Bad Education:

 Strange Goings on

 at Teesworks Skills

 Academy

Teesworks Skills Academy, Eston Road, Grangetown

Scott Hunter

4 September 2023

When the government devolved responsibility for apprenticeships to mayoral authorities in 2019, many will have seen this as a way of abandoning their problem child. The management of apprenticeships was something that no one, Ofsted included, had a good word for, and the problems were wide ranging. Devolution might not make the situation much better but was unlikely to make it any worse. Enter the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) and its mayor, Tory poster child, Ben Houchen. 

For the TVCA this devolved responsibility translated into an opportunity and a £31 million Adult Education Budget. In other enterprises managed by the TVCA, however, ‘opportunity’ was synonymous with secrecy and dubious spending decisions. But anyone expecting a sordid tale here of the disappearance of this fund into unsuitable trouser pockets is going to be disappointed. The TVCA now publishes the account showing the names of the (31) training providers and the amount each one receives, openly and transparently. A breath of fresh air, as you might say.

There are caveats, of course. One of the training providers, Learning Curve Group, which has links to TVCA CEO, Julie Gilhespie, receives a particularly generous share of the budget. Another organisation, DTN Academy, is owned by one of Houchen’s donors. But the scheme is managed by a TVCA partner agency – the Education Training Collective, or Etc. for short – a consortium of local colleges and private providers, which was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted  in 2022.

So, what’s the problem? Is there actually a problem?

Well, yes. It’s just that it’s not to do with the £31 million Adult Education Budget. It’s to do with the enterprise set up by the TVCA/STDC of which the apprenticeship scheme is a part. That enterprise is called the Teesworks Skills Academy, set up, according to the Teesworks Newsfeed, in 2020. The first indication that there may be something amiss here is in the name itself. 

And it snowballs from there.

Teesworks: the birth of ambiguity

Teesworks was established as a brand in the summer of 2020, when it was announced that the redevelopment of the site on the South Bank of the Tees was to be managed through a 50/50 joint venture between the South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) and two property developers – Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney. A joint venture company was duly set up, called Teesworks Ltd. At a stroke, ambiguity was created as the venture as a whole came to be referred to as Teesworks. Just over a year later, the STDC lost effective control of Teesworks Ltd when the developers acquired a further 40% of the shares in the company, making the split now 90/10. Yet the STDC still uses the brand name.

So, in October 2021, news came that planning permission for a Teesworks Skills Academy building had been submitted to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC). That planning application was submitted by STDC, not Teesworks Ltd, and the building was described as a ‘training facility’. Bearing in mind that the adult education providers all have their own premises, this facility seems surplus to requirements. So why was it built at all?

As for the adult education programme, apprenticeships cover a wide range of sectors, from care to hospitality to retail, in addition to the construction and industrial jobs with which they are traditionally associated. So, to link the programme closely with Teesworks is somewhat misleading.

Teesworks Skills Academy acquires premises and purpose

The Academy building, just off Eston Road, was completed towards the end of 2022, at a  cost of £2.5 million (as announced in the Teesworks Newsfeed in January 2023):

“Meanwhile, the £2.5million Teesworks Skills Academy is now up and running as a one stop shop for jobseekers, local employment hubs and skills providers to use as a platform to create a world-class workforce for the future; crucial to the sustained economic regeneration of the area.”

Twelve months earlier, the newsfeed had given a slightly different account of the facilities soon to be on offer:

“The two-floor, 5,400sq ft academy includes three classrooms, plus meeting and interview rooms and office space for the Skills Academy team, as well as hotdesking for companies looking to base themselves on-site, and space for information sessions and training events.”

And presumably, in the months between these two statements, it was discovered that there was no need for ‘hotdesking for companies looking to base themselves on-site’, as there’s no mention of it in the later statement. Also missing from the 2023 statement is the fact that the ‘office space for the Skills Academy team’ didn’t last long either. Tees Valley Monitor has learned from a source who did not wish to be named, that within a few months of the building opening, the Skills Academy team was relocated to the TVCA main offices at Teesside Airport.

The Loneliness of the Skills Academy Development Manager

To all intents and purposes, this left only the Skills Academy Development Manager, currently one Neil Young, in the Academy building. Visitors to the building may not be introduced to Mr Young in person but have the benefit of a welcome video featuring him. This video, obtained by TVM, gives an explanation of the purpose of the Skills Academy as a whole:

So, the primary role of the Academy is to “raise awareness of Teesworks and the opportunities that are coming on site.” Providing skills training and brokering employment come respectively second and third in order of priority. Which is, in a sense, entirely appropriate, in a facility which serves neither of these two roles.

The question is, whose awareness of Teesworks, does the Academy raise? The answer appears to be local businesses on the one hand, and schoolchildren on the other. Our source has indicated that the latter predominate. Which at least provides us with some insight into what the three classrooms are used for. What the rest of the building is used for, we’ll return to later.

