The Department for Education has established an accountability system for academy trusts, including those operating free schools, which reflects their status as companies, charities and public bodies. The accountability system for academy trusts is more robust than it is for maintained schools. Academy trusts are constituted as companies limited by guarantee, so are subject to the full rigour of the Companies Act. This means that, unlike maintained schools, academies are required to file independently audited accounts. Because academy trusts are constituted as companies their governors are also company directors. This means that academy governors are subject to the full range of statutory and fiduciary duties required of a company director. Academies are also constituted as charitable trusts. This means that the governors of academy trusts have the additional responsibility of also being charitable trustees and therefore are also subject to the full range of statutory and fiduciary duties which apply to trustees. Academy trusts must also comply with the requirements of the funding agreement and the academies financial handbook. Under this system, trusts are required to provide the following returns to the Education Funding Agency (EFA): annual financial statements audited by a registered auditor and an audited report on regularity of expenditure and income; statements from the trust's accounting officer on regularity, propriety and value for money; a budget forecast return; a financial management and governance self-assessment (provided shortly after an academy opens) and an electronic accounts return. The EFA adopts a risk based approach to reviewing these returns, to provide assurance over the regularity of expenditure and income and to monitor financial health. Action is taken in response to issues or concerns raised by these returns, as necessary. The financial viability and resilience of free school proposals is also tested at the application stage. During pre-opening, free school projects are required to account fully for the pre-opening grants provided by the Department. As income and costs are clarified during the pre-opening stage, revised financial projections are scrutinised prior to the Secretary of State entering into a funding agreement with the academy trust to operate the school.