Ministers are being urged to attend crunch talks with the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) aimed at halting a judicial review over the future of resources quango Oak National Academy, Tes understands.
Alongside joint claimants the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors, BESA launched legal action against the government’s decision to establish Oak as an arm’s-length body last year after being given the green light to pursue the case by the High Court.
Ministers are now being urged to attend a fresh round of talks after previous discussions with the Department for Education over the future of the quango did not reach an agreement that would result in the halting of the legal action, Tes understands.
“We can confirm we have been in discussions with the DfE over Oak National Academy,” Julia Garvey, acting director general of BESA, said.
Oak National Academy legal challenge
“We welcome the opportunity to address this issue and look forward to continuing a dialogue with the department that moves towards a successful resolution of our dispute,” Ms Garvey added.
Oak chief executive Matt Hood said in its annual report last year that the online education lesson resources provider, which was relaunched as a DfE arm’s length body in 2022, will “continue in operational existence at least until the end of the spending review period”, which was due to finish at the end of next March.
However, ministers are currently reviewing all upcoming spending decisions, which will include Oak, and will set out their plans in due course, Tes understands.
Last week chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that the new government will be scrapping the Conservatives’ Advanced British Standard, a planned alternative qualification to A levels first proposed by former prime minister Rishi Sunak.
The government launched Oak as an arm’s length body in September 2022 along with £43 million in funding over three years, after it began life as a platform aimed at helping schools to deliver remote lessons and online learning, hosted by the Reach Foundation, during the Covid pandemic.
Since then Oak has been given “up to £2 million” of extra government funding to invest in building artificial intelligence tools to help reduce teachers’ workload.
However, it has been criticised by some heads for potentially driving other resource providers out of the market, and not being sufficiently “useful” to teachers.
According to papers lodged with the High Court, the judicial review was given the go-ahead based on the claimants considering that the then education secretary’s actions were unlawful because the government’s assessment of the impact of Oak on the market was “fundamentally flawed”, and that its funding was “an obvious state subsidy” that the DfE has taken “no steps to render...lawful”.
The discussions come after Tes revealed earlier this month that Oak will miss its goal to release full curriculum packages for all subjects by this summer.
The DfE and Oak have been contacted for comment.
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