Academies can fail without accountability

"The funding agreement between a sponsor and the DCSF is a seven-year rolling contract which could in theory be terminated at any time. But David Wolfe, a barrister at Matrix Chambers and an expert on academies, says the grounds for doing this are very limited. A sponsor couldn't, for example, be removed if an academy failed to meet Ed Balls's National Challenge of getting at least 30 per cent of pupils five A*-C GCSEs, including English and maths."
The Guardian Aug 2008