Public Accounts Committee says academy trusts ‘don’t make enough information available for parents’
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a report arguing that academy trusts do not make enough information available for parents and local communities. Calling for tougher sanctions against serious failings, it cites the experiences of parents from Whitehaven Academy in Cumbria.
The report says:
- At Durand Academy Trust and Bright Tribe Trust, there were serious failures of governance and oversight. Governance at academy trusts needs to be stronger and the Department for Education’s (the Department’s) oversight and intervention needs to be more rigorous.
- The Education and Skills Funding Agency (the ESFA) is taking steps to control executive pay and related party transactions, but these actions are as yet unproven and in isolation will not prevent abuse. The Committee expects to return to these issues in future.
- Parents and local people have had to fight to obtain even basic information about their children’s schools and academy trusts do not do enough to communicate and explain decisions that affect the schools they are responsible for and how they are spending public money.
- The accounts of individual academy trusts, and for the sector as a whole, are not yet as useful and accessible to users as they should be
It also raises concerns about the school system as a whole which it says have not been addressed:
- Despite the funding pressures the sector is facing, neither Ofsted nor the ESFA is assessing the impact of these pressures on the quality of education and the outcomes schools achieve.
- Almost a quarter of schools have still not provided the information that the Department needs to understand fully the extent of asbestos in school buildings.
In response, the Department said it did not accept the PAC’s “negative characterisation of academies”.
A spokeperson added: “The majority of academies are delivering a great education and – as recognised by the PAC – we are taking robust action in the small minority of cases where they are not meeting the high standards expected.
“Academies are subject to higher levels of accountability and transparency than local authority schools.
“Academies must publish their annual accounts and this year we added new requirements on related party transactions.
“We have also taken steps to increase accountability by publishing lists of trusts who do not return accounts on time; and by challenging trusts who pay high executive salaries.”
Read the full report here.