Yesterday’s decision by the Department for Education (DfE) to unclutter and clarify the accountability framework for academies and academy trusts was hugely welcome and self-evidently the right direction of travel.

It signals a senior politician willing to listen to feedback, however uncomfortable it might be. Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi deserves respect and recognition for doing something that we simply haven’t seen for many years in politics.

The risk to innovation

Clearly, the powers implied by the original drafting of the Schools Bill were unhelpful.

The untrammelled powers and almost total centralisation required would have undoubtedly led to poor real-world decision making. Ultimately, this would have been to the detriment of the needs of children at a local level.

Those of us who have been involved in the academies movement for some years know only too well that it has been most effective when trustees and their education professionals have been allowed to exercise their judgement on what works best for the children in their schools and to move at pace to deliver evidence-based reform.

To give an example: Creative Education Trust recently standardised its secondary curriculum and did so from the “middle up”. More than 175 of our subject experts worked diligently in their specialist areas to research and write a challenging and rich curriculum for our children.

This has allowed us to harness the power of our trust through collaboration. But, unlike the implementation of a top-down model, we have - because of our freedom to innovate - put subject knowledge and its leadership at the core of the project and our practice.

The most successful academies and multi-academy trusts (MATs) have used their freedoms to drive up standards of education, to innovate in curricula and to develop strategic financial plans within a framework of independent, responsive and professional governance that has led to failing schools becoming flourishing schools.

The more contentious clauses of the Schools Bill would have given the secretary of state sweeping powers to “set standards” in all aspects of the work of academies, including length of school day, curriculum and governance; to cancel previous contractual arrangements with academy trusts; and to impose future controls and changes at will.

This would, if enacted, undermine the status of academy trusts as independent charities and have a chilling effect on innovation, potentially replacing experienced professional choice with ministerial direction.

Let’s work together

However, the changes that are proposed to the Bill in respect of the secretary of state’s powers show that ministers have responded to the concerns of the sector and recognised the unintended consequences of the original drafting

All of us now await the revised clauses with great interest in the expectation that they will create the environment in which academies continue to raise standards of education, and provide the best start in life for children and young people across England.

But it can’t all be on the DfE to get this right.

For our part, high-performing academy trusts must stand ready to offer practical, system-wide support so that standards are raised for all children within a dynamic and innovative schools system.

Marc Jordan is chief executive of Creative Education Trust