Disgraced “superhead” Greg Wallace was forced to quit a government advisory panel last week, after it was pointed out to ministers he had been sacked by Hackney Council following a financial investigation.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan faced huge embarrassment when it emerged Wallace - who was serving an unpaid role on a Department for Education (DfE) maths advisory panel - is facing a disciplinary hearing over IT contracts awarded to his partner.

The DfE now claims an “admin error” had been made on the part of the officials who appointed Wallace to the group.

Mr Wallace – once described as one of former education secretary Michael Gove’s “magnificent seven” academy superheads – was suspended from his post last summer while the council investigated allegations of financial irregularity and the awarding of lucrative computer contracts - thought to be worth in excess of £1million - to C2 Technology, reportedly owned by his boyfriend Tony Zangoura.

Wallace, the executive head of five Hackney schools – Woodberry Down, London Fields, Whitmore, Mandeville and Burbage, part of the Best Start Federation (BSF) governing body – was dismissed in October 2014 after the inquiry.

He is due to appear soon before a disciplinary hearing ordered by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). At the time, union leaders questioned why Hackney Council did not report him to the body regulating teachers, and decided to take the matter into their own hands.

Mick Regan, former associate secretary of Hackney’s National Union of Teachers (NUT) branch, said the NCTL should have been immediately informed by the council after his dismissal to make sure a proper investigation took place at the first opportunity. “We brought it to the NCTL’s attention because he hadn’t been investigated,” he told the Gazette.

“The point is that the Learning Trust had an obligation to report Greg Wallace and they failed to do so, and questions need to be asked on whose authority that decision was made. In theory Wallace could be banned from teaching.”

Despite Wallace’s track record, both the Harris Federation of academies, founded by the Conservative party donor Lord Harris, and the government had subsequently appointed Wallace as an adviser.

A DfE spokesman said: “Mr Wallace is no longer a ‎member of the maths working group run by the DfE and the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics.”

Hackney Council declined to comment.