Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the total held in reserves by academies in each year since 2010.

Academies are independent organisations and hold reserves, both are working capital to manage day-to-day commitments, and to build funds for longer term planning, as they cannot borrow commercially.

The reserves held by academies are included in the Education Funding Agency’s published accounts for financial years 2012-13 and 2013-14. These reserves are shown in the Statement of Financial Position and are entitled the revaluation reserve and charitable fund. The Education Funding Agency does not have comparable figures for financial year 2011-12 and earlier years. At present, the figures for 2014-15 are not ready for publication. The accounts for financial year 2013-14, that also show balances for financial year 2012-13 are published online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/efa-annual-report-and-accounts-1-april-2013-to-31-march-2014