Academy regulation ‘too weak’, says MPs’ report

Checks and balances on how academy schools in England spend large amounts of public money are “too weak”, research commissioned by MPs has found.

A report carried out for the Education Select Committee said “questionable practices” were being signed off.

However, the report stressed that cases of deliberate fraud were rare.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan will be questioned about “loopholes” in academy regulation when she appears before the committee next month.

Greed and nepotism

The research – carried out by the University of London’s Institute of Education – found that while regulation had improved since 2010, problems were still occurring, including potential conflicts of interest.

The greed, nepotism and self-serving behaviour of a few shouldn’t bring the academies movement in general into disrepute”

Graham Stuart MP Chairman, Education Select Committee

One interviewee described an academy head teacher who had spent £50,000 on a one-day training course run by a friend.

Another cited the chairman of a multi-academy trust, who was also a lawyer specialising in education, who used his company to provide all legal services for the trust.

Another said the chairman of governors in one academy told staff they would be dismissed if they discussed with students or used textbooks referencing abortion or contraception.

The chairman of the committee, Graham Stuart, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that most academies were “working hard in challenging conditions to raise standards.”

And he said the “greed, nepotism, and self-serving behaviour of a few” should not bring “the academies movement in general into disrepute”.

“Issues around at-cost provision of services, and some other technicalities, are still pretty weak in regulatory terms,” Mr Stuart added.

“I think we will want to question the secretary of state pretty strongly on that.”

Mr Stuart said his committee will question the education secretary “pretty strongly”

The report said the “vast majority of academy trusts” were staffed by “honourable people”.

It added: “Cases of deliberate fraud are rare and many of the instances where real or perceived conflicts have arisen are the result of people being asked to work too fast with too few controls.

“Nevertheless, the general sense from the literature and the evidence collected for this study is that the checks and balances on academy trusts in relation to conflicts of interest are still too weak.

“In the course of the research we came across a significant number of real or potential conflicts of interest that we found concerning.”

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