Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which local authority areas which have no maintained secondary schools; and when she plans to implement the commitment given in paragraph 5.39 of the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, Cm 7980, published in November 2010, to consult with local authorities and academy sponsors on what role local authorities should play as strategic commissioners when all schools in an area have become academies.

There are six local authorities in which all maintained secondary schools have become academies. These are Bexley, Bournemouth, Darlington, Doncaster, North East Lincolnshire, and Rutland.

There are two further local authorities which do not have any maintained secondary schools. These are the Isles of Scilly which only has a maintained all-through school for pupils up to age 16, and the City of London, which only has a primary school.

At present there are no local authorities where all schools have become academies. The timescales in which this may happen depends upon the decisions of local school governing bodies as to whether they wish to apply to convert to become academies.