Report outlines key conditions for effective school improvement

The subsequent report, Enabling School Improvement, was published in January by the Local Government Association and is based on research carried out at eight local authorities - Cumbria, Dorset, Hampshire, Liverpool, Somerset, Tower Hamlets, West Sussex and Wigan - involving a range of demographics, size and type of school.

It outlines a set of key conditions important to establishing effective school improvement systems, and the central role councils can play in that despite recent policy changes.

The growth of academy and "free" schools outside of council influence, deep cuts to the Education Services Grant, which funded council improvement work, and the introduction of regional school commissioners to monitor academies' progress has made improvement work more complicated for councils to co-ordinate in recent years.

After plans in the 2016 education white paper Educational Excellence Everywhere to remove councils' schools' role were scrapped, the government has encouraged the creation of improvement partnerships where schools in an area work together to improve standards. This also places greater emphasis on schools "buying" improvement support from councils.

The National Education Union says councils are best placed to provide oversight of local schools.

NEU joint general secretary Kevin Courtney says: "The government is promoting school-to-school support, yet this approach requires financial capacity and experienced staff. Neither can be taken for granted when schools are experiencing the worst funding and teacher recruitment and retention crises in decades."

Set against this backdrop, the report identifies six features of an effective local school improvement system. These are: