Inconsistencies in the government’s approach to regulating academy trust growth are set out in a Tes analysis, prompting concerns about “a system out of control”.

Since 2011-12, the government has formally paused the growth of 58 academy trusts, with the expansion of 13 still officially blocked, the analysis shows.

In response to a Tes freedom of information request, the DfE said a sponsor’s expansion would be paused should serious concerns be raised about its educational impact, finances, leadership or governance.

But Tes has identified a number of trusts that received official warning or pre-warning notices about standards, or financial notices to improve, after having their pause lifted - or that were never formally paused in the first place.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said this provided “yet more evidence of a system out of control”.

The most prominent case in Tes’ analysis is that of Wakefield City Academies Trust (WCAT), which was paused between 2012-13 and 2013-14.

In the years that followed, the trust took on 11 more schools, only to announce last month that it was going to give up all its academies.

A confidential report written by its interim chief executive Chris Pickering in June 2017 said WCAT had “failed to establish the necessary infrastructure to support all aspects of the growth and development of a MAT (multi-academy trust). It has grown far too quickly”.

Tes’ analysis also details trusts subject to serious warning notices that were never paused, as well as those that had their growth restricted - then allowed to expand - only for the department to raise concerns again.

However, in general, the government has been moving away from formally pausing academy trusts. In 2013-14, 26 chains were paused, but the numbers have dropped to as low as one in the years that followed.

Last year, national schools commissioner Sir David Carter outlined new “growth checks” for MATs to assess whether a trust should be allowed to sponsor more academies.

In February, the Commons Education Select Committee welcomed this, but urged that the government “must place tight restrictions on the growth of MATs and use their ‘growth check’ to ensure that MATs are only permitted to take on more schools when they have the capacity to grow successfully”.

A DfE spokesperson said it took “quick and decisive action to address underperformance, including pausing the growth of sponsors where we have serious concerns and rebrokering academies”.

In the case of WCAT, he said it was “right to give the trust an opportunity to demonstrate that it [could] make sustainable improvements at its academies”, and that the decision to terminate its funding agreement “was not taken lightly”.

This is an edited article from the 27 October edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week’s Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here

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