The Charter School Agency has signed a contract with a trust that does not exist.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour previously announced in the New Zealand Gazette that the agency had entered into a charter school contract with the “NZPAA Charitable Trust.”
This contract was intended to facilitate the creation of the New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa. The said school is to be built in Trentham next year, focusing on young athletes in years 11 and 13.
John O’Neill, an opponent from the Aotearoa Educators Collective, discovered the issue. He explained that he looked into the school’s sponsor—the organisation responsible for establishing and running the charter school—because he questioned why public funds were being allocated to a specialist sports school.
According to O’Neill, it was only after he started asking questions that the limited company, New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa, was registered. This company is ultimately owned by Welnix, the owners of the Wellington Phoenix, and the registration took place on November 6.
He said he was surprised that the Charter School Agency had signed a contract with an organisation that did not exist.
“I started asking myself, how on earth could this have happened given the great attention given to due diligence processes that are supposed to surround these applications and consideration and approval of applications to be a charter school,” O’Neill said.
He questioned how two parties could enter into a contract when one of them did not exist and also how the Charter School Authorisation Board could have recommended approval of the application under those circumstances.
Meanwhile, the agency responded to the issue, stating that “The Charter School Agency received an application from a proposed sponsor seeking approval to operate a new charter school.”
“During the application and contracting process, the proposed sponsor indicated it would establish a separate entity to contract with the agency.”
“This resulted in a complication around the name used in the contract. We are working with the sponsor to resolve this. This is not expected to impact plans for the school to open in February next year.”
The agency said it is currently seeking advice regarding the existing contract and is unable to comment on its validity until that advice has been received.
In a conversation with RNZ, Wellington Phoenix general manager David Dome said he was unable to comment on the validity of the contract. He also declined to explain why the agency believed it was signing a contract with a trust.
“During the contracting process we were always going to set up a separate contracting or business structure to run the school, and we’re doing that with the agency now,” he said.
He said the issue would not impact the progress of setting up the school, nor would it matter if the school was established with a limited company instead of a trust acting as the sponsor.
He said he fully anticipated that the school would be operational by February next year and would start with 100 students.