Deficit at secondary school is expected to increase to £5.1m

THE DEFICIT of a Bradford secondary school is expected to have risen to £5.1m.

One of Bradford Council’s education bosses has admitted it will take “a long time” to recover the deficit from Hanson School in Swain House in the city.

The financial situation has proved to be a significant problem for Bradford’s education services.

The school, which has 1,600 pupils, has been working with the council to improve its finances.

But a report to the authority’s executive on Tuesday reveals the deficit is likely to have risen from £4.3m at the end of the 2019-20 financial year to £5.1m at the end of the current financial year.

Pressures relating to the pandemic are said to be partly to blame.

Previous meetings of the council discussing the issue have heard that the financial problems are due to a mix of the school being locked into a costly privatefinance initiative contract, a drop in pupil numbers and its governing body being responsible for an on-site sports facility.

Officials from the Department for Education made an order to convert Hanson School into an academy in 2011 after a critical Ofsted report.

Since then a number of academy chains have tried to take on the school but each arrangement has fallen through. Hanson remains a local authority school.

A report to the Bradford Council executive says: “There are currently three schools forecasting a combined deficit balance of £5.2m.

“The main concern remains with Hanson secondary, where the deficit balance is forecast to increase from £4.3m at the end of 2019-20 to £5.1m at the end of 2020-21.”

Ian Murch, the president of Bradford district’s National Education Union, said there was currently a major struggle to prevent the school’s deficit from rising ever higher, let alone reducing it.