Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which functions she has delegated to each regional schools commissioner.

The Regional Schools Commissioners carry out the following functions on behalf of the Secretary of State:

• Monitoring the performance of academies and free schools in their area;
• Taking action when an academy or free school is underperforming;
• Taking decisions on local authority maintained schools wishing to convert to academy status;
• Approving changes to open academies, including age range changes, mergers between academies, and changes to multi-academy trust arrangements;
• Managing the regional sponsor market for academies, including approving applications to become an academy sponsor;
• Making recommendations to ministers about free school applications;

And from July 2015:

• Decision-making on tackling underperformance in maintained schools through sponsored academy arrangements.

The Secretary of State continues to be accountable for these areas and for all decision-making on her behalf.