The Academy throws open its doors

The Academy first threw open its doors in November 2022, according to the Teesworks newsfeed:

 “Hundreds of students have been the first to take advantage of the all-new Teesworks Skills Academy building as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.”

“The building has been used by 200 Y9 to Y13 Tees Valley pupils for five days of activities to hone their entrepreneurial skills, with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen also visiting to meet the students today (18 November).”

It threw them open again in February 2023 when it hosted an event for local businesses who learned “about how Teesworks can assist them in recruiting and training new employees as their need for workers on site increases over the coming months.”

The mayor is reported to have addressed the businesspeople in person, as, it appears, did Neil Young. So, it will not have been necessary to welcome them with the same video material that is presented to school pupils. 

Teesworks, the movie …

Pupils attending the Academy are presented first with the Welcome video, featuring Ben Houchen and Neil Young, followed by a short film, also obtained by Tees Valley Monitor, about the history of the steel industry and the arrival of Teesworks.

The film is dated December 2022, but its contents indicate that it was compiled some months earlier. It is not immediately apparent who the original intended audience of the film is supposed to be, but it is definitely not school pupils. The significance of certain elements of the film would need detailed explanation in order to be intelligible to such a young audience. This is makeshift and make do. And spectacularly inappropriate for children and young people.

Spectacularly inappropriate because it is nothing short of a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party featuring Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen.

So inappropriate is this material that Tees Valley Monitor is currently in discussion with Ofsted about its use. Were a teacher to show it to a class in their own school, they would almost certainly be disciplined for using politically biased content.  With their classes removed to the Skills Academy however, the matter is beyond their control.

… not suitable for children

Try to imagine a film tailor made for children and young people about Teesworks and it would undoubtedly include a segment about its steelmaking past. Then the task of remediating the land, the clean-up, and perhaps the fact that the enterprise is (apparently) a public-private partnership. Then the vision for the future with clean, green jobs. And some detail about the range of jobs that people might have there in the future.

And the film does indeed start with Teesside’s steel industry, its workers, its global reach, and its ultimate demise with the closure of the blast furnace. All set to gentle, melancholy background music. The Wagner-inspired music is an important element here. Music you barely notice until it abruptly stops, with a loud ripping noise, like a needle scratching a record

At this point an overlay appears which reads “fast forward two years”. And what do we get at this point? If you’re thinking that must be the official launch of the South Tees Development Corporation, you’d be wrong. 

What actually comes next is the election of Ben Houchen as Tees Valley mayor, on the podium on election night, shaking hands with all those he’s just defeated, followed by scenes of him briefing a BBC reporter:

Only after that does the film move on to the creation of the STDC. Announced by Theresa May. Given that the Conservative politician most closely associated with the launch of the STDC is Michael Heseltine, the appearance of Theresa May announcing its launch is an unusual choice, to say the least. Except that it gives the impression of co-ordination in government; a build-up, now mirrored in the swell of the music.

As the music builds to a majestic crescendo, an image appears of the steelworks overlaid with the words “land secured after a three-year CPO”. Now that has to be entirely meaningless to the average teenager. Only the music signals that it’s important.

The volume is turned down as a still of Houchen, sitting behind a desk, smiling, with a voice over that sounds like a newsreader:



“A deal that’s being hailed as a new dawn for this old site.”

The Teesworks logo is slowly revealed followed by footage of one of their SUV’s driving very slowly into a tent, and the music reaches its grand, Wagnerian climax. But there is no sign of developers Corney and Musgrave despite the fact that the project was renamed Teesworks only when they officially became joint venture partners, and Houchen has stated in the past that the project couldn’t succeed without their expertise. In the film narrative, on the other hand, Teesworks is Houchen’s baby and his alone.



Quite what the SUV entering the tent is supposed to symbolise is not entirely clear. It’s ‘Wagner meets Lawrence of Arabia’. So, we know it’s important, if inexplicable. Equally mysterious is the scene that follows.

Cut to Liz Truss on site while the music plays on. Truss who made no contribution to Teesworks at all during her brief reign as PM. And on, as Sunak and Houchen are seen walking, talking and smiling through some patch of weeds on the site. 

The scene changes to parliament, and with Valkyrie still playing in the background, Sunak announces the locations of the new freeports, culminating with Teesside. And then it’s straight back to Teesworks, where  a klaxon sounds and scenes of demolitions follow. Then at double speed, the building of the gatehouse, and an overlay with the text “the world’s first commercial scale CCUS project”, with a drawing of the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) plant behind it.

The next scene shows a number of companies that will be situated within the freeport. 

Are we to believe that the companies here are present by virtue of being part of the Teesworks initiative? If so, then it is certainly not the case. Hanson, for example, (not shown) has had a plant on the site for years. Anglo-American has an option on a piece of land between Redcar Bulk Terminal and Tees Dock. This has also been in existence for years and has no connection with Teesworks. In fact, only three can be properly regarded as the result of the Teesworks project – SeAH Wind, Circular Fuels (not shown) and TV ERF.

