Why are there so few primary academies?

This week Education Secretary Michael Gove made a speech about academies. You can read the text here. I thought the speech was surprisingly defensive for a policy that is clearly succeeding. Indeed the speech says that getting on for half of all secondary schools either are or soon will be academies. So it is surprising that the speech spends several paragraphs attacking a supposed "ideological" attack on academies.

The speech also makes mention of an aspiration to encourage more primary academies. He suggests that up to one in ten primary schools have expressed an interest in academy status but much fewer have actually converted. In Suffolk only two primary academies out of more than 200 primary schools have opened but 18 secondaries have converted.

As someone who has been seriously considering a primary academy conversion I think the reason for this is entirely practical and not at all ideological. Contrary to the view expressed by Gove and re-enforced by much of the mainstream media the vast majority of people involved in education, teachers, governors and other school staff are simply not interested in ideology and politics. Decisions about schools are invariably made for practical and pragmatic reasons. The only exception is when politicians such as ministers and councillors get involved...

So if Gove really wants more primary academies he needs to stop attacking bogeymen and take some simple practical steps to make it viable for primary schools to become academies. Many of the reasons that primaries are hesitant to convert are to do with their size and finances and some of the costs and responsibilities inherent in the academy model.

In terms of funding all schools have formula funding that kind of works the same way i.e. schools get money for each child depending on where they are and if they are primary or secondary. Primary schools get less per child. Academies also get to keep the "top slice" that usually goes to the LA in a maintained school. This varies depending on local authority but is 8% in Suffolk.

It doesn't take much Mathematical ability to work out that a small primary school isn't going to end up with much more as 8% of not very much isn't much! And some of the Academy costs are more or less "fixed" such as getting your accounts audited larger schools do much better.

And it isn't just money. Secondary schools tend to be more self-sufficient and often have their own finance staff whilst many primaries rely more on the local authority. Whilst I agree there are some positives to freedom from LA "control" it is true that for many primaries the LA is more a useful service provider than it is a draconian master.

In addition a good number of primary schools are church schools and this adds even more complexity. For example our tiny 100 child primary school has three different landowners. And the attitude to academy conversion from dioceses can be an issue too. Even if the diocese is supportive there are more forms to fill in, more meetings to attend...

Groups of schools working together ought to be one way around these issues but there are problems here too. It isn't possible to make all of the savings that would be desirable without setting up a "multi-academy trust" but this concentrates power centrally in a way many individual schools wanting their own autonomy and freedom are not happy with. Indeed a maintained school converting to academy status as part of a multi-academy trust will end up with less local control than it had as a maintained school. And groups of schools where some are church schools and some are not become an issue too.

So I would suggest some practical steps that the Government could take to encourage more primary schools to convert to academy status:

• Introduce additional funding to smaller schools to enable some of the fixed costs to be met
• Increase transitional funding to enable training for staff and governors in finance, property etc
• Provide more practical support and encouragement from people with experience of primary education
• Allow more flexibility in the way groups or chains of academies can operate enabling such groups to save money and collaborate whilst retaining more local autonomy
• Remove the requirement to get approval from the diocese for church schools replacing it with nationally agreed arrangements to protect the church's interests
• Simplify land issues for church schools and guarantee that the DfE will pay all legal costs associated with land transactions if these exceed the 25K 
• Sort out the issue of SIMS licences with Capita. Currently they are making converting academies covered by LA licences buy completely new licences costing thousands of pounds when they become academies.
• Work with service providers to offer more cost effective services such as audit targeted at primary schools
• Design a model for church and non-church schools to become part of groups of academies

The bottom line is no school is going to become an academy if it feels it will end up worse off with more work to do! Imagine explaining to parents that classroom assistant hours had to be cut to pay 5K to auditors of the school's accounts....

Of course the Government could ignore all this and just force all primaries to become academies as part of sponsored chains. This is what is happening at Downhills Primary school where Gove seems amazed that local people are not all writing letters of thanks to the DfE for forcing its sponsored academy status but actually campaigning against it.

