66
111
Hence there are potential benefits in such models of governance within
chains of strong oversight, clarity of roles, capacity and support. Risks
may include excessive control from the centre of the chain, and/or lack
oflocal accountability and representation in governance. Chains offer the
potential for innovation, support for capacity-building, and provision of
continuing professional development in governance, although they need
to remain vigilant in maintaining oversight and development of their
shared mission, and in ensuring inclusive local practice.
However, the majority of academies are now converters and not
necessarily associated with a chain, and it is here that there may be
particular need for support. Taking steps to do this is vital in order
to bolster this key element in the academy system. Pont et al. (2008)
maintain that autonomy needs a strong infrastructure of support,
including training and development for leadership. So how can quality be
assured? There ismuch speculation about the optimum size of governing
bodies, including an apparent assumption that smaller governing bodies
may be more effective.
23
However, the Commission judges that function
and capacity (including coverage of expertise) remain the key criteria.
Emerging models are very diverse – certainly too much so to enable
conclusions to be drawn about size. As the ASCL and the NGA point out
in their evidence, there is no research evidence to support the assumption
that smaller governing bodies are more effective; indeed the NGA
expressed some wariness about very small groups. Both organisations
note a risk in terms of capacity for small groups – both time and the
ability to cover all areas of necessary expertise. They also note the risk
relating to adequate representation of stakeholder groups. The ASCL
additionally observes the risk for such groups that governors fail to
distinguish their role from that of the executive. Both organisations
emphasise that it not the size of the governing body but, rather, the
quality of the necessary expertise that has an impact on good practice.
The Commission sees chairs of governors as key in an academised
system: the chair is highly influential in the effective functioning or
otherwise of the governing body as a whole; and the (professional,
constructive but robust) relationship between the Chair and the
headteacher is key to productive governance. It is here that the
government needs to take firm action in order to secure quality and
capacity. It is taking some steps in this regard, for example through the
National Leaders of Governance being developed by the National College
of School Leadership (as well as its CFRA course mentioned above). This
is an important step and needs to be accelerated to match the longer-
established NLE scheme for headteachers. However, it may be that many
governors and chairs of governors, already hard-pressed to maintain
their duties to a high standard (often on top of paid work), will not wish
to take up such opportunities. Payment of governors was suggested as
a way of providing direct incentives in terms of quality assurance. The
Commission believes that payment to chairs of governors might be
explored; but a different approach would be to pay governors/chairs of
23. Some academies and chains have acted accordingly to shape small governing bodies which
they report as more focused and responsive. For example, in the Kemnal chain academy, governing
bodies each involve just five or six governors. Hill (2010) notes that the move of some chains to
develop smaller governing bodies provides a ‘sharper and more driven form of accountability’.
The Commission
sees chairs of
governors as key
in an academised
system: the chair
ishighly influential
in the effective
functioning or
otherwise of the
governing body
asawhole
6. Academy governance
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51
Unleashing greatness – getting the best from an academised system
112
governors to attend courses or to cover the associated costs (as in the case
of arrangements for jury service).
The Commission believes that the process for appointing chairs of
governing bodies should become more professional and rigorous, in order
to ensure high-calibre appointees. Chairs’ posts should be advertised, as is
widely the case with other public sector Board roles, and schools should
be expected to have at least one independent person on the selection panel
for a new Chair. All chairs should have to meet explicit criteria around
(a)understanding of the role and responsibilities; (b) preparedness
to engage in continuing professional development; and (c) ability to
challenge the headteacher when necessary. In addition, any new Chair
should be expected to undertake formal training within six months of
being appointed. The Commission would like to see the National College
hosting an annual conference for chairs of governors (which there is an
onus to attend). In addition, the government should find ways to celebrate
their role better – as central figures within animproving educationsystem.
Thought also needs to be given to provision for continuing professional
development, given that local authorities are likely to scale back activities
(especially in the secondary sector where academies are more prevalent).
In addition to training, there is more that the government might
do to support governing bodies. For example, as suggested in Chapter
2, the direct supply of key data on individual schools (for example,
aregular data ‘dashboard’) would provide governing bodies with ready
information, as well as a steer as to the sorts of information they should
be scrutinising regularly. Providing further, simple and user-friendly
guidance, including support materials and model templates, may
help to ensure governing bodies fulfil what they need to do to secure
accountability and do their jobs effectively. The DfE already provides
documentation to support best practice in some areas, such as documents
on the basic rules of procurement for schools and academies. This
approach should be extended.
