Herefordshire-based social enterprise Encore Enterprises has lodged a formal complaint to the Department for Education and is calling for ‘urgent’ action in the next 48 hours, labelling it an ‘appalling, utterly deplorable and indefensible situation’.
With two weeks until the end of the financial year, the not-for-profit county music and arts service states that this years’ funding announcements and agreements for Music Hubs have ‘yet to be announced’, despite timelines laid out by the Minister for Schools in 2020.
In September 2020, Cliff Woollard, managing director of Encore Enterprises, wrote to the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, Jesse Norman, about this matter. In response, Norman wrote to Gavin Williamson, asking whether the DfE was ‘taking steps’ to speed up the process.
On 27 October, Nick Gibb, the Minister for Schools, replied, stating that the DfE ‘endeavours’ to allocate funding for Music Education Hubs ‘in the autumn prior to the financial year’.
In the open copy of the complaint, Woollard writes: ‘However, as it stands, we are now just over two weeks from the end of the financial year and there is still no funding agreement from the DfE.
‘I have raised this again with Mr Norman. Not only has the Department missed the autumn, you have missed winter too! How can we be expected to provide vital services to our schools and young people when we do not know what our funding is or what our funding agreement will be?’
He continues: ‘I have a social enterprise to run which, I am sure you will appreciate, has been extremely challenging during the pandemic. We have provided services to schools and young people throughout.
‘The DfE have not given the final funding information to Arts Council England who administer the grant for them. Thus, in turn, ACE [is] unable to offer us a funding agreement from 1 April.’
The open complaint letter then outlines five consequences of the issue raised, including, ‘the termination of our services to nearly all of Herefordshire’s 101 schools’.
Woollard has also requested three distinct responses from the DfE, each targeted at a specific stakeholder.
On Twitter, Encore Enterprises has said: ‘We understand from the Government Autumn Spending Review that the funding is there, they just won’t action it!’
The service is calling for others to write to their MPs within the next 48 hours.
The full open copy of the formal complaint can be viewed here.
