MAT0020

Written evidence submitted by the Department for Education

Introduction

1.     Since 2010 there has been a transformation in England’s schools. 1.4 million more children are being taught in good or outstanding schools. 120,000 more children are reading more confidently because of phonics. Pupils are taking more demanding subjects: 39% of students are studying maths, science, English, foreign languages and a humanities subject, up from 22% in 2010. 66% of secondary schools and 19% of primary schools are already academies.

2.     But to deliver real social justice and ensure every child can go to a great school, regardless of background or where he or she lives, we need to ensure consistent, world-class teaching across the country. The Government has set out in the White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, plans for the next five years to end the current, inefficient two tier system, and ensure that by 2020 all remaining maintained schools will be academies or in the process of conversion.

3.     This step will simplify the status quo, where two parallel systems run side by side, with two ways of allocating funding and two basic legislative frameworks. Whilst in itself this is unsustainable and inefficient at a time when we need to maximise the impact of every pound spent in education, the Government also believes that moving to a universal academy model will give every school greater opportunity to benefit from a newer collaborative way of working, with more professional freedom and autonomy alongside rigorous public accountability.

4.     The Education Select Committee’s Inquiry focuses on Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). The Government expects that most schools will form or join MATs. This vision of a future education landscape:

• Is better for teachers and leaders. Because of freedoms and economies of scale it is easier for heads of academies and groups of academies in MATs (clusters or local families of schools) to recruit, train, develop and deploy better teachers and leaders.

• Is sustainable. As local authorities maintain fewer and fewer schools, it is becoming harder and less efficient to sustain performance, with every pound spent running a duplicate bureaucracy taking a pound from classrooms.

• Is rooted in local solutions. Academisation rejects the idea that `one-size-fits-all` approaches should be imposed from on high. Academisation shifts power to school leaders to choose within sensible parameters what will work best for their school and for their pupils.

• Is much more responsive. When schools under-perform, it will be easier to respond swiftly and effectively in the new academies system. Schools won’t be left to linger, mediocre or worse, for years on end.

• Has collaboration, not competition, at its heart. The most successful local head teachers – those running the oversubscribed schools to which every parent wants to send their child – can help more local children by forming stronger, more accountable local clusters of schools. The most effective larger groups of schools can help the toughest regions.

Definitions

5.     Each academy is part of an academy trust which is an exempt charity and company limited by guarantee. Every academy trust enters into a funding agreement with the Secretary of State for Education that sets out the requirements that apply to individual academies and the conditions to which the payment of grant is subject.

6.     There are two types of academy trust:

• Single Academy Trust (SAT) - A single academy trust runs one academy and is governed by a single set of articles and a funding agreement between the academy trust and the Secretary of State; and,
• Multi Academy Trust (MAT) – Multi-academy trusts usually run more than one academy. The MAT has a single set of articles and therefore is a single legal entity accountable for a number of academies. The trust enters into a Master Funding Agreement (MFA) with the Secretary of State, and into Supplemental Funding Agreements (SFA) for each academy it operates.

7.     An approved sponsor is a body that has been approved by the Department to take on underperforming schools.

Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs)

8.     As at 31 March 2016 there were 973 MATs active in the UK. 85 % of MATs (828) have between 1 and 5 academies. Already, well over half (56%) of pupils who attend academies are taught within a MAT family. That accounts for more than 1 in 5 pupils in England (22%) already within a MAT. The Government believes that where academies choose to work together in multi-academy trusts (like the 65% of current academies overall - or the 91% of academies, not including free schools, which opened in 2014-15) they can spend less on administration to invest more in teachers. They can recruit specialists in areas like HR, to support their teachers. It is easier for groups of schools to develop and offer high-quality training for their teachers, to train new teachers and to develop new pedagogy and curricula.

9.     MATs are not a one-size fits all arrangement. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes with sponsors, where relevant, from different backgrounds. Over three quarters of existing MATs are run by existing schools (academies or free schools) and by far and away the majority of the MATs that currently exist (85%) are relatively small, localised clusters of schools forming MATs, with 5 or less schools (828 out of 973). By contrast, only 10 MATs (1% of all MATs) have more than 30 schools.

