Category Archives: leadership

Trends in school leadership

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Last week, the DfE published an interesting paper about the characteristics and trends in school leadership over the decade from 2010 to 2020. School leadership in England 2010 to 2020: characteristics and trends – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) This document will no doubt provide the basis for many higher education dissertations and academic research articles. The DfE data also helps to validate the annual Leadership Review produced by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk over the past few years that in itself has been the successor to the research into headship turnover that I commenced with Education Data surveys way back in the 1980s: genuinely a lifetime ago.

One of the issues that the DfE paper doesn’t draw out enough is the fate of older entrants into teaching. Now, I assume someone switching career in their late 30s isn’t normally interested in aiming for headship unless they have been persuaded to teach for that very reason. But, what of those in their late 20s? Can they expect the same promotion opportunities as new graduates? I expect that to be the case in the relatively flat hierarchies in the primary sector, but what of those talented career changers in large English and Mathematics departments? Can they achieve promotion fast enough to reach headships? Or is there still a barrier of age by which you must normally have reached first an assistant headship and then a deputy headship to be considered not ‘too old’ for a first headship in a secondary school?

The second leadership issue not adequately considered by the DfE paper is that of the staffing of leadership teams in faith schools, and especially Christian schools, in an increasingly secular society. Requiring adherence to the faith, not just in a notional manner but as a practicing adherent, can restrict the supply of candidates. How far, especially in the primary sector, where faith schools form a large proportion of the overall total of schools, does this issue affect leadership appointments. TeachVac annual review suggested that faith schools are more likely to need to re-advertise a headship than non-faith schools, although better management of teacher supply by some diocese has reduced the size of the problem from the levels seen more than a decade ago.

In terms of middle leadership, there seems little about difference between subjects in the study and any strain that a shortage of teachers in subject such as design and technology or business studies may place on middle leadership isn’t considered. Do teachers in these subjects reach middle leadership positions sooner that say, English or mathematics teachers?

Not surprisingly, in a survey that runs for 2010 to 2020, headteachers and other school leaders are more likely to be younger in 2020 than in 2010. This is partly due to the retirement of the ‘baby boomers’ in the years around 2010, and their replacement with new headteacher, usually in their early 40s. The trend to younger headteachers seems once again to be in evidence with record number so headteachers below the age of 40, although there are still relatively few headteachers appointed in their 20s. The ending of the compulsory retirement age has meant that in 2020 there were a record number of headteachers over the age of 65 still in post. Some may even be old enough to qualify for their bus pass.

This research is worth considering by policy makers, and it might be useful for the House of Commons Select Committee on Education to study the findings along with a discussion about whether or not the problems recruiting teachers has a longer-term effect on middle and senior leadership appointments?

Urgent Summit on Teacher Supply needed

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45,000 teacher vacancies were advertised so far in 2022. There were only 65,000 vacancies advertised during the whole of 2021, so demand in 2022 is much higher than in recent years. The pool of teachers to fill these vacancies has largely been exhausted, and secondary schools seeking teachers of most subjects, apart for PE, history, drama and art, will struggle to find candidates to appoint during the remainder of 2022 regardless of wherever the school is located in England.

The data, correct up to Friday 29th April was collected by TeachVac, the National Vacancy Service for all teachers. www.teachvac.co.uk The situation in terms of teacher supply at the end of April is worse than in any of the eight years that TeachVac has been collecting data on teacher vacancies.  

Schools can recruit teachers from various sources, including those on initial teacher training courses where they are not already committed to a school (Teach First and School Direct Salaried trainees are employed by specific schools); teachers moving schools and the broad group classified as ‘returners’ to teaching. This last group includes that previously economically inactive, usually as a result of a career break to care for young children or elderly relatives, plus those switching from other sectors of education including further education or returning from a period teaching overseas.

In extremis, where schools cannot find any candidates from these routes, a school may employ an ‘unqualified teacher’. This year that may include Ukrainian teachers displaced by the war as well as anyone else willing to take a teaching post. This was the route that I entered teaching in 1971. Generally, such teachers need considerable support in the early stages of their careers.

Normally, the labour market for teachers is a ‘free market’ with vacancies advertised and anyone free to apply. Can such a situation be allowed to continue? The DfE should convene a summit of interested parties to discuss the consequences of the present lack of supply of teachers facing schools across England looking to recruit a teacher in a wide range of subjects.

