Nick Clegg: Why we say yes to more choice over schools

So let me straighten this out once and for all. This Government wants all schools, over time, to have the opportunity to be autonomous with academy freedoms, but we do not want that to lead to mass centralisation of the schools system.

Far from it. As academies become more commonplace, and eventually the norm, we will make sure people do not lose their voice over what local schools provide. So we will need to develop a new role and relationship between schools, central and local government.

Councils have an essential job. We have strengthened their role in admissions. We will strengthen their role supporting children with special needs. And we will give them a critical role ensuring that there is fairer funding.

But we can – and we will – go further. Where there are no schools the local authority “owns” any more, there should be no barrier to the local authority working in a new relationship with academies, in partnership with central government. The local authority could have a key role in deciding who new providers are and holding existing providers more sharply to account.

Local authorities, closer by their very nature to their community than the Secretary of State, could be more determined than distant Whitehall to drive up attainment in their own patch – for example by setting higher standards for all schools in their area.

That is why I am inviting those local authorities which wish to move to the new phase to grasp this opportunity and be involved in piloting this new role, starting from next year.

Working with the Department for Education, we will use this pilot to develop a model which allows local communities to show they can develop new partnerships – built on greater freedom for professionals – but buttressed by real local accountability.

We’re also introducing more choice into the system – encouraging under-performing schools to raise their game. We know diversity pushes up standards.

I’ve seen it myself. Years ago, I travelled around Europe comparing school systems for a pamphlet on educational performance across the EU.

What I learned then planted the seed for the idea of the pupil premium. But it also convinced me that diversity of schools is also important. It’s something Liberals championed more than 100 years ago when we challenged the Conservatives’ plans to outlaw non-conformist schools.

Parents, children and communities benefit from innovation, diversity, and choice. One size fits no-one. And it’s part of the rationale behind free schools.

The first wave of free schools opened this week. The idea is that parent groups, charities and other organisations can open schools where they are not happy with the existing choice.

It is controversial with many, and there are risks – but I am confident we have mitigated those risks to make sure this is now a policy which will promote higher standards, better integration and fairer chances for children from the most deprived backgrounds.

I want free schools to be available to the whole community – open to all children and not just the privileged few. I want them to be part of a system that releases opportunity, rather than entrenching it. They must not be the preserve of the privileged few – creaming off the best pupils while leaving the rest to fend for themselves.

The coalition has also made it clear that our overriding social policy objective is improving social mobility. Reducing social segregation; making sure what counts in our society are ability and drive, not privilege and good connections. Free schools will only be acceptable so long as they promote those goals. That’s why half of the first wave will be in deprived areas.

Michael Gove will be making decisions on the second wave over the coming weeks. I want to see all of them in poorer neighbourhoods, or in areas crying out for more school places.

We are also taking unprecedented steps to make sure disadvantaged pupils actually get into these schools. Along with academies, free schools will, for the first time, be able to give them special priority in their admissions.

How can we be confident they will? Because, crudely, these pupils receive the pupil premium. The more of them the school takes, the more money it gets.

That’s a simple, but crucial, financial incentive. No one has reformed the admissions code like this for years. In future, free schools must use this power to do all they can to make sure that they have the same proportion of free school meals pupils as the local average – at least. And, to anyone who is worried that, by expanding the mix of providers in our education system, we are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system. Again, let me reassure you: yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents; but no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.

Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam. This is an edited extract from his keynote speech on education.