Former DfE official calls for council oversight on academies

Jon Coles, now chief executive of the United Learning Trust, which runs 19 academies, told delegates at the Academies Show that growing numbers of autonomous schools mean central government will no longer be capable of holding them all to account.

“There is no way that the current model of accountability can be the long-term equilibrium,” he said.

“With half of secondary schools and some primaries having academy status, the department already holds funding agreements for more than 1,800 schools.

“As the remaining secondaries take on the status and the number of primaries accelerates sharply, we can easily foresee a time when that 1,800 could be 18,000 as academy status becomes the norm nationally.”

He argued that there is no sensible way for a national organisation to take responsibility for intervening in every school facing problems.

“Government will not be able to track the performance of every school accurately or intervene rationally school-by-school,” he said.

“And if we do have large national chains, government would not in practice intervene in those chains because one primary school is in difficulty.”

Coles insisted that academies should be held to account by a “local mechanism” that could monitor academy performance on educational targets.

“The obvious answer, where all the schools in an area are academies, and therefore the local authority is no longer a provider, is that the local authority would make the decisions,” he said.

“This would make the local authority role much more like its current role in housing: no longer a provider, but with clear roles for sufficiency and quality, which it fulfils through holding housing associations to account against agreed performance measures.”

Coles called on academies to “build a reputation for being open and accountable” by working more closely with councils.

“Make yourself more accountable than you need to,” he said. “Account for yourself on a voluntary basis to the local authority.

"They rightly see themselves as having a responsibility for the success of all children in the area – so they will ask you challenging questions – and that is a good thing.

“They can’t tell you what to do, so even if you think they’re wrong about some things, have the confidence to engage. For example, some academies are starting to appear on a termly basis in front of local authority scrutiny committees.”

He added that academies should strive to work within local admissions and exclusions frameworks “visibly”.

“Unless we, as academies, use our freedoms wisely, these freedoms will not last,” he said.

“If we put in place – both nationally, regionally and locally – sustainable and effective forms of accountability that parents understand, that government can measure and that ultimately assists in developing better schools, we will be doing what is right.”