MAT0030

Written evidence submitted by the Local Government Association

About the Local Government Association

• The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government.

• We are a politically led, cross-party organisation which works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems. The LGA covers every part of England and Wales, supporting local government as the most efficient and accountable part of the public sector.

1.           Summary

1.1       The LGA is concerned about the lack of local accountability governance arrangements that exist for Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). These issues will be exacerbated by the imposition of a fully academised school system as set out in the Department for Education (DfE) White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, published on the 17 March 2016.[1]

1.2       Existing governance arrangements for MATs require parents to raise their concerns with distant and remote individuals and organisations  the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) and the DfE  rather than the council and elected councillors who know their local schools and the communities that they serve.

1.3       RSCs do not have the capacity or local knowledge for dealing with the rising number of failing academies, as well as maintained schools. The data from the first 18 months makes it clear that they have yet to make a positive impact on the performance of academies.

2.           The role of MATs in the context of other intermediate structures operating between Whitehall and individual schools, including Regional Schools Commissioners

2.1       Currently, there are only a small number of MATs with a significant number of schools that cross local government boundaries. They operate within a funding and inspection system that focuses on individual schools, rather than on the MAT as an entity in its own right.

2.2       Individual schools in a MAT will be allocated budgets according to the locally agreed formula for the local authority area in which they sit. Where a MAT crosses local authority boundaries, the per pupil rates will differ according to the variations in the current funding system.

2.3       Ofsted inspects individual schools in a MAT, but cannot directly inspect the support provided by a MAT in the same way as it can inspect councils. Ofsted has attempted to do this indirectly through ‘group’ inspections of schools in a Multi Academy Trust. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Education on 10 March 2016 Sir Michael Wilshaw highlighted “serious weaknesses that were contributing to poor progress and outcomes for too many pupils” in seven of the nine MATs inspected in this way and called the findings “worrying”.[2]

2.4       It is difficult to hold individual schools to account for standards when the real accountability lies with MATs and their chief executives. The Education White Paper is clear that the Government expects most schools, including small primary schools, to become part of a MAT by 2022. If the Government continues with its proposals, the Ofsted accountability framework will have to adapt to a system where the freedom and responsibility of individual schools and their head teachers are significantly reduced. The default model will need to be inspection of MATs and the schools they control, rather than individual schools.

2.5       As MATs are able to pool and top-slice the budgets of the schools they control, the transparency and accountability of the use of public funds in an all-academy system will also need to be reformed. Decisions about the use of top-sliced money and the transfer of funds between schools has a degree of transparency and accountability through the current arrangements for schools forums, which are partnerships between schools and democratically elected local councils. New ways of ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of school funds will be needed if MATs, not individual schools, are the key accountable bodies in the schools system.

2.6       Councils play a significant role in the oversight of the finances of maintained schools through regular direct engagement and scrutiny of draft budgets. Academies and MATs are accountable in formal, bureaucratic ways, such as the requirement to comply with the Academies Handbook and to have their accounts externally audited. However, significant concerns about the real effectiveness of DfE and Education Funding Agency (EFA) oversight of MAT finances has been expressed by the Education Select Committee[3] and the National Audit Office[4]. Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has also publically questioned the high salaries being awarded to the Chief Executives of underperforming academy chains, the size of their cash reserves which were not being spent on raising standards and the high expenditure on expensive consultants to compensate for deficits in leadership[5].

2.7       In the majority of cases of financial mismanagement that have become public it has been as a result of whistleblowing by individuals, rather than concerns picked up by auditors or the EFA. A more effective system of oversight of MAT expenditure needs to be developed to ensure the proper use of public money and this will become increasingly important if the number of MATs that the EFA is expected to oversee increases significantly over the next six years.

2.8       Under the proposals in the Education White Paper, councils will continue to have significant education responsibilities, including school place planning and protecting the interests of the most vulnerable pupils. We are very concerned that councils will not have sufficient powers to discharge these duties when the accountability of all schools and MATs will be upwards to RSCs and the Secretary of State in Whitehall.

