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918515

registered interest
date	06/06/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 30 April 2018 to Question 138047 on Academies: Finance, what collated central information is held by (a) his Department and (b) it's agencies on related party transactions undertaken by multi academy trusts.
tabling member constituency	Manchester Central
tabling member printed	Lucy Powell
uin	150686
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2018 answer text <p>Related party transactions involving academy trusts encompass both receipts by and payments by trusts and so there are separate totals for each. This information, including both payments made by and receipts received by academy trusts, was included for the first time in the Academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts for the academic year 2015 to 2016. The information is not collected by single-academy and multi-academy trusts and so reflects all academy trusts.</p><p> </p><p><b>Payments made by academy trusts to related parties:</b></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p> </p></td><td><p>Number of Related Party Transactions</p></td><td><p>2015/16 payments to related parties (£000)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£1 to £50,000</p></td><td><p>2,636</p></td><td><p>24,627</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£50,001 to £100,000</p></td><td><p>183</p></td><td><p>12,585</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£100,001 to £200,000</p></td><td><p>119</p></td><td><p>16,006</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£200,001 to £250,000</p></td><td><p>25</p></td><td><p>5,662</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£250,001+</p></td><td><p>70</p></td><td><p>61,922</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>TOTAL</p></td><td><p>3,033</p></td><td><p>120,802</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><b>Income received by academy trusts from related parties:</b></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p> </p></td><td><p>Number of Related Party Transactions</p></td><td><p>2015/16 receipts from related parties (£000)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£1 to £50,000</p></td><td><p>857</p></td><td><p>9,574</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£50,001 to £100,000</p></td><td><p>135</p></td><td><p>9,541</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£100,001 to £200,000</p></td><td><p>88</p></td><td><p>11,471</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£200,001 to £250,000</p></td><td><p>16</p></td><td><p>3,565</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£250,001+</p></td><td><p>59</p></td><td><p>39,066</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>TOTAL</p></td><td><p>1,155</p></td><td><p>73,217</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>As the tables above show, £120,802,000 (62%) of the total value of all related party transactions is accounted for by academy trusts making payments to related parties, whilst £73,217,000 (38%) represents income received by academy trusts from related parties. Income received from related parties includes; transactions with subsidiary companies or shared services, diocesan education authorities, related charities as well as donations or services provided by trustees, or trustees’ family members.</p><p> </p><p>This information was not previously collected in this format and we do not have comparable analysis for previous years.</p><p> </p><p>Academy trusts, including multi-academy trusts, are required to disclose all related party transactions in their audited annual accounts, which are publicly available for all years the academy trust has been in operation. The department has recently introduced additional requirements through the 2018 edition of the Academies Financial Handbook, in relation to related party transactions, which will take effect from 1 April 2019. These will require trusts to notify the department of any such transaction in advance of them occurring and to seek approval for any where the value, individually or in aggregate, exceeds £20,000.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 15/06/2018 12:34:27 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4263 label Biography information for Lucy Powell

918518

registered interest
date	06/06/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 30 April 2018 to Question 138046 on Academies: Finance, whether a contentious connected party transaction has been referred to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in the last twelve months.
tabling member constituency	Manchester Central
tabling member printed	Lucy Powell
uin	150687
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/06/2018 answer text <p>As confirmed in the response of 30 April 2018, the information requested on contentious connected party transactions is contained within individual case files and not in a centrally recorded format.</p><p> </p><p>My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State confirmed in his 9 June speech to the National Governance Association, that academy trusts will have to seek approval from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) for Related Party Transaction payments of more than £20,000 and that all transactions below £20,000 will need to be declared. The ESFA will implement the changes during the 2018-19 academic year.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 11/06/2018 16:11:39 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4263 label Biography information for Lucy Powell

