Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 15 June 2018 to Question 150684 on Academies, if he will publish a list of each regional schools commissioners’ risk ratings of the multi academy trusts in their regions.

Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) take account of a variety of educational[1], financial and governance information when making assessments of multi-academy trusts (MATs) in their regions. These may include, for example, the published MAT performance measures. As outlined in the published RSC Decision Making Framework, RSCs assess MATs at key milestones throughout the academic year, such as following exam results. They also assess MATs at key stages of their growth to consider their capacity to support and enable the academies within their MAT to improve.[2]

As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State announced in his speech at the National Governance Association on 9 June, we concluded that we need to have a transparent way of assessing the strength of individual trusts. We want to take time to get this right and will be engaging with the sector over the coming months before setting out proposals.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/multi-academy-trust-performance-measures-2016-to-2017.

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/577885/RSC_decision_making_framework_December_2016.pdf.