Education: Multi Academy Trusts

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, for affording us an early opportunity to debate the main plank—it could be argued that it is the only substantive plank—of the Government’s White Paper on schools published last week. I commend him for the balanced approach he evinced on the White Paper. At the start, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for her kind remarks. It is most pleasant again to see her on her feet during an education debate.

In his foreword to the White Paper, the Secretary of State said that the Government’s aim is to increase the standard of reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2 from its current level of 65% to 90% while also improving the average GCSE grade in English language and maths by 2030. We wholeheartedly back these aims and very much hope that they will be achieved, but we believe the main drivers will be well-trained, well-paid, well-supported and well-motivated teachers, head teachers and support staff, irrespective of the type of school in which they teach.

The success or failure in achieving an overall rise in standards across schools, both primary and secondary, will not rest on the vast majority being corralled into multi-academy trusts, particularly if that is counter to the will of the schools themselves. That said, there is no evidence in the White Paper that compulsory academisation is the Government’s aim, despite the idea being widely trailed to the education media since the turn of the year. From the perspective of head teachers and teachers whom I have spoken to since the White Paper appeared, specifically on academisation, the main issue is the lack of clarity about what is being proposed. Their frustration is clear due to continuous references to outstanding MATs yet no acknowledgement of very successful local authorities with few academies and many successful maintained schools.

This bias is not new. In its attempts over the past decade to make academies in general, and MATS in particular, the only show in town, the DfE has consistently played down the achievements of schools in the maintained sector. How much time, for instance, do regional schools commissioners, whose role, according to the DfE website, is

“to work with schools to ensure they are supported to improve and to address underperformance”,

spend working with maintained schools to help them improve what they are already doing, as opposed to proselytising for academy conversion? Not that they have been notably successful in that quest because, as other noble Lords have mentioned and the White Paper states, after 12 years, only 44% of schools are academies, and only 87% of those are in a MAT.

I take issue not so much with the White Paper but with the companion DfE policy document, The Case for a Fully Trust-led System. The document contains the inconvenient truth for the DfE that maintained schools are doing better than those in MATs in Ofsted inspections. Indeed, analysis by the National Education Union referred to above my noble friend Lady Blower, has shown that the DfE has systematically misreported Ofsted grades for many schools. It mentioned DfE claiming schools were in multi-academy trusts when those grades were actually achieved when they were in the maintained sector.

Looking at the full picture of the data portrays a markedly different situation to the one that the DfE is trying to present. In fact, maintained schools are more likely to improve their Ofsted rating to good or outstanding than sponsor-led academies, and sponsor-led academies are more than twice as likely to have their Ofsted rating downgraded to “requires improvement” or “demonstrates serious weaknesses” than maintained schools.

What does all that mean? Perhaps the Minister can say, but the way the information is presented is not consistent, and that is a major problem. Perhaps she will be able to comment on those misrepresentations. The real figures would not lead many to the conclusion that the answer to school improvement is wall-to-wall MATs.

Arguably, the most important claim in the case for a fully trust-led system is, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Blower, that more than seven out of 10 sponsored academies are now rated good or outstanding, compared with about one in 10 of the local authority-maintained schools they replaced. There is no evidence anywhere in the DfE’s data that only one in 10 local authority schools became good or outstanding. That data actually shows that, if a school remains in local authority hands, it is more likely to improve then if it becomes an academy. Equally, 74% of what the DfE describes as coasting schools are currently academies, compared to 44% of schools overall.

The problem with the White Paper and the DfE’s obsession with MATs is that it has made its decision, written the headlines and is now faced with making the figures fit the narrative to serve those headlines. Such a narrative is a chimera. We heard recently that the Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency—a title which I suspect is itself a chimera—is comfortable offering what he calls alternative facts. It is disappointing that some in the DfE have grasped the same lifeline.

As my noble friend Lady Blower mentioned, the White Paper’s use of terminology about a family of schools within a MAT is frequent. As the Minister will recall, I raised this issue with her last week, when noble Lords had the opportunity to comment on the Statement supporting the White Paper. This is a question of geography. It is difficult to understand how some MATs scattered across the country can be seen as families of schools in any meaningful way if people never see each other. The Minister recognised this in her reply to me last week when she said:

“We will be working hard on commissioning to make sure we have geographically coherent trusts, so they can benefit from all that that offers.”—[Official Report, 29/3/22; col. 1587.]


