Councils seek academy powers

Almost 100 council directors and councillors responsible for education have taken part in a survey carried out by the LGiU think-tank and the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

It found that 91 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that local government needs the power to open a new school without “reference to the Secretary of State.” The survey also showed the vast majority of those questioned believed councils need to be able to close down, merge or reduce the size an academy or a free school without the approval of Government.

The LGiU found a consensus that a “middle tier” was required to provide strategic oversight of all schools, including academies and free schools, and that local government was best placed to perform this role.

LGiU think tank chief executive of the think tank Dr Jonathan Carr-West said: “Local authorities have a duty to ensure that there are sufficient and sufficiently diverse school places available to meet the needs of their communities. Too few places and the community is ill served, too many and public resource is wasted.

“Failures in school place planning have many and complex causes, but research for this report suggests a correlation with the number of academies: schools in which the local authority has no direct power to increase or decrease the number of places available,” he added.