MAT chief calls for councils to lead rebrokering of schools

The CEO of England’s largest multi-academy trust (MAT) has called for councils to have a role in the rebrokering of schools from one MAT to another. Speaking at a Westminster Education Forum event Sir Jon Coles, CEO of United Learning, said local authorities (LAs) should have a say in who runs schools in their area, as well as being able to trigger a rebrokering process where there is ‘sustained’ underperformance.

Arguing against the idea that only ‘abject failure’ should lead to change, Sir John said: ‘If a school is doing badly it should be given to new management and the key point here is that’s got nothing to do with how good the trust is overall. If a school is doing poorly for a sustained period of time then there should be a change in management. We need that dynamism in the system.’ He went on to say that as ‘the natural representatives of the community’, LAs would be best placed to lead this process. Currently, regional directors who are employed by the Department for Education (DfE) oversee transfers of underperforming schools, triggered by ‘inadequate’ Ofsted judgments. Although he was keen to avoid a system where it would take ‘many, many, many years to change’, Sir Jon did argue that to ensure there is an incentive for MATs to take on failing schools, they should be given three to four years to work with such schools - provided there is evidence of improvement.

However, while he was keen for councils to have more powers to intervene in underperforming schools, Sir Jon urged against the idea of LAs being able to run their own MATs. Earlier this year, the government’s schools white paper included proposals for the creation of LA established MATs, as part of the DfE’s overall drive for all schools to be in or moving towards being in a MAT by 2030. The DfE plans to run trials with a number of LAs to establish how the proposal might work in practice – 29 have applied to take part so far. However Sir Jon argued that such a system would risk creating a conflict of interest.

He said: ‘I would argue quite strongly that local authorities need to have a commissioning voice. They need to be able to give some kind of input into the process of deciding who is going to run schools in their area. Nobody cares as much about the quality of a local school as the local community. The local authority is the natural voice of the local community.  But you cannot have local authorities having this commissioning role, which is essentially a purchasing role, and also being a provider in the system. To do these roles well, local authorities must be unconflicted and, therefore, in my view, cannot be involved in running trusts.’