Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications her Department received for sponsorship of academies in each region in each year since 2010.

1,014 applications to become sponsors of academies have been received since 2010; of which 814 applications have been approved.

Tables 1 to 3 show the number of applications for sponsorship of academies received by the Department for Education each year since 2010, by Regional Schools Commissioners’ (RSC) region.

Applications made in a given year may not be approved until a following year, thus tables 1 and 3 are not comparable. Table 2 shows the number of applications made in a given year that were approved the same year, it does not account for applications made in previous years that were then approved in a following year.

A list of approved academy sponsors and their registered lead RSC region is published on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-sponsor-contact-list. This does not include the year of application or approval.

Table 1: Number of applications received by DfE for sponsorship of academies in each RSC region in each year since 2010. Figures only include applications for full sponsorship; they exclude applications from co-sponsors[1] and educational partners[2].

Table 2: Number of applications for sponsorship made each year since 2010 that were approved by DfE, in each RSC region, by year of application. Figures exclude approvals of applications begun in previous years and only include applications for full sponsorship; they exclude applications from co-sponsors and educational partners.

Table 3: Total number of applications approved by DfE for sponsorship of academies in each RSC region in each year since 2010, by year of approval. Figures only include applications for full sponsorship; they exclude applications from co-sponsors and educational partners.

[1] Co-sponsors can undertake similar activities to that of a lead sponsor, but are unlikely to act as the chair of an Academy trust or that of a Governing Body, a role which is typically undertaken by a lead sponsor. The lead sponsor might appoint co-sponsors as members or directors (governors) of an Academy Trust.

[2] Educational partners deliver specific services to an Academy trust, which may or may not be undertaken as a contracted arrangement between the education partner and a Trust. These services can include: delivering “back office services”; providing continuous professional development, sharing facilities, sharing Governors, and providing school improvement services.