We suggest that in looking forward to a fully academised system,
the governance of individual academies within it becomes a key risk
for the quality of the system overall. To that end, the government needs
to give added impetus to collaborative learning through cross-school
communities of practice. A start has been made with the designation
of National Leaders of Governance, but more needs to be done to
help governors understand governance practices in other schools,
coming together as governing bodies to share continuing professional
development and achieve economies of scale in purchasing services,
and so on. The latter offers especial potential for securing professional
support for example with audit, the preparation of accounts for
reporting, legal advice and other matters that may be required.
Recommendations
Governing bodies have a pivotal role in an autonomous school system
andso for the success of the academies programme. The government
needs to act to ensure capacity in governing bodies, and to provide
incentives for participation, to secure the effective school governance
thatis vital for anacademised system. We recommend the following:
32
113
• The DfE should act to increase understanding of the pivotal role
of governors in an academised system. This should include a
focus on their responsibilities not only as company directors of
charitable companies but also for wider system improvement.
• Using the National College, the DfE should take steps to
support the capacity of governing bodies, and in particular
thequality of the Chair.
• Schools should advertise the appointment of new Chairs as
part of an open recruitment approach and involve at least one
independent person in the appointment process. There should
be mandatory training on appointment.
• The government should consider incentives schemes (such as tax
credits) to employers to encourage their employees to participate
in school governance, and to facilitate time off for employees to
attend continuing professional development and/or governing
body meetings.
• The DfE should supply key data to governing bodies of
individual schools to ensure the governing body is adequately
informed and thus equipped to act.
• Using the National College, there should be further development
of high-quality continuing professional development, materials
and templates for governors.
• Using the National College, the government should find more
ways to increase school-to-school collaboration across governing
bodies, to encourage capacity-building through development
and training, and to secure better value for money through
shared procurement (such as for legal guidance and audits).
• To encourage engagement and to support local accountability,
academy trusts should publish an annual report and provide
aforum for its open discussion with stakeholders.
6. Academy governance
2
Unleashing greatness – getting the best from an academised system
114
36
115
7. Governance and
public accountability:
the role of central
government
In a fully academised system, the government retains its responsibilities
for system-wide improvement and the effective, transparent use of public
resources. Within an autonomous system the key elements are:
• commissioning
• monitoring/regulation
• intervention.
School improvement levers and accountability measures are considered
fully in Chapter 2. This chapter focuses on some specific issues raised in
evidence to the Commission in relation to the role of central government.
It explores each element in turn, focusing on the commissioning and
decommissioning of sponsors, and transparency and monitoring
ofstandards across the system. We also explore aspects of accountability,
including funding mechanisms, financial oversight, and redress. The
Commission argues for further tightening of mechanisms, and further
useof hard powers, to secure the transparency and efficiency necessary
foran effectiveacademised system.
Commissioning
The government is levering school improvement in a range of ways,
includinga focus on commissioning improvement through arrangements
with sponsors and with academies that have been judged by Ofsted
tobeoutstanding.
Appointment of sponsors
Evidence presented to the Commission indicates there is a need for a
better check on the due diligence of sponsors to ensure effective school
improvement. The Coalition government decided not to continue
with thesystem that had been put in place for the formal approval of
accredited sponsors, and the DfE runs a minimal ‘fit and proper person’
check on potential sponsors. The Commission was concerned that so
little about this, for example, the criteria for selection, is in the public
domain. Many submissions to the Commission suggested that this
7. Governance and public accountability: the role of central government
58
Unleashing greatness – getting the best from an academised system
116
approach to something as fundamental to children’s lives as schools and
their improvement is inadequate. A confidential submission from a city
council children’s services director noted:
‘In any other aspect of public life, contracts for the operation of public
services are subject to open tender and once in operation are governed by
procurement frameworks. Why not in education? There is no open register
of school sponsors, no transparent process for determining if a person or
body is ‘fit and proper’ to run state funded schools. Why not?’
However, a balance needs to be struck in encouraging rather than
deterring participation by sponsors. As the DfE points out, sponsors
cannot be ‘tested’ until they take on schools but, as sponsors expand
activities, it becomes easier to monitor their success or otherwise, and to
use this information to inform decisions in the future. Nevertheless, the
Commission believes that explicit criteria on the capacity of sponsors,
their understanding of education, and their vision should be made
publicly accessible. Transparent criteria for the DfE’s identification
of appropriate sponsors are important, especially in the case of the
‘forced academisation’ of schools that have been identified by Ofsted as
inadequate. The current lack of transparency raises questions for some
stakeholders, such as the NAHT, as to the independence of the decision-
making process.
