Education Secretary "ready to use" power to make academy order

Michael Gove has warned that he is ready “in the months ahead” to use the power in the Academies Act that enables the Education Secretary to make an academy order in respect of any school that is eligible for intervention.

In a letter to local authorities, the minister said he hoped he would not have to use this power as he "fully expects" that local authorities would use their own powers to tackle poor performance.

“But where there is a lack of decisive action or a reluctance to consider the necessary academy solution, then I will not hesitate to act,” he said.

The Education Secretary said the government would be stepping up its reform programme to deal with underperforming schools, with new floor standards being developed for inclusion in the forthcoming Schools White Paper.

These standards will apply from January 2011, once the Department for Education has the verified and final summer 2010 examination data.

“In setting new standards, I want to be clear that we are determined to tackle underperformance, but I want to avoid the errors of the past which meant some felt unfairly stigmatised,” Gove insisted, arguing that the government would provide support to poor performing schools first.

He called on local authorities to bid to use the £110m made available for a new education endowment fund.

The Education Secretary said he wanted to expand the academies programme in three areas, namely:

• Spreading the experience of academies into the primary sector
• Backing the potential for academies developed through clusters of schools within a local area, and
• Providing greater attention and support for those underperforming schools that are above the minimum threshold.

Gove added that he wanted sponsors and local authorities to work with the Department for Education in considering solutions to a wider range of underperforming schools.

“I would like LAs to consider more schools for academy status where both attainment and pupil progress are low and where schools lack the capacity to improve themselves,” he said.

The focus should therefore be on improving schools where: attainment is low and pupils progress poorly; the most recent Ofsted judgement is that the school is eligible for intervention or is merely satisfactory; there is a record of low attainment over time; or pupils in secondary schools achieve poorly compared to schools with similar intakes.

The minister said the minimum standards in the White Paper should be regarded as guidelines, not rigid criteria.

The government is also to end statutory requirements on local authorities to set and then police a range of externally imposed performance targets on schools and Early Years settings, the Education Secretary announced.

“Instead, local authorities will be able to develop their own plans to improve the quality of Early Years provision,” he said. “And you will be free to develop new and innovative ways of supporting the vulnerable across your local areas.”

Gove claimed that – “with the additional resources we are making available for the education of the poorest two-year-olds, the schooling of all poorer children and early intervention to help those most in need” – councils would have the funding and freedom “to make a real difference”.