Lucy Powell MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, commenting on the National Audit Office report slamming the Department for Education for failing to provide a clear view of academy trusts’ spending, said:

“This is a damning and very serious report, which highlights both the opaque financial arrangements within some academy chains, as well as the almost impossible job the Department for Education has set itself in trying to directly run thousands of schools from Whitehall. Forcing all schools to become academies will make this situation even worse.

“If this report was about a local authority, it would rightly be put in special measures and taken over.”