Education and skills funding agency

ESFA ‘sorry’ as academy trust handbook issued days before taking effect

With a caretaker government in power, the 2022 academy handbook includes only limited changes

Trust blames not balancing books on lack of DfE Covid cash

An expert said standalone academies faced particular challenges, but Covid boosted rather than worsened many schools’ finances

Everything you need to know about the ESFA review

The agency will be stripped of academy oversight, lose hundreds of staff and face a governance shakeup after the Bell review

Government vetoes more academy deals with linked firms

108 academy trust ‘related party transactions’ were blocked in 2020-21, more than twice the previous year’s figures

ESFA probes trust forced to up top-slice after overspend

Documents suggest the Oval trust ‘set a deficit budget, miscalculated income…and overspent’, while a new board came in after a row with the diocese

Former RSC John Edwards named interim ESFA chief executive

A former regional schools commissioner has been appointed interim chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency. John Edwards, currently ESFA’s director of funding, will replace Eileen Milner who has left to become chief executive of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. Susan Acland-Hood, the DfE’s permanent secretary, said Edwards was a “thoughtful and […]

ESFA boss Eileen Milner to become combined authority chief executive

Eileen Milner will become the chief executive of her local combined authority when she leaves the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority announced today that the senior civil servant will take up the position in the autumn. Its board voted unanimously on the appointment on June 30, the same day […]

ESFA chief executive Eileen Milner to stand down

The chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) Eileen Milner is to stand down, Schools Week can reveal. The senior civil servant told staff today that the “time has come” for her to “go to a new challenge”. Milner was appointed in 2017 shortly after the organisation formed through the merger of […]

DfE blocks MAT’s bid to take shares in outsourcing firm

An outsourcing firm has urged the government not to be “hung up on fear of the different” after officials thwarted a multi-academy trust’s bid to take shares in the for-profit company. Schools Week revealed in March that Transforming Futures Trust (TFT) had signed a £1 million deal to outsource most of its central staff and […]