2.9       In an all-academy system, councils will have no powers to intervene in MATs if they have concerns about the quality of education they are offering to vulnerable pupils and those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. They will have no powers to direct an academy to admit a pupil, unless they have a formal SEN statement or Education and Health Care Plan, even if that is in the best interests of a vulnerable pupil. Councils will also have no powers to require an academy to expand to meet increasing demand in an area, even if the school has capacity to do so.

2.10  The LGA is concerned about the transfer of significant powers to bodies which are not locally accountable, notably the RSCs. Under existing arrangements, RSCs are only accountable upwards: to the Schools Commissioner and the Secretary of State. They have no accountability to the local community their decisions will affect. For example, new powers have recently been given in the Education and Adoption Act 2016 and the Schools Causing Concern statutory guidance to allow RSCs to close small schools judged to be Inadequate by Ofsted if they consider them to be unviable, financially or otherwise. In an all-academy system, decisions about closing small schools, whether or not there are performance concerns, could rest with remote RSCs, not locally accountable councils as at present.

2.11  We share the Committee’s concerns that the design of the RSC regions themselves is a barrier to effective operation, which should be changed to more closely align to natural geographic areas with which parents and communities identify and understand.[6]

3.           The current MATs landscape, including in terms of the number, size, and geographical coverage of MATs

3.1.    Research carried out for the LGA by Angel Solutions, the organisation behind the Watchsted website that analyses Ofsted data in real time, looked at the performance of academy sponsors. It shows there are only a small number of high performing academy sponsors and they do not cover every region of the country.[7]

3.2.    During the passage of the Education and Adoption Act 2016, the LGA expressed concerns about the capacity of existing sponsors to take on more schools.[8] The DfE’s figures show that there are only three MATs that perform above the national average on a measure of value added.[9] All three operate in London and South East. The National Foundation for Educational Research found considerable variability in the capacity of sponsors in different RSC regions to take on new schools.[10]

3.3.    Before continuing with plans to force all schools to become academies by 2022, the Government should map where high-performing MATs currently operate in order to identify any ‘blackspots’ where a sponsor may not be available. This could better inform how the additional £500 million funding that the Government is committing to expansion is distributed.

4.           The balance of decision-making at the individual school level and at the chain level, and the appropriateness of formal governance structures employed

4.1       The LGA is concerned that the existing governance and accountability arrangements for MATs  whether through MAT Boards, remote RSCs or DfE officials  are not a substitute for parents taking up their concerns with councils and elected councillors who know their local schools and the communities that they serve.

4.2       We are further concerned about the accountability arrangements proposed for a fully academised school system, as set out in the White Paper, fall far short of the current accountability to democratically elected local authorities. This is especially worrying when combined with the proposal that academy trusts will no longer be required to reserve places for elected parents on governing boards.

4.3       We are working with the Centre for Public Scrutiny and the RSA to commission further research and take forward the debate about school governance and the effectiveness of the current MAT model.

5.           How the expansion of MATs should be monitored and managed

5.1       Councils are among the most effective education leaders in the country with 86 per cent of council maintained schools rated by Ofsted as Good or Outstanding.[11] If the Government continues with its plans to force all schools to become academies and join MATs, it is essential that councils can maintain this strong leadership role by being able to set up MATs through the creation of arms-length bodies. Further to this, councils have a strong role in driving school improvement and, as such, the notion that councils are acting as a barrier to improvements in standards and performance is not supported by the evidence.

5.2       We are concerned about the track record and capacity of MATs to become the primary agents for school improvement. DfE analysis shows that only 15 per cent of the largest MATs perform above the national average when it comes to how much progress pupils make, compared to 44 per cent of councils.[12] There are also serious concerns about the availability of high-quality new sponsors, with councils in some areas reporting difficulty in finding new sponsors and some inadequate schools having to wait more than two years to find a suitable sponsor.