On the agenda should be, the effect of a lack of supply on the levelling up agenda; the costs of trying to recruit teachers; how best to use the remaining supply of PE, history, art, drama and primary sector trained teachers to make maximum use of scare resources, and how to handle any influx of ‘unqualified’ teachers.

The data for geography teacher vacancies, not normally seen as a shortage subject, reveals the seriousness of the current position for schools still seeking to fill a vacancy for September 2022 or faced with an unexpected vacancy in the autumn for January 2023.

jobs 2015jobs 2016jobs 2017jobs 2018jobs 2019jobs 2020jobs 2021jobs 2022
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14/01/20225679767547564192
21/01/2022561291301359311973164
28/01/2022114152165174159186106240
04/02/2022157188200220208265149324
11/02/2022182236235270262341206399
18/02/2022190261272302324436250471
25/02/2022190291318336356476268541
04/03/2022254349383370398537321625
11/03/2022289387438468477629375739
18/03/2022320423491492527712421834
25/03/2022367451537533592754487958
01/04/20223814875935806567945531078
08/04/20223815126386037478375781175
15/04/20224835656626398018706011220
22/04/20225506246956878269026641288
29/04/20226136807677888819667481440
06/05/20226527118258639861029814
13/05/202271576788493610631088903
20/05/2022778814932100711371153977
27/05/20228038459871068120811901043
Source: TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

With recruitment into training for courses starting in September 2022, already under pressure the issue of teacher supply is not just one for this year. Unless teaching is made a more attractive career and steps are taken to ensure maximum effective use of the teachers available then some children’s education will be compromised and their future career choices put in jeopardy.

The revolving door of school leadership

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The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has published some interesting research on the amount of time newly appointed senior leaders stay in post as part of their contribution to the debate about the pay and conditions for teachers. Apparently, more are leaving within the first five years after appointment. New data reveals sharp increase in number of school leaders leaving the profession within 5 years (naht.org.uk)

After 40 years of studying leadership trends this is an interesting set of data. The key results are shown in the table below.

Percentage of postholders that are new to post that have left within 5 years of appointment
Head teachersDeputy headsAssistant headsMiddle leaders
Primary phase201122%25%26%43%
201525%26%29%46%
Secondary phase201135%32%37%43%
201537%37%39%44%
Source: NAHT

The first thing to notice is that the data are expressed in terms of percentages. Taking just headteachers, as an example, in a typical year TeachVac records around 1,500 advertisements for primary headteachers, and 350-400 for secondary headteachers.

Using those numbers, the change would be from 330 to 345 departing in the primary sector between 20111 and those appointed in 2015, and in the secondary sector, assuming 400 vacancies each year – the upper end of the range- the change would be an increase of eight headteachers.

Since the press release didn’t calibrate the size of the market in each year, it isn’t clear whether more opportunities in the five-year period would have provided more leaders with a chance to move early in their careers. Certainly, the period from 2019 onwards has seen the start of the bulge in secondary pupil numbers and the creation of some new schools requiring new leaders. The period also witnessed the development and consolidation of Multi-Academy Trusts central staffing and some of those posts may well have been taken by school leaders in post for less than five years.

The press release also doesn’t make clear whether departures were tracked to see where the school leader went? If young leaders are quitting the profession, then that’s a serious situation, especially in the primary phase where there are fewer deputy headteachers and headteachers and any departures at that stage would be challenging to the sector.

As primary teaching, even at the more senior ranks, is now largely populated by women, the age profile of those leaving may also be worth exploring. Are some taking a career break for caring roles, and do we need a ‘keep in touch’ scheme for these leavers? Are there issues with certain types of school and does the data say anything to the levelling up agenda that might interest the STRB?

School leadership, whether at middle leadership or senior leadership levels is a challenging task and these percentages must be viewed with concern, but there is much more to discover from these percentages than might appear from the headline. However, that’s the aim of a good headline; to make one read the text that follows.

A text for Holy Week

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Matthew Chapter 25 verses 31-46

This blog doesn’t make a habit of straying into the realm of theology, but a recent comment about the availability of school places for children taken into care together with the post on this blog about the recent research report published by the DfE on vulnerable children and admissions did set me thinking about school admissions policies.

There is a post from a couple of years ago on this blog entitled Jacob’s Law that discussed some aspects of the issue, but not the question as to how faith schools can behave. The wider issues on admissions are discussed in What is the role of a school in its community? | John Howson (wordpress.com).

