Academy chains should be overseen by a new “arms-length” government regulator that has the power to close or merge trusts for financial or education failings, according to a new report by a former Department for Education adviser.
The Institute for Government report by Sam Freedman, published today, warns that there is currently a lack of oversight into the educational performance of multi-academy trusts.
His report also calls for legal changes to allow individual academies to be able to ask to leave the trusts they are in if they can make an educational case to do so.
This would mean giving each academy its own separate legal status from the MAT they are a part of.
Mr Freedman warns that the current system of having both maintained schools and academies has evolved haphazardly rather than through design and had led to “confusion and complexity”.
His report calls for the government to set a strong expectation that all schools will join a MAT. But he says this should be done through incentives “rather than forcing schools to comply”.
He calls on the government to inject significantly more capacity-building funding into high-performing small MATs and provide funding to new strategic and high-potential academy chains.
Mr Freedman said this should include organisations spun out of local authorities, “many of which already exist to provide support services.”
The government wants all state schools to be part of MATs but, last year, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said he would not set an “arbitrary” target for when this would be achieved.
‘MATs cannot be held properly accountable’
One of the main themes of today’s report is around how the government holds the academy system to account. It warns that currently there is “a big oversight hole around MATs’ educational performance”.
Mr Freedman calls for a new regulator to be created, merging the academies responsibilities of regional schools commissioners (RSCs) and the Education and Skills Funding Agency. This could be a reorganisation of the RSC system sitting within the DfE or a new independent regulator.
His report says that, currently, RSCs oversee the brokering process where maintained schools or academies are moved into MATs, while the ESFA is the financial regulator.
He adds: “The regulatory system for academies is incoherent, with financial regulation split from performance management, and with no single person or office in the system able to properly hold MATs accountable for poor educational performance.”
Mr Freedman highlights how commissioners can take action if individual schools get a “special measures” rating in their Ofsted inspection and against trusts if the ESFA has issued a financial notice to improve. But he adds: “They have no legal powers to intervene in MATs on any other grounds.”
He argues the situation means “MATs cannot be held properly accountable for educational performance” and says this is “part of the reason why there are too many weak MATs”.
He recommends giving the new regulator powers to intervene to close or merge MATs for both financial and compliance failures and failure to provide adequate educational support. He also calls for a “high-level framework” for MATs to be assessed against and for the assessments to be done transparently.
Greater powers for local authorities
Mr Freedman also calls for greater powers for local authorities over admissions.
The report’s recommendations include giving local authorities the power to ask the regulator to direct academies to increase or reduce their published admissions number, if they can make a case that they will not otherwise be able to meet their duty to provide school places.
It also says that MATs should be given a duty to set out their forward plans for expansion and to discuss these with local authorities. And it calls for local authorities control over all schools admissions policy to ensure fairness.
Mr Freedman also says the government should consider whether further powers for local authorities are necessary in light of the ongoing DfE review of SEND provision.
