Schools Week has been “gagged” from publishing details of the day rates paid to consultants who will test proposed reforms of the SEND system.
PA Consulting, which has a £7.6 million government contract to oversee a pilot of the changes, threatened to take out an injunction if we published the information, warning it would seek recovery of legal costs “likely run to tens of thousands of pounds”.
The information came to light last month after the DfE accidentally published unredacted documents relating to its contract with the company, one of the country’s biggest consultancy firms, which posted a revenue of nearly £800 million last year.
It removed the documents when it realised its mistake, but the papers uploaded in their place were not properly redacted and still revealed the rates.
