Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how often independent inspections of multi-academy trusts are carried out; and how many financial inspections of multi-academy trusts were carried out in (1) 2014–15, and (2) 2016–17.

Ofsted inspect schools, including schools in multi-academy trusts (MATs), against the Common Inspection Framework. Inspection reports are published by Ofsted[1]. Where schools are in a MAT, Ofsted can batch school inspections together and publish their findings, in relation to the whole MAT. In addition, the department also publishes performance measures for MATs bringing together their school-level performance data[2].

The finances of all trusts are independently audited every year and published on trusts’ websites and are also available on Companies House[3]. Additionally, in cases where financial wrongdoing is suspected, the Education & Skills Funding Agency may conduct targeted investigations. The reports from these investigations are published on GOV.UK[4].

[1] https://reports.beta.ofsted.gov.uk/.

[2] https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/.

[3] https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company.

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-investigation-reports.