Samantha Booth
Schools Week
Here’s three examples from the past year:
How private equity makes millions from SEND system
The SEND system is bankrupt. Parents must fight in court to get support, while skint councils with multi-million SEND budget deficits routinely break the law.
But not everyone is losing, my investigation revealed for the first time. The state’s inability to fund new special schools to meet demand has forced cash-strapped councils’ to fork out millions on private schools, which cost double the price.
No national data is collected on how much companies running these schools receive from councils, nor how much they charge. Following the money through accounts is difficult, as companies often have subsidiaries and provide other services.
Rigorous FOI requests over several months allowed Samantha to create the first database on who the biggest players were – several private equity firms, some registered in tax havens.
While the issue of private equity making millions from state services has been widely covered in social care, it has spread to SEND schools – and Samantha exposed it (despite pre-publication legal threats).
It delivered bombshell impact: government is re-examining its relationship with this sector and has told some councils to curb its spending on these schools.
The story we’re not allowed to tell
Due to a Department for Education error, Samantha found the day rates consultants were being paid to test SEND reforms under a £7.6 million contract.
Despite a bankrupt sector, Samantha could see how much consultants were milking out of the system and knew it was important to expose.
When the paper contacted PA Consulting – the country’s biggest – they threatened an injunction. They would recover costs “likely to run to tens of thousands of pounds”.
After legal advice, the paper reluctantly backed down. Schools Week is a small, independent publisher and couldn’t risk financial viability.
But, it took the brave decision to publish the legal threat – telling the sector it had been gagged shone light on the firm’s questionable actions.
The case was picked up by Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation campaigners. Samantha is involved in The Bureau of Investigative Journalism project on the use of gagging orders.
And she has not given up. She’s pursuing the government under FOI to the information commissioner to get it released, believing it will be a test case on outsourcing transparency. ‘Unsafe’ school told to slash staff by cost-cutter
This story zooms in on what happens when government schemes go wrong. Samantha’s previous investigation had exposed the scandal - a school where the most vulnerable children went hungry. But relentless digging and source trust found advisors recommended cuts just months ahead of closure. Her reporting prevents this from happening again in special schools.