It's not a fairer use of tax payers money when that money is used to pay for inflated wages, luxury cars, holiday homes, expense accounts, golf, fine dining and giving jobs to kith and kin, not to mention the straight forward theft that happens.
I think you're conflating Academies with Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs)
I think that by top slicing you're referring to those services supplied by the LA.
that is exactly what "top-slice" refers to - Academies are given all of the funding directly from the EFA and then need to arrange the supply of the various services which would have been supplied by the LA.
In my experience, this has achieved the following outcomes:
1. Academies continue to procure some of the services from the LA, but the LA pricing has become more competitive - they have reduced head-count, and market the expertise of their remaining staff as commercial services with comptetitive pricing.
2. some of the services are procured in partnership with cluster schools
3. some of the services are procured directly.
4. 100% of the "top-slice" is available to the Academy, whereas before conversion the LA could aggregate the "top-slices" and spend more on some schools and less on others and there was a lack of transparency.
5. the major frustration I had with the LA before conversion was their attitude to applications for places. They were very political and unhelpful to the school. They didn't serve applicant parents fairly - eg. they held a waiting list of applicants for our school, but refused to tell parents when spare places became available. Ironically we have had little choice but to retain the LA for handling applications (for several reasons) and now they are more reasonable but due to cuts completely under-staffed.
But all this means in practice is that the mother, brother, wife of the Academy Trust owner sets up a business to run those services and pay themselves....accordingly. I know the DfE is supposed to check these things, but proper checking does not go hand in hand with the apparent fevered determination to convert to academies as quickly as possible. It's worth noting that when questions were asked of the Bradford Kings Science academy, the head, Sajid Raza, just threatened DfE with Michael Gove, and the questions disappeared
So here you are talking about MATs?
At an individual Academy level I can't see any way that I could profit from being a Director/Trustee without it being very apparent very quickly. Business interests have to be declared regardless whether they are relevant. Relationships with suppliers and staff have to be declared. Any direct billing for goods or services have to be declared. The scheme of delegation and the financial handbook in combination ensure appropriate division of roles and responsibilities (SOX stylee) - Orders cannot be receipted by the same person who placed the order. Purchases have to be formally quoted, purchases over a specified amount have to go out to tender.
Even if I wanted to there just isn't any spare money.
But the real point is that there is no evidence that Academies actually improve learning, in fact, according to a recent report by the Sutton Trust, Academies are disproportionately failing pupils from poorer back grounds
I can't offer any causation for Academy status delivering improvements in educational outcomes. I would, though, say that being an Academy has forced Governors to take a more proactive, business-like role, in the governance of the school and the market-place for 3rd expertise - eg. Maths consultancy - seems more competitive and transparent. In our experience we are a much improved organisation with data to prove it (eventually).