6.           How the performance of MATs should be assessed

6.1.    Recent research commissioned by the LGA shows that confirms that local authorities are among the country’s most effective education leaders with 86 per cent of council maintained schools rated by Ofsted as Good or Outstanding, compared to 82 per cent of academies. On an arguably better measure of schools and academies inspected under the ‘tougher’ Ofsted inspection framework introduced in September 2012, 81 per cent of council-maintained schools have been found to be Good or Outstanding, compared to 73 per cent of academies.

6.2.    In comparison, the analysis of academy sponsors shows that there are some high performing academy sponsors such as the Harris Federation that have proven they can improve the Ofsted grade of the majority of their schools through sponsorship. However, there are only a small number of high-performing sponsors and they do not cover every region of the country. In addition, there are academy sponsors such as E-ACT that appear to be much less effective in helping establishments to improve their Ofsted grade (see Table 1 below).

6.3.    The analysis reflects Department for Education figures which show that only 15 per cent of the largest MATs perform above the national average on added value measures, compared to 44 per cent of local authorities. We are concerned about the recruitment of enough high-quality sponsors to take on 15,600 new academies over the next six years.

6.4.    It is a retrograde step to dismantle the highly effective local authority infrastructure for school improvement, which is adapting to increasing numbers of academies and MATs and to a school-led improvement system. While sponsored academisation may have benefitted the majority of the weakest schools in a 700-school sample, it did not benefit the majority of schools previously found to be Good.[13] It shows that only 53 per cent of secondary sponsored academies improved their grade following conversion. The analysis did not include underperforming schools that remained council-maintained, so cannot provide an answer to whether academy sponsorship provides a more effective path to improvement than continuing as a local authority maintained school.

6.5.    Only half of secondary schools converting to academy status improved their grade, so academisation cannot be seen a guarantee of rapid improvement. Forcing Good and Outstanding schools to become academies within a MAT structure is not the best way to drive improvement.

6.6.    The Government has committed £500 million over the course of this Parliament to expand capacity. The full cost of conversion for all schools is unknown. At a time of continued restraint on public spending and increasing pressures on school budgets the Government should concentrate on the quality of education and a school's ability to deliver the best results for children, rather than on the legal status of a school, to make sure that we are providing the education and support needed by children and young people in each area.

6.7.    The table shows 26 academy sponsors and only includes those sponsors who look after at least 5 sponsored academies that have been inspected during their academy status and have a predecessor grade available.[14]

6.8.    By looking at the grades before and after academisation, an actual and potential grade shift can be determined for each sponsored academy and then aggregated for each sponsor. Each sponsor can therefore be ranked by how its academies have improved (in terms of Ofsted grade). The average number of days each academy has been open is also shown to give a sense of how long the sponsor has had to work with their academies.

Table 1: Performance of Multi-Academy Trusts

Annex A

In a white paper published on the 17th March 2016 the Department for Education has stated it aims to reduce the statutory role that councils have in managing local school performance and improvement, and announced plans to convert all local authority (LA) maintained schools to academies by 2022.[i] 

This report considers alternative methods of data presentation and analysis to assess the performance of LA maintained schools, and of academies. In addition, the report particularly focuses on analysing the performance of 700 sponsored academies and 26 academy sponsors.

A draft of this report was first published in August 2015. However, this updated and expanded report includes the additions of:

-            Further historical data from Ofsted

-            New performance data from Watchsted

-            Analysis of academy sponsors (using this wider dataset)

1. Analysis of Inspections by School Type

Using Ofsted’s methodology and published data, the overall grade distributions of LA maintained schools and academies are shown below. There is a slightly higher number of Good and Outstanding LA maintained schools than there are academies when one considers the data from this perspective.

FIG 1 NOTES:
The figures in the table include Ofsted inspections carried out up until 29th February 2016 (as published in Ofsted monthly statistics).

*               Limited to community schools, community special schools, foundation schools, foundation special schools, voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools.

**               Includes converter, special converter, special sponsor led and sponsor led. Excludes alternative provision, free schools, studio schools and UTC.

