Catholic academy trust argues in response to FOI
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WhistleblowersUK are used to seeing whistleblowers being blamed for the consequences of exposing wrongdoing but this case involving a multi-academy trust sends the governors and trustees to the bottom of the class!
Thanks to Warwick Mansell for his diligent investigation and reporting, and for giving our CEO Georgina Halford Hall the opportunity to comment.
Nicholas Postgate Catholic Multi-Academy Trust also says its board did not have sight of report of what seems a substantive investigation, while also disclosing nearly £150,000 of settlements featuring Non-Disclosure Agreements over four years.
A Catholic multi-academy trust which commissioned a mysterious inquiry featuring multiple whistleblowers will not release its full findings – because it says its board never had access to them.
Further, it will not release the cost of the investigation to the taxpayer, arguing that to do so would risk whistleblowers themselves being blamed, even though these individuals have not been named.
The result of my Freedom of Information request to the Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust (NPCAT) leaves the public in the dark about an investigation which seems significant, despite all academy trusts having to abide by the Nolan Principles of Public Life, one of which is openness.
Experts in this field have questioned both aspects of this FOI response, one arguing that it was difficult to see how trust board members could have taken their responsibilities to take whistleblowing seriously without having seen the report they commissioned.
Separately, the trust did disclose that it had spent nearly £150,000 on non-contractual payments to former employees featuring Non-Disclosure Agreements over the past four years.
The detail
NPCAT currently runs 38 schools, spread across the local authorities of Middlesbrough; Redcar and Cleveland; Stockton-on-Tees; North Yorkshire and York.
The local York Press has reported that in October 2024 the Bishop of Middlesbrough, the Rt Rev Terence Drainey, wrote to parents saying that, in the words of this local report, “as it was the responsibility of the multi academy trust board to investigate complaints, he has appointed two new members” to lead an inquiry.
The full details of the investigation’s findings, or even what aspects of the trust’s operations it covered, have not been made public.
Last May, Education Uncovered had reported on strikes at two of NPCAT schools over what had been said to have been a “lack of transparency” over schools’ budgets, with the headteacher of one of the schools, remarkably, having joined the picket line.
In June last year, the York Press reported how Hugh Hegarty, the trust’s chief executive, was to resign, with its 2024-25 accounts recording that he left the trust on July 31st last year. Eight trustees had resigned from the board during February 2025, with a further three having done so in June 2025. One of those three resignations saw the former chair, Karen Siedle, who took over from Mr Hegarty as interim chief executive, leave the board.
NPCAT’s 2024-25 accounts saw the amount paid to its top-paid person soar to one of the highest of any academy trust in England, at £320-£330,000 in salary alone. This was at least £100,000 more than Mr Hegarty had received as chief executive the previous year. The accounts did not specify if the 2024-25 payment went to Mr Hegarty, however, since he had resigned near the start of the academic year as a trustee, and, under academy trust rules, only trustees have payments disclosed against their names. Only four years previously, at £155-£160,000 Mr Hegarty’s pay as chief executive had been less than half of that paid by NPCAT to the top-paid person in 2024-25.
In its June 2025 report, the York Press also stated that Mr Hegarty had asked it to clarify that “he was not personally subject to any investigation, which we are happy to do”.
But the exact nature of this inquiry, and its conclusions, remained a mystery, other than the briefest of findings which had been passed to whistleblowers.
Brief summary given to whistleblowers
In August last year, whistleblowers were sent a letter under the heading: “Subject: Conclusion of Investigation and Future Focus”.
It stated: “We are writing to provide a final update on the independent investigation commissioned by Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust (NPCAT) in response to concerns raised.
“In June 2024, the board of directors appointed an investigation sub-committee comprising two directors. The sub-committee oversaw the independent investigation commissioned by the Trust which was led by an experienced barrister and supported by external HR and financial specialists. The committee undertook a thorough and impartial review of leadership practices within the Trust.
“We can now confirm that the investigation has concluded. Key findings included:
-No safeguarding breaches or criminal offences were identified.
-Reform was recommended in aspects of leadership, management practice, organisational culture, and operational structures…
“Under the guidance of interim CEO Karen Siedle, supported by a newly reconstituted board, we are entering a new chapter filled with hope…While we remain steadfast in our pursuit of integrity and transparency, the Trust’s focus must now shift towards sustained improvement. To enable this transition, and allow our leadership team to concentrate fully on educational delivery, no further updates will be issued regarding the investigation as it has now concluded. We are deeply grateful to those who came forward and shared information.”
The letter was signed by Ms Siedle herself, as interim chief executive, and by Mark Dias, her successor as chair of the board.
With no details, seemingly, given to the public officially even as to what the investigation had been about, I asked for details, under Freedom of Information.
The FOI
My FOI therefore quoted the part of the letter above which had referred to these “key findings”. I asked for any report which had been provided to the trust in relation to this investigation, including all findings rather than only those “key findings,” as had been provided to the whistleblowers.
I also asked for the cost to the trust of this investigation, and the number and total cost of settlement agreements featuring non-disclosure agreements for each of the four years leading up to 2024-25.
The response
Remarkably, the trust said it could not provide the investigation report, seemingly on the argument that this had not been provided to the board.
It said: “The Trust does not hold any further report within the scope of this part of your request. The only report presented to the Board was the summary findings, as per your reference.
“Other material relating to the matter was created, reviewed or retained as part of a legally advised process overseen by external legal council and the Trust’s external legal advisers. The material was not presented to the Board as an investigation report and is not held by the Trust as such.
“To the extent that any material held by external legal advisers could be regarded as held on behalf of the Trust for FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] purposes, the Trust considers that it would be exempt [under a section of the Act] as it comprises legally privileged material, including legal advice and legal assessments. The Trust has considered the public interest test and recognises the public interest in transparency. However, the Trust considers that the public interest in maintaining legal professional privilege outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”
This article features some reaction and analysis on this aspect of the response, below.
