The funding of Academy schools was something of a contentious issue in the run-up to May’s General Election.

The suggestion, by then Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove in a Sunday Times article, that businesses may be allowed to sponsor Academies for profit prompted then Secretary of State Ed Balls to attack the idea.

Mr Balls said in an April letter to Mr Gove that “parents and taxpayers across the country will be rightly shocked that you are willing to allow taxpayers' money to be diverted from its intended purpose - the education of our children - to the profits of the private companies.”

The opposition was such that Mr Gove was forced to drop the so-called ‘Swedish model’ for profit-making schools in favour of the not-for-profit ‘Charter School’ model used in the United States when the Academies Bill was finally announced.

But did this whole argument miss the point?

Speaking on this morning’s Today programme, Zenna Atkins of independent school operating group GEMS argued that businesses had been making money from Academies for years.

She said: “already… private sector companies that are running schools are clearly making a profit under their operating contracts.”

Full Fact contacted GEMS to find out more about this claim, and a spokesperson told us that whilst an Academy’s “educational provider” (the group responsible for running the school) is usually barred from making a profit, this is not the case for other firms employed by a school.

But are these profit-making companies really already ‘running schools’ as Ms Atkins suggests?

Alasdair Smith, National Secretary of the Anti-Academies Alliance thinks not. He told Full Fact that whilst contractors, consultants and service providers all make profits from Academies, there is an important distinction between that and the role fulfilled by the charitable trusts currently charged with running them.

“What we currently have is businesses making money out of services. This isn’t unique to Academies, as many local authority schools also employ private firms for some services, especially under Building Schools for the Future,” he said.

“What is new about Ms Atkin’s proposal is for firms to make money out of providing education. This is where schools can profit from cutting back on the provisions of things like teachers, as happened in Swedish schools that were run in that way,” he added.

Whilst it appears Ms Atkins’ statement might gloss over some important context, there are reasons to think that profit-making in the provision of state education may be closer than is commonly thought.

The legislation required to make a profit from the provision of education in state schools is actually already in place. Indeed there are currently three schools across the country already operating under this model, including Kings’ College in Michael Gove’s own Surrey constituency. This school was taken over by the private firm 3E’s Enterprises under the previous Government in 1999.

So the focus of the current controversy may well be misplaced. Whilst Ed Balls protests about the Coalition Government “allowing profit-making companies to set up new schools”, the legislation that ‘allows’ this actually existed – and was used – under the last Labour Government.