We are publishing for the first time Academies' spend data, which contains information on Academies’ income and expenditure for the academic year 2010/2011. This publication forms part of the Coalition Government’s data transparency agenda.
These tables (which are attached at the top of this page) use data from the Abbreviated Accounts Returns (AARs) completed by each Academy Trust for the period ending 31 August 2011 (generally the academic year September 2010 to August 2011). This is data that shows each Academy Trust’s income and spending for the year and is provided to the Education Funding Agency (previously the YPLA) by Academies. In addition, we are publishing the raw data file so that people can carry out further analysis themselves.
This data is not directly comparable with the data collected for local authority maintained schools for a number of reasons, including:
- Academies receive additional funding to reflect the wider responsibilities that are carried out by the local authority for maintained schools;
- the Academies that were operating during this period tend to be those set up in areas of high deprivation and so will have received additional funding to reflect this;
- over 80% of these Academies are sponsor led and so generally will have replaced underperforming schools that were likely to have attracted extra grants to turn them around;
- some capital grants, capital funds and/or capital donations appear in the data which will make some Academies’ income appear very high. We exclude all capital income in the data we publish for maintained schools; and
- the AAR return has different income and expenditure categories to the return completed by local authority maintained schools.
The accompanying User Guide provides more information on the differences in the datasets.
Therefore, and because this is the first year we are publishing spend data for Academies, we are publishing the tables in an accessible downloadable format. The Department plans to align the datasets more closely over time to support comparisons between the local authority maintained and Academy sectors.
In addition, topline attainment indicators from the 2011 Performance Tables have been included in these tables. They are: the percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 or above in both English and mathematics at Key Stage 2 and the percentage of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent), including English and maths GCSEs.
All schools and Academies work to achieve the best outcomes for their pupils and must use their resources effectively to do this. By publishing Academies’ spend data alongside attainment data, we want to help Academies to see if they are delivering value for money and equip parents with the information they need to ask questions of schools. We want to encourage people – and the Academies themselves – to look at their spending, including that spending compared to other Academies, so that they can ask questions about spending decisions and identify areas where there is scope to improve value for money.
To make meaningful comparisons between Academies, it is important to consider the percentage of children eligible for Free School Meals, the type of Academy (including whether it is a primary or secondary Academy) and whether it is in London or not. This is because all these factors will affect how much an Academy spends.
The three files attached are: an excel workbook which holds all of the Academies' spend data tables and the raw data, a User Guide and a Technical Guide.
