But with the rapid acceleration of the academies programme, local authorities have been faced with the challenge of maintaining support services to smaller maintained schools in their area.
Because academies operate outside local authority control, they receive money from central government to run the services that councils provide for maintained schools. This includes educational welfare, school improvement and support for pupils with behavioural problems.
But the cost-saving that councils gain from not having to provide such services to schools that convert is marginal, since the economies of scale gained by providing services to schools en masse are sacrificed.
Call to convert
Amid these concerns, a rural council in the east of England is taking the unprecedented step of urging all schools in its area to convert to academy status under a single trust in a bid to protect its smallest primaries from closure.
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