An under-fire academy trust rocked by the first-ever teacher walkouts over so-called “GAG pooling” has ditched the controversial funding policy.
Staff at five University of Brighton Academies Trust (UoBAT) schools went on strike earlier this year over the chain’s financial model.
It comes after Schools Week revealed one of its academies had about 20 per cent of its cash retained centrally, while another had 17 per cent held back.
The issue also landed in Parliament this week, as schools minister Catherine McKinnell told MPs: “The trust is now committed to ending its current financial model and collaborating with school leaders on future budget setting.”
This came after Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore said “parents, teachers and students” were “horrified” to learn the trust had been “taking a whopping 20 per cent”.
Trusts have two methods to fund central services. Most top slice a percentage from their schools’ budgets.
But a growing number are instead pooling their general annual grant (GAG) first, before deciding how much should be allocated to academies based on their own formula, which is not made public.
A UoBAT spokesperson confirmed the trust would move to a top-slice model to “support greater transparency”, after “recognising this is a request from its schools”.
It is “working closely with the DfE in finding the best way to manage its funds”.
I suspect this kind of scenario will slowly become more common as the commercialisation of our schools intensifies over the coming decades. Workarounds, loop holes, grey areas and unenforced rules and regulations will start to be exploited more frequently by those looking to extract what little money is left in the system.