***               Includes converter and special converter. Excludes alternative provision.

****               Excludes alternative provision.

Comparing the performance of LA maintained schools and academies from this perspective is affected by a number of factors.

Firstly, the Ofsted inspection framework for schools changed substantially in September 2012[ii]. This means that, from September 2012 onwards, a different set of rules were used to assess schools. Therefore, including inspections carried out prior to that framework may not provide the best comparison.

Secondly, when schools move from LA maintained to academy status, the appearance of both cohorts is affected.

For example, when a Good or Outstanding LA maintained school converts to an academy, the LA maintained statistics will appear weaker from then on. The academy statistics will appear stronger, because Ofsted retain the predecessor grades of converter academies. In fact, 64% of Outstanding converter academies attained their grade while classed as LA maintained[iii].

When an LA maintained school that is Inadequate or Requires Improvement becomes a sponsored academy, the LA maintained picture will look stronger. However, the academy picture does not appear weaker, because Ofsted excludes the predecessor grades of sponsored academies.

Thirdly, Ofsted has reduced the inspection frequency of Good and Outstanding schools relative to lower-performing schools. This may have resulted in the inflation of the proportion of Good and Outstanding schools in aggregated figures as explained by Sean Coughlan of the BBC[iv]  and explored by Warwick Mansell, writing for NAHT[v].

This is most likely to affect the statistics of converter academies and LA maintained schools, as these have a higher proportion of Good and Outstanding schools (i.e. are inspected less frequently and thus less likely to be relegated to a lower grade).

2. Excluding Converter Predecessor Grades & the Pre-2012 Inspection Framework

The inspection data can be viewed from an alternative perspective by considering the factors explained in section 1.

Table 2 only includes inspections under the September 2012 framework, and excludes the predecessor grades of converter academies:

FIG 2 NOTES: The figures in the table include inspections carried out before 29th February 2016 (as published in Ofsted monthly statistics).

* Limited to community schools, community special schools, foundation schools, foundation special schools, voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools.

** Includes converter, special converter, special sponsor led and sponsor led. Excludes alternative provision, free schools, studio schools and UTC.

*** Includes converter and special converter. Excludes alternative provision.

**** Excludes alternative provision.

From this perspective, the data shows that there is a higher proportion of Good and Outstanding LA maintained schools than academies.

Conclusion of section 2

We would welcome comments about the merits of taking these factors into account, as they result in a large gap when comparing academies to LA maintained schools in the second table.

Publications that compare LA maintained schools to academies should be clear on whether or not they include grades obtained prior to academisation and should be clear whether or not they encompass grades obtained under multiple frameworks.

In addition, publications comparing LA maintained schools to academies should explain what the effect of ignoring these factors is.

3. Impact of moving to Sponsored Academy status

The analysis below compares the predecessor grades of sponsored academies, alongside the grades attained after sponsorship.

Of the 1575 open sponsored academies, Watchsted was able to identify the predecessor grades of over 80%[vi]. Over half of those academies have also been inspected since opening as an academy. This provides us with a sample of approximately 700 sponsored academies (45% of them) where the latest inspection grade of the academy and the predecessor’s latest inspection grade is known.

From that sample we can see how many schools have improved, declined or stayed the same since becoming a sponsored academy.

FIG 3 NOTES: Chart shows proportional grade shift in schools that have become sponsored academies (i.e. percentage that have gone up / down by 1, 2 or 3 grades). Percentages may not sum up to 100 due to rounding.

From this sample, 61% of sponsored academies improved their grade. However, this data does not reveal if the sponsored route is more or less effective than other strategies in improving weaker schools as no comparison is provided.

3.2. Primary vs. Secondary

We can compare primary and secondary schools within the sample. 67% of primary sponsored academies improved, while only 53% of secondary sponsored academies improved their grade.

