The Department requires a high level of accountability and transparency from academy trusts. Academy trusts’ status as companies, charities and public sector bodies means they are all subject to rigorous accountability systems. The explicit responsibilities of trust executive leaders as Accounting Officers are set out in the Academy Trust Handbook.

Where non-financial or financial non-compliance or governance failure is identified, including by trust executive leaders, Regions Group or the Education and Skills Funding Agency respectively will intervene in a way that is proportionate to the risk and preserves education provision. This can include issuing a trust with a Notice to Improve or, in the most serious cases, termination of the Funding Agreement.

To strengthen the support for executive head teachers and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), the Department is introducing a new Multi Academy Trust CEO Development programme. The Department has convened an expert panel across school leadership and business to codify the knowledge, skills, and behaviours of a CEO of a large trust into the new ‘Multi Academy Trust Leadership Development: CEO Content Framework’. The document includes the need for robust internal structures for a trust’s board to hold the CEO to account.

The Department holds all academies and free schools to account through a common framework of statutory obligations and school funding agreements. Funding agreements are published transparently on school and trust websites and GOV.UK.

There are currently no open Steiner free schools or academies in the South West. Three Steiner academies were opened in the South West between 2012 and 2014, in Bristol, Frome and Exeter, as part of the free schools programme. In 2018 and 2019, Ofsted found all three schools to be Inadequate and require special measures.

The Department takes robust intervention action in schools with serious failings. The Department subsequently removed control of these schools from those accountable for their failure and transferred all three to Avanti Schools Trust in November 2019. The schools no longer operate with a Steiner ethos and have been renamed. Avanti Hall School (previously Steiner Academy Exeter) performed above the local and national average in 2022 by the Key Stage 4 progress measure.

The Department publishes the total capital cost of completed free schools where all works are completed, and the costs are no longer commercially sensitive. For Steiner Academy Exeter, the total capital costs of site acquisition and construction were £12,072,656.52. The costs of constructing the academies in Bristol and Frome have not yet been released. All academies and free schools receive annual revenue funding in line with the National Funding Formula.

The Department continues to maintain the Steiner Academy Hereford, which is not a free school, in the West Midlands. The school is judged Good by Ofsted and performs above the local and national averages by the Key Stage 4 progress measure.

The Government held a consultation on financial transparency of local authority maintained schools and academy trusts last year.[1] The purpose of that consultation was to propose changes to the financial transparency arrangements for maintained schools to bring them more into line with those for academies.

The Government expects to publish its response to the consultation in early 2020.

[1] https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/financial-transparency-of-local-authority-mainta/supporting_documents/LA%20Financial%20Transparency%20Consulation.pdf.

The Government is taking forward an ambitious programme of action on behaviour, exclusion and alternative provision (AP) which will respect head teachers’ powers to use exclusion when they need to, enable schools to support children at risk of exclusion, and ensure that excluded children continue to receive a good education. We will expand AP and improve the quality of the sector so that pupils in AP receive an education on a par with that received by their mainstream peers and receive the support they need in other areas. Further information on the timeframes for this work will be provided in due course.

There is a process, set out in the statutory guidance, to ensure that all decisions to exclude are lawful, reasonable and fair.

The guidance sets out that parents have the right to make representations about exclusion to the governing board. The governing board can (and in the case of longer or permanent exclusions, must) review the head teacher’s decision and decide if it is lawful, reasonable and fair. Where a governing board upholds a permanent exclusion, parents can also request that the decision is reviewed by an independent review panel, who can recommend or direct a governing board to reconsider their decision.

In the case of maintained schools the local authority must be invited to attend the initial review held by the governing board, and allowed to make representations on the board. The local authority must also arrange the independent review panel, where this is applied for by parents, following a permanent exclusion from a maintained school. In the case of an academy school, it is the Academy Trust who arrange the panel.

In addition to the local review process, the Secretary of State for Education, has the power to investigate a complaint about exclusion and, in certain circumstances, issue a direction about a decision made by a governing board where this does not comply with the legal duties.

I refer the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne to the answer published on 29 June to PQ 465.

Key Stage 3 is a vital part of secondary education. The Government is clear that all pupils deserve to receive a broad and balanced curriculum in the first three years of secondary school.

All secondary schools are held to account on the basis of their results at the end of Key Stage 4. Ofsted’s school inspection handbook makes clear that inspectors will consider the progress that pupils are making at the end of each year and each Key Stage.

The Government is considering how best to improve accountability at Key Stage 3.

Key Stage 3 is a vital part of secondary education. The Government is clear that all pupils deserve to receive a broad and balanced curriculum in the first three years of secondary school.

All secondary schools are held to account on the basis of their results at the end of Key Stage 4. Ofsted’s school inspection handbook makes clear that inspectors will consider the progress that pupils are making at the end of each year and each Key Stage.

The Government is considering how best to improve accountability at Key Stage 3.

Performance data for all maintained schools, including academies, is published on the school performance tables website[1]. This provides information that local communities and parents can use to hold schools to account.

Academies are also subject to independent inspection by Ofsted, which provides an important source of information for local communities and parents.

The Education white paper, ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’, set out the Government’s plans to publish performance information for multi-academy trusts in addition to the continued publication of performance data at individual school level. On Thursday 7 July, we published a statistical working paper[2], using our developing approach, showing the performance of multi-academy trusts at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 using 2015 results.

[1] https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535604/SFR32_2016_text.pdf

As part of our current review of the School Admissions Code, we are considering whether changes need to be made to address some of the issues highlighted by the Schools Adjudicator. The School Admissions Code requires that the oversubscription criteria of all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious character, are reasonable, clear, objective, and procedurally fair. Schools operating faith-admission arrangements must ensure that parents can easily understand how any faith-based criteria will be reasonably satisfied. Parents should be able to look at a set of arrangements and understand easily how places for that school will be allocated.

If parents consider arrangements are unclear or unfair they can object to the Schools Adjudicator.

Officials regularly meet with a range of stakeholders to discuss admissions policy.

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools are required to comply with the School Admissions Code. This includes a requirement that ‘parents should be able to look at a set of arrangements and understand easily how places for that school will be allocated’. We consider that the code provides clear advice to all admission authorities.

Compliance is enforced by the Schools Adjudicator. Where an objection is made and the adjudicator finds that the arrangements are unclear, unfair, or that they otherwise fail to comply with the code, the admission authority is required by law to change the policy.

The degree to which maintained schools comply with the code is monitored through the Chief Adjudicator’s Annual Report. We consider the findings of the report and whether changes to the system are necessary.

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious character, are required to comply with the School Admissions Code. This includes a requirement that ‘parents should be able to look at a set of arrangements and understand easily how places for that school will be allocated’.

We support the right of schools with a religious designation to prioritise children of their faith. The code requires such schools, as a minimum, to prioritise looked after and previously looked after children of their faith ahead of other children. We have no plans to change this requirement.

The code can only be applied to bodies within the education sector. It cannot place requirements upon religious bodies. It does, however, require that when schools with a religious designation adopt admission criteria which prioritise children based on their faith, the schools must take account of religious activities as laid out by their religious authority.

Compliance with the code is enforced by the Schools Adjudicator. Where an objection is made and the adjudicator finds that the arrangements are unclear, unfair, or that they otherwise fail to comply with the code, the admission authority is required by law to change the policy.

The Government will shortly consult on a package of changes to the code which will both respond to the findings within the Chief Adjudicator’s Annual Reports and concerns raised by parents. That package will include measures to improve fairness and transparency.

I refer my honourable friend to the answer to parliamentary question number HL5704.