Academy borrowing - 1 year delay on publication

The Education Funding Agency has said it will delay publication of figures showing how much money academy schools have borrowed to improve their buildings. Last year the EFA said it would publish figures in June 2016.

Guardian cash cow questions

A brief look at some of the issues covered in Daniel Boffey and Warwick Mansell piece in the Observer: 'Are England's academies becoming a cash cow for business?'

Charity used land leased to academies to secure a loan

Schools Week reported that land leased to two academies for 125 years at peppercorn rent is under threat after the sponsoring 'charity used the land as security for a mortgage to buy an adjacent plot for £1.4 million...'

MATs in the media

Schools Week: How MATs want to be inspected - a look at evidence submitted by big MATs to the Education Select Committee.

MAT used unapproved loans to cover slow EFA payments

Unauthorised loans with a value of £150,000 were taken out by Chapel Street Schools, a multi-academy trust (MAT) which runs six schools. Another loan of £85,000 was also borrowed around the time the initial loans were repaid.

MATs: don't build, it's easier to take over schools

A story in the Manchester Evening News from May says: ' ...the Co-op trust, which had initially expressed an interest, has now told the town hall it would rather take over existing schools under the government’s forced academisation policy, announced in March’s budget. Building a new school is ‘labour intensive’ compared to simply taking over existing ones, it said. It is understood other trusts have taken a similar view.'

MATs to build homes for teachers?

Harris calls for right to build homes for its teachers:
The Guardian (April 16, 2016): 'changes to planning regulations and the offer of government finance would allow Harris and others to build low-cost housing"
And more recently in the Evening Standard (May 24, 2016): 'We want to be empowered by government to build housing on the surplus land some of our schools have, which is currently totally unused.'

FT: MAT model rolled out in prisons

The FT said: 'The introduction of semi-autonomous “reform prisons” will result in groups of prisons being run by a single governor in the same way that academies have turned into chains of schools.' (May 18, 2016)

Supply teacher spending: academy Vs maintained

Figures supplied by DfE in response to a parliamentary question.

Supply teacher spend by local authorities in maintained schools in England
Vs
Supply teacher spend by academy schools in England:

Year	10/11	11/12	12/13	13/14	14/15
Maintained	£906m	£766m	£743m	£812m	£821m
Academies	-	£99m	£211m	£354m	-

255 academies applied for CIF loans in 2015/16 - plans to extend scheme.

In response to an FOI request the Education Funding Agency has said it received 255 loan applications alongside grant applications in its 2015/16 Condition Improvement Fund process. The EFA added that this loan facility could be extended to larger multi-academy trusts (MATs).

130 academies 're-brokered' between trusts

UPDATE June 15: Sir David Carter provides more details about number and breakdown of re-brokered academies: 119 total since Sept 2014, of which 68 from one multi-academy trust to another and 51 from single academy trust to MAT (BBC). This adds to the picture of increasing numbers of academies that are being re-brokered to new trusts after failing to make necessary improvements.

MATs included in DfE financial benchmarking for the first time

According to the EFA's latest Academies Bulletin: "The Department for Education has updated the academies financial benchmarking website with 2013 to 2014 income and expenditure data. For the first time we have included income and expenditure details for academies in multi-academy trusts."

Four London boroughs no longer on deprivation index

The Office of National Statistics has published its 'English indices of deprivation 2015' in which one of its headlines is: 'The 20 most deprived local authorities are largely the same as found for the 2010 Index, but the London Boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Haringey have become relatively less deprived and no longer feature in this list.'

Academy given powers to issue parking fines

A report from ITV says: 'A school in Thurrock has become the first in the country to be given the power to issue parking fines. From this week, a parent volunteer will begin patrolling the streets around Tilbury Pioneer Academy where there have been growing problems of the roads being clogged by parked cars.'

NGA: Academy founders underestimated charity status

An article in Third Sector magazine includes comments from Emma Knights, CEO of the National Governors Association, comparing the problems of Kids Company with those facing academies - where problems may be caused by what she sees an increasing number of founders being trustees. She said she recently spoke to a