10. MATs offer the opportunity of genuinely new career paths, and retention of key staff. Groups of academies give teachers a wider range of career structures with the same employer, for example, keeping great teachers in the classroom longer by helping them work across multiple schools (of different types) instead of having to move into management (and out of the classroom). This helps more children. A talented Head of Maths can move from helping the children in just one school to promoting better maths across a wider range of schools – and, crucially, the leaders of the academy group have an incentive to make this happen. A small primary school that wouldn’t ordinarily be able to afford their own foreign language teacher would be able to share that teacher with a group of schools.

11. Groups of academies in MATs are better-placed to develop strong leadership structures at each level. For example: great heads can lead several schools in local Trusts; effective middle leaders can stay in the classroom longer by working across multiple schools; and more specialist roles can be developed that play to each leader’s strengths rather than asking him or her to become ‘jack of all trades’ leading a single school. Innovative new approaches can be more securely and effectively piloted in groups of academies and we expect to see more, richer career pathways and better succession-planning.

12. Multi-academy trusts provide more opportunities for schools to work in stronger partnerships – but with clearer and better aligned accountability, power and funding:

• Local partnerships. We won’t require successful, sustainable schools to join multi-academy trusts. But we expect many will actively want to partner with other schools and form or join new, local partnerships or clusters.

• Resilient partnerships. High-performing schools will be encouraged to choose to work more closely with those performing less well. But it also gives them the tools to turn around such schools. More schools will give support to and receive support from others, making all schools more resilient.

• Stronger, more accountable partnerships. Multi-Academy Trusts are a stronger form of school partnership than those available to maintained schools, with a single point of accountability. Each MAT’s leadership arrangements can be agreed when it is established; successful schools can set up their own local MATs. MAT leaders have an incentive to worry about standards for every child across the family of schools within the trust and have the staff, money, and governance powers to act. MATs are stronger than loose federations where schools can be more interested in their ‘own’ pupils than those at the school down the road. There will be no tussling over accountability or questioning whether control lies with the local authority or Governing Body. The MAT has the powers and funding to boost standards in the schools for which they are responsible and is completely accountable for the results.

• Responsive to performance. Unlike local authorities, the size and influence of each MAT will ebb and flow according to its performance. The best MATs will flourish; turning around weak academies. As MATs become successful and confident they will be able to expand. Where this is already happening we see an infectious culture developing where success breeds continued success. This is turn raises aspirations, not just within schools but across whole communities. Overall we want successful MATs and strong standalone schools to spread excellence everywhere; great schools in every community for parents to send their children to.

• MATs that under-perform will be challenged and, if necessary, their schools transferred to a stronger trust. But we want to avoid failure in the first place and so will also as a result of the Budget 2016 settlement will be supporting the system to grow and develop stronger capacity over time.

Support for Multi-Academy Trusts

13. To support the development and growth of clusters of local schools within MATs we have already:

• Rolled out the Academy Ambassadors programme to put people with strong corporate skills onto MAT boards to help with financial planning and good governance.

• Moving from a head of a single school to a MAT-CEO is a big change, and we also know that some trusts have grown quickly beyond their capacity and capability in the past. Amongst other support we are therefore supporting individuals to develop the necessary skills to manage a MAT, through an accredited MAT CEO Leadership programme. Piloted last year by Future Leaders and accredited by the Open University the pilot proved successful and Future Leaders continue to offer this course. The department is working with providers who are considering enter the market later this year.

• We will be convening leading head teachers, MAT CEOs and other experts to redesign voluntary, world-class National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) to prepare leaders more effectively for the full range of leadership roles in the new schools system, including considering need at executive head level.

• We will launch an Excellence in Leadership Fund for the best MATs and other providers to develop innovative ideas to tackle significant leadership challenges.

