1/8/2026

Council leaders have welcomed the Government’s plans to introduce inspections of multi-academy trusts, saying the move will bring ‘greater transparency’.

2/11/2025

Research into the provision of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support in England has highlighted ‘inequalities’ and ‘blind spots.’

12/17/2024

Council chiefs welcome Bill that could bring in new registers to identify children who are not in school but say it should go further to ensure child safety.

4/16/2024

Multi-academy trusts (MATs) have ‘higher’ annual turnover of classroom teachers at secondary level than council-maintained schools, according to a new study.

2/22/2024

Local authorities in England have no idea what has happened to over 10,000 children who have left state education.

1/30/2024

An education system divided between academies and council-maintained schools has become ‘undesirable and unsustainable’, according to an education think tank.

8/3/2023

Schools that are still maintained by local authorities receive better Ofsted outcomes than schools that have become academies, according to new research.

5/10/2022

Local authorities will have a new duty to provide support to home-schooling families under new measures to reform education.

5/10/2022

Schools that stay with their council are more likely to perform better than those that convert to an academy, a new report has found.

4/7/2022

An adjudicator has awarded £1.3m in damages to Wakefield Council following long standing issues with the design of an academy.

3/28/2022

Local authority leaders have welcomed the Government’s plan to allow councils to set up and run their own multi-academy trusts.

4/28/2021

Schools will be given a 'try before you buy' option to encourage them to leave council control and become part of an academy trust, the education secretary announced today.

11/18/2020

The Government should invest in partnerships between schools, academy trusts and local authorities to drive school improvements in local communities, a new study says.

4/14/2020

Council leaders have warned the time and resources being spent on converting schools into academies is undermining efforts to provide enough school places for children during the Covid-19 crisis.

10/28/2019

Academies and sixth form colleges can now bid for a share of a multi-million pound fund to help improve facilities, the Government has announced.

8/27/2019

Council leaders have called on the Government to give them more powers to open maintained schools to help avoid an impending secondary school place shortage.

5/23/2019

Council-maintained schools are more likely to remain ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ than their academy counterparts, new research suggests.

4/15/2019

Tens of thousands of pupils are stuck ‘in limbo’ as their academies wait to be transferred between trusts.

12/24/2018

Two-thirds of academy chains perform below average for disadvantaged pupils, according to new research.

9/25/2018

Councils would be given control of academies and have new powers to build more schools if Labour were elected, the party conference heard yesterday.

8/31/2018

Half of all councils England may be unable to meet demand for new secondary school places within five years, town hall chiefs have warned today.

7/11/2018

The Government is ‘failing’ to learn from high-profile academy failures which have been damaging to the education of the children involved, MPs say.

7/6/2018

Failing schools are more likely to be improved by councils than academy chains, new analysis has revealed.

6/19/2018

There is ‘little difference’ between academies and local authority schools when it comes to performance, according to an education think tank.

5/25/2018

Ministers need to take control of 'faltering' academy finances or let councils step in, local government leaders have urged.

5/4/2018

Head teachers have welcomed the Government’s decision to ‘simplify’ the system by which schools performance is assessed.

4/20/2018

The majority of academy teachers and leaders are sceptical about the effectiveness of academy status, survey reveals.

2/22/2018

Councils are struggling to take an ‘integrated, whole-system’ approach to education because of uneven mix of academies and maintained schools in many areas.

1/19/2018

The education secretary today announced £45m would be invested in ‘successful’ multi-academy trusts in a bid to drive up education standards in underperforming schools.

9/1/2017

A growing number of families will face problems finding a place for their child at a secondary school, local government leaders have warned.

6/29/2017

A charity has urged Whitehall to ‘closely monitor’ education in primary academies to ensure quality is not negatively affected by academisation.

6/14/2017

Local government leaders have renewed demands to be given more power over school admissions following the latest figures on parental choice.

2/10/2017

Councils have called for new powers to help them transform struggling schools, including the ability to sponsor schools that have been classified as unviable.

2/3/2017

Councils have warned their advice on where to place excluded pupils is being ignored so they should have the power to force academies to accept ‘hard to place’ children.

2/2/2017

A West Berkshire serious case review has reported there is a need for ‘clear and transparent’ governance arrangements of safeguarding, particularly in academies, to protect children from abuse.

1/6/2017

Maintaining democratic accountability at the local level is key to education service delivery, says union as they warn against ‘discredited’ academy model.

1/6/2017

Small council-maintained schools should be treated the same as small academies and faith schools and be exempt from the Apprenticeship Levy, say council chiefs.

11/1/2016

Local authority leaders have branded a government move to end education grants to councils as ‘academisation by the back door’.

10/28/2016

Controversial plans to force all schools to convert into academies have been scrapped by the new education secretary Justine Greening.

10/18/2016

Almost half a million pupils are in academies deemed inadequate or require improvement since converting from council-run schools, according to council chiefs.

9/26/2016

The Government’s plan to covert school into academies could cost councils as much as £320m, new figures have revealed.