On the cost of the investigation, it also would not disclose. The response said that “workers associated with the protected disclosure process” – seemingly whistleblowers – would have been likely to be blamed for the disclosure of its costs.
To quote from the response more fully, it said: “The investigation arose in a protected disclosure context. Although disclosure of the total cost may not itself directly identify individuals, the Trust considers that disclosure would be likely to have a significant adverse impact on workers associated with the protected disclosure process. In particular, disclosure would be likely to cause those workers to be blamed, resented or held responsible by others for the financial cost of the investigation…
“The Trust considers that disclosure of the requested cost information would create a real risk of workplace detriment to workers connected with the protected disclosure process and would undermine the protective purpose of that statutory framework. The Trust also considers that disclosure would be likely to have a substantive effect on future protected disclosures. Workers may be less willing to raise concerns, support colleagues, give evidence or cooperate with investigations if they believe that the financial consequences of an investigation may later be disclosed in a way that causes blame, resentment or adverse treatment to attach to those involved.”
Again, this article offers a response and some analysis of this in the next section.
Finally, on settlement agreements featuring NDAs, information was disclosed.
NPCAT provided figures on the “non-contractual payment made under settlement agreements containing confidentiality clauses,” by number and total amount paid in each completed academic year from 2021-22 onwards.
The response said that NPCAT paid £27,796 in total via six non-contractual settlements containing NDAs in 2021-22; a further £82,963 on seven such settlements in 2022-23; no such settlements in 2023-24; and £35,958 via four settlements in 2024-25.
That added up to £146,717 in such payments over the four years, made to 17 people (so an average payment of £8,630.
NPCAT appears not to have complied with the DfE’s Academies Accounts Direction (AAD) for 2024-25 in relation to its disclosures in the accounts for that year. The AAD stated that, with respect to “non-statutory/non-contractual severance payments”, academy trusts had to “disclose the individual values of any non-statutory/non-contractual severance payments,” although using amounts, not names. The 2024-25 accounts did not have any separate disclosure of such payments, and did not have any separate disclosure of individual payment amounts.
Reactions and analysis
On the trust not providing any investigation report, on the grounds that the board had not seen it, and the trust did not hold a copy, governance and whistleblowing sources were incredulous.
It should be noted that there appears to be some evidence that members of the board were involved in overseeing the investigation, which involved speaking to multiple people, Education Uncovered understands. An email to whistleblowers, dated 6th October 2024, was signed off by two members of the board at that time: Monsignor David Hogan and Dr Dianne Swiers, who were part of what the email described as an “investigation committee”. The York Press had reported, in June 2025, that the Bishop of Middlesbrough had “appointed two new board members to co-ordinate the investigation into complaints”.
NPCAT’s board of directors as a whole was responsible for the investigation.
One governance expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, was staggered by the notion that a board would commission a major investigation involving whistleblowers and then base its decision-making in response on the briefest of summaries. To outsource sight of the full report to a private legal firm without trustees themselves seeing it in full, as suggested by the FOI response, was concerning, they said.
This source said: “Trustees can’t delegate their responsibility for risk. If a matter was serious enough to warrant investigation, most people would expect trustees to see the full report. Where concerns were serious enough to justify bringing in an external law firm, it’s more than a stretch to see how trustees could exercise effective oversight on the basis of a summary alone.”
Georgina Halford-Hall, chief executive of the not-for-profit organisation WhistleblowersUK, said of the trust’s response:
“This does not make any sense at all. They may have had [lawyers] involved who are doing the investigation, but that’s a very different function to providing legal advice… how can any board make a decision of this seriousness based on a summary of two bullet points? How can they possibly make an informed decision if they do not even know the allegations and importantly: reassure themselves that the right people were interviewed, what was said, and so on?
“Trustees are supposed to use their knowledge of schools, and of the community, to make a rounded decision based on the findings in detail. How can they do that, if they do not have the full information? If the board has not had sight of the full report, if I was a trustee I would be concerned that no one had asked for the full report. It is simply not the job of the investigators, whoever they are, to make the decision. Their job is to gather and interrogate information and identify wrongdoing including failures to meet legal and statutory obligations and from my experience it is rarely cut and dry one way or the other.”
On the issue of the costs of the investigation not being disclosed, for fear of whistleblowers being blamed, a source who was involved in whistleblowing in this case was disbelieving.
They said:
“This is just absolute nonsense. They have not protected whistleblowers in any shape or form. We have not even had any feedback as to what the investigation found – just a brief letter saying ‘thank you very much and there will be no more said’. It’s almost now as if they’re flipping this back onto us.
“I do not think that many members of the public, on finding out the cost of the investigation, would blame it on the whistleblowers.” They pointed out that the trust was supposed to be protecting the identity of the whistleblowers, so it was difficult to see how, on that basis, they could feel the impact of any blame.”
This person added that they were known as a whistleblower to some people, but had not faced blame because of that.
They added that the trust itself should be facing concern over the spending of public money, having doubled the salary of its top-paid person in four years since 2020-21.
Ms Halford-Hall said, on the notion of investigation costs not being released because of a worry of possible impact on whistleblowers:
“I have never heard anything like that before. What they are worried about might be the disproportionate cost of this – but that would not be the whistleblowers’ fault. The trust has a duty to protect the whistleblowers against retaliation.”
Last Friday, I asked the trust to respond to a question as to whether the trust could truly be exercising its responsibilities, if it did not have access to an investigatory report such as this, in full; and to explain how whistleblowers could be at risk from disclosure of the investigation’s costs, given that their identities were protected. I have yet to receive a response.
By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 6 July 2026
