Asked by: Frank Dobson (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of reserves held by local authority maintained schools in each year since 2006-07.
Answered by David Laws
All local authority maintained schools report their balances to the Department for Education as part of their annual Consistent Financial Reporting returns. Some schools have deficit balances; others have surpluses. The table below shows total deficits and surpluses and the net position for all local authority maintained schools for each financial year from 2006-07 to 2013-14.
Period | Total deficit (£) | Total surplus (£) | Net Reserves (£) |
2006-07 | (157,355,905) | 1,827,554,781 | 1,670,198,876 |
2007-08 | (120,094,299) | 2,038,862,929 | 1,918,768,630 |
2008-09 | (139,185,467) | 1,921,159,168 | 1,781,973,701 |
2009-10 | (161,418,942) | 1,826,696,816 | 1,665,277,874 |
2010-11 | (143,478,858) | 2,098,926,882 | 1,955,448,024 |
2011-12 | (109,936,775) | 2,433,469,804 | 2,323,533,029 |
2012-13 | (81,190,825) | 2,306,144,774 | 2,224,953,949 |
2013-14 | (75,947,088) | 2,260,316,153 | 2,184,369,065 |
Source: Consistent Financial Reporting survey
Asked by: Frank Dobson (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of reserves held by free schools in each year since 2010-11.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The table below sets out free schools operating as single academy trusts’ total cash holdings at the end of the three most recent financial years. The first free schools opened in September 2011. Academy trusts’ cash is the best representation of reserves available to trusts. Many free schools operate as single academy trusts and the department can easily identify that free school’s cash holding than the free school academy trust’s annual accounts.
The table does not include free schools operating within multi-academy trusts. As well as free schools, multi-academy trusts may include academies that opened by other routes for example as sponsored academies or by conversion from local authority maintained schools. It is the multi-academy trust that then produces annual accounts that disclose the multi-academy trust’s total cash holdings for all types of academy within the multi-academy trust. The department does not ask multi-academy trusts to disclose the cash holdings of its individual academies or free schools.
Date | Number of free school single academy trusts open | Total cash, £ millions | Average cash per academy trust, £ thousands |
31 March 2012 | 18 | 2 | 11 |
31 March 2013 | 38 | 8 | 21 |
31 March 2014 | 127 | 26 | 20 |
With very small numbers of free school single academy trusts open before 2013-14 it is difficult for us to discern trends in their cash holdings. We do know that the average cash held by all academy trusts has fallen over the four years partly due to many smaller academy trusts opening more recently and holding less cash. We regard all academy trusts’ cash holdings as reasonable, typically representing enough to fund one month’s operations after deducting current liabilities. Academy trusts cannot borrow and need to hold enough cash to manage their solvency prudently.
Asked by: Frank Dobson (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of reserves held by academies in each year since 2006-07.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The table below sets out academy trusts’ total cash holdings at the end of the four most recent financial years. Academy trusts’ cash is the best representation of reserves available to trusts.
Date | Number of academy trusts open | Total cash, £ millions | Average cash per academy trust, £ thousands |
31 March 2011 | 377 | 62 | 165 |
31 March 2012 | 1,524 | 1,199 | 130 |
31 March 2013 | 2,108 | 1,859 | 88 |
31 March 2014 | 2,585 | 2,469 | 96 |
We do not have comparable records of academy trusts’ cash holdings for financial years 2006-07 to 2009-10.
The average cash held by academy trusts has fallen over the four years partly due to many smaller academy trusts opening more recently and holding less cash. We regard academy trusts’ cash holdings as reasonable, typically representing enough to fund one month’s operations after deducting current liabilities. Academy trusts cannot borrow and need to hold enough cash to manage their solvency prudently.
Asked by: Frank Dobson (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many years the longest serving headteacher on the panel which assessed the Institute of Education proposal to establish a university training school in Holborn and St Pancras had been a school head.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The panel that considered the Holborn University Training School proposal and conducted the interview with the Institute of Education possessed a collective experience in school headship of over 32 years, covering secondary and primary phases.
Asked by: Frank Dobson (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which members of his Department's assessment panel which interviewed representatives of the Institute of Education of London University in January 2014 about the proposals to establish a University Training School in Holborn and St Pancras had served in the previous three years as head teacher, deputy or assistant head of a secondary school.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The panel that considered the Holborn University Training School proposal and conducted the interview with the Institute of Education possessed a collective experience in school headship of over 32 years, covering secondary and primary phases. No member of the panel has served in such a role within the last three years.
Free school interview panels consist of a range of education and independent experts.