The education secretary has signalled that government funding for Oak National Academy is set to be lowered over the next five years as part of an effort to bring a legal dispute to an end, Tes can reveal.

Bridget Phillipson has also said that the quango’s curriculum resources could be restricted so that they can only be downloaded in the UK and that its website could promote competitors’ resources.

Ms Phillipson’s offer of a package of reforms comes in a letter to the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors, seen by Tes.

Oak National Academy’s funding arrangement for this year will remain in place but the education secretary has said she “can commit” to its funding “being lower” than the current level in the spending reviews for both 2025-26 - set to be unveiled by the chancellor at the end of the month - and for 2026-9, which is set to be announced next spring.

Ms Phillipson has also said she would be happy to ask Oak National Academy and Ofsted to address concerns about Ofsted representation in Oak governance. This could include discontinuing Ofsted membership of Oak’s subject advisory groups.

Legal action over Oak National Academy

The letter comes after BESA urged ministers to attend talks this summer to discuss how to halt the judicial review that it instigated last year after the previous government relaunched the teaching and learning resources provider as a government arm’s-length body in 2022.

The legal action claims that this government decision was unlawful in two respects: the first claim is that the government’s assessment of the impact of its decision on the resources market was “fundamentally flawed”. The second claim is that the funding for Oak is “an obvious state subsidy” and that the DfE took “no steps to render that subsidy lawful”.

In 2022, Oak was promised £43 million in government funding over the next three years, with an additional £2 million investment given last year to build artificial intelligence tools.

The quango is working towards completing new plans and resources for the entire national curriculum by autumn 2025, although Tes revealed earlier this year that Oak had missed its goal to release full curriculum packages for all subjects by this summer.

In her letter, the education secretary wrote that she was “offering the following package on Oak on a without prejudice basis, in the hope that we can avoid the need for continued litigation” and move to a “more productive, strategic and mutually collaborative relationship” with the organisations involved.

Ms Phillipson’s letter, sent last month, said her offer would remain open until last Wednesday (2 October).

However, BESA has said negotiations around the judicial review process are still ongoing.

• Judicial review: DfE urged to attend talks on Oak National Academy legal action
• Background: Oak judicial review to go ahead
• Oak National Academy: Quango’s “usefulness” questioned by headteachers

BESA had told members over the summer that it was keen to find a ”successful resolution” to its legal dispute with the government over Oak.

The deal offered by the education secretary would include the introduction of a link on Oak’s website to the BESA LendED platform, which offers free education technology trials to schools to “increase the profile of resources created by the market”.

Ms Phillipson wrote: “Oak would work collaboratively with you to agree on the way that your members’ resources were profiled.”

She added that the quango has “identified improvements” that may need to be made to support signposting to the platform, and that she “would be happy to explore funding from the DfE....to help make those improvements”.

Oak would also roll out a geo-authenticated log-in to its users in a phased programme to be completed by spring 2025, the letter said. This would restrict the downloading of Oak’s resources to the UK, excluding British military bases and schools overseas.

While Ms Phillipson said this measure would be “contingent” on an Oak board decision, she said she expected that the possibility of ending legal action would encourage it to move ahead with the change.

“I would anticipate that a commitment to bring an end to the existing litigation if geo-restriction was introduced would be a major factor for the board in reaching that decision,” she wrote.

Tes understands that Oak’s existing funding agreement will pay for the creation of resources for 13,000 lessons that cover the full national curriculum and so further funding would not have been required for the same level of resource creation.

A BESA spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the negotiations reported in Tes last summer are ongoing. All parties remain committed to resolving this issue with the aim of avoiding the need to continue with the judicial review process.”

A spokesperson for the Publishers Association said: “We are grateful to the secretary of state for her willingness to engage with us on this matter. As we continue discussions with the Department for Education, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Oak and the DfE have been approached for comment.