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.

So this was state funding, but private control, for these schools.

When Mosaica ran into difficulties, another company, Pansophic, bought up assets of Mosaica, and, remarkably, Pansophic’s people were then handed control of the academy trust, again via the system for making appointments to its board. Remarkably, a Pansophic employee has also recently served as its interim chief executive, and is now chairing its board.

Those in charge of the Hove Learning Federation, which runs the two local authority schools, and AAT/Pansophic, point to Pansophic not running the schools for profit.

The rules in England which forbid profit-making by academy trusts – unlike the situation in America, where Pansophic runs for-profit charter schools – are significant.

However, this does not mean that profit calculations do not feature in the running of state-funded schools by private companies in this country. Aurora has operated a curriculum designed by Mosaica, for example. Even if operated on a not-for-profit basis in AAT schools, sceptics will wonder if this was seen as the precursor to, for example, seeking to sell the curriculum more widely, in English schools, perhaps, or internationally.

If that were so, AAT’s schools, then, while not generating profit for the company themselves, might have been viewed as a vehicle towards such a broader outcome. This is to underline the fact that privatisation is not simply about the ability to extract profits directly from schools under an organisation’s control, but the existence of that control in itself.

Is this fair? Well, giving control to a private organisation in this way inevitably invites such questions, even though those in charge might not have such intentions, the latter certainly being the suggestion by the federation as part of its consultation.

The AAT website also highlights the value of tie-ups the trust has with Pansophic, stating that “this means that Aurora’s academies are part of an international group of schools which enables us to share best practice [with] colleagues within Pansophic’s global network”.

The website adds: “There is an annual teacher exchange with Banning Lewis Ranch Academy in Colorado and opportunities to live and work in the US…Aurora also benefits from Pansophic’s IT and marketing teams, which is provided free of charge.”

This does indeed sound interesting, and possibly valuable. But such tie-ups would surely be possible without the private form of control we see here. Partnerships, yes. Private control. Really?

Again, this case highlights how the government’s allowance of “sponsorship” within the academies sector has enabled private control of what are taxpayer-funded public assets. It is possible to wonder on what basis this was ever allowed, and why it is allowed to persist.