9/15/2016

Council bosses have welcomed comments by the new education secretary about schools not forced to become academies.

8/26/2016

Council chiefs are calling for local oversight of all school finances following a series of abuses by academies and free schools.

7/13/2016

On his final visit as prime minister, David Cameron has announced 31 new free schools, providing 20,000 places for pupils.

7/7/2016

One in five academy chains are performing below average for improving the education for disadvantaged pupils, new research has revealed.

6/21/2016

Thousands of union members could face job and pay cuts as schools are transformed into academies, union delegate says.

5/18/2016

A new Bill unveiled in the Queen’s speech today will legislate for the academisation of all maintained schools.

5/10/2016

Some outstanding local authority schools could still be forced to convert into academies, despite the Government back-tracking on the proposal last week.

5/6/2016

The Government has announced it is abandoning its plans to force all state schools to become academies.

4/29/2016

Devon’s Tory education chief has added his voice to protests over government plans to force all schools to become academies.

4/28/2016

The Government is sticking to plans to force all schools to become academies - but may leave door open for them to continue working with councils.

4/26/2016

Council-run schools are outperforming academies in Oftsed inspections, research from the Local Government Association (LGA) has revealed.

4/25/2016

The Government could be preparing to back down on its plans to convert all council-run schools into academies.

4/22/2016

West Sussex County Council has added its voice to the growing opposition against government plans to convert all schools into academies.

4/8/2016

Tilden Watson outlines some of challenges facing the government's plan to convert all schools into academies by 2020.

4/4/2016

The Government’s plans for forcing schools to become academies are facing a ‘funding blackhole’ of over £1bn.

3/31/2016

The chancellor’s forced academisation plans could hinder his own vision of a Northern Powerhouse, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for education tells The MJ.

3/29/2016

93% of school leaders do not support the Government’s policy to force all schools to become academies, according to a teachers’ union survey.

3/22/2016

A loophole that enables nearly 2,500 academies and free schools avoid signing up to healthy school meal standards must be closed in a forthcoming child obesity strategy, town hall leaders say.

3/18/2016

The chancellor’s plan to transform every school into an academy faces a £560m funding shortage, according to a new analysis.

3/16/2016

Fixating on giving schools independence will not generate improvement in education standards, local government representatives have warned.

3/16/2016

Council leaders have opposed plans to convert all schools into academies, saying the move 'defied reason'.

3/11/2016

Many multi-academy trusts (MATs) have been manifesting the ‘same weaknesses as the worst-performing local authorities’, the chief inspector of schools has warned.

2/29/2016

Council leaders want to be able to open new maintained schools or compel academies to take on more students in order to ensure every child can get a place at a secondary school.

2/25/2016

New measures to force councils to convert failing schools into academies have been passed through Parliament.

12/7/2015

The government’s coasting schools programme is to be extended to cover failing academies, under plans due to be announced by the prime minister later today.

11/25/2015

Local authority-run schools will be a ‘thing of the past’, the chancellor announced in his spending review today.

8/17/2015

Tiffany Cloynes outlines the implications for local authorities under new measures to tackle 'coasting' schools

8/17/2015

Prime minister David Cameron has said ‘every school in the country’ should be moved out of council control and converted into an academy.

7/28/2015

Sheffield is uniting local schools and academies under a new company designed to share expertise during a period of ‘increasing pressure’ on budgets.

7/24/2015

Almost half of academy chains have schools that are performing below tough new government guidelines, according to new analysis.

6/30/2015

Hundreds more schools risk being taken out of council control under new government measures to identify ‘coasting’ sites.

6/3/2015

New measures will force councils to convert schools rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted into academies.

5/26/2015

Council leaders are calling for more power to intervene in failing schools to help hold academies and free schools to account.

5/18/2015

Education secretary Nicky Morgan has prompted an angry response from teachers after claiming academies are better run than council controlled schools.

2/9/2015

Ministers have announced a further 277 schools across England will be rebuilt under a multi-billion pound wave of refurbishment.

1/27/2015

There is no evidence so far that academies are driving improvement in English schools, according to the cross-party parliamentary education select committee.

1/9/2015

A Labour government could hand oversight of academies back to local authorities, Ed Miliband has suggested.

12/5/2014

Councils are diverting more than £22m of their budgets to help subsidise the cost of the academies programme, town hall chiefs are warning.

10/30/2014

The regime for inspecting standards in English schools has come under fire in a report from the National Audit Office.

9/25/2014

Birmingham's beleaguered schools and academies are to be overseen by former chief inspector of schools Sir Mike Tomlinson.

9/23/2014

All council primary and secondary schools should be converted to academies over the next five years, according to a right wing think tank.

7/31/2014

A trustee of the UK’s largest academy chain group has been appointed as the new chair of Ofsted.

7/24/2014

The best academy chains are outperforming other state-funded schools, while others are failing to raise standards, research has revealed.

6/10/2014

The governance of England’s growing number of academies is going unchecked due to failings by the agency responsible for funding schools, according to MPs.