The Swedish firm that ran England’s first and only “for-profit” free school has abandoned the UK market altogether after sinking almost £1 million into the failed project.
IES Breckland opened in Suffolk in 2012 as a result of a free school bid by a group of parents. They chose Internationella Engelska Skolan to run the school on their behalf.
The firm is the largest of those that run state-funded, independently managed schools in Sweden – a model said to have formed the blueprint for England’s free school reforms.
But the company admitted its foray into the English market was over. IES Breckland was quietly moved to new sponsor the Unity Schools Partnership this summer.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general-secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The education system has been starved of funds so there isn’t any profit to make.
“It always amazed me that capitalists thought they could come in and make a profit from a sector that was so underfunded and quite highly regulated.”
The company established IES International English Schools UK Limited to trade in this country and act as the education provider for the 550-pupil school.
The private company, which unlike a school or trust was allowed to turn a profit, received management fees from the SABRES Educational Trust, the school’s sponsor, of up to £124,000 a year.
But the for-profit firm has been wound up now. Although the school was handed over with healthy finances, IES UK had racked up a deficit of £435,000 by summer 2020.
Free school returned half of management fees
Accounts show SABRES paid over £920,000 in management fees to IES UK between 2012 and 2021. But half of this figure was returned to the trust over the years “to enhance the education on offer”.
SABRES’s latest accounts, for the year to August 2021, show IES also paid it £130,000 in compensation for “early contract termination”. IES said this related to “legal and re-branding fees”.
The for-profit firm made repeated losses between 2012 and 2019, only posting a profit in 2014 and 2015 after bailouts of £307,369 and £76,725 from its parent company in Sweden. In 2020, the last year for which accounts are available, it made a profit of £23,642.
A spokesperson for IES Sweden said: “As a result of a strategic review the UK was no longer seen as a strategic market for IES. Therefore, as per the terms of our contract, IES worked alongside SABRES Educational Trust to find a new education provider.”
Unity was chosen after a “rigorous process”, and IES said it was “pleased that we were able to leave the school, Ofsted-rated ‘good’ and on a strong financial footing, ready for the next stage in its development”.
Including the bailouts, IES’s budget deficit of £435,000 and the compensation payment, it means the parent company has sunk almost £1 million that it will never recover into the project.
Venture ‘not about profit’ says Swedish company
But IES’s spokesperson said its venture in the UK “was about providing the opportunity for a local community in Suffolk to access quality education whilst engaging in cultural exchanges with the International network of schools in Sweden”.
“As it was IES’s first project on the UK market, the strategic priority was to get to know the market and not to make a profit.”
Breckland School was rated ‘inadequate’ in its first inspection in 2014, with inspectors warning “too many students fail to make sufficient progress”.
The school recovered to ‘requires improvement’ in 2015 and then climbed to ‘good’ in 2017.
The school has also grown in size, from 308 pupils in 2014 to 481 in 2017 and 549 last year.
Tim Coulson, chief executive of the Unity Schools Partnership and a former regional schools commissioner, said the school joined the trust in July.
“It is a flourishing school with which we are delighted to be associated,” he said.