Panicking officials staged a last-minute ring-around to urge academy leaders to vote for the committees that help to oversee the schools system, it has emerged.

The election for places on the eight headteacher boards (HTBs) across England, which help regional schools commissioners make crucial decisions about the fate of academies and non-academies, closed on 21 September.

The leader of one academy trust, who asked not to be named, said he received multiple phone calls from the Department for Education on the last day of the election, urging him and his schools’ leaders to vote, in a bid to increase turnout and ensure the election was seen as credible.

The DfE, however, claims that calls were made to academies because they were struggling to access voting packs.

But the academy trust chief executive officer, who asked not to be named, told Tes: “I had three phone calls saying I had not voted, and the heads in the trust had not voted, and we needed to vote. There was a real campaign to get headteachers to vote.

“This is the panic they are in - they are employing people to phone around to make sure that you vote.

“This was not a random call. This was based on an email of who had voted.”

However, the CEO said: “I did not vote because I didn’t think enough information was provided about the candidates.”

He added that none of his headteachers voted either, for the same reason.

This year’s HTB elections - the second since the system was created in 2014 - have already been hit by the fact fewer people stood this time, the disenfranchisement of non-academies, and technical problems with the web-based voting system.

In 2014, the DfE said the turnout at the first election was “almost 40 per cent”.

And the boards themselves have come under fire over concerns about potential conflicts of interest, and a lack of transparency about how they help make decisions that affect schools and communities for generations to come.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Regional schools commissioners maintain regular contact with academies and trusts in their region. During the headteacher board voting period, we were made aware that a small number of academies had trouble accessing voting packs.

“Where this occurred, we took necessary action to ensure schools could engage with the elections, and this included making phone calls.”