The Commission heard that the DfE is beginning to develop and apply
systems for monitoring the achievement of different chains, and to use the
information gathered to inform decisions about whether particular chains
should be awarded further schools. This work needs to be accelerated
and, again, made publicly available. Centrally modelled data should be
available to parents and other stakeholders so that they are aware of the
practices and effectiveness of different chains. This is important because
chains’ marketing information can ‘spin’ different performance indicators
in a range of ways. Established chains should be allocated further schools
only if they can demonstrate good results with those they already have.
In the early academies, the old school (including its governing body)
was replaced by a new sponsored academy. As time went on, however,
a more consensual system of appointing sponsors was adopted and the
present government has retained this. This involves brokerage between the
DfE, local authorities and the struggling school. This is often manifested
in the so-called ‘beauty parade’ noted in chapter 2: the DfE brokers and
the local authority supports the struggling school to select from a range
of interested sponsors that are presented to (and make a presentation
to) the school’s governing body. Witnesses to the Commission referred to
this system on numerous occasions with frustration and exasperation at
what was considered extremely bad practice. It was regularly likened to
‘asking turkeys to vote for Christmas’. Governing bodies (including the
existing headteacher) of struggling schools were felt to be ill-equipped
to make decisions about what is best for the school’s future and likely to
be attracted to the sponsor that would least disrupt or threaten existing
arrangements (including, for instance, the current senior leadership team
and/or the governing body itself). It is noted that these two limitations
may apply toother circumstances in which headteachers and the
Established chains
should be allocated
further schools
only if they can
demonstrate good
results with those
they already have
50
117
7. Governance and public accountability: the role of central government
governing bodies of struggling schools select sponsors beyond selection
processes brokered by the DfE.
There is a further disadvantage to this method: that is, the energy
taken by sponsors competing with one another to take over schools, and
the ‘wooing’ of stakeholders and so on that such processes often entail.
The process is also problematically opaque. A number of witnesses told
the Commission that they considered the legal basis for it was suspect,
not to mention the costs and inefficiencies involved. Some witnesses
felt that responsibility for identifying a suitable sponsor should rest
exclusively with the DfE, with a decision made on the basis of transparent
selection criteria. Sir Bruce Liddington, the CEO of E-ACT, made this
point strongly in his evidence:
‘“Beauty parades” must be ended. The Academy system is damaged
by many sponsors competing with each other to take over schools. The
decision over which sponsor should take over a particular school should
be down to the Department for Education. This will ensure Academy
sponsors’ efforts will be focused on promoting exceptional standards
inschools.’
Written evidence, E-ACT
Questions also arose about accountability to parents in the appointment
of sponsors. Several submissions to the Commission maintained
that there should be better processes of consultation with parents,
especially given that academisation represents changes to a school’s legal
status, of which parents are often unaware. There was doubt as to the
meaningfulness of present consultation processes.
24
Nevertheless, it is
clear that the changes can have consequences for parents which they have
not necessarily understood or been consulted about.
‘My son had mentioned he had not seen his music teacher for a while
andturns out was now working at one of the other schools in federation
–parents not aware. I FEEL THERE IS NO ONE ELSE TO TURN
TO AND THAT SCHOOLS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY LIKE.’
Confidential submission from parent
Recommendations
• The practice for appointing sponsors, commonly known as
the ‘beauty parade’, should be ended. The DfE should ensure
that the selection of sponsors is open, fair and rigorous, and
supported by clear criteria.
• There should be a requirement for meaningful consultation with
parents on their school’s potential academisation. This should
clearly set out the implications for the school’s legal status
and its educational provision (especially concerning the actual
24. David Wolfe submits that the public participation requirements for the process of
converting to/establishing academies are ‘so weak, and so vaguely framed, as to undermine the
democratic legitimacy of the decisions which follow.’ He asserts that, in many instances, even
parents who are agnostic about, for example, their school’s conversion develop grievances about
how things are done.
49
Unleashing greatness – getting the best from an academised system
118
implications of academisation for the school’s organisation
and for education within it). The DfE should develop, or
circulate existing exemplars of, guidance showing best practice
in meaningful consultations with parents on a school’s
potentialacademisation.