903940

registered interest
date	14/05/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Academy Trusts reported a severe financial deficit to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in financial year 2018-19.
tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
uin	143828
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/05/2018 answer text <p>The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA) records show that one academy trust has reported a severe deficit in the 2018-19 financial year and two academy trusts received unscheduled funding payments totalling £230,000 in the same period (as at 15 May 2018). In the most serious cases, the ESFA provide additional funding to protect the education of children. Academy trusts are expected to repay any additional funding once they have reached a stable financial position.</p><p> </p><p>Academy trust accountability is founded on a clear framework communicated and regulated by the ESFA, with effective oversight and compliance based on proportionate risk assessment, and robust intervention when concerns arise. To ensure strong external scrutiny, all academy trusts must have an annual external audit of their annual accounts by a registered statutory auditor and the department expect trusts to act on audit findings as an opportunity to strengthen their systems. Auditors must apply national auditing standards set by the Financial Reporting Council as independent regulator, and this provides the department with a high level of confidence that scrutiny is professional and consistent.</p><p> </p><p>The ESFA works with academy trusts to prevent financial instability and enable them to recover their financial position and return to stable governance. When we intervene, we publish financial notices to improve (FNtI) and investigation reports to be transparent so that lessons can be learned. The sector remains in a strong position, with just over 1% of academy trusts subject to an active FNtI. Published FNtIs are available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-financial-notices-to-improve" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-financial-notices-to-improve</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The ESFA is also working with the sector to continue building capacity and expertise in financial management and forecasting. To reinforce the importance of three year financial planning, the ESFA are further strengthening budget forecasting. The ESFA CEO Eileen Milner wrote to academy trusts in March 2018 setting out the requirement for all academy trusts to submit three-year financial forecasts.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 143829 question first answered 17/05/2018 16:10:25 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

903942

registered interest
date	14/05/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Academy Trusts have received emergency funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency in the current financial year; and the total amount of emergency funding that was allocated.
tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
uin	143829
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/05/2018 answer text <p>The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA) records show that one academy trust has reported a severe deficit in the 2018-19 financial year and two academy trusts received unscheduled funding payments totalling £230,000 in the same period (as at 15 May 2018). In the most serious cases, the ESFA provide additional funding to protect the education of children. Academy trusts are expected to repay any additional funding once they have reached a stable financial position.</p><p> </p><p>Academy trust accountability is founded on a clear framework communicated and regulated by the ESFA, with effective oversight and compliance based on proportionate risk assessment, and robust intervention when concerns arise. To ensure strong external scrutiny, all academy trusts must have an annual external audit of their annual accounts by a registered statutory auditor and the department expect trusts to act on audit findings as an opportunity to strengthen their systems. Auditors must apply national auditing standards set by the Financial Reporting Council as independent regulator, and this provides the department with a high level of confidence that scrutiny is professional and consistent.</p><p> </p><p>The ESFA works with academy trusts to prevent financial instability and enable them to recover their financial position and return to stable governance. When we intervene, we publish financial notices to improve (FNtI) and investigation reports to be transparent so that lessons can be learned. The sector remains in a strong position, with just over 1% of academy trusts subject to an active FNtI. Published FNtIs are available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-financial-notices-to-improve" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-financial-notices-to-improve</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The ESFA is also working with the sector to continue building capacity and expertise in financial management and forecasting. To reinforce the importance of three year financial planning, the ESFA are further strengthening budget forecasting. The ESFA CEO Eileen Milner wrote to academy trusts in March 2018 setting out the requirement for all academy trusts to submit three-year financial forecasts.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 143828 question first answered 17/05/2018 16:10:25 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

891461

registered interest
date	25/04/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the the Academies Financial Handbook, how many contentious connected party transactions were referred to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in each year since that requirement was introduced.
tabling member constituency	Manchester Central
tabling member printed	Lucy Powell
uin	138046
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/04/2018 answer text <p>The primary responsibility for the oversight of trusts rests with the trustees themselves, supported by clear financial management and governance requirements set by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in the Academies Financial Handbook. Section 3.3 of the Academies Financial Handbook states that, “Novel, contentious and/or repercussive transactions must always be referred to ESFA for explicit prior authorisation.”</p><p> </p><p>The information requested is contained within individual case files and not in a centrally recorded format.</p><p>The Public Accounts Committee report on academy finances, published 30 March 2018, recommended that “To prevent abuse, the department should tighten the rules in the next version of the Academies Financial Handbook, expected in July 2018, to prevent academies from entering into related party transactions without approval from ESFA.” The government is currently considering the recommendation and will formally respond to the report in late May. <strong><br> </strong></p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 30/04/2018 16:07:42 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4263 label Biography information for Lucy Powell

891462

registered interest
date	25/04/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many related party transactions by multi-academy trusts there have been in each year since 2010.
tabling member constituency	Manchester Central
tabling member printed	Lucy Powell
uin	138047
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/04/2018 answer text <p>Any related party transactions undertaken by multi-academy trusts (MATs) would be disclosed in their audited annual accounts, which are publicly available. However, any figures for collated totals for all MATs across multiple years are not available.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 30/04/2018 16:04:20 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4263 label Biography information for Lucy Powell

