The ESFA may also provide loans to academy trusts for new academies that had converted from maintained schools to settle any local authority deficit, which should be repaid over an agreed period of time. These loans may be impaired and written-off where ESFA judge the trust to be in financial difficulty, and repayment from an academy trust is therefore in doubt.73 In 2020–21 the ESFA wrote off £10 million of re-brokerage debts relating to academy trusts, meaning debts relating to the transfer of an academy from one trust to another as required by the Regional Schools Commissioner, usually where there are concerns about the performance of an academy. This included £5 million for the Shrewsbury Academy Trust.74 The ESFA informed us that this was considered to be an exceptional case.75 We therefore questioned how the ESFA measured whether there may be a risk of system wide failure, and at what level of write-offs would indicate a 69 Academy schools sector in England: Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 August 2020, page 59 70 Q49 71 Academy schools sector in England: Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 August 2020, page 26 72 Academy schools sector in England: Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 August 2020, page Annex 9 73 Education and Skills Funding Agency Annual Report and Accounts, for the year ended 31 March 2021, HC 846, November 2021, p. 99 74 Education and Skills Funding Agency Annual Report and Accounts, for the year ended 31 March 2021, HC 846, November 2021, p. 76 75 Q39 Academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts 2019/20 19 wider problem for the sector. The ESFA told us that there are high standards of financial management and governance across the academy sector and that its monitoring and assessment activities look at any deterioration in financial performance.76 Regularity of academy spending