The video moves on to the South Bank Quay under construction, with the overlay “UK Infrastructure Bank confirms first investment”. And then to “Circular Fuels Announces Renewable Gas Facility”, followed by a picture of the site:

Accurate, perhaps, but a bit underwhelming. Next, the jewel in the crown, SeAH Wind’s monopile factory is revealed – and we are entertained to another drawing, and a voice over telling us of the 750 direct jobs and thousands more in the supply chain (figures often repeated by Houchen and Teesworks, but we can find no sign of them from SeAH itself).

Given that this is being presented to pupils in a careers education session, it is curious that no detail is offered of what kinds of jobs these might be, making it of limited interest to its audience, being kept awake at this point only by the Wagneresque racket accompanying the fiction on screen.

Then it’s on to the grand finale – Sunak giving his vision for Teesside in the House of Commons, presumably at some time during lockdown (check the empty benches behind him):

It may be two years since Sunak made that speech. He was not to know that two years later the Net Zero Teesside project to create a CCUS facility would still be nothing more than a hole in the ground, nor that the vaccine production (at Fujifilm) never happened. But those who created the video do know what has transpired. Yet still they include this segment in the video, along with the fantasy by Sunak that follows it of “innovative fast-growing businesses” providing local people with “decent well-paid green jobs.” Stirring rhetoric with absolutely no basis in reality.

This is a video that was clearly never intended to inform its audiences. It sets out only to create an impression of strength, purpose, and the commitment of Conservative politicians (interestingly not including Boris Johnson or Michael Gove) to future prosperity in this region. This is propaganda, as insidious as it is ludicrous. And most certainly not suitable for children and young people.

But the significance of the Academy building does not end with the attempted indoctrination of children. There are only three classrooms, and our source informs us that they are used by school parties only a few times a week. So, what’s the rest of the building used for?

What the TVCA Comms Team doesn’t want to talk about

On to “meeting and interview rooms and office space for the Skills Academy team, as well as hotdesking for companies looking to base themselves on-site.”

Curiously absent from this list of facilities is the space referred to Skills Academy staff as ‘Mr Houchen’s office’, which occupies a large part of the ground floor of the building. The mayor, it seems has two offices – one at TVCA headquarters, where he the runs the Authority, and one at Teesworks, where control has been ceded to property developers, Corney and Musgrave. Two offices, one where he gives orders and one where he takes them, as you might say.



As for ‘hotdesking’, the office space is believed to be used, at least occasionally, by Chris Musgrave (the evidence being the sight of his distinctive car in the otherwise empty car park). But Musgrave’s use of the building raises another issue. Given that it was built by the STDC and not by Teesworks Ltd, does Teesworks Ltd pay for use of the space?

We asked the TVCA, but they didn’t reply to our email. They were similarly shy about answering our request for confirmation that the building is used to host sessions for school pupils. Nor have they been forthcoming about who made the film. Without that information, we are left to suppose that, given that it is used in a TVCA facility, that the TVCA paid for it. So, public money is being used to fund the creation of propaganda material.

Given that, as Neil Young says, one function of the Academy is to raise awareness of Teesworks, we predict that the film will continue to be shown to schoolchildren. For much of the rest of the time, the building stands largely unused. We know from the newsfeed that events for local businesses have been held there, one in February and one in June, but that is all. Careers events are not held there because the building is too small to host them (the next such fair, to be held during September, will take place at the Riverside Stadium).

In other words, at a cost of £2.5 million, this building seems to be a white elephant. If the TVCA wishes to undertake careers education for school pupils, there are plenty of other premises in the vicinity that could host such events. Why not use them?

TVCA, an Authority out of control

It is not unreasonable to suspect that Neil Young is fully aware of how inappropriate the material presented to school pupils is. But by using Academy premises, no one other than selected TVCA staff see what is going on. What the Teesworks Skills Academy building provides, above all else, is privacy.

And thus it fits a pattern – like the airport company immune from public scrutiny because of the structure of share ownership. Like the Comms team whose primary job appears to be to avoid ever divulging any information. Like the directors of various TVCA-associated boards whose job is merely to rubber stamp decisions made elsewhere. Everywhere the evasion of accountability.

Houchen and Teesworks are currently under investigation for corruption. Given its lack of independence, few have confidence that it will do anything other than exonerate him. Yet the allegations of financial mismanagement at Teesworks are only one part of the case against Houchen’s regime at the TVCA.

Wantonly squandering public money on unnecessary construction projects like the Academy building is classic small-town grift. Houchen also has previous in this regard, given that a similar amount of money was spent on the largely unused air-freight facility at Teesside Airport. 

The Teesworks film may be ridiculous, and it is probably more likely to put teenage and pre-teen audiences to sleep than anything else, but by using it, the intention of Houchen’s propaganda team to misinform and to influence young people’s opinion is abundantly clear. Will the powers that be find this attempt to manipulate children a step too far? Time will tell.