Michael Gove, the Tory politician serving as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was once the education minister. He famously pushed the ‘free schools’ and academies policy into overdrive. By the time he left the job in 2014, the number had rocketed in 2010 from just 200 under Labour to almost six in 10 secondary schools, and one in five primaries. At the same time, leaked documents showed that the policy was already on track to fail, which warned that the “political ramifications of any more free schools being judged inadequate are very high”.

By 2018, the revolution that was promised with academies taking the place of failing schools was hailed by the Conservatives as education’s ‘great leap forward’. But across England, the trusts that ran them were already being critisised for their performance.

There have been several studies in the past few years that have invariably reached similar conclusions.  “There doesn’t appear to be an inherent benefit to a school being run by an academy chain instead of a local authority. There are a handful of trusts achieving amazing things, but a much longer tail of trusts performing really poorly.” Analysis in 2018 showed that six in 10 academy chains have below-average attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This policy was a top-down change to the education system that required considerable change-management skills.

Yesterday, an article was published by the Local Government Authority (LGA) emphatically demonstrating that the Conservatives have wasted huge amounts of money, time and effort on a ‘flagship’ education policy that has essentially failed. If they had done nothing at all – the result would have been better.

A new study carried out for the LGA has found that 92% of council-maintained schools were rated outstanding or good by Ofsted as of 31 January 2022, compared to 85% of academies that were graded since they converted.

The Government intends to persuade all schools to become academies by 2030. However, the LGA argues that the high level of performance among council-maintained schools shows that they will need convincing if they are to change.

The research, which looked at school Ofsted ratings between August 2018 and January 2022, also found that only 45% of academies that were an academy in August 2018 were able to improve from inadequate or requires improvement to good or outstanding, compared to 56% of council-maintained schools.

Just over 80% of council-maintained schools retained their outstanding rating, compared to 72% of outstanding academies that received inspections in their current form and did not inherit grades from their former maintained school status.

Nearly 30% of the same academy cohort saw their outstanding rating fall compared to 19% of council-maintained schools.

Commenting on the research, Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said: ‘Regardless of whether a school is an academy or council-maintained, what is most important is that children receive the very best education and start in life. This is something we all aspire to achieve.

‘While academisation can be a positive choice in some cases, these findings raise questions over whether a one-size-fits-all approach is a guaranteed way of improving results and strengthening a school’s performance.’