The education secretary is “open to considering” whether struggling academies can return to local authority oversight and is reviewing the process for opening new schools.
In an interview with Schools Week at the Confederation of School Trusts conference in Birmingham this week, Bridget Phillipson also warned there were “questions about the level of executive pay” in the sector, with all schools and trusts having to “justify” high salaries.
She has said she is focused on “standards, not structures”, and vowed to “smooth the differences” between academies and maintained schools.
Academy exit clauses?
Opponents of the academy model want schools struggling in trusts to be able to return to local authority oversight.
Phillipson said it was “something that I’m open to considering”, but added: “It’s not something where we have any plans to take any action any time soon.”
She warned that “a school alone often can’t, or even a trust alone, solve all the problems … many of the challenges that schools face at the moment go beyond the school gate”.
“Increasingly, what I hear from school leaders is that it’s not just the pressures that they face in terms of whether they can recruit staff or whether they’ve got the resources that they need to provide a good level of education.
“It’s also that they’re supporting more children whose families are homeless or who are growing up in poverty. That has a big impact on children’s life chances too. So that’s where government has to come in, and it’s not just about schools or trusts on their own.”
Labour has signalled a move away from the previous government’s belief that multi-academy trusts should be the main driver of school improvement.
Last week, it cut funding available for schools voluntarily converting into academies and cash for trusts looking to grow and expand.
Phillipson insisted “good trusts will continue to be able to grow…schools will be able to continue to convert”.
But she told Schools Week: “Sometimes it’s not simply about the structural change that’s required. It can be about governance change. It can be about making sure the right leadership support is put in place.”
LAs opening new schools on the table
The upcoming children’s wellbeing bill will force academies to follow the national curriculum and cooperate with local authorities on admissions, place planning and special educational needs provision.
Ministers are also reviewing 44 free schools.
Does Phillipson envisage a Labour government allowing councils to open schools again?
“We are reviewing the situation that we’ve inherited, partly because we want to make sure that there’s good value for money, that we’re creating places and schools and provision in the areas where it is genuinely needed, or where there is not the right specialism in place.”
Phillipson confirmed the government was looking at letting councils open schools again, as first revealed by Schools Week in September.
More details on how the government will “smooth the differences between schools” will be set out in the upcoming bill.
The government’s efforts to curtail certain academy freedoms have spooked some in the sector, who say it is their autonomy that has allowed them to innovate.
‘Academies have nothing to fear’
But Phillipson said: “The best practice that I’ve seen in academies in terms of the really innovative and pioneering work they’ve done, especially where it comes to community provision, early years, much more besides, is unconnected to the measures that we are bringing forward.
“I don’t think insisting that all schools should teach the national curriculum should be any bar to any of that kind of pioneering work. I genuinely don’t think they have anything to worry about on that front.”
But she would not make a commitment to curtail any more such freedoms, saying she was “not going to tie my hands for years to come into the future”.
One product of academy freedoms has been sky-rocketing executive pay. The best-paid, Harris Federation’s Sir Dan Moynihan, earns almost £500,000. Four trust chief executives earn more than £300,000, while 44 earn more than £200,000.
Asked if she was comfortable with those levels of pay, Phillipson said the government faced “difficult decisions” over school funding, which “will mean that we have to work with schools about how we drive further efficiencies”.
Trusts must justify top pay
“There are questions about the level of executive pay, and there is work that has begun around making sure that there is consistency across the board.
“In the current climate, which is a tough one – in government, in the country, and in the school sector – I think there will be need to justify levels of pay.”
However, pay scales for trust leaders or caps on chief executive pay were “not something we’re actively looking at”.
Phillipson said her approach to school improvement was “one of collaboration”, adding she was “more focused on the best outcomes for our children”, rather than school structures.
She warned there had been a “complacency” that “the way to drive standards is through changing the structure of a school”.
“Changing the leadership and the structure of a school can be an incredibly important way in which you deliver better outcomes for children. But it’s not the only way, and there is still big variation between schools and within trusts.”
