This paper reports initial outcomes from a short series of semi-structured interviews in 2017 with senior politicians from three parties elected to two contrasting English local authorities (LAs): an urban city authority and a largely rural shire county. These were complemented by continuing interviews with senior officers and head teachers, of both academies and maintained schools, some with positions in multi-academy trusts (MATs), and critical readings of LA strategic documents. Interviews focused on the nature of democratic authority in what is an increasingly privatised schools system in the sense that school governance and decision making have moved steadily away from the authority inherent in democratic representation of a local community towards a more technical (or technicist) conception that depends more on ‘people with the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity’ (DfE, 2017: 10). This process has been described as ‘depoliticisation’ (Ball, 2007), or even ‘destalization’ (Jessop, 2002), whereby there is little public disagreement or debate about schools’ role in achieving national objectives (for example, social mobility). And the new technologies underpinning these changes have in turn engendered new governmentalities and discursive formations focused on little except better ‘outcomes’ (Wilkins, 2016). The principal policy in pursuit of these aims in English schools has been the process of academisation, whereby schools have been steadily removed from the purview of LAs, however etiolated, to be funded directly by central government on the basis of a contract with the minister. More recently, schools have been more progressively organised into Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) – voluntarily or involuntarily – in processes overseen by Regional Schools Commissioners, central government officials also responsible directly to the minister (Riddell, 2016). Politicians interviewed varied in their support for academisation - not always in ways that might be expected to reflect party affiliation – but all felt that schools had an important contribution to make to the realisation of their strategic aims, from economic development to lifelong learning. In addition, they were interested in what happened to the children of their constituents and all felt local authorities needed to engage with schools, reporting varying success in doing so. All acknowledged the difficulties inherent in a system increasingly organised de facto to exclude them, especially with MATs with wider regional or national roles with the attendant more remote offices and boards. According to some politicians (and officers), responses from MATs varied but having an elected mayor in the city authority was seen as one significant mechanism. Nearly all were optimistic for the future. The paper sets these initial findings in the context of what one interviewee described as a ‘stalled process’ (of economic reform), with central government not willing or able to respond to their concerns about the management of the system, especially since the 2017 general election. The reported absence of any space in the national legislative programme for schools because of the preparations for BREXIT means that even the much-discussed National Funding Formula (for school budgets) will be implemented via LAs for maintained schools, retaining some discretion, not the original intention (DfE, 2016: 68). Nor is the process of academisation by any means complete; nor, it is argued, is it ever likely to be. At the time of the first interviews, Regional Schools Commissioners were in the early stages of setting up ‘Sub-Regional Schools Improvement Boards’ involving senior LA representatives, that will most likely remain ‘strategic partners’. In addition, according to several interviewees, a paper setting out the proposed statutory roles of LAs to be amended by subsequent legislation had been drafted before the 2017 election, but not published since. Whereas it could be argued that the newer system based on school collaboration increasingly organised through MATs, overseen by Regional Schools Commissioners, might be more consistent and reliable in attaining greater equity in educational outcomes, a focus so limited leaves major moral (as opposed to technical) questions concerning the nature of ‘state’ schooling in England unanswered in policy: what democratic oversight will local and national communities have of their children’s education; how can and will parents be deeply involved.

