Is it right for state schools to be under the control of a few individuals?

The investigation of businessmen’s control of academy trusts through their governance structures, as reported today by Education Uncovered, is in my view possibly the most significant published by this website since it was founded two years ago.

I have been seeking to track the extent of individuals’ influence over these trusts, and how large the trusts themselves have become. I think the findings go to the heart of what should be an important public debate about who should be in control of state-funded schools.

The investigation shows how the architecture of the Conservatives’ City Technology Trusts (CTC) policy, as taken on by the Labour government through its academies scheme, remains essentially unchanged. This is the case even though, now, the scale is much larger in terms of the number of pupils affected.

The CTCs and Labour’s original academies were small-scale initiatives, confined generally to institutions educating secondary-age pupils. In the case of academies as they operated from 2002 to 2010 – they were originally called “city academies” – these were mainly designed as projects to seek to turn around urban secondaries which had in many cases struggled for many years.

Backers of the scheme were clearly of the view that something truly radical was needed, in such circumstances. And this “something” turned out to be handing more or less complete control of the schools’ governance to “sponsors” from various backgrounds, including successful businessmen.