Well, that is how to plan for any new MATs, but what about those already in existence?

The White Paper gives no indication as to how the full academisation target will be met, let alone the ending of stand-alone academy trusts. The only machinery proposed relates to schools with two “requires improvement” findings and those that compliant local authorities are able to persuade to join their MAT. Stand-alone academies are often very successful schools, and they are unlikely to want to submerge their autonomy and individuality into a MAT where some distant figure can tell them what they can and cannot do.

Let it be said that many of these schools will also have built community support because they have been successful. I suspect that this would cause dilemmas for more than a few Tory MPs. The White Paper says that trusts

“use their collaborative structure to deliver outstanding literacy and numeracy outcomes for their children.”

There no doubt are trusts that choose to operate as a partnership of schools which is lacking in hierarchy, and for which the word “collaboration” might therefore be appropriate. However, in the vast majority of MATs the structure is one where the central trust board is in control. A collaborative structure suggests that individual schools within the organisation take decisions collectively. Again, this is not the model. The central trust of the accountable body is ultimately responsible for all decision-making and thus has the power to tell schools what to do. So the attraction of some sort of democratic system should be treated with caution, because accountability has been notably lacking in the MATs system as it has developed. Neither the White Paper nor the policy paper suggests that schools will be permitted to leave a MAT and move to another one, or to return to the maintained sector. Perhaps the Minister can say why not. Given what he said, the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, would welcome an answer to that question as well.

That is also true of admissions. Labour believes that local authorities, which already have responsibility for co-ordinating admissions to schools maintained by them and academies, should be responsible for admissions to all schools within their boundaries. However, the White Paper says that trusts will continue to be their own admissions authorities, with legislation planned to require trusts to follow the admissions code. That in itself is an admission that some MATs are not presently operating within the requirements of the code. I think that that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, was referring to when she mentioned pupils with SEND. In fairness, the vast majority of trusts abide by both the spirit and letter of the admissions code, but there is no reason to provide an opportunity not to do so. There is no plausible educational benefit in a trust having its own admissions policy.

To be clear, we are not opposed to multi-academy trusts. We recognise that in many cases, schools that were underperforming have benefited greatly from joining a trust, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, in his introduction. As he said, they are here to stay. What we are saying is that where a school is not underperforming and wants to join a MAT, let it do so, although many schools have so far declined the invitation. Rules are not looked on as a panacea in the way in which the DfE and Ministers would like them to be.

Thousands of schools are doing very well either in the maintained sector or as stand-alone academies. They should not be put under pressure to change their status if they do not want to. Equally, many local authorities have successful maintained schools, and that should be allowed to continue without the local authorities having to form their own multi-academy trust. The Government are of course entitled to encourage such schools to join a MAT but they are not entitled to manipulate figures on school performance in pursuit of their aim of increasing the number of schools in MATs to make that offer seem more attractive than it actually is.

There is room for diversity within the schools system, and we believe that it is wrong to attempt to reduce it. That would not be in the interests of children and parents, nor would it serve to produce the flourishing school system mentioned by the Secretary of State in his introduction to the White Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lingfield for securing this important debate and congratulate him on his vision, so long ago in the mid-1980s, in the work he proposed at the time. As we all know, it is still a work in progress but this Government are committed to delivering on it.

As noble Lords have said and as set out in our recently published White Paper, our mission is that by 2030, 90% of children will leave primary school having achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and that at key stage 4 the average attainment in both English and maths will increase to grade 5. Currently, the average for children at key stage 2 is 65%, and for children with special educational needs it is around 22%. As my noble friend Lady Berridge pointed out, that is unacceptable and it is that on which we need to focus. I also thank her for her kind words, and possibly the best ministerial handover breakfast that either of us will ever have.

