Education and Skills Funding Agency: Billing

(asked on 5th December 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many related-party transactions over £20,000 there were in the 2017-18 financial year where records are available; what resource the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) plans to allocate to sign off related-party transactions over that amount in the 2018-19 financial year; and what deadline the ESFA plans to set to sign off individual transactions.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 10th December 2018

To increase transparency and accountability, from April 2019 academy trusts will be required to declare all Related Party Transactions (RPTs) and to seek the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA’s) approval for any worth over £20,000.

Individual trusts’ accounts for 2017-18 are not due to be submitted to the Department until early 2019 and, therefore, the information on numbers of RPTs worth over £20,000 for 2017-18 will not be published. The new process from April 2019 will allow the Department to report on sector-wide RPT use, including volumes of RPTs worth over £20,000.

A dedicated team has been established to administer the new process. This team will be responsible for a range of duties in terms of ensuring compliance with the approval process and ensuring approvals are dealt with, within an appropriate time scale. Guidance to support and underpin the new process will be published on GOV.UK, in advance of April 2019.

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