Academies overspent by £171m in 2014/15

Academies overspent by £171 million for the 2014/15 academic year, according to government figures.

Official figures released by the Department for Education (DfE) show that Academies received a total income of £16.74 billion in the year ending August 2015, but had a total expenditure of £16.91 billion.

The overspend of £171 million represents one per cent of income, with teaching staff being the largest expenditure at £8.27 billion.

Despite being the largest expense, expenditure on teaching staff has fallen proportionately since 2011/12 by 4.4ppts.

£440 million was spent on supply staff, while £2.13 billion went to back office costs and £1.97 billion was paid to education support staff.

The DfE says that the overspend does not mean that academies are necessarily in debt, as they ‘may have had reserve funds from which these costs were able to be met’.