The New Schools Network charity has been revived as a lobbying operation with a new director tasked with torpedoing Labour’s academies reforms.
Meg Powell-Chandler, a former Conservative special adviser to education secretary Damian Hinds and to prime minister Boris Johnson, will lead the organisation that once held a government contract to support free school bids.
The charity originally planned to close after losing that contract in 2022. But it continued to operate as a grant-distributing body.
Powell-Chandler told Schools Week the new government’s review of free school projects and the proposals to roll back academy freedoms in the children’s wellbeing and schools bill prompted a “rethink” among the trustees.
Her first order of business is to try to get the bill amended. She believes the whole academies section should be stripped from it. It follows widespread criticism of the proposals.
Last week, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer was accused of watering down school standards. Critics have warned the party lacks a clear “vision” for school improvement.
“I think a lot of people would, if they were asked if you could just take out the school section of the bill, and you were left with a children’s wellbeing bill, I think they’d say ‘that would suit us’. And one of them might be the prime minister.”
But Starmer insisted last week that it was Labour that introduced academies to drive up standards. “Academies are here to stay, and will continue to drive up standards. That is what the bill is about.”
Fears legislation being rushed
Powell-Chandler fears the bill has been rushed. Sector leaders were not widely consulted on the school section, which caught them off-guard.
Matters came to a head last week when ministers were forced to confirm they would amend the bill to avoid capping teacher pay in academies.
This was “welcome…but how much do you want to applaud a government that says they’re not going to pass legislation to cap teachers pay?”
Powell-Chandler worked at the DfE at a time when the government was dealing with the fallout of several of the early big academy trust collapses.
Labour has argued it wants all types of schools to be subject to the same rules and accountability. Did the Conservatives do enough to hold trusts to account when in government?
“I think there was lots of action that was taken which was incremental, to try and, as we learned more, do what we needed to the system to make it more responsive to what works, what doesn’t, what oversight is needed.”
‘What problem are they trying to solve?’
The bill seeks to force all schools including academies to follow the national curriculum. But Powell-Chandler points out academies are already held to account on the need for a broad and balanced curriculum by Ofsted.
“Why then do you need the additional regulation to make sure that everyone is studying the same thing? I think that comes back to the main problem with this, which is, what is the problem that they’re trying to solve?
She points out Labour has lavished praise on academies. But added: “It leaves me somewhat baffled as to, if he [Starmer] thinks that and if that’s what he wants the academy system to do…he’s saying that with his mouth.
“But the hand is writing the legislation is writing into law restrictions which will stop them doing the things that he is praising them for doing.”
A return to ‘innovative’ free schools?
She wants free schools to go back to the “innovative” early model, adding that choice only exists where there is a surplus of school places. Falling rolls means parents will be “quite an empowered consumer”.
“But it’s free schools not just for a basic need provision. It’s free schools for that innovation.”
Powell-Chandler is prominent Conservative adviser. She has sought to become a Tory MP. Most of the former directors of the NSN were Conservatives.
The NSN is a charity funded by “donations of people that support our charitable aims to improve education, especially the most disadvantaged”. Its board is chaired by David Ross, a Tory donor who also chairs the David Ross Education Trust.
Are academy trusts among its donors?
“Our donations, like most charities, come from the people that support our charitable aims. You would expect that those who support our charitable aims and are living them day by day might be the type of people that contribute to the funds.”
But the charity has not said whether it will publish a list of donors.
