More than 200 academy trusts bid for £44 million of government funding to help them grow and often take over struggling schools – before the fund was dumped by the government.
More than 660 schools were involved in applications for the final window of the trust capacity (TCaF) and establishment and growth (TEG) funds, we can reveal. The findings show the scale of the impact of Labour’s academy growth cuts.
One MAT revealed that the loss of the funding has left it having to claw back up to £300,000 from reserves. Another said it may have to make redundancies.
And England’s biggest academy chain warned that the cuts will harm the education of children in struggling schools.
“If even only a fraction of these bids had been funded by now, we would have seen dozens of schools receiving sustained, structured support from strong trusts, of the sort the government has acknowledged as the key driver of rising standards,” Steve Rollett, deputy CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, said.
Scale of trust support fund cut revealed
TCaF provided cash to help MATs develop their capacity and take on underperforming schools, particularly in left-behind parts of the country. Many trusts paid for the improvements before receiving the cash.
Meanwhile, up to £50,000 was available through TEG to establish new trusts or support growth.
The government announced in November that both schemes would be axed, with no cash being awarded to any of those who had bid for the latest round of funding.
Figures obtained through freedom of information requests show 188 TCaF applications – worth £42 million and spanning 413 schools – were lodged at the time. The funding round attracted more bids than any other.
Three requested £750,000, the maximum sum available. The average application was for £223,000.
Reserves dented
The First Federation Trust, in the South-west, applied for almost £750,000 to absorb eight schools after being “encouraged” by the regions group.
Paul Walker, the primary-only MAT’s chief executive, said he hoped to use some to restructure his “finance, back-office teams to manage” the expansion.
“We run a very lean central structure, but by not getting the TCaF we’ve had to expand our team to manage the new schools with very little resource to do that. [This] has been a massive challenge.”
He envisages raiding up to £300,000 from his £1.4 million reserves as a result.
In Suffolk, the Consortium Trust applied for £110,000. CEO Andrew Aalders-Dunthorne said axing the fund contributed to the chain’s decision to consult on “one or two” central team redundancies, having already made cuts last year.
ULT: Education ‘harmed’
United Learning Trust asked for just over £1.2 million across four separate applications.
A spokesperson said the cash “would have been used for schools in the process of joining us which have exceptional need for additional support”. Its ability to support them has now been dealt a “significant” blow.
With conversions also “taking longer”, the education of youngsters “has undoubtedly been harmed”, the spokesperson added.
More than half of trusts said growth plans had been impacted by the removal of TCaF, a survey from the Kreston accountancy firm group found. Most expect to grow more slowly.
Our analysis suggests the trusts lodging TCaF applications ran 10 schools on average.
Five of the bidders were local authority-maintained schools that have not yet converted.
In the last TCaF round, just 40 per cent of the £30 million bid for was actually awarded.
Synergy Education Trust chief Neill Oldham intended to use £500,000 to develop a MAT-wide ICT strategy, improve central team capacity and provide “expert legal, HR, and policy support”.
Having “carefully aligned our growth strategy with the funding criteria”, he said his chain’s “ability to provide high-quality support” in Blackpool “will be significantly hindered” with costs “pushed” onto his academies.
MAT plan shelved
Thirty-eight more applications, involving more than 250 schools and amounting to £1.8 million, were submitted to TEG.
One local authority federation applied for funding to become a MAT. It is now “taking a period of time to consider the changing educational landscape, in the light of the withdrawal, before deciding on next steps”.
West Midlands-based Victoria Academies Trust was one of a handful of organisations that requested TCaF and TEG help.
CEO Sharron Philpot said that, through TEG, the MAT “planned to provide critical support to three schools in Sandwell”, which was listed as a priority area by the previous government. But the “loss of this funding has resulted in the planned extra support not being realised”.
However, Nigel Attwood, the head of Birmingham local authority-maintained school, said “inequalities in the system” gave academies exclusive “access to increasing amounts of money”.
This was “not fair when maintained schools are struggling and falling apart”.
Another LA school head, Andrew O’Neill, added: “We need government to govern the whole system and make capacity and improvement funds available to all types of schools where it’s needed.”
Others also pointed out that some trusts have sizeable reserves.
A DfE spokesperson said they valued the role trusts play in the system, but they “have had to take action to put government spending back on to a sustainable footing”.
They will “continue to support high-quality trusts to use their collaboration and leadership to help deliver exceptional results” for pupils, the spokesperson added.
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