Multi-academy Trusts

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am not sure if the noble Baroness is worried about them being in post for too long or too short a period of time. Given that the programme has existed at scale for only about six years, perhaps she is worried about the short length of tenure. The department is fully geared up: all Companies House filings of retirements or new appointments to boards go through to the ESFA and where we see what we would call unusual actions—for example, a number of trustees retiring simultaneously—we will escalate that as a matter for review.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, is it the case that every academy in a multi-academy trust is audited? If not, why not? If so, what would the repercussions on the trust be if one of the academies failed the audit?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, an academy trust is a single legal entity, so the individual schools are part of that. But the noble Baroness is quite correct that there is a full external audit carried out on academy trusts every year. That is unlike local authority schools, where the average frequency of audit is about every four years, so I can assure her that the scrutiny is far higher than for local authority schools.