Tory advisers moonlighting for privateers

The National Union of Teachers found several Department of Education-paid advisers working as Ofsted inspectors.

One woman, Wiola Hola, worked as an inspector for Serco in south-west England at the same time she was a government adviser in the region.

At least one school she inspected - Somerset's Kings-hill Church of England Primary - was pushed towards becoming an academy after Ms Hola said its performance was "significantly" below expectations despite scoring it "satisfactory" or "good" in three out of four categories.

Ms Hola declined to comment when approached by reporters.

NUT general secretary Christine Blower said such arrangements risked compromising their impartiality as inspectors, since the government typically targets schools given poor marks by inspectors for conversion to academies.

Meanwhile still other advisers worked for academy chains themselves.

Adviser Sir Paul Edwards was paid £120,000 as head of the academy chain Schools Partnership Trust, along with his government contract for Yorkshire and Humberside, the East Midlands and the north-east - where many of the trust's academies are.

Similarly, Caroline Whalley founded academy sponsor the Elliot Foundation just two months after the government hired her as an adviser in 2010.

Ms Whalley said she no longer worked for the government but declined to say more.

"It is quite unacceptable that a number of people are making a lot of money out of work within the Department for Education that is solely driven by the government's obsession with turning more and more schools into academies," she said.

A Department of Education spokesman said potential conflicts of interest were always a "test of reasonableness" and it would sack any contractor who failed to disclose an interest immediately, he said.