• The Government also helps new sponsors establish themselves, and supports existing trusts to grow. Since 2013, we have awarded grants of around £9.5m to help often small primary schools form coherent multi-academy trusts, and around £30m to support the growth of existing sponsoring MATs.

• We will also establish a MAT Growth Fund to invest in the people and systems needed to enable effective groups of schools to join together, and to support existing MATs to expand.

Educational Excellence Everywhere

14. The White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/508447/Educational_Excellence_Everywhere.pdf sets out that we want schools to operate in strong, resilient structures which raise standards so that external intervention is only necessary in exceptional circumstances. This means that many schools will choose to form or join MATs – allowing some the system’s best heads to run more than one school. MATs are the only structures which formally bring together leadership, autonomy, funding and accountability across a cluster or family of academies in an enduring way, and are one of the best long term formal arrangements for stronger schools to support the improvement of weaker schools.

15. More than half of all academies (65%) are already part of a MAT, and the vast majority of new academies (91% in 2014-15 not including free schools) are created in MATs. MATs can offer schools significant benefits in:

•          Staffing and leadership, with improved career and staff retention opportunities and support for teachers and leaders.

•          Excellent practice in teaching and curriculum and reduced workload.

•          More robust governance.

•          More efficient back-office arrangements that free up more funding for the classroom.

16. The benefits of joining a MAT are strong both for high-performing schools and for those which need greater support – particularly small schools and primary schools, which can call on the expertise of the MAT for back-office arrangements, meaning more money to spend in the classroom, and to increase and improve the breadth of their curriculum and extra-curricular activities. They can also benefit from having a wider and immediately available network of other ‘family members’ with which to share challenges, opportunities and success.

17. Increasingly we understand that MATs can begin to fully deliver these benefits at a size of around 10-15 academies – although the real determinant of effective size is the number of pupils. Over time we expect there to be many more MATs of this size, and we will therefore encourage and support MATs to grow, ensuring that they can access the support they will need to expand sustainably, but without compromising local accountability in individual schools.

18. Because of these benefits, we expect that many schools will choose to form or join MATs as they become academies, and that many existing Single Academy Trusts (SATs) will see the benefits of setting up or joining a MAT too. We have committed to publishing ‘design principles’ to set out what works in successful MATs and will explain the basis on which RSCs will expect to approve MATs and SATs in future. Effective maintained schools will always be able to become or remain as Single Academy Trusts, and we know some will.

19. In the future, there will be more MATs spreading best practice across the schools system and by joining, forming, expanding or leading MATs, the best leaders, who have already proven their success, ability and skills, can play a greater role in the system and spread success more widely to benefit more children. Where appropriate, sponsors from a variety of backgrounds (most of the approved sponsors are in fact good or outstanding schools, but others include FE Colleges, charities or philanthropists and entrepreneurs with business backgrounds) bring new experiences to help transform pupils’ experiences, and put those schools on a firm financial footing for the future.

20. Regional Schools Commissioners will have an important role to play in their local area, encouraging high performing schools to extend their influence, and recruiting and growing MATs in their region. Regional vision statements, setting out the aims and commitments of each regional schools commissioner (RSC) in fulfilling their duties in their region have been published on 19 April 2016 at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regional-schools-commissioners-regional-vision-statements

21. MATs will play a central role in the future school system. They differ from local authorities because they:

• Prevent geographic monopolies, giving parents more choice and competition. If performing well, MATs can scale their success nationwide, taking effective models from one part of the country to the toughest areas in a way that no high-performing local authority ever could.

• Provide opportunities to bring together educational expertise and financial skills in innovative and efficient organisations that can ensure more money is spent where it is needed most: in the classroom.

• Offer a clear, single point of accountability where the leader of the MAT has the powers and funding to raise standards in the schools for which he or she is responsible, and is completely accountable for the results.

