Nikki Morgan’s Sunday appearance on the Andrew Marr show was
all about education and of course how rubbish it is. Apart from feeling a
furnace a rage on behalf of my mother who is somewhat overworked and definitely
undervalued as a member of her collegiate, I also felt sorry for Nikki as a
staunch proponent of the current Conservative Education policy.
Throughout all of Nikki’s ramblings, on bringing in ‘super
nanny’ style head teachers to pull failing schools up from the dirt after disparaging
Ofsted results, on moving the assessment goal posts, on when these measures
would apply to so called ‘coasting schools, I couldn’t help but think that
there was more to this onslaught on the teaching profession than just a will to
give every child a good education. Underneath the supposed aspiration to build
a better state sponsored education system is a story of cronyism and of
conflict with EU competition law.
When the Labour party instituted the Academy system its
effect was to cast off schools that were under the umbrella of the Local
Authority as a uniform provider and allow for private organisations to partly
finance schools under the department for Education’s remit of standardisation.
Academy status removes schools from being directly under the control of Local
Authority and hands control to newly established academy Executives and Trustees.
According to a report in 2012 into potential cases involving
conflicts of interest between academy trustees and executives of the new
academy scheme, there were concerns surrounding “individuals with connections to
both academy trusts and private companies.” The Educational Funding Agency
(EFA), the body set up to keep an eye on financial dealings within the newly
instituted academy system, allowed for under its guidelines ‘party related
transactions.’ A 2013 review of said ‘party related transactions,’ showed that
they were, on the whole transparent and not in need of reassessment. In ‘normal
speak’ this effectively means that the EFA, a quango of whom many a member has
been accused of benefitting from personally in the past, had decided that
personal affiliation with outside contractors was ok.
Now I am a mere ‘bystander’ on this subject but when this
government pushes a policy such as hastening the inception of more academy
schools across the UK, surely there is more to the policy, which is held at the
core of the Conservative manifesto, than just willing the success of every
young child. Why broaden the failing schools bracket to included faltering, or ‘coasting
schools’ into those that are to get a transformation. This smells a little like
cronyism, a kind of inadvertent cronyism that is born out of a dividing
ideology. The contracting out of services to those that may have a personal
nexus to the provider is incentivised through a ‘cock up’ that was meant as a liberalisation
on competition within the state education system. Was it such a ‘cock up’
though? I’m not so sure.
According to the cross party Education Select Committee there
has been no proof that the academy system, has improved results. In fact the committee
seemed far more concerned about moving away from standardised teacher’s pay
scales, which is the case for many academies. The Public Accounts committee
recently raised concerns surrounding head teacher’s pay at academy schools
being too high, quoting on one instance an annual salary of more than £400,000.
Taking extra income from outside work was also of concern for the committee.
When Nikki Morgan calls for a squad of ‘super head teachers to be brought in
she does so in the full knowledge of the Public Accounts Committees findings.
It seems that a development of a culture of cronyism has been allowed to
develop vicariously through the support of the academy model and, as Margaret
Hodge suggested some time ago, allowing such a development has not exactly been
unwelcomed by those receiving benefit of it i.e the trustees of the academies
etc.
On the issue of tending out contracts in education, it is
not illegal per se to offer unfair advantage to any one prospective bidder.
This was the argument recently put forward by the Cooperative trust when a
small campaign group took a case to the High Court over less than transparent
appointments of sponsors who finance a group of academies under the trust. The
cooperative trust suggested that the EU Public Procurement legislation, which
ensures a level playing field when a ‘contracting authority’ (the academy trust
in this case) puts out to tender contracts for bidding, didn’t apply to them. The
government didn’t either and still don’t feel that an instance involving the
decision as to the sponsors for academy trusts and their respective so called ‘academy
chains fell under EU procurement legislation.
So the Tories can push their academy agenda on the public
platform of improving standards for all but they know that a handy little
consequence of them doing so may well be to benefit friends, possibly ‘friends of
friends.’ Maybe it will benefit ‘friends of friends of friends of friends’ but
indirectly wealth will be siphoned off from the Department for Education budget
and into the hands likeminded folk with similar ‘aspiration.’ This is cronyism
isn’t it?