Planning is key to schools reform

Tories know that some of the most serious obstacles to their education proposals will have nothing to do with teaching

By Mike Baker

 It will be the planning laws, not schools legislation, that will be the key to the Conservatives’ planned revolution in the education system, with their stated aim of creating 220,000 new school places over the next decade.

That is the view of Rachel Wolf, who runs the New Schools Network, which was set up at the end of 2009 to help create new independent, innovative schools within the state sector.

“The key thing is whether government is brave enough with planning legislation to make it possible to have schools in former office blocks and to overcome local opposition to extra traffic around new schools. Planning is absolutely the key,” she says.  

The Tories’ big idea in education is for what Shadow Schools Secretary, Michael Gove, calls “a radical shift in power away from the educational establishment – from Whitehall and the bureaucratic organisations it sponsors – and down towards schools and parents”. The policy wonks in David Cameron’s office call this future the “post bureaucratic age”.

It is ironic that the same political party that passed the 1988 Education Reform Act - which created the national curriculum and new quangos to oversee the curriculum and assessment – is now determined to set schools free again.

In the 1980’s, the Conservatives took power to the centre because they did not trust teachers and head teachers to do the right thing. Now they do not trust Whitehall and its specialist advisors.    

For schools policy, this means a twin-track approach: reducing central control over schools and emasculating or abolishing education quangos whilst encouraging new providers to open independent, state-funded schools. However both strategies face challenges. It is easy to attack quangos when in opposition, but dismantling them in government is not so easy.

Top of the target list for a new Conservative government would be the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority. Michael Gove has ridiculed it for “hiring an army of consultants, squadrons of advisors and regiments of bureaucrats”, yet still writing a syllabus for the Second World War without any place for Winston Churchill. Such contempt for a body that, in its original form, was created by Margaret Thatcher’s government shows the Tories’ determination to ensure that quangos are ‘cut down to size’.

However, once in government they may find that the wind-up costs of closing bodies like the QCDA or BECTA (also targeted for closure) would be costly. Some say it could amount to the equivalent cost of running these bodies for two years.

The Tories say that the ‘necessary parts’ of these quangos will be taken into the Education Department, but it is likely that a Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer would also be looking to reduce headcount in Whitehall. 

But it is the policy of creating independent, state-funded schools that faces the biggest challenges. There will be three routes.

The first is to accelerate the existing route whereby failing schools are pressurised into becoming Academies. The Conservatives will require any school staying in Special Measures for more than a year to become an Academy.

The second route involves allowing all schools graded as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to become Academies automatically, without having to jump through any of the usual hoops.

The third route involves the creation of ‘New Academies’ to be opened by parents’ groups or other educational organisations. This is the most distinctive of Conservatives’ education policies, even if it has been borrowed from Sweden and the Charter School movement in the USA.

Some commentators doubt whether there will be sufficient groups of parents in England ready to undertake the running of a school for the long-term. They say the Conservatives have made it harder for themselves by ruling out for-profit companies from opening ‘New Academies’.

However, those working on the idea in David Cameron’s Policy Unit are confident new providers will come forward. They cite several groups who are interested, including parents groups in Wandsworth, Kirklees, and Bristol. 

There are also existing independent schools that are ready to abandon the right to charge fees and to select by ability in return for stable state funding. And the Tories are looking to organisations like Teach First to get involved, both to help its alumni to run schools as well as to provide a training route for new teaching staff.

Rachel Wolf says there has already been ‘enormous interest’ with ‘hundreds’ of approaches already registered. She cites the Steiner and Montessori movements and educational organisations such as Teaching Leaders and Future Leaders.

But what about parents and individual teachers? Ms Wolf says they have had ‘over 100 individual teachers’ and ‘lots of groups of parents’ contacting them. They aim to match them up. 

There are also several for-profit education providers waiting on the sidelines. These include Kunskapsskolan and Internationella Engelska Skolan, both based in Sweden, and GEMS, the Dubai-based company which claims to be the largest operator of private schools in the world.

Kunskapsskolan has appointed a UK arm, headed by Managing Director Steve Bolingbroke.  It is aiming to sponsor three City Academies in England (two in Richmond Upon Thames and one in Ipswich) and wants a further two after these. 

These would give the company several showcase schools from which to launch its involvement in opening ‘New Academies’.  The most likely route would be for a group of parents or teachers to be the sponsors of a new school but to hand over the day-to-day running of the school to a company such as Kunskapsskolan, which could operate on a management contract from which it could make a profit.

Kunskapsskolan’s model of low-cost schools, opened in former offices and factories, would be particularly viable if the Conservative government needs to keep capital outlay to a minimum.

Tory insiders see no problem with for-profit firms getting involved on management contracts, pointing out that the sponsors would ‘remain the accountable body’ and, as with Charter Schools in the USA, the managers would not own the buildings or the site.

GEMS is potentially a big player under the Tory plans and it is currently looking for opportunities to open a new moderately priced school in England. While this would remain in the fee-charging, independent sector it could act as a model for groups of parents or teachers interested in opening ‘New Academies’ with GEMS as the managers.

So, if there are providers waiting in the wings, what are the biggest obstacles to the ‘New Academies’ plans? The first, identified by Rachel Wolf, is the need to tackle planning laws. As she acknowledges, it is already possible for groups of parents or others to open independent, state-funded schools. But, as she says, ‘in reality it is very slow and very rare’, with only two successful cases so far.

Under current legislation proposals can fall foul of a local authority veto, particularly where there are already surplus places in a locality, and must also navigate the planning laws. New school are not always popular with neighbours, who tend to object to the extra traffic and noise they bring to a neighbourhood.

Conservative insiders agree that planning legislation ‘is absolutely crucial’. The key changes, says a policy source, would centre on ‘who gets to give planning permission, what kind of buildings can be used for schools, and what kind of land can be used’.

If the Tories are elected, look out for new schools opening in shopping centres, former office buildings and refurbished factories. It has happened in Sweden; it could soon be happening here.

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10 December 2009

Mike Baker. Former BBC education correspondent and a member of the editorial panel of Policy Review,