Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) potential challenges faced by regional schools commissioners.

Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) act on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, in relation to academies, free schools and school improvement, and are accountable to the National Schools Commissioner. Each RSC is supported by a head teacher board. Head teacher boards are made up of experienced academy head teachers and other sector leaders.

RSCs also play an important role in the Department’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, by leading our Regional Education and Children’s Teams to better co-ordinate how the Department captures information and intelligence about local needs and circumstances in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

RSC performance is managed through the normal and existing civil service arrangements for Senior Civil Servants. In addition, the Department publishes annual reports relating to school and academies performance, of which the work of RSCs is included. These can be found here: Annual Report and Accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports, and Academies Sector Report and Accounts https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/968362/SARA_Academies_Sector_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_201819_-_accessible.pdf.

Over the coming months, areas of focus for the RSCs will be:

• Supporting the school system to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak​.
• Supporting underperforming schools to move into strong families of schools.
• Supporting growth, development, and improvement of Academy Trusts.