Regulation
Monitoring and regulation of academy chains
We have noted the DfE’s development of monitoring mechanisms. It is
imperative that the performance of chains is tracked centrally, given that
some chains extend beyond their local areas. In an academised system,
large chains represent both significant opportunities and strengths and
considerable threats. If an academy chain declines, the consequences
for pupils are, in Greg Hurst’s words, ‘catastrophic’. An influential civil
servant told the Commission that the single biggest risk to the academies
programme is if ‘a sponsor falls over’. At present, the majority of
chains are very small, comprising two or three schools; and the Office
of the Schools Commissioner is seeking to drive the expansion of larger
chains (three or more academies) with more capacity, but avoiding the
development of chains that are too large to be sustained. However, a
handful of chains are now very large. Since the government remains
responsible for school improvement and the use of public resources,
itneeds to ensure that chains behave with probity and efficiency.
There was some support in submissions to the Commission for Ofsted
to inspect academy chains rather than individual schools. A number of
academy sponsors made this argument strongly, in addition to policymakers
and other commentators. However, the Commission is not minded to
support this recommendation. As discussed in Chapter 2, parents are
interested primarily in the outcomes of their children’s school, rather than
the overall performance of a chain; and it is right that Ofsted should remain
focused on what is happening at the level of an individualschool.
However, this is not to say that chains should not be held to account
for performance across a chain. There are three elements to this:
• transparency/monitoring of performance
• inspection
• intervention.
The Commission believes that while inspection should continue to focus
on individual schools, transparent systems should be developed toprovide
publicly accessible information on the performance of chains. This would
provide information to schools wishing to associate themselves with a
sponsor. As noted earlier, the information should also be used overtly
in decision-making about allocating failing schools to sponsors and, in
worst-case scenarios, to ban particular chains from taking onadditional
schools, and/or to remove a sponsor.
The DfE should operate hard powers in relation to failure.
According to its evidence, the Office of the Schools Commissioner
(OSC) is developing a system for academies’ performance monitoring
and intervention is being developed by, with consequences for
54
119
underperformance. The DfE also provided evidence that 40 academies
were ‘red-rated’ in 2011, and eight pre-warning notices were issued to
academy sponsors.
25
According to the NAO (2012), at July 2012 the OSC
was monitoring the performance of 166 academies, with 30 of these
classified as causes for concern. Yet the public remains uninformed about
this. Moreover, the Commission notes that almost half of sponsored
academies are rated by Ofsted as requiring improvement (‘satisfactory’
before September 2012) or inadequate (the latter standing at 8% of
sponsored academies) (NAO, 2012), raising questions as to the view that
the number of academies at high risk regarding performance is ‘very
small’. The Commission believes that the role of the OSC should be
explicitly extended to encompass intervention as well as the identification
and monitoring of sponsors.
The criteria and systems for intervention should be made more
transparent. As we noted in Chapter 5, some 12% of charters in the
United States have been withdrawn for poor performance over the last
20 years. In his written submission, Professor Mel Ainscow points out
that charter schools are granted a charter of three to five years by local
school boards, and are judged on the basis of a contract to deliver their
plans, including results. Removing a sponsor in England may not be
without difficulty, given problems about the ownership of land, and the
need to dissolve a trust. Nevertheless, it is important that such powers
can be – and are – exercised when necessary. The Commission advocates
a reduction in the length of funding agreements, from seven to five
years, to provide a tighter timeline for intervention if improvement
isnotbeingsecured.
The Centre for Public Scrutiny, in a written submission, suggests that
local councils might take a role in holding academies to account on behalf
of the local community, suggesting this might be along the lines of the
powers for councils to scrutinise health services. The Commission makes
a similar suggestion in relation to annual reports by local authorities in
earlier chapters, arguing for a role for local authorities in scrutiny of and
reporting on school performance and raising any concerns.
The Commission considers that if academisation is extended across
the system, it may be beyond the capacity of the OSC to operate these
intervention powers effectively on its own (see also O’Shaughnessy, 2012).
The Commission suggests that in a newly re-focused role as champions
for local children and young people, local authorities could be involved in
reviewing the contracts of sponsors. In this way, the OSC might provide
performance data to them, enabling local authorities to draw on this
data, in conjunction with their local evidence, to support a judgement
about the renewal (or removal) of contracts for an individual sponsor
academy. This might form the basis of a recommendation from a local
authority to the OSC, the body ultimately responsible for commissioning
anddecommissioning.
Adequate time needs to be built in for improvement. Nevertheless, it
is imperative for an improving system – and the education of individual
25. The pre-warning notices were reported by The Independent on 25 April 2012;
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/gove-admits-eight-academies-are-on-
notice-over-failures-7676014.html
7. Governance and public accountability: the role of central government
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