Conclusions and recommendations
1. The Committee notes the National Audit
Office's value for money conclusion and welcomes the impressive
progress made by the Programme of sponsored academies to date.
These academies have improved pupils' educational achievements
and life chances in some of the most deprived communities in the
country. This is a credit
to the academies themselves, and to the Department. Ensuring that
these benefits are realised as the Programme expands will be a
challenge. Our main concern for the future is that academies'
educational achievements should not be undermined by poor stewardship
of the public funds necessary to sustain the impacts of the Programme.
2. Ensuring that academies can find enough
outstanding school leaders is crucial to the future effectiveness
of the Programme. As it expands the Programme,
the Department should work with others to help develop future
school leaders. Demonstrating effective leadership should be a
requirement of all established and converter academies.
3. Whilst standards have improved, too many
pupils still leave primary school with poor levels of English
and mathematics, making it more difficult for them to engage with
the curriculum and make progress when they reach secondary school.
The Department should encourage sponsors
working with academies in deprived areas to expand into primary
schools, for example by taking on responsibility for primary schools
located in the same neighbourhood, so that issues of literacy
and numeracy are addressed at an earlier stage. The Department
should consider allowing more academies to develop into the primary
school sector.
4. Many academies have inadequate financial
controls and governance to assure the proper use of public money,
and the Department and Agency have not been sufficiently rigorous
in requiring compliance with guidance.
In developing a new financial handbook and governance framework,
the Agency should make it compulsory for all academies - sponsored
and converter - to comply with basic standards of governance and
financial management. This should include segregation of key roles
and responsibilities, and timely submission of annual accounts.
5. As the Programme expands, there are increased
risks to value for money and proper use of public money. The
Department needs to develop sufficient capacity and adequate arrangements
to provide robust accountability and oversight of academies' use
of public funds.
6. The Department has failed to collect all
the financial contributions due from sponsors. The
status of some of these contributions remains unclear as payment
schedules are abandoned, and now that future sponsors have no
such obligations. The Department should clarify the status and
recoverability of these outstanding debts, negotiate clear and
realistic payment schedules with the relevant sponsors, and monitor
repayment.
7. There is a clear difference between sponsored
academies seeking to raise educational standards in deprived areas
and the new converter academies, which already perform well academically.
Neither of the sponsors we heard from were interested in running
outstanding schools seeking academy status. The fact that there
are now two distinct dimensions to the Programme increases the
Department's challenge in ensuring sound management and accountability.
The Department should clarify the objectives of each strand of
the Programme, stating clearly how success will be measured and
how academies will be held to account for their performance.
8. The Department and the Agency have struggled
to administer and monitor the relatively small number of academies
to date, and must now cope with a rapid expansion across many
more schools. The Department and the Agency
should regulate funding and monitoring to make the processes as
efficient as possible, and regularly review their capacity to
keep pace with increases in the number of academies.
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