New Minister. New Policies?

The appointment of a new Secretary of State for Education with a rather different background and record from his predecessor naturally raises issues of continuity and more or less dramatic change. Experience suggests, though, that things usually turn out in practice to be less dramatic than anticipated.

The new Minister has indicated policy continuity over social mobility with the announcement of six new Opportunity Areas; while there is an invitation out for T level trailblazers and the first three T levels could be running from 2020. He has also uncontroversially declared the importance of ‘soft’ skills;’ and that schools need to prepare children for a jobs market disrupted by a further digital revolution.

There are, however, difficulties building up. Increasing restlessness over teacher pay and the continuing shortfall of entrants into the profession. The confusion as to routes into the profession, which may be linked to this shortfall causally. The worrying statistics over the mental health of teachers. There are also structural issues.

The case of the founder of Kings Science Academy in Bradford, jailed and ordered to repay the money he siphoned off from free school grants or face an extension of his sentence, is quite exceptional; but the numbers of failures and financial problems, though very small compared with the overall numbers of academies, are beginning to mount up. There is pressure for the piecemeal developments of the last twenty years to be brought into a system.

Similarly, the parameters of that system need clearer definition. On the action of the Wakefield Academies Trust in recalling all school surpluses to its own central funds a former governor is reported to have said, ‘It’s not the trust’s money. It’s our money... It wasn’t for them to take.’

This response overlooks the fundamental legal structure of a MAT: where the Trust is the only entity with its own legal personality and, except where limitations unusually arise either from a legal restriction over the funds or through general regulation or oversight by the ESFA, has full discretion over the allocation of its grant funding across its academies. 

In a few trusts individual schools have less freedom and autonomy than a council-run school in the 1970s: funding, curriculum, staffing and teaching methods are all controlled centrally. There are strong indications that this is the preferred model at the DfE.  The mix of MATs and individual schools is less favoured. A bold minister may wish to complete the ‘chaining’ of the whole system. 

Finally, a minister may have to step into the ‘British values’ debate rather than leaving it to Ofsted to define in litigation. ‘Home schooling’ is becoming a connected problem.

Time for a new Education Act? What is very likely is that anything that requires significant primary legislation, that is, new acts of Parliament or major amendments to old ones, will be on hold until after Brexit because of shortness of Parliamentary time. The exercise of ministerial powers is another matter and may lead to increased litigation.