Data released today on academy school finances and spending underlines the urgent need for stronger regulation and transparency to ensure public money is focused at the frontline and is being spent responsibly, NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union, is arguing.
The publication of the Academies Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts 2023 to 2024 shows a 39% increase in one year in the number of multi academy trusts (MATs) paying salaries of over £150,000 a year to senior staff and a 13% annual increase in the amount spent on consultancy.
At the same time, the accounts show a 17% increase in compulsory redundancies on the previous year and an increase in the number of trusts in revenue deficit. £18.5m was provided by the government in additional financial support to 53 MATs – 32 of whom received money to support deficit recovery.
NASUWT is calling for salary caps on academy leaders in relation to pupil numbers, a cap on consultancy spending, an end to the use of profiteering supply and employment agencies and for education procurement to come back under public management. The Union also wants to see academy trusts obligated to publish itemised spending every year.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
“These latest figures only underline the scale of the national scandal that is unfolding across our schools due to the lack of checks and balances on the academy sector.
“We have ballooning salaries among those at the top of some MATs, all the while redundancies among frontline staff in schools are on the increase. Those doing the vital work with pupils – teachers and teaching assistants – are being sacrificed to shore up an increasingly indefensible funding model.
“It beggars belief that the government’s response to this scandal is to announce that it wants all schools in England to be required to join an academy trust in future.
“We need an end to the profiteering and the introduction of some proper accountability, transparency and regulation in the academies sector to ensure that public money and resources are being focused on where they really matter – on the quality of learning in our classrooms.”
