Is academisation privatisation? Just look at the control structures

Have state-funded schools been privatised through the academies scheme?

It is a perennial question which has attached itself to the policy, with critics arguing that these complex changes to schools’ structures add up to the p-word, while those who tend to defend it point to the fact that academy trusts are not-for-profit charities, operating without conventional shareholders.

I got involved in another round of the argument last week, pointing out to Leora Cruddas, of the Confederation of School Trusts, that the view put forward by Kevin Courtney, of the National Education Union, that academisation did amount to privatisation, might not be too wide of the mark.

But anyone entering this debate would do well to look very closely at the rules governing exactly how individual academy trusts operate.

And once you start looking, the detail of how control of what are publicly-funded institutions can be handed, in practice, to a few individuals becomes very interesting.