Nicholas Dakin
Main Page: Nicholas Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)Department Debates - View all Nicholas Dakin's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to my hon. Friend for the active role he plays in ensuring that all the faith communities in his constituency are effectively represented and can contribute to modern Britain.
In an education landscape of university technical colleges, free schools and academies run directly from Whitehall, will the Secretary of State’s welcome review of what the Department has to learn include a thorough analysis of weaknesses in the current accountability system?
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I think one of the things that is clear from the action that has been taken in schools today is that academies, and, for that matter, free schools, are subject to a higher level of accountability than local authority schools. One of the things I will be looking at is how we can ensure that local authority schools are held to a similar level of accountability in the future, not least for the discharge of public money.