Businessmen in near-complete control of schools educating more than 100,000 pupils, new analysis by Education Uncovered shows

Nearly 200 state-funded schools across England, educating more than 100,000 pupils, are now in the control of wealthy businessmen, new analysis by Education Uncovered reveals today.

Some 189 academies see philanthropists in ultimate charge of how they operate, as a policy introduced under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair allowing tycoons influence over a small number of schools has expanded rapidly since 2010.

Nine of the 10 trusts running these academies are controlled or heavily influenced by people – all of them men - who have donated or loaned money to political parties, including eight of them to the Conservative Party.

These trusts’ legal constitutions see the controlling sponsors handed sweeping powers to appoint in many cases the vast majority of trustees, who in turn control the organisation through setting its strategy. Parents, pupils and rank-and-file staff members, by contrast, have little or no influence over decision-making. 

The not-for-profit trusts, of course, are organisations which are largely funded by the taxpayer, with core income from the Department for Education of £535 million between them in 2017-18. However, this investigation shows how they are effectively under private control.