• Can manage funding for their whole family of schools, including making changes to individual school budgets in response to differing needs. This makes them much more responsive to the precise needs of pupils. MATs can also take their own decisions as to what other services, such as HR advice or IT support, schools actually need, and isn’t constrained by the need to bulk purchase from single providers if doing isn’t right for their schools. In addition, MATs can keep open the option of providing services direct to their schools if they think they can provide the best service.

22. MATs will also ensure that there are arrangements for parents to engage in their child’s education. As set out below, we will expect all academy trusts to have arrangements for listening to and understanding the views and needs of parents, employees and communities, and clear channels for complaints and redress.

23. It is vital that, in the new system, underperformance is tackled swiftly and successful providers can expand, replacing weak ones. A system in which academy trusts’ or MATs’ arrangements are frozen forever would be largely indistinguishable from the geographic monopolies of local authorities and to have a system which is slow to respond to poor performance would not sufficiently address the inconsistency in dealing with underperformance that has existed among different local authorities.

24. Where academies are underperforming, RSCs will be able to intervene promptly, using the government’s powers over failing and coasting schools.

25. There is a range of interventions RSCs can apply, depending on a school’s performance, sustainability and capacity for improvement. Where MATs are on track to deal with underperformance they should be supported to do so. The default approach to tackling chronic underperformance will continue to be to broker the school into an alternative MAT, where school leaders with a track record of success can apply proven models to improve performance.

26. Where external intervention happens – ultimately because the cost of turbulence is outweighed by the continuing damage to children’s education in an underperforming school – it must happen as quickly and seamlessly as possible. This is also the case where a MAT as a whole is underperforming. In that instance, RSCs will develop local plans to move schools to other MATs as appropriate or, ultimately, should be able to wind up the underperforming MAT altogether. Where the RSC decides that a school needs to join a different MAT, we will be transparent about this and the process of finding and appointing a MAT to support the school.

27. This approach means that the size and influence of MATs will vary according to performance. The best MATs will flourish, taking over and turning around weak schools; MATs which are underperforming will be challenged and, if necessary, their schools will be transferred to a stronger trust. This is essential for the system to operate effectively and to serve parents.

28. We envisage this being a system which continues to allow an immediate response where there is underperformance, but which protects the arrangements of the strongest MATs. We also want to consider whether there is a place for more routine periodic review of MAT arrangements. We also want to ensure the system continues to allow individual schools to agree with their MATs by consensus to move to a different MAT.

29. We will also consider how parents at individual schools might be able to petition RSCs for their school to move to a different MAT where the school or its MAT is underperforming or in other exceptional circumstances – for instance, where there is consensus amongst parents that a MAT is failing to adequately support a school in a location isolated from the rest of the cluster. RSCs will take decisions about any changes based on what is in the best interests of children and parents and of all schools within that MAT.

30. Our approach to Church and other faith schools will be underpinned by our commitment to maintaining their religious character and ethos and the strong relationship between the RSC and relevant bodies, such as church dioceses. This is set out in our memoranda of understanding published on 18 April 2016 at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/church-schools-and-academies-memoranda-of-understanding

The current MAT landscape

31. As at 31st March 2016:

• 65% of all academies & free schools are in MATs.
• 75 % of primary academies, 51 % of secondary academies and 65 % of AP & Special academies are in MATs.

Academy Trust Composition by Phase

MAT size by number of academies

32. As at 31 March 2016 there were 973 MATs active in the UK. 85 % of MATs (828) have between 1 and 5 academies.

33. The number of MATs active in each Regional School Commissioner (RSC) region and in each local authority area varies (see graph below). South London & South East England has the largest number of active MATs (171), the North has the fewest (84). The majority of MATs are active in only one RSC region (909); although several are active across two (36) or three (19) regions. A small number of MATs are active across 3 or more LAs (75); the majority are active in only one LA (780).

Number of Active MATs by RSC Region

Number of RSC Regions within which MATs Operate

Number of Local Authority areas within which MATs Operate

34. The majority (77%) of MATs are school-led; 8% are led by dioceses and 7% by organisations in the charitable sector.

MAT Leadership by Sector

MAT Size

Numbers of Pupils in MATs

* Please note: Pupil numbers are rounded to nearest 1000. They are correct as of 31/03/2016.

