The Department for Education (DfE) is facing severe criticism from a cross-party committee of MPs for overspending by more than £1bn on these academies programme over a two-year period.
The public accounts committee, in a report released on Tuesday, has found that the department drew £95m of this money from a budget that was supposed to have been spent on underperforming schools.
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The National Audit Office reports an overspent of £1billion on the academies programme.
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/managing-the-expansion-of-the-academies-programme/
The report also warns of the risk of lack of accountability. We are seeing the results of this with the recent warning about financial mismanagement given to E-Act which, under the alternative name of Edutrust, was previously warned for financial mismanagement, leading to the resignation of Chairman Lord Bhatia.
I don’t know how often chairmen are allowed to resign, academy trusts change their names, etc before action is taken.
Looking at the Funding Agreement for Edutrust (2008) which is based on the model funding agreement, it would appear that the Secretary of State can only cancel the agreement in the case of an academy trust being put into liquidation or being unable to pay its bills – this looks as though repeated financial mismanagement is not sufficient to allow for a breaking of the legal agreement!!!
Michael Gove cancelled the desperately needed rebuilding of a secondary school in Croydon, due under BSF funds, although approved financing ‘luxuries for the academies.
How much money has he wasted turning or forcing schools to become academies that should have been spent improving conditions and facilities for pupils in schools over the country instead ?