Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-07-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support regional school commissioners are expected to provide to organisations in their area wishing to become an academy sponsor.

Edward Timpson

Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) have an important role to play in encouraging and supporting high performing schools to extend their influence by growing Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) and recruiting new sponsors to their region. The RSCs support schools and other organisations to become sponsors and grow effectively by offering practical one-to-one advice and facilitating supportive networks between MATs. They are also able to commission additional support for trusts where that is required, for example, from local Teaching School Alliances.

As set out in our White Paper Educational Excellence Everywhere, in the future MAT support will be system-led, and there will be a role for larger and more experienced trusts in supporting growing trusts as they develop. The Department is taking a number of steps to support MATs with leadership and governance, including:

• a MAT CEO development programme;

• redesigning a National Professional Qualification in leadership; and

• funding the academy ambassadors programme that has resulted in over 240 experienced business leaders providing support to MATs by joining trust boards as non-executives.

We are committing funding for 5 years to provide long term stability to help many more volunteers find a school or MAT that is looking for someone with their skills.

The Government has allocated £300 million that will be available to support schools to convert and, in particular, support sponsors to turn around failing schools. A further £300 million will be available to support strong and effective multi-academy trusts to grow and improve.