Download or read book The Academies Programme written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-27 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Academies are state schools which are independent of local authorities and directly accountable to the Department for Education. This report focuses on the performance of sponsored academies (271 on 5 January 2011), usually established to raise educational standards at under performing schools in deprived areas. They have performed impressively to date, achieving rapid academic improvements and raising aspirations in some of the most deprived areas in the country. An important feature of the sponsored model is the role of the sponsors themselves: individuals or organisations who contribute financially, directly or in kind, and who bring expertise and a new approach to the schools they run. But there are concerns. There are already signs of potential financial and governance instability: there needs to be a strong framework with which academies must comply to ensure probity and effective governance across the Programme in the future. While the Department has issued guidance on internal controls and financial management, it has not made important elements mandatory, and many academies are not complying. The report notes some existing sponsors have failed to fulfil the financial contributions they originally pledged to their academies. The Young People's Learning Agency, responsible for funding and monitoring academies, are planning to overhaul academies' governance and accountability, with an emphasis on light-touch regulation. However, light-touch central regulation can only meet the standards for managing public money if it is accompanied by robust controls at academy level to ensure good governance and clear accountability.