Opinion: Policy

Labour is sacrificing standards and choice for a quick fix

The schools bill aims to change the relationship between schools and local authorities to mitigate the SEND crisis – and it won’t work

The schools bill aims to change the relationship between schools and local authorities to mitigate the SEND crisis – and it won’t work

8 Feb 2025, 5:00

The manufactured headline around the schools bill is that schools will have to co-operate with local authorities (LAs). As if they don’t. The reality is that these provisions are designed to ensure schools will have to do as they are told.

The only reason for schools not to co-operate with LAs is when they propose ideas that go against the interests of the school or its students. That is what parents and governors would expect us to do.

When academy leaders talk about their freedoms in the context of this bill, this exactly what they mean. It is this freedom that has allowed them to succeed and to grow to meet parental demand. The schools bill represents a significant threat to that very freedom.

Indeed, ministers have now admitted that the bill will “limit the ability of popular schools to grow”. In other words, some parents will no longer be able to access popular schools or will never know what they could have had.

And all this will be done through a rushed process, with no white paper and parliament voting on a cobbled-together set of proposals with no clear objective. In fact, it’s the first time I have seen timidity about raising standards.

Of all these disjointed proposals, it is section 48 (of 59) that worries me most as a headteacher in North Devon. It sets out the ‘Power to direct admission: extension to Academies’, and it is clearly aimed at making life easier for LAs, not schools.

Like many LAs, ours has a SEND crisis. It will certainly use this power to find spaces for children, whether mainstream is appropriate for them or not.

We had all of two or three such inappropriate placement requests in the 10 years to 2023. Since then, that number has ballooned. The schools bill will take away our power to say no.

This isn’t about being exclusionary. It’s about avoiding the impossible problem of putting children and their education at risk to get the LA out of a hole.

The schools bill will take away our power to say no

The consequences are predictable. Mainstream schools will struggle further with standards (particularly for children with SEND). There will be an increase in violence and disruption. More teachers and leaders will burn out. Meanwhile, children who need therapeutic help still won’t get the provision they are entitled to.

The LA will, of course, do what is in the best interests of the LA. Who can blame them? But the fact is that they will be incentivised in these decisions, not by long-term incentives to build capacity or raise standards but by short-term incentives to reduce tribunal queues and deficits.

And they will be fully supported in doing so by Whitehall. Witness section 49 of the bill.

This sneaky provision effectively gives LAs the power to require a school to admit a child where a “relevant procedure” exists in the admissions code – a code the DfE can re-write at any time without further parliamentary scrutiny.

Section 50 is the real kicker, though. If the bill is enacted as drafted, it means the LA will have the power to ask the adjudicator to alter a school’s numbers. Nevermind limiting our growth. It is possible we will have to contract.

Parental choice has been the mantra of every administration since the 1980s. This bill looks set to replace that with wobbly LA ‘strategic’ decisions. No wonder government is timid in promoting its full scope.

Perhaps they think it is coincidental that schools that perform well are popular with parents. It is not, and this error of judgment will all but remove a major performance incentive from the system.

Liberation from the LA has meant schools like Michaela could open and schools like ours could expand and replace antediluvian asbestos huts with great new cost-effective buildings. In both cases, the old guard stood in the way of that progress. In both cases, parents embraced it.

That is a form of direct democracy LAs can’t hope to replicate. And ultimately, it is a form of power the government and LAs won’t be able to suppress for long as standards inevitably slip.

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