857778

registered interest
date	08/03/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much his Department has spent from the public purse on grants and loans to academies and free schools since 2015.
tabling member constituency	Bootle
tabling member printed	Peter Dowd
uin	131679
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/03/2018 answer text <p>As of January 2018, 3.76 million pupils were being taught in academies, including free schools – 47% of the English school population. The department’s spend and loans to academies and free schools in the last two full Financial Years, is as detailed in the table attached.</p><p> </p><p>We are in the process of making a routine update to the data that we hold on pre and post-opening grant allocations for free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools, following the opening of new schools in September. We will be publishing the latest data on GOV.UK in due course.</p><p> </p><p>Further information can be found in the Department's Consolidated annual report and accounts, for the year ended 31 March 2017, available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports</a> and in the National Audit Office report on Converting maintained schools to academies, Feb 2018, which can be found at: <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk" target="_blank">https://www.nao.org.uk</a>.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 14/03/2018 17:37:22 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi attachment 1 file name 131679 Attach.docx title Spend and loans to academies and free schools previous answer version 47103 answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4397 label Biography information for Peter Dowd

846952

registered interest
date	22/02/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many reports his Department has received of irregular financial activity at academy schools, by region, in each of the last.
tabling member constituency	Manchester Central
tabling member printed	Lucy Powell
uin	129126
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/02/2018 answer text <p>Academy trust accountability is founded on a clear framework communicated and regulated by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. As a condition of their funding agreement, all academy trusts are required to prepare annual accounts, independently audited by a statutory auditor.</p><p>As part of the audit process, the independent auditor undertakes a regularity review to identify instances of material irregularity and non-compliance with the accountability framework. The auditor’s ‘Report on Regularity’ is included in every trust’s annual accounts that are published on each trust’s website and filed with Companies House.</p><p> </p><p>The table below shows the number of cases where auditors did not raise any concerns in their regularity reports and those where auditors noted matters of material irregularity and non-compliance for each of the three academy years 2013 to 2014, 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016. Figures for 2016 to 2017 will be published in Academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts in October 2018.</p><p> </p><p>Any regional breakdown of this national analysis could be potentially misleading given that many multi-academy trusts span regional boundaries.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Auditor's Regularity Report</p></td><td><p>2013/14</p></td><td><p>2014/15</p></td><td><p>2015/16</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>No material irregularity or non-compliance</p></td><td><p>2,554</p></td><td><p>2,782</p></td><td><p>2,865</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Material irregularity or non-compliance reported</p></td><td><p>136</p></td><td><p>119</p></td><td><p>136</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Total Academy Trusts</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2,690</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2,901</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>3,001</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Percentage with reported non-compliance</p></td><td><p>5.1%</p></td><td><p>4.1%</p></td><td><p>4.5%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 27/02/2018 17:08:02 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4263 label Biography information for Lucy Powell

845500

registered interest
date	20/02/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the effect of the financial position of the 10 largest academy trusts on the quality of their educational provision.
tabling member constituency	Leeds North West
tabling member printed	Alex Sobel
uin	128472
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/02/2018 answer text <p>The Department for Education, through its Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs), monitors the educational performance of all academy trusts. Similarly, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) monitors the financial position and viability of all trusts. Working very closely together, RSCs and the ESFA take robust action in accordance with their responsibilities when they need to.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 23/02/2018 14:30:21 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4658 label Biography information for Alex Sobel

830016

registered interest
date	24/01/2018
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academies: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 8 July 2015 to Question 4879, on academies, how many academies whose funding arrangements were dependent on Qualified Teacher Status requested to amend their funding agreement in (a) 2016 and (b) 2017 and; how many of those requests were rejected.
tabling member constituency	Hampstead and Kilburn
tabling member printed	Tulip Siddiq
uin	124735
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/01/2018 answer text <p>In 2016 and 2017 the Education and Skills Funding Agency received two specific requests from schools with academy status to amend their funding agreement to enable them to employ teachers without qualified teacher status. One request was received in 2016 and the other in 2017. Both these applications were accepted.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 31/01/2018 13:53:18 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4518 label Biography information for Tulip Siddiq