Strong multi-academy trusts—I stress “strong”—are absolutely central to achieving this ambition. Our priority is to extend their impact across the whole country, particularly in areas of high need. We want to remove barriers to conversion for all types of school, while strengthening the system in regulation and accountability, and making sure that every actor in it has a clear role. We believe that this will level up standards and ensure that every child has the best possible opportunity to succeed in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, gave examples of how we would do this that related to chapters 1 and 2 of the schools White Paper, I think. He rightly said that this is done by having great teachers for every child, and the Government entirely agree. He also said that it is done by having a really strong curriculum based on evidence and supported by excellent behaviour and attendance—those are my words, not the noble Lord’s, but I do not think that he would disagree. As your Lordships are aware, that is supported by the parent pledge.

I must correct the noble Lord’s statement—forgive me if I do not quote him accurately—that the department picked a headline and then picked the facts to meet it because we had already conceived the policy. I give the noble Lord my word that I worked really hard with excellent officials on that and that is just not the way that we did it. We started with the targets that we wanted to achieve and looked at the evidence for how they could be delivered, and that is what your Lordships see in the White Paper.

We know that this matters so much because teachers and staff in all schools, whether maintained schools or academies, have been working tirelessly, particularly over the last two years, to achieve excellent outcomes for children. Trusts have been able to support teachers in schools where that challenge is greatest. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, questioned why we referenced the seven out of 10 sponsored academies. Those were schools that were inadequate—many of them were failing for many years, as my noble friend pointed out—and had failed several children in the same families. We put that in bold because the successors of 434,000 children who were in inadequate schools are now in good or outstanding schools. Some 600,000 children in this country are still in inadequate or double-RI-plus schools. We are absolutely determined to make sure that we see an end to that.

On the NEU research that both the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, referred to, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, used the term “manipulate figures”, and I hope that he might retract that statement. I would be delighted to meet with both noble Lords. We are preparing a formal response to that paper, as we believe that there are misunderstandings, at best, within it. The claims are based on selective data and misrepresent the published evidence. As I say, we are preparing a full response for the NEU, and I would be delighted to take both noble Lords, and any other noble Lord, through the data that we used in putting together our proposals.

As I have said, we want all children to be educated in strong trusts, but we know that the system remains mixed at present, and many of our best schools operate alone. On my noble friend’s point about single-academy trusts, I say that they have so much to offer the system, with their leadership and innovations, and we want that to be shared across schools that do not currently benefit. Whether that comes from a single-academy trust or a maintained school, our focus is on quality, and we need some of those trusts to grow. Those that fall short of our expected standards need to be replaced with much stronger ones.

We want to ensure that every pupil is educated in a strong trust, and we set out the five key characteristics of a strong trust in the White Paper: first, that there should be a high-quality and inclusive education; secondly, that there should be sustainable school improvement; thirdly, that there should be training, support and opportunities for teachers throughout their careers; fourthly, that there should be strong strategic leadership and governance; and fifthly, that there should be effective financial management.

In his speech, my noble friend thoughtfully explored the question of the size of multi-academy trusts. We are not pursuing size for its own sake, but if we think of our priorities in terms of educational outcomes, the hierarchy is a well-supported workforce, strong governance and financial efficiencies. We must have educational performance as the first and we believe it cannot be done without a well-supported workforce and strong governance. We are not pursuing size for its own sake. My noble friend is right that there are some great smaller trusts. Equally, I do not recognise some of the data that he referred to about the largest trusts, but I am more than happy to sit down with him to go through this. If I can name two of our best trusts, at the risk of offending others that deserve to be named, the Harris Academy Trust and the Star Academies Trust both have outstanding results and have done remarkable work in terms of school improvement. I am wondering whether some of the data that my noble friend is looking at includes schools that were recently failing and have just gone into those trusts, because they have done a lot of the heavy lifting—not just those two, but others—in turning around very weak schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, and other noble Lords referred to CEO pay. We take it extremely seriously. There are two issues that we need to think about, as I said in our response to the noble Lord. One is the absolute figure. I do not know whether the right metric is to look at the Prime Minister’s salary, and we have to be careful because often the figures quoted include pensions and other benefits and are then compared with salaries. There is, of course, an issue about absolute levels, but there is also an issue about value for money. On that point, the largest trusts offer much the best value for money. If you look at CEO pay or overall leadership pay per pupil, they offer the best value for money. We now have trusts which have responsibility for 75,000 children. We need to get the best people to lead them.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, talked about the importance of local. We heard it loud and clear, not just from your Lordships but in our engagement with schools ahead of the White Paper. We are very clear that that is extremely important. The data from the 2021 National Governance Association report showed that 76% of trusts have a local committee for each academy in their trust and a further 12% have a local tier of governance which oversees a group of academies, so 88% of trusts already have some form of local governance in place, but we agree that it is important. To clarify, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked, we are not forcing schools into trusts.

