Oak National Academy will be the focus of an independent review to ensure its “efficacy” as a public body, the government has announced today.
The government arm’s-length body, which provides online lesson resources for teachers, will also have its “market impact” assessed under the review.
The independent lead reviewer has been named as Lara Newman, chief executive of LocatED, a non-departmental public body that was established in 2017 to provide property advice to the education sector.
She will head up the review with support from Department for Education officials and will be “responsible for ensuring a proportionate, rigorous and fair review that offers recommendations to facilitate continuous improvement”, the DfE has said.
The review will focus on how Oak National Academy meets the requirements set out in the guidance for the Public Bodies Review Programme: efficacy, governance, accountability and efficiency.
It will involve interviews, focus groups and existing user surveys, such as those carried out by Teacher Tapp, and is expected to be concluded in September.
Oak was relaunched by the government in September 2022 as an arm’s-length body. At the time, the DfE committed to review it within 24 months.
Oak National Academy challenged
When Oak was relaunched as a quango, the government announced that it would receive £43 million in funding over three years.
It has been wracked by controversy, with the High Court last year giving its approval for three organisations to pursue legal action against Oak’s establishment as an arm’s-length body.
School leaders have also raised concerns about the usefulness of Oak, with Geoff Barton, former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, saying it was “hard to see exactly where Oak fits”.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the review into Oak. Its transformation into an arm’s-length body “happened without proper consultation with the education sector”, he said.
“Our hope is that the review addresses our long-standing concerns about Oak inadvertently driving other publishers out of the market and potentially reducing the diversity of curriculum resources available to schools,” he added.
The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) is one of the claimants in the High Court action.
A BESA spokesperson said of today’s announcement: “Previous assessments by the department have been essentially reduced to tick-boxing exercises designed to support the continued existence of this ministerial vanity project.
“We have little hope that this review will engage effectively with the full range of stakeholders concerned and we will continue with Judicial Review proceedings challenging the establishment of the arm’s-length body in the High Court.”
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