Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what checks the Education Funding Agency makes on the quality of auditors and others taking professional fees for services provided to academies.

As companies and charitable trusts, academy trusts are required to appoint independent auditors to report on their financial statements. It is for the academy trust to manage the contract for their services.

Auditors are qualified accountants and regulated by their professional institutes. The institutes undertake a programme of quality assurance visits to ensure firms are operating in accordance with expected professional standards. The outcomes of these reviews are publically available.

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) supplements the various institute regulatory regimes with:

· reviews of academy trusts’ audited financial statements, the associated audit reports on these and auditor management letters. The EFA follows up significant issues with individual trusts and their auditors;

· regular attendance at sector training events and delivery of online presentations/webinars for auditors on the key issues arising from reviews, to help ensure they are aware of the requirements expected of them and key risk areas; and

· responding to auditor queries received through the academy questions mailbox.

Other professional services provided to academy trusts will also be regulated by their relevant institute body, e.g. the Law Society.