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Suspended superhead Greg Wallace served for a time as company secretary of a firm at the centre of a controversy over the awarding of school IT contracts.
Mr Wallace had been acclaimed by Education Secretary Michael Gove for his achievements at the helm of five local schools.
He was suspended earlier this month amid claims he awarded an IT contract to Tony Zangoura, the director of C2 Technology Ltd, with whom he has a close personal relationship.
The Hackney Citizen has discovered that Mr Wallace had an even closer connection with this company – documents from Companies House show he was its secretary from 1999 until 2004.
Mr Wallace’s shock suspension, and an ongoing investigation by Hackney Council, has sparked intense debate about the future of the five schools under his remit – London Fields, Woodberry Down, Burbage, Mandeville and Whitmore schools.
Though Mr Wallace is yet to comment on the matter, defenders have sprang to his defence online – albeit anonymously.
A woman who said she was a parent of a child at one of Mr Wallace’s schools praised him for having “turned the school around in an unbelievably short duration”, adding: “I am extremely grateful to Mr Wallace for the way in which he has improved education at our school.”
Others claiming to be former colleagues of the beleaguered superhead described him as “supportive” and “the best headteacher I ever worked for”.
Mr Wallace’s suspension could have political ramifications as it could wreck a bid by his five schools to free themselves from local authority control.
The five are managed by the Best Start Federation, whose governing body wants to convert the schools into a Multi-Academy Trust.
Currently all five operate within Hackney Council’s Learning Trust, which gives the Town Hall the right to intervene in matters of school management.
If the Federation is successful in its bid to free itself from local authority control, its budget will be devolved entirely to the Department for Education, making it unaccountable to Hackney Council.
Greg Wallace had been working toward this goal, and the intended conversion date was 1 May 2013.
Jane Kemsley, Best Start Federation’s acting vice chair of governors, said: “The investigation has put this on hold. It might well stop it. We don’t know.”
Hackney Council’s press office has refused to comment on Mr Wallace’s pay terms while on suspension, or on the details of the governing body’s involvement.
The Hackney Citizen has made efforts to contact Mr Wallace to give him the right of reply but has been unable to reach him.
Note: The editor of the Hackney Citizen, Keith Magnum, was a governor of the Best Start Federation until October 2010. While on the governing body he was unaware of Mr Wallace’s personal relationship with Tony Zangoura.
