The Education and Skills Funding Agency has published the following in respect of the financial statements for academies for the period ending 31 August 2025:
- Academies Accounts Direction 2024 to 2025: https://bit.ly/3TLmkP9
- Model set of accounts for academy trusts 2024 to 2025: http://bit.ly/4l9I5UY
- Framework and guide for external auditors and reporting accountants of academy trusts 2024 to 2025: https://bit.ly/45Iy9gp
The Academies Accounts Direction indicates that changes are being kept to a minimum this year. The key changes are to alert academies to the Companies Act 2006 requirement for certain companies to include a non-financial and sustainability information statement within their strategic report and to provide additional guidance for academies who enter into finance leases.
In the ‘Framework and guide’, expectations have been made clearer and more focused as a result of its redrafting. Paragraph 1.9 sets out a summary of the main changes, as follows:
- “we have included a list of the range of other assurance activities which DfE’s accounting officer relies upon, and that the external auditor will want to be aware of (paragraph 1.3);
- set out in a new Annex A, clauses for inclusion in the letter of engagement, relating to both the audit of the annual accounts and the regularity engagement;
- reviewed the pre-agreed terms of engagement for regularity, to make the academy trust’s responsibilities clearer and to recognise the role of each party in data protection (Annex B);
- clarified the reporting accountant’s discretion to report matters of impropriety (paragraphs 4.50-4.51);
- updated the types of tests that can be used to provide evidence for the reporting accountant’s regularity report (Annex C);
- made minor edits to the reporting accountant’s regularity report consistent with its limited assurance basis (Annex D).
