David Cameron has instructed the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, to conduct an investigation into the roots of the row between Theresa May and Michael Gove over the government’s strategy on tackling Islamist extremism.
In a sign of the prime minister’s anger after the row overshadowed the Queen’s speech on Wednesday, Heywood is to hold separate interviews with the two ministers, who are both on course to be rebuked by Cameron.
The disclosure of Heywood’s involvement came as a Birmingham school at the centre of the alleged takeover plot by Islamists was branded inadequate by Ofsted inspectors for doing “too little to keep students safe from the risks associated with extremist views”.
The charge was rejected as politically motivated by the management of Golden Hillock secondary school in Sparkbrook.
The school is one of three managed by the Park View educational trust, which took over the school last October with the approval of the Department for Education. The trust was drawn into the controversy by the “Trojan horse” letter which surfaced in March this year and led to Gove, the education secretary, ordering investigations.
The issue lay at the heart of the cabinet row which erupted on Tuesday when the Times reported that a source close to Gove had said that the Home Office wrongly believed in limiting the battle against extremists to those involved in violence.
It later turned out that the source was Gove himself, who had called for a “draining of the swamp” in which all those who espoused extremist views should be confronted.
May, the home secretary, retaliated by releasing a copy of a letter to Gove which made pointed remarks about the failure of his department to tackle the alleged infiltration of schools in Birmingham by extremists.
The prime minister is keeping an open mind about the conduct of the ministers. But it is understood that Cameron is prepared to have harsh words with both Gove and May on the basis of information that is already in the public domain.
Cameron is expected to rebuke May for allowing a copy of the internal “write round” letter to Gove to be released to the Times on Tuesday afternoon and on the home office website in the early hours of Wednesday morning. May is expected to be asked by Heywood how an internal Whitehall letter on the relatively narrow issue of a code of conduct for madrassas and supplementary schools contained a series of hostile questions about the education department’s response to the alleged infiltration of schools by extremists in Birmingham.
It is understood that Fiona Cunningham, the home secretary’s media special adviser, will be asked to explain the decision to tweet a link to the letter at 12.24am on Wednesday morning. The letter was removed from the Home Office website on Thursday although the original tweet was still on the ministry’s Twitter feed.
The prime minister is also prepared to tell Gove that he was ill-advised to criticise Charles Farr, the Home Office official in charge of security and counter-terrorism. The education secretary confirmed to the prime minister on Wednesday that he told the editorial board of the Times on Monday, in a long planned lunch, that Farr only believes in tackling violent extremists rather than extremists as a whole.
Cameron showed his irritation with both May and Gove. Speaking during a press conference with Barack Obama at the G7 summit in Brussels, he said: “I will get to the bottom of who has said what and what has happened and I will sort it all out once I have finished these important meetings I am having here.”
The prime minister insisted that the government was in agreement in tackling extremism. He said: “I set up the UK extremism, task force which I set up after the appalling murder of Lee Rigby because I wanted to make sure that the government is doing everything that it could to drive extremism out of our schools, our colleges, off our campuses, out of prisons, out of every part of national life.
“It is very important that we recognise that you have got to deal not only with violent extremism but also the sink of extremism, of tolerating extremist views, from which violence can grow. The whole government is signed up to that agenda and is driving through changes to deliver that agenda.”
A leaked copy of the Ofsted report on the Golden Hillock school, seen by the Guardian and due to be published next week, says it has been rated as inadequate in all categories and placed in special measures, pending a likely change of management by the DfE. “The academy’s work to keep students safe is inadequate. Key safeguarding procedures are not followed. Too little is done to keep students safe from the risks associated with extremist views,” the report says.
The inspectors said staff were “polarised about the leadership of the school. Some female members of staff complained to Her Majesty’s inspectors that at times they are spoken to in a manner which they find intimidating.”
The trust offered a detailed rebuttal to the report, saying it did not accept the findings of the Ofsted inspectors. “Ofsted judges that Golden Hillock is not doing enough to raise students’ awareness of the ‘risks of extremism’. However, it is crucial to note that the Ofsted reports make absolutely no suggestion, nor did they find any evidence, that Golden Hillock either promotes or tolerates extremism or radicalisation,” the Park View trust said in a statement.
“It is also crucial to note that the school had been part of Park View Educational Trust for just five months at the time of the Ofsted inspection in March 2014. A number of the judgments are based on data and information that predate the trust’s involvement.
“We believe that the inspections were conducted in a climate created by the ‘Trojan horse’ letter, coupled with unproven allegations about other schools within the trust that had started to appear in the media.
“This led to unprecedented lines of inquiry from Ofsted based on proving the imposition of strict Islamic practices at trust schools – such as segregation of boys and girls, forcing of wearing headscarves, promotion of homophobic or racist views. Golden Hillock’s Ofsted report finds absolutely no evidence of these practices.”