (KC)-led internal review and the potential for it duplicating the work of the statutory review, this was nonetheless commissioned by the Federation.”
The City and Hackney independent safeguarding children commissioner, Jim Gamble
Gamble told Education Uncovered that he had raised concerns directly with the DfE about Mossbourne Federation’s legal spending.
The DfE oversees academies in the same way that the Charity Commission does charities, and Gamble believed that such a contentious expenditure of public money needed to have been signed off.
On the amount of money spent, Gamble said: “I’m not going to say I’m surprised by scale of these fees. Having been around for a long time, I know that having a [solicitors’] firm of the calibre that was used does not come cheap, and employing the services of someone with the skillset of an eminent KC would have a significant cost.
“So I’m not surprised, but I will say that I’m disappointed that [the federation] should have gone down a route that was absolutely unnecessary.”
He again criticised Mossbourne for approaching Sir Alan’s review in an “adversarial” way by involving lawyers.
He added: “Given the pressures we see on school funding, and with teachers being under so much pressure, was using this money in this way a good use of public funds? I think it’s highly questionable.”
The revelations come just a couple of weeks after the Citizen reported that a firm set up by the Mossbourne Federation CEO acquired the rights to a piece of software from one of the trust’s own charities and turned it into a money-spinner.