The Guardian view on multi-academy trusts: disputes over school budgets point to deeper issues

The resignation of a Cambridgeshire headteacher following a dispute about the amount of money spent on overheads by the trust that runs his secondary school has placed in the public domain a source of tension more frequently discussed behind closed doors. Top-slicing of school budgets by multi-academy trusts is the way this governance model works. The trusts pool money taken from school budgets to fund themselves and the services they provide. These include IT, premises management and, increasingly, centralised curriculum development.