Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish her Department's assessment of the adequacy of procurement and commissioning expertise within academy schools and special academies to meet the criteria of the 2014 EU procurement directives from April 2015.

Academies are publicly funded independent schools. Becoming an academy gives schools more control over their curriculum, budget and staffing. This includes responsibility for procurement, enabling them to achieve greater efficiencies and value for money. An academy trust must however apply the basic rules of procurement whenever it spends public money.We are putting opportunities in place for academies to learn about the new directives and how they apply to all schools. Compliance with EU procurement directives is not a new requirement for academies.

The Department for Education has developed an eLearning tool called Buyways (www.buyways.co.uk) that is available free of charge to all schools and raises awareness of EU procurement regulations and highlights procurement best practice to support schools.

We encourage academies to use procurement routes which are already EU compliant. Details are published online in our procurement guidance www.gov.uk/government/collections/buying-for-schools and www.gov.uk/government/publications/academies-procurement-resource-buying-for-your-academy