By Richard Johnstone | 29 January 2015
The Department for Education’s ‘complex and confused’ oversight regime for academies has left it reliant on whistleblowers to identify financial risks or governance problems in schools, the Public Accounts Committee has warned.
Examining the department’s supervision of academies, which are independent of local authorities, MPs said the schools had been given increased autonomy without a proper strategy for oversight.
Around a fifth of England’s 21,500 state-funded schools are now academies, directly accountable to the education secretary and funded by the department’s Education Funding Agency. But these changes have led to a weak system of supervision, the PAC said.
Oversight is shared between the department and the EFA, as well as 152 local education authorities that remain responsible for non-academy schools and have safeguarding duties for all institutions.
This has led to ‘significant gaps’ in the department’s knowledge of school performance, PAC chair Margaret Hodge said, leaving it unable to identify and respond to risks. As a result, there is a reliance on whistleblowers to identify possible failure, such as risks to financial integrity or governance.
‘Whistleblowers were involved recently in Birmingham, where two of the schools at the centre of the ‘Trojan Horse' allegations [which found some schools had breached their funding arrangements] had been rated outstanding and were therefore exempt from routine inspection,’ she added.
‘The failure of the department and the local authority to identify problems with governors at some Birmingham schools highlights just one risk of not knowing enough about governors.’
Today’s Schools oversight and intervention report also found it was rare for early action to be taken to prevent decline or continuing poor performance in schools.
Hodge said confusion about roles and responsibilities meant failure could go unnoticed.
‘Of the schools rated inadequate in 2012/13, 36% had previously been rated good or outstanding, and there are still 1.6 million children being educated in schools in England that are less than good,’ she stated.
This is the latest in a series of reports to criticise the department’s oversight of academy and free schools. Earlier this week, the education select committee said academy funding must be made more transparent, while last week the National Audit Office found it had failed to meet Parliament's accountability requirements.
Responding to the PAC, a DfE spokeswoman said the committee did not reflect the real picture in England’s classrooms.
‘Our plan for education is delivering higher standards in schools across the country. One million more pupils are being educated in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, a credit to the hard work of teachers and parents and our strong oversight of schools,’ she added.
‘We have already intervened in more than 1,000 schools over the past four years, pairing them up with excellent sponsors to give pupils the best chances. That compares with the years and even decades of neglect many schools suffered under local authority control.
‘There are 41 local authority schools that have been in special measures for more than 18 months, compared to just nine academies.’
Responding to the report, CIPFA’s executive director of development and new markets Giles Orr said he welcomed the committee's reiteration of the role local authorities should be playing in all schools, including academies.
The institute also shared concern that areas such as good public financial management and governance were not being given the scrutiny they require, he added.
‘CIPFA applauds the growing professionalisation of school managers, but recognises that there is still some way to go to ensure sponsors are subject to full public scrutiny.’
