A leading think tank has floated the option of bringing in more “consistent” rules governing academies.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has said that schools often came to quite different arrangements depending on when they converted to academy status and the individual terms they were able to negotiate with the Government.
Now however, the organisation believes that ministers need to bring in more cohesive rules for those schools which have left local authority control.
Jonathan Clifton, the IPPR’s associate director, sought to allay fears that this would strip head teachers of their autonomy, arguing that it presented an opportunity to reduce red tape.
“Our report shows that this system of contracts is not fit for purpose as the number of academies increases,” he said.
“Academies have been given different freedoms depending on when they signed a funding agreement or what they managed to negotiate with a government minister. This means there is an inconsistent ‘patchwork’ of freedoms among different academies.
“With an eye to the future, and the fact that David Cameron has said he wants all schools to become academies, it is worth thinking about these issues before spreading them across the country’s 20,000 schools.”
A number of options for tweaking academy contracts were put forward at a seminar held for education specialists last year.
These include the implementation of a new “standard” contract for academies, which would clearly set out what freedoms their status afforded, and reform of the current funding agreements.
