THE Government is unlikely to take any responsibility for a Bradford school’s near £6 million deficit – a meeting has been told.

Earlier this month Hanson School converted to an academy, over a decade after Government issued an academy order following years of underperformance.

It is now run by the Delta Academies Trust.

Delta is the fourth trust to be appointed to run the school since the academy order was made in 2011, and follows three failed takeovers by three different trusts.

When the Swain House school became an academy on July 1 it had a deficit of £5.9m.

Under current rules, when a school becomes an academy any debt or deficit the school has is transferred to the Council.

This means that with Hanson’s conversion, the £5.9m bill will fall upon Bradford taxpayers.

Earlier this month Council bosses said they were pushing for the Department For Education to share this deficit. They argued that it was the Government’s inability to find a successful sponsor for the school over an 11-year period that helped this deficit spiral out of control.

But at a meeting of Bradford Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, members were told this request is likely to have fallen on deaf ears.

In a section of the meeting discussing Council budgets, Marium Haque, Interim Director of Children’s Services, said: “As you know, Hanson School had a very high deficit at the point of conversion.

“That deficit has remained with the Local Authority. This is something we are actively challenging with the Department For Education because this is their fourth attempt at having a sponsor.

“They have previously appointed three failed sponsors. All three previous trusts that went into Hanson made changes which we believe contributed to that deficit.

“We went to the DFE and asked them to give consideration as to whether they should absorb some of this cost.

“The DFE has given us a strong view back that the deficit will remain with the Council.

“We are no further forward in that conversation, but that is from the DFE’s point of view, not from mine.”

Councillor Brendan Stubbs (Lib Dem, Eccleshill) said: “Where do we go next? Is there any appeal or do we wait for a new Education Minister?”

Mrs Haque said: “The short answer is we probably don’t have anywhere to go with this. Through my role I will continue to have conversations.

“I’m well aware about what we, as a Council, did and didn’t do with Hanson, but I haven’t heard anything back from the DFE about the mistakes they made with their trusts.

“I wouldn’t want to set up any expectations, but I want to know where the oversight was.”