Again he sees the bogeymen of ideology as the reasons for this and this is helped by the fact Shadow Labour minister and Labour MP David Lammy used to attend the school and has become involved.

I think Gove is quite wrong. This is nothing to do with ideology. Local people are objecting to their local school being forced to do something without their consent. People feel a sense of ownership toward their local primary schools in a way few do about secondaries. Gove suggests another 200 primaries will be forced to convert and I fully expect there to be more fights about this as parents and local communities say "who's schools? OUR schools".

Interim Board to run Suffolk Libraries announced

Clive Fox, Chair of Suffolk Libraries
Interim IPS

Suffolk County Council have announced the first initial members of the interim board of the Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) that is to run Suffolk's libraries in the future. The IPS Chair is to be Clive Fox who is the Chair of the Aldeburgh Library Community Group. The two other members are Shona Bendix who is the Chief Executive of Suffolk Association of Local Councils’ (SALC) and Mike Hosking, until recently head of Libraries in Cambridgeshire.

There are to be another five interim members of the IPS to be appointed using a curious process. Nominations will be sought from library groups and from staff and then the County Council will "appoint" four library group members and one staff member following a "selection process".

Of course a more straightforward (and democratic) process would be for the nominating bodies to elect the five additional members.

I think Clive Fox will have an uphill struggle to get credibility amongst local library groups. When Suffolk County Council's scrutiny committee met I personally heard him describe library campaigners as "rent a mob". It looks likely that he will now be sat next to at least some of these people in Board Meetings....

There will be those who see his appointment as a reward for being at times about the only voice in support of of Suffolk County Council's initial library proposals and he is certainly "on message" with his quote today:

Overwhelming public support for our library services led the county council to give priority to sustaining a comprehensive service despite the acute economic pressures it was facing. That’s the right decision, but now we must make sure the new community partnership-based service delivers. I’ve taken on this challenge because I believe it is the way forward for public services. 

Shona Bendix comes from SALC who are supposed to support local town and parish councils but during the library campaign SALC seemed to side more with the County Council than the town and parish authorities they were supposed to be supporting.

Of course these initial members will now be joined by five more but call me old fashioned but it would inspire more confidence if they were elected rather than appointed and if once they were elected they could choose their own Chairman.

We are promised all this in 18 months but by then the IPS will have completed its most important function and be up and running. Now more than at any time it needs credible and accountable members from across the spectrum of political opinion in the County, not appointments for loyalty to the County Council.

UPDATE

A "vision document" written by Clive Fox is now available on Wikisuffolk

A Happy New Year?

As Big Ben struck Midnight and the New Year started we were treated to what was an impressive firework display from London. As we watched my ten year old son looked a little confused and said:

"No wonder we (the Country) is in so much debt if they are spending it all on these fireworks!"

I can see why he is confused. On the one hand we are all bombarded with messages telling us the Country is broke and we cannot afford libraries, youth centres, reduced travel for children, decent care for the elderly, support for the disabled etc etc but on the other hand money magically appears to open free schools and for fireworks amongst other things.

This year London will host the Olympic Games and we will celebrate another Jubilee. So will 2012 be a year of hope? I wish I could say that would be so.

The current Government like to compare the Country to a household claiming their policies are "prudent", that we have to "live within our means"that we need to "tighten our belts" and other such things. If that is so then I wonder what the neighbours would think of a family that couldn't afford to send its children to college or look after their elderly relative but held a big party with fireworks on New Year's Eve?

But actually it is worse than even the neighbours think. For this family isn't broke at all. It could afford to pay for the children to travel to college, look after its elderly AND have money left for a party. It deliberately chose not to.

And that, sadly, is what is happening in Britian right now. A comment on Poly Toynbee's Guardian article sums it up better than she did or I could. It is long but I will quote it in full as it is well worth reading.

But Polly, they are all in it together. We have had over 30 years of this shit. Nothing short of a revolution is going to save this country. 

