The investigation by Parliament’s Committee of Public Accounts (CPA) concluded that standards of financial management in some free schools are “clearly not up to scratch”. Its 64-page report also slams the Department for Education (DfE) and Education Funding Agency (EFA) for a lack of effective oversight.
The MPs are concerned that recent scandals came to light not via the EFA’s monitoring processes, but because of whistleblowers. They are also worried that in 2011/12 fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns to the EFA on time.
There are currently 174 free schools open with a further 116 set to follow this September. However, there have been a number of high-profile failures, including the recent “serious failings” in financial management found at the Kings Science Academy in Bradford.
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