Academies

(asked on 20th July 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many maintained secondary schools have had orders under Section 4 of the Academies Act 2010 enforced in the last year.


Answered by
Edward Timpson Portrait
Edward Timpson
This question was answered on 5th September 2016

The Education and Adoption Act 2016 amended section 4 of the 2010 Academies Act to place a duty on the Secretary of State to issue an Academy Order to maintained schools judged by Ofsted as inadequate.

Since the 2016 Act came into force in April, 43 maintained secondary schools have been issued with an Academy Order under this duty. Four of these schools had previously submitted an application to convert to academy status. In the eight months before the 2016 Act came into force, no Academy Order was made without the consent of the governing body to become an academy.

The 2016 Act also provided the Secretary of State with a power to issue a warning notice to a maintained school where there are concerns about performance standards and safety. Under this power, nine warning notices have been issued by Regional Schools Commissioners to secondary schools.

There has been no other intervention by the Secretary of State in a maintained school over the last 12 months.

Local Authorities (LA) also have powers to intervene in maintained schools. These powers (alongside those of the Secretary of State) are set out in the Schools Causing Concern guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-causing-concern--2

The LA power to constitute the governing body of a maintained school as an interim executive board requires the consent of the Secretary of State. During the last 12 months, the Secretary of State has consented to 5 applications from LAs to establish an interim executive board in a secondary school.

Information about the above interventions (as of July 2015) summarised by local authority is set out in the table attached.

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