This statistics publication provides data and analysis on the number of academies that have moved trust from the financial year 2013-14 to 2023-24 and the total grant funding provided. It also provides information on the reasons for academies moving trust.
The following ancillary table is available to download from this release:
List of all academy transfers during financial years 2013-14 to 2023-24 and how much grant funding was provided to each.
The above table can be found under ‘Other files’ in the ‘Explore data and files’ section.
When reviewing the tables, please note that the grant funding figures have been rounded to the nearest £100.
280
Similar to 275 in 2022-23
An academy transfer is when an academy moves from its current trust to another trust.
11%
Increase from 7% in 2022-23
Transfer funding can be awarded on educational grounds, based on Ofsted ratings. In addition, since February 2019, academies transferring on governance and financial grounds could receive academy transfer grant funding.
2.6%
Similar to 2.7% in 2022-23
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Download all data available in this release as a compressed ZIP file
All supporting files from this release are listed for individual download below:
School level information on the academies that have moved trust from 2013-14 to 2023-24 and the grant funding provided
A total of 2,095 academy transfers took place in the eleven financial years 2013-14 to 2023-24 inclusive. Of these, 439 (21%) received grant funding for the transfer.
The number of academy transfers increased from 21 in financial year 2013-14, to 307 in 2018-19 before decreasing each financial year to 176 in 2021-22, and then rising to 280 in financial year 2023-24.
The proportion of academy transfers over this time has increased from 0.5% of all open academies in England in 2013-14 to 3.6% in 2018-19. 2021-22 saw a decrease to 1.8%, which is likely linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant pause in Ofsted inspections. 2022-23 and 2023-24 have seen similar levels of transfers, which stood at 2.6% in 2023-24.
In the financial year 2013-14, total grant funding of £566,000 was provided for academy transfers. This increased to over £4.2 million in financial year 2015-16. This increase in grant funding was driven by an increase in the number of academies transferring trusts over these years.
In the financial year 2016-17, total grant funding was £8.4 million. This then saw a steady decrease year on year (with the exception of 2020-21, which saw a small increase to £4.6 million), until 2022-23 when the amount of grant funding provided in 2021-22 was £1.3 million, the lowest it has been in the period where the data is comparable. Since then, the amount of grant funding provided has steadily risen to 2.9 million in 2023-24. More detail can be found in Table 2.
The total grant funding provided to academy transfers in financial years 2016-17 to 2023-24 are not comparable with earlier years due to differences in what it has been possible to include in the total costs compiled (see Technical Information). Academies may have received funding for transfer in the financial year that it joined a new trust or in the years pre- or post- a trust move. In this publication we are not including costs paid out to academies in 2023-24 which have not yet joined a new academy trust. It is not possible to calculate an average payment per financial year as some trusts can receive grant funding for an academy over several years.
Out of the 280 academy transfers in 2023-24, 216 (77%) were initiated by the outgoing trust, 21 (8%) were transferred due to sponsor or trust closure and 43 (15%) transfers were due to intervention.
Intervention cases may have occurred following an Ofsted Inadequate judgement, where an academy was not making necessary improvements, or where there were financial, governance or safeguarding failures.
Note that the number of transfers due to intervention in 2020-21 and 2021-22 was affected by the pause in Ofsted inspections as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
An academy transfer took place when an academy moved from its current trust to another trust. An academy could change trust arrangements only with the agreement of the Regional Director (RD) acting on behalf of the Secretary of State (prior to 2014 decisions were taken by the Secretary of State). The academy trust may have applied to transfer an academy voluntarily – for example, a single academy trust may have applied because it wanted to benefit from the greater capacity and school improvement that was offered from being part of a trust that ran more than one academy; or the transfer may have been initiated by the RD because of concerns about the performance of the academy or the academy trust responsible for it.
Not all academy transfers were awarded grant funding. Transfer funding could be awarded on educational grounds, based on Ofsted ratings. In addition, since February 2019, academies transferring on governance and financial grounds could receive academy transfer grant funding. The first transfer from one trust to another was carried out in 2012. Much like the early sponsored academies, funding for academy transfers was agreed on a case-by-case basis according to the particular circumstances and needs of the case.
As academies moving trust became more systematically implemented, the process changed to align more closely with that used for establishing sponsored academies. This included establishing guidelines for academy transfer grant funding so that it was applied to academy transfer cases in a similar way to the academy transfer grant funding that was applied to sponsored academy projects.
These changes were introduced in Autumn 2016.
The indicative academy transfer grant funding levels in financial year 2023-24 were: fast track level (£70,000 primary / special, £80,000 secondary / all-through); an intermediate level (£90,000 primary / special, £115,000 secondary / all-through) and a full level (£110,000 primary / special, £150,000 secondary / all-through). The amounts of the awarded grant were offset against any uncommitted surplus that would transfer with the academy to the incoming trust. The grants tended to be paid to the incoming trust in one instalment rather than claimed annually. However, on occasion some transfers were paid in multiple instalments both before and after the academy transferred to the incoming academy trust to ensure the trust had sufficient funding available to meet their needs.
From February 2019, if the transfer was on financial or governance grounds then a grant of £25,000 could be considered as a contribution towards the costs of the transfer, such as legal costs.
The data in this release has been compiled by Regions Group within the Department for Education.
The figures in this publication are derived from the Academies Management Information System and reflect the operational data that was held on this system as of June 2024. Amendments to this operational management information after this date will not be included in this publication. Therefore, revisions may be made to the previous year’s figures in future publications, should this operational data change.
Academies are only listed in this publication if the academy trust transfer concluded during that financial year which is being reported on (i.e. when a new funding agreement is entered into concluding an academy transfer). Therefore, in cases where trusts receive an advance payment ahead of the transfer concluding, the case will not be listed until it has concluded which could be in the next financial year. Where trusts received payments over more than one year, the separate payments are shown in each financial year. This can mean that in each subsequent year’s publications, revisions to the previous year’s figures are highly likely.
Academies operate under a strict system of oversight and accountability and RDs require the incoming trust to provide details on how the academy transfer grant would be used and the impact that it was expected to have. RDs monitored the academy’s performance to ensure the necessary improvements were made and that value for money was achieved.
Academies may have received funding for transfer in the financial year that it joined a new trust or in the years pre- or post- a trust move. In this publication we are not including costs paid out to academies in 2023-24 which have not yet joined a new academy trust.
Following the publication of an ad-hoc statistical release in September 2017, a full data cleanse has been completed on management information relating to academies that have moved academy trust between financial years 2013-14 and 2016-17. Following this, some academies were excluded from the ad-hoc release which have now been included in this release: Academy trust transfers and grant funding - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (opens in a new tab).Therefore, numbers of academies moving trust will vary compared to the first publication.
Due to differences in the way data was recorded in legacy systems compared to the current system, the academy transfer grant funding for financial years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015- 16 are not comparable with the academy transfer grant funding in financial years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24. The academy transfer grant funding included for each financial year are set out below:
Financial years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16
Activities excluded from funding were:
Financial years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24
The starting point for academy transfer grant funding was £25,000 per eligible academy that was transferring, to be spent on costs of effecting the transfer of the academy, covering the following activities:
Activity excluded from funding were:
These are Official Statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
This can be broadly interpreted to mean that these statistics are:
Find out more about the standards we follow to produce these statistics through our Standards for official statistics published by DfE guidance.
Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.
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