Beleaguered academy trust reveals £4m in-year loss and £4.5m loans from government – as its effective 24 per cent topslice charge on school budgets is set out in accounts

Scale of financial struggles facing Arthur Terry Learning Partnership is revealed in financial statements for 2024-25.

The scale of a multi-faceted financial crisis facing a large multi-academy trust has been laid bare in newly-published accounts, which set out how it lost more than £4 million last year, is receiving £4.5 million in government loans and appears to be docking nearly a quarter of its schools’ income in central charges.

The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP), based in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, recorded an “operating deficit” of £4.46 million in 2024-25, while it had received a £3.5 million loan from the Department for Education in the last academic year.

A further £1 million loan from the DfE was agreed last month. Meanwhile, the 24-school trust saw its effective topslice – the proportion of schools’ central funding which is taken to pay for central costs – rise from 20 to 24 per cent last year.

It is unclear from the accounts exactly why the trust, which has faced huge financial challenges since launching a scheme to buy iPads for all its pupils and 1,000 staff, recorded such a deficit in 2024-25.

Members of the National Education Union at the trust are due next week to begin nine days of strike action, against what it says is the possibility of more than 100 job losses.