I have now discovered that some faith schools do not put all children in care in the top priority group for admission. Instead, they prioritise practicing members of their faith community. Some faith schools go some way to helping admit children in care, but only if the child in question or their carers can be considered ‘of the faith’ using a similar test to other children.

As these are state schools, using taxpayers’ money, I wonder whether it is appropriate for some children in care not to be provided with a top priority position in the admissions criteria? After all, many of these children will have been moved from their family home to live with relatives or foster families and forced to seek a new school through no actions of their own.

However, perhaps the greater argument in asking the Christian churches and other faith schools to reflect upon their admissions policy, and especially the Roman Catholic Church, where the downgrading of children in care seems to be most prevalent in admission criteria, to consider placing all children in care at the top of the list of criteria for admission is the sentiments expressed in Matthew Chapter 25 verses 31-46.

Now I know that the passage does not explicitly mention schooling or education. Indeed, learning, per se doesn’t feature a great deal in the gospels, as opposed to children that do receive mentions, presumably as like health services, they weren’t of much concern about schooling in Roman controlled provinces at that time. However, the sentiment of public service expressed in Matthew’s Gospel must surely be thought to include schooling. After all, it is in line with a gospel of love for one another?

More than a century ago, around the time the 1902 Education Act was being discussed, the Wesleyan Church debated whether their teachers were teachers of Methodists or teachers of children, and decided their purpose was to teach children, not just to teach Methodist children. Hence, there are no state-funded Methodist secondary schools, although there remain a few primary schools around the country under the auspices of the Methodist Church.

I would hope, at least in terms of children taken into care, whose vulnerability and need for support is obvious, that the leaders of faiths whose schools don’t put such children at the top of their admissions policy would reconsider that decision this Easter. Please put children in care as top priority for admissions in every state-funded school in England.

What is the role of a school in its community?

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For everyone interested in either the role of a middle tier in our school system in England or in how pupil place planning and support for vulnerable children is handled in the current shambles around the arrangements for schools in England, this is an important report to read. Local authority provision for school places and support for vulnerable children – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The recent White Paper on Education was the second one to pledge to change in-year Admissions and this Report indicates why Ministers should act swiftly to make the necessary changes to the current system.

At the heart of the debate about the middle tier is the role of local authorities and the role of academies and the Trusts that run them. The following two quotes from the report sum up current situation nicely in relation to these important issues for the management of our schooling system:

‘Nevertheless, our research also suggested that there are two ways in which academisation can affect local education systems. First, because there are different processes for making decisions and resolving disputes about place-planning and placements of vulnerable pupils for academies and maintained schools, where an “isolationist” school is an academy, it can be more difficult, complex, and time-consuming to resolve issues. Second, while not generalising, school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers reported that, among the minority of schools that took an “isolationist” approach, these were more likely to be schools that were part of larger regional or national academy trusts.’

‘Furthermore, there was broad agreement among school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers that LAs were uniquely placed to play this role [place planning]. (In relation to place-planning, a minority of trust leaders and national stakeholders argued that the RSC should be wholly or partially responsible for delivering place-planning.) Whichever way roles and responsibilities are configured, there was consensus about the need for clarity, alignment of responsibilities and decision-making authority, for reciprocal expectations of schools, trusts and LAs around participating in local partnership-based approaches to place-planning and support for vulnerable pupils, and a renewed, more collaborative relationship between local and central government.’

The situation is summed up by a quote from a local authority officer:

‘Nobody wants to roll back the clock. But if we have MATs not working for the best interests of young people in the community, we don’t have any direct levers. We would have to go through the RSC, and not sure they have many levers. A lot of accountability sits with the LA, but the responsibility of delivery sits with schools. Doesn’t feel appropriate. We need some accountabilities placed on academy trusts and schools to deliver expectations [for vulnerable children].’ (LA officer page 106)

We need a system that works for the children seeking an education, and not primarily for those that provide that schooling. This is especially true for our most vulnerable young people and I hope that Ministers will spend time over easter reading this report and then acting upon its findings. State schooling is a public service and must be managed as such.

Forget the White paper: the crisis is now

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There must be a lot of nervous secondary school headteachers at the start of this Easter break. Over the past two weeks TeachVac has recorded 7,800 new vacancies for teachers. These vacancies have been posted by schools across England, but especially by schools in the South East Region. Nationally, the total is a record for any two-week period during the past eight years that TeachVac has been collecting data on vacancies from state and private schools across England.