My noble friend asked about the incentives in relation to rural primaries. It is that ability to collaborate, share resources and make a more resilient network of schools. I was lucky enough last week to visit the Old Cleeve First School in west Somerset, which has a grand total of 91 pupils and is part of the West Somerset Academies Trust. The people there gave me two examples—one in relation to the national tutoring programme. As a stand-alone school they would never have been able to participate, but they were able to share a member of staff across three schools in the trust. They also talked about the career opportunities for their staff, which would normally be very limited in a school like that, where you have two forms learning together—so a very small staff team, which is able to move to other parts of the trust.

I would like to set the record straight in relation to the remarks made about the curriculum. Some trusts have a curriculum which they expect all the schools and their trusts to follow; others will give schools in the trust more flexibility. There is really a range—so it is wrong to describe it as such; but I am interested, and I hope that after the debate I will be able to talk to your Lordships about the impact on workforce. On the one hand, we know that the workforce is under pressure but, on the other hand, we have pushed back, and it is something that could save teachers so much time if they have a well-sequenced curriculum to work from.

I cannot accept the point about a lack of transparency on accounts. There is so much greater transparency in the academy sector than there is in the maintained sector.

My noble friend Lady Berridge talked about the importance of focusing on disadvantaged children. I agree with her absolutely; that is why she will have seen that we are targeting a particular investment in educational investment areas, those local authority areas with the highest need and the most entrenched underperformance of schools. I thank her for the welcome for the consultation, which I think she did a great deal of work on, on being able to require schools that have had two judgments below good from Ofsted to join a multi-academy trust.

I thank my noble friend Lady Fleet for all her work in the area of music education, particularly in relation to the national music education plan, which she and I are both looking forward to being published—and not just published but seeing implemented in schools across our country. My noble friend gave some excellent examples of MATs that are really using music as part of the curriculum to great benefit. Certainly, our understanding is that many music teachers might find themselves working in isolation in individual schools, and working in a MAT can be a real benefit in continuing professional development, sharing resources, adding capacity to their teams and giving opportunities for progression.

We also believe that lengthening the minimum school week will benefit some of the curricular and extracurricular enrichment activities.

My noble friend Lady Berridge talked about the risk of capital and use of data in weaker responsible bodies with poor buildings. We have significantly improved our data on the condition of the school estate, including through the condition data collection. Its successor programme, CDC2, will visit every school again in 2026. We also ran a pilot of a capital adviser’s programme in 2021 to test how professional advisers could support trusts to manage their estates more effectively, and we will consider how that can be rolled out further.

My noble friend asked an important question about how long it takes and what the average time is to transfer a school into a trust. I shall write to her on a number of questions. On that issue, I am not sure that the average is really meaningful. The majority of schools are moved in a reasonably straightforward way, then there is a tail of schools, which are extremely difficult and may go on for many years. That is clearly unacceptable, which is why we have set up two MATs—the Falcon Education Academies Trust and the St Joseph Catholic MAT—which can act to hold those schools on a temporary basis until a sponsor is found.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

The Minister is talking about schools moving into MATs. Both the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, and I asked why schools cannot move from one MAT to another or move back into the maintained sector, if they feel it is in their interests to do so.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have got that, although I am well out of time—but the noble Lord has given me permission to overrun. We are going to consult on the ability under certain circumstances for schools to leave a MAT, if they feel that there are good reasons for that; it is something that we will consult on and explore in some detail.

I am well over time, and I shall write to your Lordships on any questions. In closing, the White Paper is the start of a journey towards a stronger and fairer schools system, with children benefiting from high standards in all areas of the country. It is a journey that will depend on us supporting and empowering our greatest leaders in education; it will depend on us working with parents to make sure that their children achieve their potential wherever they are born, and it is probably the most important journey that any of us will take.