Brindabella Christian College to refer officials to anti-corruption watchdog

The school has also added two women to its board and will be seeking to have a multimillion-dollar tax debt extinguished.

A delegate for the federal Education Minister placed conditions on Brindabella Christian Education Limited, the charity which operates the school, following an audit produced by Canberra firm BellchambersBarrett in late 2020.

The delegate decided in 2021 the organisation was not fit and proper to be the approved authority for the school, citing concerns over financial its viability.

The school appealed the decision which culminated in a public hearing in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in March.

The hearing ended early after legal representatives for the Education Minister and the school agreed to conditions relating to the governance and financial management of the school.

The school's board chair Greg Zwajgenberg said in a statement to The Canberra Times the BellchambersBarrett report was "ill-conceived and flawed."

"In addition to our request for an internal review of the departmental officers involved ... the board's related legal teams are preparing a comprehensive case file on the conduct of various departmental individuals and agencies involved in the matter, which will be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission for investigation once 'terms of reference' are established in the commission," Mr Zwajgenberg said.

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He said the board would be reviewing legal advice on recovering direct and indirect costs for the "untold reputational damage" from the appeal process, but would not say how this would be achieved.

The terms that the school agreed to were recommendations from the school's auditor Saward Dawson and KPMG consultants brought in by the school's bank, NAB.

Mr Zwajgenberg said the school was "very pleased with the final outcome" and said the school had completed 90 per cent of the recommendations and had tightened the department's original deadlines.

"In good faith we have also agreed to provide the department with progress reports on any of the remaining changes which BCEL had initiated and were as yet not fully implemented."

The tribunal was told the school's debt to the Australian Taxation Office had climbed to $4.8 million and the school is required to agree to a repayment plan by May 1 as part of the agreement with the minister.

Mr Zwajgenberg said the tax debt was "the subject of an agreed ATO arrangement" and the college was "seeking to extinguish the debt and rolling it into existing facilities."

He said all payments to the Tax Office were up to date or in advance and that the overdue 2021 audited financial report would be submitted shortly.

The charity was required to expand its board of three to at least five members including two women, a current parent and someone with education background.

Mr Zwajgenberg said Suzanne Power and Flora Lee had been appointed to the board.

Ms Power has been working at the school since 2017 and currently has the title of executive principal of connected education.

Mrs Lee has a professional background in sales and is designated as the parent representative on the board.

Leandre Malan has been appointed to the charity's finance, risk and audit committee and must remain so until the board includes someone with experience in accounting and finance.

The board chair lashed out against media reporting about the school, which he claimed was dominated by "vexatious behaviour" of people with "various personal agendas."

He defended the use of advertising and said the school would be expanding into distance learning in the Asia Pacific. Five new classrooms would be open "in a few weeks" and another five classrooms are planned to be built by July 2023, he said.

Enrolments at the school dropped between 2019 and 2020, however the board chair said the school was seeing "unprecedented growth" with 140 new enrolments this year.

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