Ministers’ plans to allow councils to run multi-academy trusts (MATs) will lead to a “dramatic” expansion of the programme, a former Department for Education adviser has said.
Sam Freedman told an Institute for Government event about academies that a number of councils were “drumming on the door” of the department to be involved, following last month’s announcement of plans for MATs set out in the government’s White Paper.
And several councils have told Tes that they are already exploring setting up a trust or trusts in response to the government allowing this to happen.
The Institute for Government held a discussion yesterday about the plans with Mr Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute, Natalie Perera, chief executive at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), and Joe Hallgarten, chief executive at the Centre for Education and Youth.
During the discussion, Mr Hallgarten said he thought that the pace of academisation would not speed up in the next few years but said “a lot of time” would be wasted trying to force this pace.
However, Mr Freedman - who was an adviser for Michael Gove as education secretary under the coalition government during the first major national expansion of the academies programme at the start of the last decade - said he expected to see a marked increase in the number of academies as a result of getting local councils to run trusts.
He said: “I think we’re going to see quite quick progress. I think you’ve already got some very big local authorities drumming at the door saying ‘OK, let’s go’, and I think it’s going to be quite dramatic, quite quickly.
“If you’ve got the local authority, as well as the national government on board with a more coherent local plan for getting everybody into a trust. I think there will be limited parental opposition.”
Councils ready to set up trusts
Several local authorities have told Tes they were looking at setting up their own trust or academy trusts in response to the White Paper announcement.
Northumberland County Council said it had seen interest in this from maintained schools in its area.
Cath McEvoy-Carr, the authority’s executive director for adult and children’s services, said: “We welcome this opportunity to form a strong local authority multi-academy trust for Northumberland.
“We are delighted with the level of initial interest already shown by our schools and we look forward to working with them and the DfE as more information is made available.”
Herefordshire Council has also said it wanted to explore the possibility.
A spokesperson said: “The White Paper is very new and the detail behind any local authority starting or commissioning a multi-academy trust is yet to become known. However, we are, in principle, keen to explore establishing one or more MATs within the county.”
Meanwhile, Hampshire County Council said it was in discussions with heads over potential plans.
A spokesperson said: “With 94 per cent of Hampshire schools judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, our ambition is to work closely with school leaders to ascertain whether a local authority multi-academy trust model has merit locally.”
Dorset Council also said that it would consider setting up a local authority trust.
And West Berkshire Council said it was considering it as part of a discussion among local authorities in the South East of England.
But a spokesperson added: “However, we are aware there is no rush to do this as the target date is not until 2030, ie, eight years away.”
At a recent Commons Education Select Committee meeting, chair Robert Halfon questioned the rationale for allowing councils to set up MATs when academisation has, until now, involved taking schools out of council responsibility.
He said county councillors had previously asked why they were excluded from setting up trusts, and so his response was to say: “Come and join us on this journey.”
At this week’s Schools and Academies Show, academies minister Baroness Barran said the government is enabling councils to run MATs because it knows there are “high quality” maintained schools and it wants them to share their leadership.
She outlined how the government’s new White Paper will allow local authorities to run MATs by becoming members of trusts.
