The Department of Education wasted £350m overseeing a two-year period of massive growth in the numbers of academy schools removed from local authority control, a Parliamentary spending watchdog has reported.
A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report issued today on managing the expansion of the academies programme finds £8.3bn was spent on academies between April 2010 to March 2012.
As a result of this funding boost the total number of academy schools – which are accountable to Whitehall and beyond local authority control - increased tenfold from 203 in May 2010 to 2,309 by September 2012.
Margaret Hodge said the funding for academies has not been efficient enough.
However, some £1bn of this outlay was an additional cost met by channelling money from other departmental budgets, and some of this came at the expense of funds earmarked for schools facing difficult challenges and circumstances, the MPs said.
Around £350m of the extra £1bn represented unnecessary additional cash that was never recovered from local authorities, the MPs claim.
Chair of the PAC, Margaret Hodge, said: ‘The funding system for academies has not operated effectively alongside the local authority system and has made it hard for the Department to prove that academies are not receiving more money than they should.
‘The Department must publish detailed data showing school-level expenditure, including costs per pupil, so that proper comparisons can be made with the data for maintained schools.’
Urging the department to ‘get a grip’ on value for money, the Committee said the DfE had incurred significant costs from a complex and inefficient system for funding the programme. The Committee said the DfE’s oversight of academies has had to play catch-up with the rapid growth in numbers – with the number of civil servants scrutinising the finances doubling while the numbers of academies had increased tenfold.
Cllr David Simmonds, Chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said it was 'clearly unacceptable if funds earmarked to help struggling schools improve are diverted because Whitehall got its sums wrong'.
'Having a two-tier system with a separate bureaucracy administering funding for some schools is not efficient and councils have long argued that more money would find its way to the classroom if local councils rather than Whitehall administered the funding for academies, as they already do for other schools, said Cllr Simmonds.
In response a DfE spokesman said: ‘We make no apology for the fact that so many schools have opted to convert, and no apology for spending money on a programme that is proven to drive up standards and make long-term school improvements.
‘The Department for Education has made significant savings in the last two-and-a-half years and has also set aside significant contingencies, which have been set against the growth in academies.’
Please log in to post your comment:If you have not previously done so please register now
Username/Email:
Password:Your comments
Ahh the Labour controlled & chaired PAC (Hodge the Dodge) Now, why will they be moaning? Go Gove, do not be put off by this devilish duo of the left, Labour MP's and Trade Unions
J Smith, Added: Wednesday, 24 April 2013 12:24 AMWandsworth Council have already set of an Academy Commission, but it won't have any teeth.
Jane, retired, Added: Tuesday, 23 April 2013 03:38 PMTears from the Chancellor (perhaps it was about academy funding) but no tiers from Gove. He will have invent some soon to recreate LEA's to control academies but you can be sure they wont be under democratic control.
Patrick Newman, ex local government, Stevenage, Added: Tuesday, 23 April 2013 02:59 PM
via localgov.co.uk