'Funding mistakes' over academies

16 June 2011 Last updated at 17:21 GMT By Angela Harrison Education correspondent, BBC News Michael Gove says the government inherited a very complicated system Some new academy schools in England have been given too much money by central government and face having it "clawed back".

Education Secretary Michael Gove says mistakes have been made by local authorities.

Hampshire Council says its academies have been given an extra ?300 per pupil even though it followed set procedures.

The government wants all state-funded schools to become academies, which are outside of council control.

Currently about one out of every six seconary schools in England is an academy.

They are meant to be funded on the same level as other state schools, but with the money coming directly from central government rather than via councils.

In addition, they are given an amount of money that would previously have been spent by their local council on their behalf to provide services such as those for children with special educational needs.

To determine the level of funding they receive, councils have to tell central government how much they spend per pupil on such services in their area.

It is in this reporting that the government says errors have been made, but councils dispute this.

'Flawed system'

Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There have been individual mistakes made by local authorities in the calculation of their Section 251 returns."

Asked whether officials in the Department for Education had been responsible for any of the mistakes, he replied: "Not that I am aware of."

Mr Gove said the government had been working with a "flawed" system inherited from the previous Labour government.

"There is a problem with the financing of all schools because of the funding mechanism that was designed by the last government," he said.

Officials at the Department for Education said there had been a "small number of cases" where mistakes had been made by local authorities, which could have led to academies being over- or under-funded.

"We don't think this is a big problem for the vast number of authorities," a spokesman said.

Decisions on whether to "claw back" money that had been overpaid would take into account issues such as the scale of the error and the timing, he said.

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It raises a simple question: does the secretary of state have a grip on his budget? ”

End Quote Andy Burnham Shadow education secretary He said mistakes along these lines had happened in previous years.

"The government has said many times that the system is unfair and unclear, that is why we're proposing changes to the school funding formula," he added.

The chairman of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, Baroness Ritchie, said: "This has arisen because the government has misinterpreted council education expenditure returns for purposes for which they were not intended in the way that it calculates the top-up grant for academies.

"We have made it clear that school choice is something that councils support, but whatever you think of academies, they should be funded on the same basis as other schools."

'Double-counting'

Hampshire County Council says it did what it was expected to - but has now found that its secondary school academies have been allocated an extra ?300 per pupil.

That can amount to as much as ?300,000 for a big secondary academy.

Councillor Roy Perry, Hampshire County Council's deputy leader and executive lead member for children's services, said: "Hampshire County Council has followed standard accounting and reporting procedures."

In a statement, he said the process used by the government "effectively double-counted and inflated the calculation for Hampshire secondary academies by some ?300 per pupil per year".

"Once this issue was identified we took steps to advise schools and also raised this as an issue with the DfE. We are committed to working closely with the Department for Education and the Hampshire family of schools in the best interests of Hampshire."

News of the problems emerged as Mr Gove announced 200 under-performing primary schools would be closed next year and converted to academies, under the wing of top schools.

Labour then tabled an emergency question in the House of Commons on the issue of the mistakes and academy funding.

Its education spokesman, Andy Burnham, said: "It raises a simple question: does the secretary of state have a grip on his budget?

"On the day that serious questions are being asked about whether he has a properly funded plan to back up the rapid expansion of his academy programme, only this secretary of state could be in Birmingham announcing a further major expansion of it."

Mr Burnham added: "Will the minister tell the House how many schools have been over-funded and what is the total amount is that has been paid in error?"

Schools minister Nick Gibb told MPs the government was taking action to sort out problems left by Labour.

At the weekend it emerged that the government was going to "reconsider" an element of its local education funding relating to academies, following a legal challenge by 26 councils.

The councils have begun a judicial review of the decision to deduct ?148m from their education budgets.

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'Worst' primaries to be academies

16 June 2011 Last updated at 15:44 GMT Michael Gove: "Turning schools into academies has generated fantastic results"

Two hundred of England's worst-performing primary schools will be closed next year and re-opened as academies, the government has said.

Education Secretary Michael Gove says this will force schools which have failed to get their pupils to expected levels in maths and English to improve.

The new academies, taken out of local authority control, will be run by more successful local schools.

The National Union of Teachers said it was an "unacceptable experiment".

In an address to the annual conference of the National College for School Leadership in Birmingham, Mr Gove said 200 primary schools had failed to reach national targets for at least five years.

"These schools have let down repeated cohorts of children," he said.

Continue reading the main story Described by government as "independent, state-funded schools"Funded directly by central government, rather than through local authoritiesHave more freedom to set their own pay, term and day lengths, and curriculum than other schoolsGain direct control of up to 10% of their budget which was previously held back by local authorities to provide area-wide servicesSometimes sponsored by outside organisations such as universities, charities, faith organisations and "chains" of providersThe government will make it an "urgent priority" to identify new sponsors for these schools, and re-open them in September 2012, he said.

