Multi-academy trust leaders are operating “in the dark” over the criteria the government is using to decide how and when schools are moved in and out of trusts, Tes has learned.

Despite the Department for Education promising more transparent decision making as it promotes the government’s vision of a MAT-led school system, trust leaders have told Tes that their growth ambitions are being frustrated by a lack of clarity from the department on what it expects from trusts or how it is reaching decisions on the brokering of schools.

One leader of a MAT in the South of England described the process of being assessed for a bid to take on a new school as feeling like “driving along a road without the car lights on”, adding that the DfE’s approach is like a wine brand seeking to expand by asking individuals to “brew their own in their airing cupboards”.

Meanwhile, leaders have also told Tes of fears that a tougher new threshold for government intervention over schools that have been rated as less than “good” by Ofsted is making it more difficult for trusts to take on problematic schools.

Their concerns follow the introduction of a new rule last year that allows the government to issue a termination warning notice to a trust to tell them that a school could be removed from their control if it receives two consecutive Ofsted inspection reports of less than “good” - even if it received its first “requires improvement” judgement before it joined the MAT.

Trust leaders have questioned whether Ofsted inspection judgements can be relied upon to trigger this process and warned it risks undermining the DfE’s own vision for a MAT-led system by effectively discouraging trusts from taking on challenging schools.

And Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, told Tes that the approach “lacks nuance”, is “fundamentally flawed” and may deter trusts from taking on schools with inspection judgements of less than “good”.

What does the DfE think a good MAT looks like?

Leaders of both large and small MATs from around the country have told Tes of their frustrations that their ambitions to expand their organisations and take on more schools is being held back by a lack of clarity from the government over its flagship MAT growth plan - despite recent DfE efforts to share its thinking on how MATs should operate and its plan for their growth in some areas. 

The DfE’s recently published list of descriptors setting out what a multi-academy trust should deliver and detailed list of growth plans for around a third of the education authority areas of the country followed a review into the commissioning and regulation of trusts.

These documents were designed to show what type of MAT growth or consolidation the department’s regional directors are looking to achieve as trusts expand, with the most common theme being that the DfE wants smaller trusts to merge. 

The publication of these MAT blueprints was an attempt by the department to bring national coherence to a system that has so far been allowed to grow without design over the past decade.

And its varied plan for different parts of the country reflects the fact that the depth of MAT provision varies from town to town, county to county and region to region.  

But the DfE’s vision for what a good MAT looks like is still unclear, according to leaders Tes spoke to, despite the descriptions blueprint document covering areas such as inclusion, school improvement, workforce and finance. 

Trust chiefs say they are too brief and leave the sector with as many questions as answers, including how the descriptors will be used and whether the DfE will seek to assess how well each trust meets this criteria.  

Ultimately, leaders say they urgently need clarity on what the deciding factors are when a regional director makes a decision about which MAT will be chosen to take over a school. 

Last year, the department carried out a reorganisation of how academies are managed and replaced the school commissioners with a group of directors responsible for each of the government regions of England. The directors were given increased responsibilities beyond school decision making on areas such as special educational needs and disability (SEND) and social care.

The regional directors make decisions on the future of each school lined up to be an academy or set to be moved from one trust to another. They will do this with the assistance of an advisory board of school leaders - half of whom are elected - who can escalate a director’s decision to the DfE’s Regions Group director general if more than half of them disagree.

But even members of these boards are not clear about how the new system will work. 

One MAT leader and board member, who has asked to remain anonymous, said: “I welcome the descriptions of what a good trust looks like because I think they have the potential to be good for the system - but there is a question mark about exactly how they are going to be used.  

“When cases come in front of us there are sometimes recommendations where members of the advisory panel are not clear on what the criteria are, which sees some trusts being approved to grow and take on a school whereas other trusts are perhaps not.” 

This concern is echoed among MAT leaders themselves, particularly among smaller trusts. 

They told Tes that the amount of scrutiny they face for any expansion feels daunting and leaves them feeling unsupported.

‘It feels like you are driving along a road without the car lights on’

These concerns come on top of a longstanding concern in the sector that the DfE’s approach to brokering has been more focused on supporting larger established trusts to grow.  

One trust leader based in the South of England said: “I am concerned that there is a preferred idea or approach that regional directors are looking for. 

“I know from conversations of many of my colleagues that they find they are encouraged to apply to take on a trust, but then find themselves rejected because they lack the capacity and they find themselves asking: ‘Well, you knew all this about our trust from the onset - why have we been encouraged to spend time applying?’”

The leader goes on to describe a perceived “lack of direction for trusts” in their area.

“The government talks about wanting MATs to grow but many of my colleagues feel like we don’t know what they want of us at trust level. It does feel, when you are applying to expand the trust, like you are driving along a road without the car lights on.” 

The leader told Tes that the result of this was that it was effectively being left to school leaders to drive forward the growth of the sector.   

“It feels like someone has got the ambition to be a national winemaker but the way they are going about this is to encourage a lot of their staff to brew their own in their airing cupboards.” 

‘It is incumbent on leaders to lead’

However, there are others that argue that leaders should see this lack of detailed direction from government as an opportunity rather than a hindrance.

