ESFA | Schools Week

Bailed-out academy boss set for £150k payout, despite £1.1m budget hole

A single academy trust facing closure has set aside a £150,000 payout for its chief executive, despite reporting a £1.1 million budget black hole last year and needing two taxpayer bailouts. The Castle Trust is set to be wound up after it was stripped of Delce Academy in Kent last year following an “inadequate” rating. […]

School repairs derailed by ‘inexplicable’ CIF delays and material shortages

Schools have been forced to delay building repairs by up to a year after the government awarded condition improvement funding almost two months later than usual. Some of the 1,199 schools which received CIF awards last month face an anxious wait to hear if contractors and the DfE will agree to defer projects no longer […]

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 […]

Schools handed extra cash to take NQTs off-timetable after Covid hits induction

Schools will receive cash to fund additional off-timetable development for their current cohort of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) as a result of Covid disruption to induction. The Department for Education announced on Monday that state schools in England will be eligible for the funding for every NQT due to complete their induction this summer. The […]

New academy rules put trust autonomy at risk, say sector leaders

Sector leaders are warning the new academy trust handbook could undermine board autonomy , and demanding the government confirm whether it spells “broader intervention” in future. Most of the changes to the rebranded 2021 edition, previously known as the academies financial handbook, are simply pulling in existing school guidance from elsewhere. Minister Baroness Berridge’s foreword […]

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 […]

Multiple rule breaches found in Dunham Trust ESFA investigation

An academy trust that paid out tens of thousands of pounds to related parties, spent over £1,000 for staff to attend a summit in Jordan and paid an employee’s parking ticket broke academy funding rules, an investigation has found. The Education and Skills Funding Agency investigated the Dunham Trust last June after receiving “allegations around […]

23 trusts submitted financial returns late

The government has named and shamed 23 academy trusts that were late in submitting financial returns in the last academic year. Trusts were supposed to have their land and buildings collection tool sent off by November 4 last year, and financial statements were supposed to follow on December 31, with accounts returns due on January […]