ICAS is warning the government needs to improve the accountability and transparency of how publicly funded services are being delivered by the private sector, after its research identified 'a lack of financial clarity' in public-private partnership schemes to build schools in England.

In its report, Losing control in joint ventures: The case of Building Schools for the Future,, ICAS says there was insufficient government financial oversight of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative, a programme established to deliver 3,500 schools in England.

Researchers from Manchester Business School found that although BSF was supposed to be delivered via public-private joint ventures, in reality control over public finances was ceded to the private sector via overly complex structures. In their study of four local authorities, the researchers found 'inconsistent scheme implementation and opaque financial reporting'.

Anne Stafford, one of the report's researchers, said: 'The financial reporting of BSF is both limited and fragmented across multiple organisations and this is compounded by inconsistency in treatment and aggregation in presentation. The lack of clarity means that the overall cost of BSF is unclear. We also found little evidence of on-going scrutiny of the scheme.'

While BSF has now been terminated, ICAS says the issues it identified are even more crucial in relation to the Academies and Free Schools Programmes, where the private sector controls both the revenue and capital budget, and in any instance where public services generally are provided by arms-length bodies.

Michelle Crickett, ICAS Director of Research, said: 'There are lessons to be learnt for other areas of the public sector. We would urge governments to consider how the private finance policy can be implemented with more transparent organisational structures to ensure that there is accountability over public funds and services, whatever delivery model is used.'

The report's authors are calling for greater scrutiny of BSF by both local authority and central governments and also want a review of the Education Funding Agency's oversight of the Academies Programme and, by implication, the Free Schools Programme.