Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions (a) he (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) officials in his Department have had with AET on the benchmarking exercise for AET secondary schools in London; and whether his Department approved benchmarking process; and if he will place in the Library a copy of the benchmark against which AET secondary schools in London are being assessed.

The department, including ministers and officials, have held no detailed discussions with the Academies Enterprise Trust on a benchmarking exercise for their London Academies. We have not approved a benchmarking process, as this is for the trust to determine, and do not have a copy of any benchmark London Academies are currently being assessed against.

The department does publish a range of financial benchmarking tools, and signposts trusts to these. They include the Schools Financial Benchmarking tool which can be accessed publicly here: https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/.