3.3. Predecessor grade starting points *

Inadequate > Sponsored academy

215 academies in the sample had a predecessor grade of Inadequate. Of these, 11 remained the same, 89 improved 1 grade, 102 improved by two grades and 13 improved 3 grades (to Outstanding).
Thus, 95% of Inadequate schools in the sample improved their grade through sponsorship.

Note that the sample considers the most recent Ofsted inspection after academisation rather than the first inspection immediately after academisation. This means that sponsors have had more time to work with academies and academies may have been inspected more than once since academisation. Therefore 95% of academies improving is higher than analysis published by Ofsted in response to PQ HL4539 by Lord Nash. When considering the first inspection after academisation Ofsted found that that 88% of Inadequate academies improved. However in any case they found that 98% of Inadequate LA maintained schools improved.

Requires Improvement or Satisfactory > Sponsored academy

385 academies in the sample had a predecessor grade of Requires Improvement or Satisfactory. Of these, 29 dropped 1 grade, 146 retained the same grade, 187 improved 1 grade and 23 improved by 2 grades. Thus, 8% declined, 38% stayed the same and 55% improved through sponsorship.

Good > Sponsored academy

96 academies in the sample had a predecessor grade of good. Of these, 5 dropped 2 grades, 25 dropped 1 grade, 54 retained their grade and 12 improved their grade. Thus, 31% declined, 56% stayed the same and 13% improved through sponsorship.

* Please note, percentages may not sum up to 100 due to rounding.

4. Academy Sponsors

The following table shows 26 academy sponsors[vii]. We have only included sponsors who look after at least 5 sponsored academies that (a) have been inspected during their academy status and (b) have a predecessor grade available.

By looking at the grades before and after academisation, an actual and potential grade shift can be determined for each sponsored academy and then aggregated for each sponsor. We can thus rank each sponsor by how its academies have improved (in terms of Ofsted grade). The average number of days each academy has been open is also shown to give a sense of how long the sponsor has had to work with their academies. (Please note that our analysis has excluded academies that have closed or switched sponsor.)

FIG 6 NOTES: Academy Sponsors ranks (from most improvement to least improvement)

* Sample Size shows the number of sponsored academies associated to the trust, which have been inspected by Ofsted since becoming sponsored, and which have a predecessor grade from when they were LA maintained. Academies that have switched sponsor are excluded based upon an FOI in August 2015[viii].

**Average Start Grade The average predecessor grade; Outstanding (1) – Inadequate (4).

*** Actual Grades Shift shows the total number of grades by which the sample has improved.

**** Max Potential Shift shows the maximum possible number of grades that the sample could have risen (i.e. if every sponsored academy in the sample had moved up to a grade of Outstanding).

± Watchsted Score shows the percentage gap between the actual and potential grade shift. This has been used as a performance indicator to rank each academy sponsor.

The data shows that the Harris Federation has improved its sample of 14 schools by a total of 28 grades. This gives an average improvement of two grades per school, indicating that Harris is effectively adding value to (i.e. improving) its academies.

At the other end of the ranking table, E-ACT has only improved its sample of 18 schools by two grades in total (out of a potential 33).

As with any analysis, there are multiple factors to consider in these rankings. Average start grades, location and funding levels could all be playing a part.

It is not possible to rank local authorities in exactly the same way. However, we do know that different local authorities appear to carry out their school improvement services with different levels of success, and again there are multiple factors to consider when attempting to compare their effectiveness.

For example, according to our linked analysis (detailed below) all 32 LA maintained mainstream schools in Kingston upon Thames are graded Good or Outstanding. In Bradford, however, only 62% of its LA maintained schools are graded Good or Outstanding.

Sponsorship Summary

Returning to our sample of 700 sponsored academies, it appears that sponsorship benefitted the majority of the weakest schools in this sample, but did not benefit the majority of schools previously found to be Good. However, it is not clear whether sponsorship provides a more effective path to improvement than remaining LA maintained.

Linked analysis

In addition to this short report we intend to publish regional analysis of LA maintained schools – demonstrating that some regions are thriving, while some struggle. Please contact watchsted@angelsolutions.co.uk for more information.