Commenting on the National Audit Office (NAO)
report Converting maintained schools to academies,
published today, Kevin Courtney, Joint General
Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“This report is a damning indictment of Government education
policy. The true legacy of the academy programme, and its
attack on local authority oversight and structures, are the 105
schools previously forced to become academies following an
‘inadequate’ rating by Ofsted which are now languishing without
support nine months later because the Department for Education
has failed to find a sponsor for them. The Government’s
marketplace system has simply failed to deliver for these schools
or their children.
“Today’s report draws attention to the fragmented state of
England’s education system. The proportion of schools that were
academies, including free schools, in different local authority
areas, at January 2018 ranged from 6% to 93%. This incoherence
makes it impossible to guarantee a level playing field in terms
of the quality of education that parents can expect across the
county. As the NAO notes, regardless of the mix of maintained
schools and academies, local authorities retain important
responsibilities, including an obligation to provide enough
school places even though they do not control the number of
places in academy schools.
“As the report makes clear, in 2017-18, the Department withdrew
the ‘general funding rate’ that was previously paid to local
authorities and academies for school support services as part of
the Education Services Grant. At the same time that Government is
demanding ever-higher standards from schools, it is taking away
the funding needed to support that work.
“Schools up and down the country are going cap in hand to parents
because they simply don’t have enough money – yet the Government
continues to live in a state of denial. Head teachers, parents,
teachers and school staff know better, and it is the pupils who
are bearing the brunt.
“It is time that the Government called a halt to its failed
education reforms. Schools must be returned to the accountability
and democratic oversight of local authorities and education
funding must be restored both to schools themselves and to local
councils to enable them to carry out their education function.
Though the NAO report doesn’t comment on this, the evidence of
many independent studies confirms that schools do not do better
or improve faster through conversion to sponsored academies,
rather than staying with local authorities.”
