Caroline Flint
Main Page: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)Department Debates - View all Caroline Flint's debates with the Department for Education
(8 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although maintained nurseries provide only 3% of the places in early years, they offer excellent early-years education and, over the past few years, we have seen the structure of maintained nurseries evolve as a number have federated or joined multi-academy trusts. I know that my hon. Friend has a special interest in this area, and I would welcome the opportunity to meet him to discuss how we can promote the excellent work that those nurseries do.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
On 20 April, the Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir Amyas Morse, provided an adverse opinion for the second year running on the truth and fairness of the Department for Education’s group financial statements. Sir Amyas said:
“Providing Parliament with a clear view of academy trusts’ spending is a vital part of the Department for Education’s work—yet it is failing to do this.”
How will the Secretary of State ensure that Parliament will be able to see whether extending academies is giving the taxpayer good value for money, when that clearly is not happening now?
Nicky Morgan
I utterly refute what the right hon. Lady has just said. We have a more rigorous system for the governance of individual academies when they become academies. The issue with the Department’s consolidated accounts is a technical and accounting problem caused by academies producing accounts covering the academic year to the end of August, rather than to the end of March. We have now agreed with Parliament a new methodology for the current financial year that will better reflect the situation.