For the last 40 years, Neo-Liberalism has been a bankrupt ideology that has utterly failed 90% of the population. The only thing it has created is the huge myth that 'we've never had it so good'. There hasn't been any increase in wealth for the great majority of people, it's been a giant con trick. Virtually all the wealth created since the 80's has gone to the top 10%, and the wealthiest 1% are now vastly richer than they were 30 years ago, whilst the rest have had to work ever harder just to stand still. Disposable household income is now actually less than it was 40 years ago, when there was usually only 1 wage earner per family, whereas today we have 2,3,4 family members working, especially amongst middle earners. 

This deterioration in earnings has been masked by two factors. Peoples lifestyles have been fuelled by easy credit and an insane housing bubble, neither having anything to do with capitalism having created more wealth. Huge debt and inflating house prices have funded the façade of prosperity for decades. However, with the collapse of the giant Ponzi scheme that was the financial markets, this illusion has now been shattered. We are deep in shit. Average household debt now stands at nearly £60,000. Total personal debt stands at over £1.5 Trillion, a figure which will be increased as a whole generation leaves University/college already heavily in debt. They've got us by the balls, because they own us. If the banks decided tomorrow to call in every penny they are owed, most of Britain would be homeless and destitute. Some prosperity, and so much for never having it so good. 

And it gets worse. We now have a Government which has begun a systematic assault on it's own people, under the pretext that the country is bankrupt. They are making it easier to sack us, making us work longer hours for less pay, forcing our kids to work for nothing, raising the retirement age whilst cutting our pensions and weakening our health and safety laws. They are attacking the weak, the poor and the disabled, slashing welfare budgets, forcing people off benefits and removing every support structure a civilised society should provide. Meanwhile? The wealthy avoid paying billions in taxes, and hide billions more away in tax havens.The very people who are paying the biggest price are the very people who have been screwed for the last 30 years, whilst the ruling elite, the very people who have gained the most from the last 30 years, are immune to the mess they have created. Executive pay has increased by 50% in the last year alone. That one fact tells you all you need to know about who is in this 'all together' And all the while, no-one sees the irony in millionaire politicians telling us 'we must all tighten our belts'. 

So this is where 30 years of neo-liberalism, supported by every successive Government since Thatcher, has brought us. Massive debt and worse living standards for the many, immense wealth for the few. We have been shafted, big time. But it's never enough. They already own our politicians, our media and our Police.They already have our land, gas, electricity, railways and water. But these greedy bastards still want more. They keep taking, and like fools we keep giving. So now, they are coming for our pensions, our NHS, our schools, our green spaces, and, if you're old, our houses, after all, you should pay for your own care, shouldn't you?

And we stand and watch them do all this because we believe the lies they tell us, the lies that we'd never had it so good, the lies about the country being bankrupt and the lie that 'we are all in this together'. They keep telling us these lies because they believe we are all idiots, and will fall for any shit they feed us. And most of the time, they are right. We do. But not always.
To paraphrase Lloyd George whilst talking about the Great War: 

"If the people really knew the truth about what was happening, it would be ended tomorrow, but they must never know." 

Well, one day, they will know. And that's when the shit will really hit the fan.

This sounds a little bleak and not very hopeful for a start to the New Year. I don't personally think 2012 will be the year that the "shit hits the fan". It will, sadly, take longer and there will I fear be millions more real people damaged in the process. Lives ruined. Hopes shattered.

But all is not lost. Back in January 2011 I open my laptop in an angry mood and typed the article "Sack Suffolk's overpaid CEO and Save our Libraries". By the end of 2011 this had actually happened. The CEO of Suffok County Council resigned and the County had to back down from its closure plan and keep all libraries open. 

It's true that not all of the battles fought were won. 2011 has seen the youth services close in Suffolk, withdrawal of discounted travel for young people and slashing of many jobs in education. Free schools are opening seemingly all around us, some to be run incredibly by Swedish companies for profit.

So 2012 will be, I think, another year of fight. Another year we have to campaign and try and support and save our local services from closure or being handed to "the market" to make money rather than provide service. Another year we will fight to make sure the truth of what is happening gets out there rather than the self-serving half-truths of much of the mainstream media.

So a Happy New Year to everyone!