To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much funding was contributed to the academy programme by (a) companies and (b) other bodies, including non-profit-making organisations, in each year since the inception of the programme. (178993)

Information on sponsors’ contributions received to date towards academies’ capital costs is given in the following table. In noting the contributions, which are made to academy trusts, the Department does not differentiate between those made by companies and those made by named individuals or other types of organisations, because evidence received from trusts does not identify the sponsor involved and many academies have more than one sponsor.

There may be some payments that have been made but are not recorded in the table as the relevant trusts have yet to submit evidence to the Department that sponsorship has been paid and used to meet capital costs.

We have now changed the sponsorship model and sponsors will now, in most cases, establish an endowment fund rather than contributing to capital costs. Detailed monitoring of such contributions will commence at the end of February 2008, in respect of contributions made in the first half of the 2007-08 academic year.

Academies may also receive other donations apart from sponsorship. The Department does not collect details of these, but they are recorded in academies’ published accounts.