When academies and free schools were first launched, a key selling point was the ability to handle their own budgets. The picture, however, is a little murky, with concerns raised about the soaring salaries of those in charge. Former Canterbury Academy executive principal Phil Karnavas explains the impact it is having on pupils...

Let's have it right. Academies and free schools, of themselves, don’t make any difference to standards or education.

They are just a different structural, business and financial model which can be seen as a policy of centralising power, denuding local authorities, bringing ‘the market’ to education and remodelling of the public sector.

Academies, it could be argued, are as much ideological representations as they are educational organisations.

They are independent of the local authority (LA) and are funded directly by government.

Many of the early converter academies benefited significantly in financial terms, receiving that sum of money local authorities otherwise would have top-sliced to provide their services.

Thus, the early single academy trusts were undeniably financially better off than LA schools.

The more schools that converted, the less the LA had to provide services to their remaining schools.

This in turn was an encouragement for more LA schools to convert, either on their own or with other schools to form multi-academy trusts (Mats). This left LAs largely impotent.

Academies are legally under the control of the secretary of state through the Office of the Regional Commission, an organisation many people are unaware of and managed by people most parents have never heard of.

This organisation also promotes academisation and, if a school is deemed not to be of the required standard, encourages it to join a Mat.

In this process, parents and local communities are marginalised as both the Office of the Regional Commission and academies are fundamentally unaccountable.

When joining a Mat a school’s financial surplus goes to that Mat; however, a deficit is picked up by the LA.

Thus, a Mat ‘supporting’ a LA school prior to its conversion to an academy could, somewhat cynically, run up a huge deficit knowing that the LA would have to pick up the tab.

So, the LA and the taxpayer lose out but no academy ever started with a deficit.

Mats can come in varying sizes. The very large Mats, in effect, replace LAs and offer support to their schools, bring economies of scale and thus ‘save’ money.

But if they are geographically scattered they also may do nothing to serve the local community since they are not based in, or part of, it.

Irrespective of what one may have thought about the efficiency and effectiveness of local education authorities they did at least have a commitment to their communities and were, however imperfectly, accountable to them.

In one sense, academy chains are quasi-businesses; they do not, as yet, operate for profit and most still seek to provide a quality service to children but a few leaders seem to have succumbed to the temptations of the market and appear to have exploited the freedoms of the academy model for personal, or family, gain.

It is hard to see how the public will be sympathetic to claims about underfunding when some academies are accused of misdirecting their funds into excessive pay awards for CEOs and company BMWs.

One hopes the alleged pecuniary excesses of the few will not detract from the actual genuine service of the many.

The reality is that despite the flannel, and highly dubious use of figures by the Department for Education, schools have experienced funding ‘cuts’ if only because whilst costs have increased, income has not.

To be fair, in a period of austerity, schools may have fared less badly than other parts of the public sector but many schools have found it challenging.

The new funding formula, changes to sixth form funding, changes to SEN (special educational needs) funding and increasing national insurance, pension and salary costs have all taken their toll.

Some schools have been hit harder than others. Unpopular schools that have fewer and fewer children joining will be hit the hardest of all since ‘bums on seats’ is still the principal determinant of funding.

Some schools will be living off a previous surplus. Some schools will generate a surplus, some schools won’t.

A small primary with high levels of SEN, or an unpopular secondary school with a falling roll and small sixth form are likely to feel the greatest pain.

Small schools may also not be able to afford a bursar leaving finance to a head, who as an educator, neither has the time nor expertise to be an accountant.

Thus, it is likely that small single academy trusts will be hit the hardest since they will have the least financial wriggle room.

Schools should be more businesslike but they should never become businesses.

Whilst it is prudent for schools to retain some money for repairs, future projects etc, it may be impossible in some circumstances.

However, excessive surpluses really mean that taxpayers’ money that should be being spent on children, isn’t.

If that school has equipment or teacher shortages, it seems irresponsible and if it is making staff redundant whilst rewarding its head with large pay rises then that is, at least, morally uncomfortable.

However, most schools will be facing difficult choices to make their books balance.

It is illegal for schools to set a deficit budget (however, creative budgeting is probably custom and practice) and any budget seeks, at its simplest level, to achieve a balance between money coming in and money going out.

Thus, with less money coming in and/or with costs rising, schools have two obvious routes: increase income and reduce expenditure.

In reality the scope for increasing income is limited but most schools are trying to do this, generally by tapping up their parents.

The postcode factor kicks in here as schools in affluent areas will find this lucrative whereas schools in disadvantaged areas won’t.

So, the need to reduce expenditure is the inevitable reality for most schools.

Cutting back on books, equipment and other resources will make some difference and impacts directly on learning.

Cutting back on maintenance will save something and impacts indirectly upon learning.

But, these things, of themselves, will probably not save enough and the only way schools can save significant money is by cutting staff, since staff costs are about 80% of school spending.

Many schools in Kent have already declared redundancy situations while others have managed staffing levels down.

Ancillary staffing has been reduced with an impact upon service; support staff have been removed or reduced with an impact often upon the most vulnerable children; and teaching staff levels have been reduced with an impact upon learning.

It could be argued that as schools appear to be operating successfully then these reductions have simply ‘cut the fat’ and removed unnecessary posts.

However, I would be reluctant to board a plane that hadn’t had a maintenance check, had only one working jet engine, had an outdated navigation system, hadn’t been cleaned, had only one open toilet, had significantly reduced cabin crew, had no co-pilot and was captained by a trainee just because it had previously successfully made it across the Atlantic.

The curriculum has been reduced, with the axe falling largely upon the creative, imaginative, aesthetic and practical subjects; in secondary school option choices have been restricted (minority subjects, for example, languages have gone) and children are being forced into a one-size-fits-all curriculum; class sizes have increased; staff are more tired and susceptible to illness and absence; support for vulnerable learners has decreased; out-of-hours activities have been dramatically reduced; buildings are in various states of disrepair and purchasing of new equipment and resources has been delayed or abandoned.

So schools continue in spite of, not because of, the changes to funding.

Schools in particular, within the public sector in general, have always had a genuine ethos of community service and operated, certainly on the frontline, through a large degree of selfless dedication to others and good will.

It is that good will that has kept many schools going.

However, there will come a point when the elasticity of good will may well snap.

So, it is not that schools are not working, it is more that they are not doing all that they want to, or could, do.

In the context of general austerity, with further cuts to support services and a youth service all but decimated, the picture becomes bleaker.

"It is hard to see how the public will be sympathetic to claims about underfunding when some academies are accused of misdirecting their funds into excessive pay awards for CEOs and company BMWs" - Phil Karnavas

And, one cannot end by saying that the current direction of travel shows little evidence of improvement; indeed, a consequence of Brexit will almost certainly be, in the short term at least, less money across the public sector.

As always, most schools will carry on and most children will cope.

The government can be relied upon to spin the big picture favourably using its customary statistical juggling.

But nothing will disguise the uncomfortable detail that at the end of this particular food chain are individual children and their families.

The results of cuts across the public sector and reforms in education can be seen not just in the reductions to staffing and service but also in the numbers of children not getting what they need in school and the rising number of children who are out of school.

Whilst the issue of school funding is but one part of a more complex picture, the evidence that some schools are struggling to cope is persuasive; more children are self harming, mental health issues are rising, special needs are not being met, more children are being removed from school and more children and their families are without the support they need.

If I were a parent with a child in, or entering the system, I would be concerned; if I were a parent of a child with special needs I would be very concerned; and although it may not yet be obvious I fear society, and therefore all of us, will pay a heavy price for this in the future.