May I ask how long they've been an academy for?
Having direct control of the budget does, on the face of it seem like a step in the right direction. However, when there isn't enough money there, and there generally isn't, and you are relying on decision making by those who are often not qualified to make decisions, the working environment suffers. So far, all the conversation has been about the education of kids, which is totally understandable. However, there is a hell of a lot more to running a school than classroom activity and obtaining results.
As someone who is on the support staff in an academy school rated as outstanding by Ofsted I have seen the negative side of not being supported by the LEA and more often than not the issues lie with being forced into making financial decisions where the SLT are damned if they do and damned if they don't. It would appear that the easiest way to obtain more funding is to take in more pupils. Easy enough when youre a good school. However, the extra intake comes at a loss to other schools in the area. When they lose kids, they lose funding. There is little doubt in my mind that academisation will be responsible for increasing social inequality.
Meanwhile as schools get bigger, pressure is on teachers to teach bigger class sizes, in less suitable sized classrooms. They lose invaluable non-contact time to cover retiring staff who no longer get replaced. Buildings take more hammer and cost more to maintain. You are on your own when it comes to Regulations compliance - Asbestos, Fixed Wire, PATs, Lifts, Gas, Buildings and Grounds Condition surveys. Where once the LEA provided support to ensure the school was a safe environment it all comes out of the ever diminishing pot and there is no longer the collective purchasing/tendering which helps to keep cost manageable.
Its probably worth pointing out that as it stands, shools which fail financially and many are, are forced to join MATs, which are effectively privatised LEAs. Jobs are lost at the LEA and then in schools. (The thinking of course being that a MAT can get by on less support staff than individual schools can). Again, the communities that are hit hardest are the poorest.
