Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Baroness Morris of Yardley and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

There are 778 approved sponsors and about 20% are waiting to be matched with schools. The noble Lord asked which schools may need sponsoring. The precise number will vary from year to year and will depend on Ofsted inspections and test and examination results. We anticipate that as many as 1,000 failing maintained schools could potentially become sponsored academies under the new measures.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

I think the issue about how long schools wait before they find a match with a sponsor is very important. I had heard anecdotally—so this is the Minister’s opportunity to put it on the record—that quite a number of schools are now known as orphan schools because they have been taken away from one sponsor and have not yet been given another one. Does the department have a target time in which an alternative or a first sponsor should be found? What is the department’s record on achieving that target?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We look for a sponsoring match to happen as quickly as possible but one of the issues that this Bill is attempting to address is the delays caused by the very process that schools have to undergo at the moment.