Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many academy schools have been removed from their sponsors and placed (a) in new trusts and (b) into local authority control in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.

Where a trust has failed to improve a school that was underperforming, Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) have intervened, and that may have led to the academy being transferred to a new trust. An academy may also apply to change trust arrangements voluntarily. For example, a single academy may want to join a multi-academy trust (MAT) because it wants to benefit from the greater capacity this can provide. Information on academies that have moved trusts between 2013/14 to 2016/17 was published in September 2017 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-trust-transfers-and-grant-funding. This publication provides information on the funding associated with the transfer of academies to different trusts, whether this was initiated voluntarily by the academy or trust, or whether an RSC made a decision that this would be in the best interests of pupils at the academy. Data on academy transfers before 2013/14 is not available. No academies have been placed back into local authority control.

The publication will be updated annually to show academies that have moved trust for the following financial year; the data for 2017-2018 financial will be released in July 2018.

Table 1. Number of academies that have moved trust by financial year (Source: Academy trust transfers and grant funding)