I can confidently predict that not all these vacancies will be filled, and that some will be filled by teachers with ‘less than ideal’ subject knowledge. So bad is the situation nationally that one major international recruitment agency is offering a rereferral bonus of £250, presumably to attract new teachers to its books to help fill vacancies. With the size of TeachVac’s list of candidates that are matched each day with vacancies that puts an interesting valuation on the company.

Seriously though, TeachVac has an index that compares recorded vacancies with the reported number of trainees from the DfE’s census. This system has used a consistent methodology for eight years and is now also showing signs of how much stress the system is under. Not for twenty years, during what was the severe recruitment challenge around the millennium, have secondary schools, especially in parts of the south of England, but not exclusively in that area of the country, faced recruitment challenges on the present scale.

As readers of previous posts will know, the intake into training for September 2022 isn’t looking healthy either at present as was confirmed in the chat during the recent APPG webinar on the White Paper.

With fewer partners of EU citizens probably coming to work here as teachers while their partners used to work elsewhere in the economy, and the international school scene not yet affected by the geo-politics of the moment, it is probably correct to talk of an emerging crisis now reaching most parts of the curriculum outside of schools recruiting primary school teachers and physical education, history and art teachers in secondary schools.

The predictions about any crisis and its depth compared to previous years will be confirmed if there are a large number of re-advertisements in early May, especially if they come with added incentives such as TLRs and Recruitment and Retention bonuses as schools seek to ensure timetables are fully staffed for September 2022.

One casualty of the present situation may well be the levelling up agenda in a market-based labour market. All else being equal, where would a teacher choose to work, a school that is challenging or one that is less demanding?  Last spring, I wrote a blog about the challenges schools in the West Midlands with high levels of free school meals faced in recruiting teachers when compared with other schools in the same area. TeachVac is again collecting this data for schools across England.  However, with this level of vacancies we won’t have the funds to analyse the data this year.

Should middle leaders be qualified for the role?

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‘Teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘requires improvement’ were significantly more likely to be greatly concerned about disengagement from learning (29%, compared with 14% of teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘outstanding’)’ School and College Panel: December 2021 wave (publishing.service.gov.uk) Page 55.

This finding from the DfE’s Wave Study from December 2021 will surely surprise nobody. However, it has serious implications for such schools especially as the study also highlights the fact that teachers in schools ‘with the highest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM, 35% (of teachers were) greatly concerned about an increase in behaviour issues and 26% about disengagement from learning (compared with 20% and 9% respectively among those with the lowest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM).’

Schools reported on their workforce concerns in the same survey. Overall, schools were most concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching assistants and cover supervisors (two-thirds, or 67% of schools). They were also concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching staff (50%), supply staff (42%), non-teaching staff (37%) and leadership staff (36%). (Page 7)

In terms of issues relating to their workforce the majority of schools were concerned about stress/burnout of current staff (82%) and staff absence due to COVID-19 related illness (72%). Just under two[1]thirds (59%) of schools were concerned about funding, while just under half (46%) were concerned about staff absence due to seasonal/flu illness. Roughly a quarter to a third of schools were also concerned about staff absence due to isolation (35%), recruitment of teachers (26%) and retention of teachers (22%).

December is usually one of the low points for recruitment, so school leaders were clearly already worried about recruitment for 2022 in December 2021, and only to a slightly lessor degree about the retention of staff.

As recent blog posts have shown, concerns about recruitment were valid for many schools, and the lack of trainees joining the teaching workforce this September is a matter of considerable concern nationally in many secondary school subjects.

At present, it is too early in the recruitment cycle for September to tell whether the types of school highlighted at the top of this blog are facing more severe recruitment and retention issues if they have anything other than ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted. The levelling up agenda requires schools to be fully staffed with appropriately trained teachers, especially if the ambition is not only to deal with the consequences of the pandemic but also to reduce the gap in achievement between schools by levelling up is to be met.

No doubt, the issue of staffing and outcomes will be in the minds of those that research the consequences of the levelling up ambition of government.  In my mind, the issue of well prepared and supported middle leaders is a key component in the ambition to improve outcomes.

The survey results on understanding of National Professional Qualifications are concerning in the respect of developing middle leaders.

