An inquiry by the education select committee found that existing structures to support academy schools to collaborate and expand, known as multi-academy trusts (MATs), are having varied success in raising pupils' performance across England.
It has called on government to allow local authorities with a track record of strong educational performance to set-up their own MATs.
Department for Education figures from March 2016 showed 65 per cent of all academies and free schools in the country were part of MATs, although the government predicts most schools will have converted to academies and belong to MATs by 2022.
The select committee's report urged the government to make more use of it's ‘growth check' strategy for MATs, whereby the DfE reviews whether a trust has the capacity to take on any more converting schools, after evidence collected by the committee found some trusts had expanded too quickly over wide geographic regions. This was deemed to have impacted negatively on school performance.
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