NEW sponsors have been announced for 11 schools abandoned by an academy trust accused of “asset-stripping” its schools’ savings before it collapsed last year.

Wakefield City Academies Trust (WCAT) ran 21 schools in West Yorkshire under the government’s much-vaunted academies system but collapsed in 2017 just after it transferred millions of pounds in reserves to its own accounts.

The trust said it was relinquishing control because it was “unable to rapidly improve” the schools but would run them until new sponsors were found.