‘Over half of leaders and teachers (55%) said that they had heard of the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). Leaders were much more likely than teachers to have heard of the new NPQs (93% vs. 49%).

Nearly a fifth (18%) of those who had heard of NPQs said that they had applied to undertake one since June 2021, with those working in primary schools (20%) more likely to have applied than those in secondary schools (15%).

Among leaders and teachers that had not applied for an NPQ since June 2021, a quarter (25%) intended to apply in the future, with a third (33%) saying they didn’t know, leaving two-fifths (43%) not intending to apply for an NPQ.’ (Page 9)

It was worrying that 64% of teachers said that they ‘didn’t have enough time to complete a qualification’. (Page 42) If this means that many would-be or even will-be middle leaders enter that role unprepared, then little progress has been made in professional development since the 1970s.

Middle leaders in any organisation are key to the success of the organisation and schools are no exception to this rule.

33,000 in three months

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How are we to interpret the record number of teacher vacancies logged during the first three months of 2022 by TeachVac?

Subject20202022Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Design & Technology1089164351%
Leadership2278335347%
Business701101845%
Computing828119144%
Primary5059714041%
RE61583536%
Music49864830%
Total259393358029%
Geography816104628%
Creative Arts33442327%
History58974827%
PE72790625%
Languages1397173724%
Science3427395615%
Art49355212%
English2427268110%
Mathematics311533287%
Source www.teachvac.co.uk

There is little point comparing 2022 with 2021, as the covid pandemic resulted in very little activity in the teacher job market during the first three months of 2021.

So, how to explain this year’s surge in vacancies, and what might be the consequences?

Is the surge down to schools catching up vacancies not advertised last year; is it – at least in the secondary sector – down to increased pupil numbers; might private schools be recruiting more pupils from overseas and, hence need more teachers; could TeachVac be better are recording or even over-recording vacancies than in the past? I asked the team to check on the last point, and since most of them have been entering vacancies for several years, and we haven’t changed their way of working, it seems unlikely as a reason for the large increase in vacancies.  

On the other side of the equation, could the increase in recorded vacancies be down to more teachers quitting schools in England, either to take up tutoring; to teach overseas or to either reduce their hours or even retire completely? Since we don’t have exit interviews, we will have to wait for the DfE to match teacher identify numbers for those moving within the state system and retiring with a pension and then conjecture what has happened to the remainder of leavers?

As to the consequences, regular readers of this blog will know what will come next because various posts since the ITT Census appeared in December have already been discussing the nature of the recruitment round for September 2022 and January 2023.

The table earlier in this post shows English and mathematics with relatively low increases. Perhaps schools feel that with the change in Ministerial team last autumn the focus on the EBacc subjects might have reduced. If so, might the White Paper provisions see an increase in vacancies in these subjects after Easter?

The increase in leadership vacancies needs further investigation in order to see which sector, and which of the leadership posts; head, deputy or assistant head are most affected by the increase or whether it is a general increase.

Design and technology, business, and to some extent computing are subjects that the government has under-played in its various attempts to increase interest in teaching as a career. Schools still want teachers in these subjects, and the government must help them fill the vacancies.

With many subjects not even meeting the DfE’s indicative target for the need for teachers on teacher preparation routes in 2022, the remainder of the recruitment round may well be a real challenge for many schools.

There is one other possibility, and that is the notion of schools bringing forward recruitment this year, so the peak will have been in March rather than in late April, as has been the normal practice in past years. If so, April will be a lean month for those that put off job hunting until then, unless schools have been unable to fill some of the 33,000 vacancies, and there is a string of re-advertisements this month and next.

TeachVac has a number of different reports to allow schools, local authorities, recruitment agencies and anyone else interested in trends in the labour market in real-time to track the behaviour of the market in anything for real-time to monthly. Email the staff using enquiries@oxteachserv.com for details.

Opportunity for All?

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The government published it Education White Paper today. They didn’t make it easy to find the whole document, but it can be accessed at Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child (publishing.service.gov.uk) For younger readers, it is called a White Paper because when such documents first appeared they had white covers. Later when documents with suggestions and not proposals appeared they were called Green Papers as they had a green cover.