The schools will not be named publicly, but will be approached by the Department for Education in the coming weeks and months.

The department said it would aim to turn a further 500 schools that had failed to reach the so-called "floor targets" in three of the past four years into academies after 2012.

The Education Bill currently being debated in Parliament would give the government the power to "intervene to turn around underperforming schools where authorities are recalcitrant or try to stand in the way of improvement", Mr Gove said.

But he hoped wherever possible to "find solutions that everyone can agree on".

Speaking to the BBC earlier, Mr Gove said academy status was "a tried and tested way" of getting the right head teacher in place to turn a school around.

Headteacher highlights teacher recruitment, salary and training issues

It gives schools increased freedom over staff pay, the curriculum they teach and school opening times.

"What we're seeing through the academy movement is a grassroots change in the way that education is operating in this country - heads are in charge, not politicians."

He added that the change to academy status for the 200 schools meant some head teachers "would go", but others would stay on, with support from leaders from another school.

Mr Gove said that secondary academies that had taken over primary schools had achieved "amazing results".

Becoming academies brought schools a cut in bureaucracy, he added.

Academy status also gives schools control of some funds previously handled by the local authority.

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Knights Academy, formerly Malory School, in Lewisham, south-east London, was taken over by Haberdashers' Aske, which already runs several academies.

In nine months it has gone from being under "notice to improve" to "good with outstanding features", according to the schools watchdog Ofsted.

Principal Andrew Day says bringing in a new uniform and ethos made a major difference, although staff changes and training were also a factor.

"You have to transform the mindset of the children, the parents, the whole school, to get them to believe that this is an aspirational culture," he said.

However, Tony Draper, head of Water Hall Primary School near Milton Keynes, Bucks, has raised the number of pupils reaching the Sats benchmark from 42% in 2008 to 74% in 2009, without a change in leadership.

He says a takeover would have had a "negative impact". Raising standards has been done through "a lot of hard work" on the culture, teaching and learning in the school, and with a "supportive local authority", he says.

The school has also focused on the children's well-being and creating a calming environment.

Schools should be judged on a "broad measure of progress, not just crude statistics", he says.

The academies programme can be a "quick fix", but "it's not a silver bullet", he adds.

This enables them to extend the school day, run catch-up classes at the weekend or bring in expert psychologists and social workers, Mr Gove said.

He said 88 academies with outside sponsors had been set up in the 2011-12 academic year, bringing the total to 362.

'Confusion and distress'

Under Labour, the academies programme was focused on underperforming schools, but the coalition has widened it to all schools, with an initial focus on those rated "outstanding" by the schools watchdog Ofsted.

The total number of academies has now risen to 704, up from 203 a year ago, with applications submitted by a further 814 schools.

However, there are so far only about 100 primary academies open.

The National Union of Teachers accused Mr Gove of "breathtaking ignorance" in his belief that compelling primary schools to become academies would improve standards.

"The evidence does not support this," said general secretary Christine Blower.

"This is a totally unacceptable experiment to undertake with our primary school children."

"Simply closing schools and replacing them with academies will not have the impact sought but will cause a great deal of confusion and distress for parents, pupils and staff," she said.

The Association of School and College Leaders said it had "grave reservations" about the government's "simplistic approach".

Its general secretary, Brian Lightman, said: "Schools will only improve with the full commitment and buy-in of those who lead them. Takeover threats and perverse incentives do not achieve this. They alienate professionals, not engage them."

Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) deputy general secretary Martin Johnson said Mr Gove was "using draconian powers he has given himself in the Education Bill to run schools from Whitehall".

"Closing and opening schools and finding sponsors for them on this scale will be a logistical nightmare. Once again, Michael Gove is making up policy on the hoof and leaving others to sort out the mess," he said.

But National Association of Head Teachers general secretary Russell Hobby said: "If a school remains far below the floor standards for years, with no sign of improvement, and if it has had good quality support, then of course we need a radical solution."

And Specialist Schools and Academies Trust chief executive Elizabeth Reid said academies set up to replace failing schools had "shown dramatic improvements in many cases".

"The same 'can-do' attitude and drive to succeed which has transformed education in those schools can be transferred to persistently underperforming primary schools," she said.

Floor targets

Mr Gove argues that academies drive up standards, but critics say they risk fragmenting state education by undermining the role of the local authority.

On Wednesday it was revealed Mr Gove wanted to raise the floor target for secondary schools to having to secure five good GCSEs for at least 50% of pupils.

At present a school is assessed as underperforming if fewer than 35% of pupils get five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including maths and English.

For primary schools, the target is 60% of pupils achieving level four in English and maths in the national curriculum tests known as Sats.

Also, for either a primary or a secondary school to be considered underperforming, more pupils than the national average must be failing to make the expected amount of progress in maths and English.

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