The decision to call in West Yorkshire police detectives to investigate whether or not there has been any criminal activity involved in the financial failings at Kings Science Academy in Bradford has to be welcomed.

The simple fact – identified in the original Department for Education report – that £77,000 of a £183,000 Government start-up grant was unaccounted for could not be left open to question.

Over the years, innumerable accountants, bank and charity workers, to name but a few, have lost their jobs or been jailed – or both – over far lesser sums of money going missing from their organisations’ books.

Given that, over and above the missing cash, the auditors also reported fabricated invoices and over-claimed payments it is, frankly, astonishing that the DfE would be willing to accept that no further legal action would be taken after the details were passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.

The fact that that same Bureau was willing to accept that they had been told about these irregularities “for information only” and “not as a crime” is equally disturbing.

Thankfully, the matter is now in the hands of local officers who will, hopefully, get to the meat of the matter.

Regardless of the outcome of their investigations, however, there are still some big questions to be asked about the handling of this issue, not least exactly what part the Government played in trying to keep under wraps the collateral damage to their seriously wounded free schools policy?