Enough of the history, although it is worth looking back to the last education White Paper. It promised to look at returning in-year admissions to local authorities, but nothing happened. This time on page 53 there is a graphic that just says LAs will ‘manage’ in-year admissions. It is not clear where the management role will have sanctions to back it up. I hope so.  If local authorities are provided with ‘backstop’ powers to direct in-year admissions that will be a step forward and should be put into place as soon as possible. The intention is summarised in paragraph 163. As a final safety net to cover rare circumstances where collaborative working breaks down, we will consult on a new backstop power for local authorities to direct trusts to admit children. Trusts would have the right to appeal this to the Schools Adjudicator. Please start the consultation as soon as possible – Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The news in the White Paper that local authorities can run academy trusts is to be welcomed as correcting one of the wrongs of Mr Gove’s original 2010 Academies Act. However, in the spirit of strong schools, will schools in existing academy chains be able to make a transfer either to another chain or to a local authority trust, and will local authorities be able to include schools outside their boundaries in a Trust, such as Swindon schools in a Wiltshire trust or Blackpool schools in a Lancashire Trust? Will there need to be Chinese walls between an LA Trust officers and other officers with powers to direct Trust, as over admissions?

The White Paper downgrades Regional School Commissioners to Regional Directors, a less threatening title to local democracy. However, the amount of power local authorities can wield will depend upon funding. At least local trusts should have the same financial powers as the present trusts to manage central costs.

Perhaps the biggest change in policy terms in the White Paper is the ending of the freedom of parents to control the education of their children as paragraph 77 make clear, the government will also introduce legislation to establish a register for children not in school, exploring how this data should be used by local authorities and multi-agency teams to undertake their duties and support children’s education. The 1870 Act required parents to educate their children. The 2022 White Paper now also requires them to tell the authorities how they are doing that education. Will the next step be to ensure that all children receive high quality education of id the white Paper’s real time ‘Opportunity for all in state funded schools?

Overall, the White Paper is not as dramatic as it was thought it might be.

Public Accounts Committee concerns over the academy system

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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has today published its latest annual report into the academies sector. Academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts 2019-20 (parliament.uk)

The Committee accepts that the government wants all schools to become academies, but doesn’t yet see a clear path for some types of schools to be able to do so. Such a move to full academisation would remove local democracy from the school system and make it much more like the NHS, with limited accountability, and no guarantee of local accountability. This does not strike me as a good move for democracy. Hopefully, the government’s plans will be set out in the forthcoming White Paper.

Also, of interests, was the PAC’s views on the financial management of academy trusts. Unlike local authorities and maintained schools, Trusts can aggregate funds and do not have to publish accounts for each school separately. Trusts could move funds between schools and create capital for new buildings at one school by levying other schools in the Trust.

The PAC said:

 ‘Academy trusts have been set up as charitable companies, with more freedoms and responsibilities than maintained schools, including being responsible for managing their own finances. There is a tension between this autonomy and the oversight role by the centre via the Education & Skills Funding Agency which is required to provide assurance to the Department who hold ultimate responsibility for the delivery of education in England. The Department provided additional financial support of £31 million to 81 academy trusts in 2019/20 to support financial recovery, build capacity, facilitate a transfer of academy schools triggered by financial or educational factors, or as a short-term advance. Of this, £21 million has been provided as non-repayable funding. The Education & Skills Funding Agency has reported that £10 million of debts held by academy trusts have been written off in 2020–21, including £5 million for one trust. We are concerned that there is a risk that a trust becomes too big to fail and could therefore see large sums of public funds being pumped into it to keep it afloat.’ (Page 7)

Writing off £10 million of debts in one year means cash that could have been spent on children’s education probably disappeared in a manner not possible with local authorities.

Of more concern is the lack of control over senior staff salaries in Trusts. To quote the PAC again;

‘17. The number of academy trusts paying at least one individual above £150,000 increased to 473 trusts (17% of trusts) in 2019/20, from 340 trusts (12%) in 2018/19. Almost two thirds of trusts (1,772; 64%) in 2019/20 reported paying at least one individual between £100,000 and £150,000, compared with just over half (1,535; 53%) in the prior year.’ (Page 14)

This is not a new issue, as my blog from 2018 highlights: CEOs pay: what’s happening? | John Howson (wordpress.com) If there were just 160 local authorities with Directors of Education, how much more cash might be available to schools that is currently disappearing due to the diseconomies of scale inherent in the model of academisation established by Michael Gove in the hurry to pass the 2010 Education Act.

So, no democratic control, high salaries for some, but pay freezes for workers. Not a good structure for our school system when we cannot even recruit enough teachers.