One leader of a large MAT praised the DfE’s new approach to commissioning and its publication of MAT quality descriptors.

“I think it will bring a real transparency, a process people can navigate objectively. It helps define what strong trusts are, the impact they should have and I think we have a responsibility as trust leaders to step into this new space that has been created,” they said.

“It is incumbent on leaders to lead. It’s very easy to sit back and say there is no leadership but instead we could be thinking, ‘well, actually, there is a space that has opened that we need to step into’,” they added.

And Ms Cruddas said the DfE’s MAT regulatory and commissioning review, to which she contributes as an advisory group member, “is taking us in a good direction by beginning to build a consensus on what proportionate, evidence-led and intelligent commissioning would look like”.

“The trust quality descriptions are a first step in this direction,” she added.

Larger MATs have to navigate decisions being made by different regional directors and their teams. A leader of a national MAT, who also asked not to be named, said that one of the biggest challenges for trust leaders to navigate was inconsistencies in the approach being used in different parts of country. 

“For some of the larger trusts, the reality is they are likely to have schools across the four Ofsted judgements at some stage. The concern is how a regional director will interpret that. Some will see it as an indicator that the trust is not strong performing and others will take a broader view.” 

However, another leader of a large MAT said that inconsistencies across regions are to be expected.

“You have got eight very different regions, directors with different backgrounds and I actually see inconsistency as a natural representation of the different challenges that exist across the sector,” they told Tes.

New Ofsted threshold ‘risks undermining system’

The DfE’s move to introduce a more demanding threshold for intervention in schools is also causing a potential blocker to MAT growth, Tes has been told.

Previously, only an “inadequate” judgement from the watchdog would trigger an academy order, but the DfE has now changed its definition of coasting schools so existing legislation can be used to intervene in cases in which a school gets two consecutive Ofsted judgements of less than “good” - which can include the Ofsted inspection of a school before it was run by its current academy trust. 

When the government launched the new power, it said that it would decide on a case-by-case basis whether a coasting school could be improved to “good” within its current trust. 

However, trust leaders warn that the termination warning notice process are begins before the DfE decides whether or not a MAT has the capacity to improve a school, and is therefore creating a new wave of instability across the sector.

Ms Cruddas warned this policy is pulling in the opposite direction of the DfE’s plan to strengthen the MAT system. She said: “CST has consistently said that we do not agree that the inspection history of a school should include inspections before joining its current trust.

“The policy on ‘coasting schools’ - schools not making the necessary improvements - is pulling in the opposite direction: it lacks nuance and is fundamentally flawed.

“It may act as a disincentive for trusts to take on schools with inspection judgements less than “good”. CST’s view continues to be that the regulation should be amended to ensure that it reflects the regulatory intention, not a catch-all,” she added.

One leader said: “Given the prevalence of the view that some Ofsted judgements are insecure, if you are using these judgements as a means to kickstart the process of looking at moving a school out of a MAT, I think this is the biggest problem.

“Nobody would say there should not be a degree of accountability for schools or trusts with two or three ‘requires improvement’ judgements but to issue termination warning notices on the basis of Ofsted judgements that might not be secure seems crass and crude.”

‘It all feels like a very desktop approach from the DfE’s regional office’

One chief executive whose trust has been hit with such a termination warning notice said: “The school in question has only had one Ofsted [inspection] with us in which it was rated ‘requires improvement’ last year in a report that was very positive about the role of the trust.

“We are confident that this is not a coasting school but as it stands we have the threat of a termination warning notice hanging over us.

”We put a lot of work into our response demonstrating that we are improving the school and three months later we are still waiting for any kind of reply.”

They add: “It all feels like a very desktop approach from the DfE’s regional office. I don’t think they understand the challenges a trust faces in taking on schools that are in deficit, or come from failing trusts.  And I think to some extent this policy seems like an empty threat because I don’t see a long list of trusts lining up to take on the most difficult schools.

“It’s almost a counterintuitive approach for the department to be taking. They want trusts to be taking on and transforming schools and yet they have created a system that makes it more difficult to take on these schools and gives leaders the impression that they don’t have confidence in MATs to deliver improvement.”

Tom Campbell, chief executive of E-ACT Multi-Academy Trust, goes further, described the situation as “ludicrous”.

He said: “I think it has put Ofsted inspectors in a position they don’t want to be in because they can produce a report showing all the progress a school is making but the net effect of an overall inspection outcome of ‘requires improvement’ has the opposite effect to the tone of the report.

“Rather than recognising progress, it leads the DfE to questioning whether to remove the school from a trust. It creates a situation, especially for smaller trusts, that if you take on schools facing challenges, you are only ever one bad Ofsted away from having to face the threat of structural change.” 

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is wrong to say we send termination notice warnings to schools with two consecutive below “good” Ofsted inspections. We only intervene where schools are unable to prove that they can achieve improvements.

“To increase transparency around how commissioning decisions are made and help trusts to develop strategic plans for growth and improvement, we have published high-quality trust descriptions and will publish commissioning guidance in due course as set out in the Academies Regulation and Commissioning Review.”