Another reprieve for Brindabella, administration welcomed as a way out of the mess

ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry had already decided to grant Brindabella Christian College an extra two weeks to respond to a show cause notice before the embattled school went into voluntary administration on Wednesday (5 March).

Ms Berry said today (6 March) that the school had asked for a four-week extension but she thought two would be reasonable, although the school reform group criticised yet another postponement of action as merely encouraging the behaviour that has got the school into such trouble.

Reform BCC president David Stephens said the inaction had enabled the board to continue with bullying behavior, conspiracy theories and blame pointing rather than being held to account.

Ms Berry rejected the suggestion that she could have acted sooner, saying the current action was only possible due to legislative change last year and the goal was still to keep the school running, having previously ruled out cancelling the school’s registration.

There was also a lot of evidence that needed to be considered.

“We’ve set up the Registration Standards Advisory board so that they can provide advice to me on that evidence,” she said.

“I’ve needed to get legal advice … there are a number of organisations now who are taking action across a variety of different areas.

“I think everybody is being careful because none of us wants the school to close. We want the best outcome, but we also want to make sure that people are following the rules as they are supposed to do, so I’ll continue to be cautious in my approach with this.”

But she would take action when she had considered all the evidence.

The federal Education Department’s deadline for responding to a notice revoking the approved authority status of proprietor Brindabella Christian Education Ltd is tomorrow (7 March).

However, a spokesperson said today that the department was working constructively with the administrator to support its work, and at this time, Commonwealth recurrent funding payments would continue to be made.

“The delegate will carefully consider the matter, with any decision to also be informed by the progress of the administrators,” the spokesperson said.

“The department’s primary focus is helping the school to continue to support the education of children and young people.”

Ms Berry said the Education Directorate had already met with the school board and the Deloitte administrators a number of times since the announcement.

“I’m pleased to say that they will be working cooperatively with the ACT Government and the Federal Government as well,” she said.

“We’ll be meeting with them regularly as we work through our own processes as well, but also to support the administrators in however way that they need us to.”

Ms Berry said it may be a slight reprieve for the school, but it’s still got some very serious questions hanging over it.

Mr Stephens welcomed the voluntary administration if it led to greater financial accountability, teachers being paid, and reform of the governance structures, including a refresh of the board and a rewrite of the constitution.

He said concerns remained about the board still being in place and the role it might still be playing, as well as how visible the process will be for the community.

However, it was encouraging that the administrators reached out to ReformBCC as one of the stakeholders.

Mr Stephens said there needed to be full transparency and a forensic audit of the school’s financial records because it looked likely that it had been trading while insolvent.

“There are big questions around where the board spent millions of dollars, and a month ago they got $900,000 in government grants, but yet two weeks later they can’t pay teachers.

“So where has that money gone?”

There were also concerns about how the board had tried to protect itself from things such as legal costs by changing the constitution.

Mr Stephens said the administrators, together with the regulators, had to make some big decisions about managing the school’s debts, primarily to NAB and the Tax Office, and being open to offers to take over the running of the school.

“Whoever that group is, they will need to take on the debts or negotiate with the major creditors,” he said.

Another big question was whether an injection of government money, beyond the current Commonwealth funding, would be needed.

The school’s proprietor, Brindabella Christian Education Ltd, is facing a wind-up action from the Tax Office for an $8 million debt and owes $11 million to NAB, the only secured creditor.

However, there are probably more creditors, something that will become clearer when the administrators hold their first creditors meeting around 18 March, according to the accepted timetable for these matters. A creditors report will need to be issued by 2 April.