Table Showing numbers and proportions of primary schools by size (pupils numbers) in MATs/Single Academy Trusts/Free Schools

Governance and Accountability

35. MATs can provide a strong local governance structure characterised by collaboration between schools, economies of scale, buying power, workforce recruitment and retention advantages and ultimately stronger financial viability and sustainability.

36. MATs can be responsible for multi million pound budgets. The link between Parliament and the Chief Executive (the accounting officer) of the MAT is clearly set out in the published Academies and Financial Handbook. In addition, the accountability framework is responsive and varies in according to the size and complexity of MATs. For example, the requirement for a dedicated audit committee to provide assurance over financial systems and operational controls is required for any trust with an annual income of £50m or more. Trusts derive their income from a variety of sources, including:

• sponsor capacity funding when they are being established or growing to take over failing schools;

• pre-opening grants in respect of specific academy conversion of sponsored projects. These grants contribute to conversion legal costs, school improvement advice, recruitment activity and so on;

37. We expect that MATs improve their schools, but also that the extra support and benefit schools receive by being part of a local family of schools will vary according to the effectiveness and performance of different MATs.

38. Schools within MATs are held to exacting accountability measures: each academy or free school within a MAT is inspected by Ofsted. Each academy or free school has its exam results published on the Government’s website. And whilst we can aggregate the sum of the performance of schools within a MAT, this does not necessarily capture fully the value which the MAT in itself is necessarily providing (the benefit to individual schools – and so to pupils - of being part of this local overarching governance arrangement).

39. MATs are also held to a high level of accountability:

• Financially - MATs have to publish annual accounts both as companies and charities – and are scrutinised by EFA who act as financial regulator of the academies and free schools programme;

• We issue Warning Notices to the worst performing academies (some standalone, some in MATs). These are published and do contribute to the perceived performance of MATs, particularly if they have received multiple notices. In addition, we may issue financial notices to improve which apply at MAT level if financial management and governance weaknesses are displayed at school level.

• Ofsted have started to carry out “batch” inspections of groups of schools within a small number of specific MATs.

40. A measure of MAT performance is desirable for a number of reasons:

• Transparency – MATs are now a significant feature of the education landscape, and provide the pre-eminent organisational and governance model for a fully academised system. Some of the biggest MATs have large financial turnover. There is undoubtedly a strong public interest in understanding how effectively tax payers’ money is being used, and to what effect;

• Sponsor-matching. Having a more evidence-based basis for understanding MAT added value will help RSCs in matching failing schools to suitable sponsoring trusts.

• To identify signs of concern to ensure action can be taken to increase capacity and improve MAT and school performance.

41. Creating measures of MAT performance poses a challenge given the varied circumstances in which MATs are created and operate. Simple averages of attainment or other measures in academies can be useful but also risk leading to spurious conclusions about MAT performance, often reflecting the type and starting point of schools in the MAT rather than the performance of the sponsor. For example, a MAT that took on low-performing schools and improved their results to the national average would appear to be lower performing than a MAT that took on high-performing schools and simply maintained that level.  Many MATs have made points of this kind when we have spoken to them about these measures.

42. On 19 March 2015 the Government published a statistical working paper, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/415659/SFR09_2015.pdf. This set out a measure for consultation for how we might capture more systematically the performance of MATs. The methodology captures progress that pupils make in schools within a MAT, compared to the average rates of progress that pupils with similar starting points made elsewhere, and the improvement in that over time - In essence, how has pupil progress improved over time in schools within this MAT compared to improvement in progress nationally.

43. In Educational Excellence Everywhere the Government has now committed to publishing data on how well MATs are performing, helping to improve transparency and accountability, drive improvements in MAT performance, improve the matching of schools with good MATs, and enable everyone in the system to gain a better understanding of what makes effective MAT practice.

April 2016