GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP
Education policy expert Stephen Rayner questions the governance and autonomy of academy schools and explores the mismatch between expectations and capacity in local authorities’ education role.
Political background In
2000, when City Academies were introduced by David Blunkett, the
New Labour education secretary, they were promoted as a solution to underperforming schools in areas of social deprivation. They would bring ‘new’ investment (from business and commerce) into education. Government policy statements at that time referred to academies as part of “a wider programme to extend diversity within the publicly-provided sector”. These publicly-funded independent schools would be led by private sponsors from business, the churches and the voluntary sector, who would “bring a new focus and sharpness to the running of schools” (Department for Education, 2000).
The introduction of the academies programme refl ected the conviction of the New Labour government, shared by its successors in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, that there was nothing that the public sector could do that the private sector couldn’t do better. There has been a cross-party consensus that the way to improve education is to open it up to the
marketplace, with children and their parents as consumers. Schools should compete to attract pupils and should thrive or fail according to demand.
The diff erence between the approach of the Labour government (until 2010) and the coalition government (since 2010) has been of scope and of political ambition. For Labour, only private-sector investment and working practices could bring about the necessary improvement in ‘failing’ schools. For the coalition, the whole of the English schooling system was to be transformed. Its Academies Act (June 2010) made possible the conversion of state-funded schools to academy status as quickly as possible, with or without a sponsor. Academies would continue to receive their funding directly from the government, with no interference or top-slicing by local authorities.
Types of academy
A recent report by the Royal Society of Arts lists seven diff erent types of academies. They include schools judged to be ‘inadequate’ in an Ofsted inspection (grade 4: the lowest grade), which
are expected to become sponsored academies, and schools that are judged to be ‘outstanding’ (grade 1) by Ofsted, which are given the opportunity to become ‘converter’ academies. The range of sponsors has been broadened to include ‘educational foundations, universities, philanthropists, businesses, private school trusts and the faith communities’ (Department for Education). Outstanding schools may stand alone as academies without having a sponsor.
Academy chains
The phrase ‘academy chain’ was coined in 2004, when the United Learning Trust sponsored its second and third academies. Research conducted by the National College for School Leadership shows that by 2012 there were 52 sponsors with more than two schools in a chain. This number has now more than doubled. A chain may be a multi-academy trust, which has a master funding agreement with the secretary of state and supplementary funding agreements for each member academy. It may be an umbrella trust: an overarching charitable trust with individual trusts for each member academy. Or it may be a less structured collaborative partnership, where heads of academies work together in areas of mutual benefi t.
Regulation
While operating in this new market, schools have been strictly regulated through a national curriculum, a single testing regime, reporting of outcomes in league tables, an education inspectorate (Ofsted), and for the teaching profession, performance management and a national training programme.
Accountability: local authorities Tony Blair on a visit to a City Academy school in 2008. © AP Photo Lefteris Pitarakis 32 | public sector executive Oct/Nov 14
At the same time, the infl uence of the local authority has been signifi cantly diminished
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