MPs make fresh call for individual academy accounts to be published

A cross-party Parliamentary committee has re-iterated its call for academy accounts to be published at the level of the individual school, warning that without this there was a “lack of transparency” which undermined the institutions’ accountability to parents.

The Public Accounts Committee made the recommendation, in a scathing report on the academies system published this morning, three years after issuing a similar call, which seems to have achieved no traction with the Department for Education.

In its report, the committee said: “We remain concerned over the accessibility of local financial information. Multi academy trusts are not required to publish accounts for each academy in the trust.

“This lack of transparency is detrimental to parents’ ability to hold their local academy leaders, and the Department [for Education] to account for the services they provide to pupils and their use of public funds.”

Detail in this report focused on what seems something of a paradox: the DfE’s introduction in 2018-19 of a national funding formula (NFF) for schools, which is meant to guarantee minimum levels of funding per pupils for all schools, yet with the DfE also favouring a multi academy trust policy which allows trusts to move funds as they choose.