This paper reports and reflects on a series of semi-structured interviews with politicians and senior officers in two contrasting local authorities (LAs) in an English government region, informed by critical readings of local and national documentation, much of it not available in the public domain. Following initial work focused on the LAs, interviews were subsequently held with primary and secondary headteachers, Chief Executives of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), current and former government officials, Teaching School Council staff, private sector consultants and school governors. There have been repeat interviews with some officers. The focus at the beginning of the interview series was on the remaining responsibilities of LAs with respect to schooling, and how these enabled or obstructed the fulfilment of their wider visions for their communities. The diverse responsibilities (or none) for school improvement featured prominently in these earlier interviews. But more recently, the discussions have changed their tenor within the rapidly changing local school governance arrangements following 2018 announcements by the Secretary of State (Hinds, 2018), intended to make for a 'clearer' schools system. Following earlier indications, this announcement has not been followed up at the time of writing by a promised DfE consultation document on the responsibilities of local authorities. Nevertheless, there were almost immediate reductions in the staffing capacities of Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) and 'clarifications' of their responsibilities, particularly with respect to Ofsted. Local authorities had been 'coming back on to the scene' for some time, as one interviewee said, and this had been reflected in the Sub-Regional School Improvement Boards being set up by RSCs to supervise projects funded by the Strategic School Improvement Fund. This is/was a national fund available on a competitive bidding basis to maintained schools and academies (and MATs), which in fact closed to new bids in August 2018. These bodies have now been renamed 'Regional Education Partnership Boards' covering an area nevertheless smaller than the region and wider than an LA. The new arrangements for school improvement also assume a much greater role being taken at LA level through Local Authority Standards Boards. Both the LAs researched had been developing their own boards, with similar memberships representative of the LA, MATs, the dioceses, and heads, and both were envisioning some general oversight of school development and support. Arrangements were at a more developed stage in one LA than in the other, and this has been found subsequently to be reflected more widely in other LAs. These developments have been considered 'exciting' by some LA officers, as they give formal responsibilities to a body that might in the future also act as the major conduit for 'holding to account' MATs-so officers have been informed. However, Ofsted is also proposing to undertake 'evaluations' of MAT inputs to schools in the new inspection framework due to be implemented in 2019. These arrangements are extremely fluid and represent an 'unstable shifting assemblage' (Ball and Junemann, 2012), paradoxically set within the 'highly centralised state', as a former

This report analyses how schools in England have interpreted and begun to respond to the government's 'self-improving school-led system' (SISS) policy agenda, an overarching narrative for schools policy since 2010 that encompasses an ensemble of reforms including academies, multi-academy trusts (MATs) and Teaching School Alliances (TSAs). Based on a large-scale, four-year, mixed-methods study, the report asks whether or not the models of coordination and school support emerging locally since 2010 represent a genuine basis for an equitable and inclusive 'school-led' system. It explores the factors that support and hinder such developments as well as the implications for schools and school leadership. The analysis draws on governance theory to evaluate the reforms, which are conceived as an attempt to mix and re-balance three overlapping approaches to coordinating the school system: hierarchy, markets and networks. This shows that while one popular interpretation of the SISS agenda is that it requires inter-school partnerships to 'self-organize' their own 'school-led' improvement, this is in fact a partial account that underplays the dominant influences of hierarchical and market mechanisms on the thinking and actions of schools and school leaders and the networks they are developing. The report includes important new empirical findings, for example on the impact of MATs of different sizes and on the relationship between Ofsted inspection outcomes and levels of socioeconomic stratification between schools. It also combines the perspectives of multiple case study schools across four different localities to provide rich insights into leadership decision-making and agency in the context of local status hierarchies and rapid policy-driven change. As a result, while focusing on changes in England, it provides a unique set of insights into how different governance regimes interact across different local contexts to influence patterns of schooling and school-to-school collaboration – insights that will have relevance for research and practice on school system governance more widely.

In England, schools are able to take on academy status, which is intended by the central government to give them greater autonomy ( DfE, 2018 ). Groups of academies can form multi-academy trusts (MATs), which typically grow in size with additional schools becoming academies and joining. One mechanism for MAT growth is sponsorship, which occurs when an underperforming school is required to become an academy and to join a MAT to facilitate its improvement. It was to explore the emerging patterns of MATs and their operation, especially in relation to sponsorship, that the research we report here was carried out. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, we sought to establish the emerging patterns of MATs that sponsor underperforming schools. In the second phase, we interviewed MAT chief executive officers (CEOs) to further explore emerging patterns of MATs, the factors affecting the growth of MATs and the nature of sponsorship. Our analysis shows the development of...

This paper is about educational policy in England. It explores the Coalition Government's key policies about localism, decentralisation and education, and assesses whether these present opportunities for a radical school to apply for state funding as a Free School. A case study from the independent sector-a democratic school which is run by students as well as teachers-is used as an example. Following this, the conclusion is drawn that the Coalition Government has given mixed messages in terms of its commitment to decentralisation, and that, in fact, they would be challenged by an application for a radical Free School.