Why is the private control of taxpayer-funded schools continuing, via the academies policy?

The story of a proposal by governors at a federation of an infant and junior school in Sussex to join an academy trust, which is ultimately in the control of individuals from a for-profit private company from the United States, shines a light on privatisation via the academies policy.

This is a legacy of both the policy’s early days under Tony Blair’s Labour government, and its rapid expansion under Michael Gove and his adviser Dominic Cummings in the early 2010s. Serious questions should continue to be raised about it.

When academies were launched in 2002, they were allowed to be “sponsored”. Individuals and companies – it tended to be wealthy businessmen – had to pay £2 million, in return for which they could be given complete control over the schools’ governance structures.

The requirement for “sponsors” to part with cash disappeared well before Labour lost power in 2010. But the other element, the ability of the “sponsor” to be in ultimate control of the schools through having the legal right to appoint the majority of academies’ boards of directors, was retained. Indeed, it survives to this day, as this case makes clear.

Aurora Academies Trust, which West Hove Infant School and Hove Junior School have been lined up to join, was set up in 2012 by the education entrepreneurs behind the American company Mosaica. Its constitution gave senior figures from the company ultimate control, via appointments to the board through a separate charity, over the academy trust. The government’s rules then allowed this academy trust to take on the running of initially four state-funded schools, rising to seven in recent years.