Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy that new academies should not join under-performing multi-academy trusts.

Edward Timpson

Regional Schools Commissioners (RSC) are supporting the development of high-performing multi-academy trusts (MATs). MATs will play a crucial role in the future school system, enabling academies to realise a wide range of benefits and providing the formal structure in which high-performing schools can support under-performing schools to improve.

RSCs are responsible for approving new academies and intervening in underperforming academies and free schools in their area. In assessing schools proposals for becoming academies, RSCs will ensure schools joining existing trusts are matched to the right MATs, according to their need, the trust’s capacity and how together they will secure long term success. New academies will be matched with MATs who are able to evidence good or better performance and capacity for sustained improvement.

With MATs taking on an increasingly important role, it is important that parents and the wider system can access information on how well they are leading their schools. Therefore, as we outlined in the recent White Paper, Education Excellence Everywhere, we will launch new accountability measures for MATs, publishing MAT performance tables in addition to the continued publication of, and focus on, inspection and performance data at individual school level.