Lack of school closure plan ‘an extraordinary dereliction of duty’, Covid inquiry told

Coles told the inquiry his trust ran webinars on how to provide remote education, in the absence of any direction from the DfE. Photograph: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA

The leader of one of the largest academy trusts in England has described the Department for Education’s failure to do any planning for school closures before lockdown in March 2020 as “an extraordinary dereliction of duty”.

Jon Coles, the chief executive of United Learning, told the UK Covid-19 inquiry he nearly fell off his chair when he read a statement from Gavin Williamson, the education secretary at the time, in which he said there was zero planning for closures because the priority was keeping schools open.