Now we have 10% of secondary schools running as academies and many more in the pipeline, the question is, when will the change become unstoppable? On the one hand, the GM movement never really took off, with most schools happy to stay with their local authority. On the other hand, with the number of academies we now have, the finances start to look very ropy indeed for local authority schools. Academies receive ‘extra’ money over and above that which provides for central services, but this money is not growth – it is top-sliced from the overall schools’ budget. So the differences in funding levels will be amplified as more and more schools convert. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that the government does not envisage localism as having anything to do with local authorities. Read Nick’s Gibb’s speech to the North of England Conference for confirmation. So I expect the gentle flow to become a flood over the next few months. And that will, I hope, refocus the government’s thinking on what the role of a local authority actually is to be, and what powers and duties local authorities will need to carry out that role, as they lose the educational functions they have had since 1944.
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Academies - the tipping pont?
1 min read
John Freeman
