Rotherham 'free School' Controversy
In December 2010, Barry Elliott announced his support for a proposal that one of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's 'free schools', a taxpayer-funded school independent of the local authority, should be set up in Rotherham. It also became clear that Elliott's son's teacher girlfriend, Charlotte Blencowe, a former Conservative Party local election candidate with a history of controversial comments on Twitter, hoped to become Headteacher of the new school. Further questions were raised by a local newspaper in February 2012, when it emerged that the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, had approved the school's initial bid even though Rotherham Council could find no evidence that it had any premises or staff in place and no indication of pupil numbers. Blencowe, for her part, claimed that she had not spoken recently to Barry Elliott about the project.
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