Academy bosses are urging ministers to give them “clarity” over whether recently dumped trust growth funds will come back from the dead.
Labour’s schools white paper unveiled its vision to move all schools into “high-quality” chains to defragment the system and “drive excellence in standards and inclusion”.
However, questions over how the moves will be paid-for remain, with trust growth funding “notably absent” from the document.
Schools Week analysis suggests applications to convert to academy status have more than halved since the government’s surprise decision to cut three expansion grants.
All schools in trusts
The white paper revealed ministers want all schools to join or form trusts. To aid this, councils and local area partnerships will be given the power to launch their own chains.
It follows mixed messages on academies from the Labour administration, which has previously described itself as “agnostic” about school structures.
It also axed the £25,000 grant available to schools to cover the legal, rebranding, human resources and employee costs incurred while converting to academy status in January 2025.
Two other multi-million-pound trust expansion schemes were halted at the same time.
Figures suggest the appetite to academise has reduced in the months following the cuts. Schools Week analysis suggests, on average, 17 conversion applications were lodged each month last year, compared to 59 across 2024 and 2023.
Lydia Michaelson-Yeates, of law firm Browne Jacobson, stated the “big challenge for government is how fast and easily” it can move all schools into trusts.
With the issue of growth funding “notably absent” from the white paper, it “remains to be seen” if they will be expected to pick up the costs.
Confederation of School Trusts chief executive Leora Cruddas called for “clarity”. The DfE did not respond when asked if it was going to support trusts with the cost of conversion.
Death of SATs?
A deadline has not been set for all schools to be in trusts and ministers have clarified they will not force schools to convert.
Guidance on how large trusts should be has not been issued. Instead, the government will prioritise “quality over pace” and allow for “a degree of flexibility on size… to reflect the different characteristics of local school landscapes”.
However, pointing to the number of single-academy trusts (SATs) in deficit, the document posed a “challenge to our best standalone schools” to partner with others and make the system less fragmented. Of the 89 chains in deficit at the end of 2023-24, 59 were SATs.
Michaelson-Yeates believes this “spell[s] the end for single academy trusts”.
The number of SATs in England has already tumbled, having fallen by 30 per cent since 2021.
LA trusts
Graham Burns, a partner at the Stone King law firm, expects the white paper to trigger a “rush” for council-run schools to organise groups to establish new trusts, or to align themselves with existing MATs.
Some could also opt to join planned local authority trusts. But the proposal isn’t new, having been put forward – and later ditched – in the previous government’s white paper four years ago.
Richard Sheriff, a former trust CEO, believes there won’t be “much of a thirst” for it among local authorities, with many “extremely stretched” and facing shrinking budgets.
“You’ve suddenly got to deal with dozens and dozens of Ofsted inspections. How are you going to create school improvement capacity at scale?”
The white paper said limitation will be placed on local authority involvement in the day-to-day running of their MATs.
Burns thinks this will “amount to a minority stake of less than 20 per cent of the trust’s membership [or] trustees, reflecting well-established current restrictions for academy trusts”. This would allow chains to be at “arm’s length” from the council.
Trusts judged on community work
As part of the changes, trust commissioning guidance will be updated. A “pillar focused on community collaboration” will be added.
The DfE will encourage trusts to provide updates on “how they have supported stronger outcomes in their community role through annual public benefit reporting”.
It will also consult on requiring trusts to have governance structures that “include all their schools, hold annual parental forums, and ensure boards hear directly from parents and school communities”.
National Governance Association boss Emma Balchin is “pleased to see the commitment to focusing on community collaboration in the new trust standards and the government’s decision to consult on requiring all trusts to have local governance”.
“A fully academy trust-based system needs local roots if it is to retain the confidence of parents and communities, and maintain its overt sense of mission.”
The government announced on Wednesday that its advisory boards – which rule on academy growth bids – will be canned next month. This is because the white paper “sets out that it will renew its approach to decision making”.
Advisory board members, usually trust leaders, are not decision-makers, but they “help inform” decisions made by regional directors.
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