New laws handing the secretary of state wide-ranging powers to issue academy compliance orders are a rehash of a similar policy in the Conservatives’ schools bill three years ago.
The opposition has been highly critical of section 43 of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which would give the education secretary the power to give trusts whatever “directions” she “considers appropriate”.
These could be issued when a trust has “breached or is likely to breach a relevant duty, or otherwise has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably with respect to the performance of a relevant duty”, the bill states.
Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, this week described the power as “untrammelled” and “a sort of general power to direct academies on a range of subjects”. He suggested the bill should be amended to constrain it.
But the policy is similar to one put forward in 2022 by the Conservative government in which O’Brien and Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, served.
2022 bill also proposed broad direction power
That schools bill included a clause that would have given the education secretary the power to issue a compliance direction if satisfied that a trust “has breached, or is likely to breach, a duty under any enactment prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph, or an academy agreement or master agreement”.
Alternatively, directions could have been issued if a trust “has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably with respect to the performance of such a duty”.
The main difference is the 2022 bill was more specific about which duties were in scope.
Leora Cruddas, the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, told MPs on Tuesday that the power was “too broad and too wide”. She said it should be limited to when trusts breached “statutory guidance, the provisions in the funding agreement and indeed charity law”.
The clause was also criticised by David Thomas, the chief executive of Axiom Maths.
He said the new legislation “gives the secretary of state the ability to give the proprietor such directions as the secretary of state considers appropriate”.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for a secretary of state to be able to give an operational action plan to a school. It’s perfectly reasonable for a secretary of state to tell a school they need to follow their duty.”
No record of similar power over council schools being used
But Catherine McKinnell, the minister for school standards, defended the proposals, saying they would “provide the secretary of state with a more proportionate and flexible remedy” for “narrow or specific” breaches that at present might prompt a more serious warning notice.
The government has also said it would align powers over academies with those over local authorities, where orders can also be issued. But these are seldom used.
In response to a freedom of information request, the Department for Education said it had “no records of having directed compliance in local authority-maintained schools from 2020-24”.
The direction power is not the only policy rehashed from the Conservatives’ 2022 bill.
Other similar sections include creating a register of children not in school, although in the new bill the government has expanded the list of information it wants councils to collect.
Also similar are sections on school attendance orders, the regulation of independent schools, teacher misconduct and online education providers.
