Multi-academy trusts (MATs) are charitable bodies responsible for overseeing and governing a group of schools or academies in England. Funding for MATs is delivered directly from the government rather than through the local authority. Compared to state-maintained schools, MATs have more control over the finances, curriculum and other aspects of school management within their academies. Since the growth of MATs, there has been increasing concern over the impact of the blurring of the public and private agendas for education, and the consequent shift towards a more market-driven education system. My study makes an empirical contribution to the existing literature (for example, Ball, 2017; Gunter, 2011; Wilkins, 2015), by showing what this means at the local level, for local governing boards and the local community. It demonstrates how national policy is being translated within four MATs in northern England at different levels of management and governance. The study presents an analysis of how the new centralisation of governance powers and academy management are transpiring by using supporting data from an in-depth longitudinal phenomenological research study of these MATs. In doing so, it presents three main findings.

‘Since the growth of MATs, there has been increasing concern over the impact of the blurring of the public and private agendas for education, and the consequent shift towards a more market-driven education system.’

First, with greatly reduced powers and responsibilities, local governors have been moved from policy actors to policy subjects, with their role described as ‘observers’ to the MAT’s decision-making trust board:

‘I think [our role] is very much a rubber stamp’ (local governor)

‘It’s not our vision, it’s Chalkdown’s vision … It all comes from the MAT’ (local governor and parent)

‘Perhaps they haven’t all got the awareness … the responsibility, the accountability is diminished … hugely’ (executive principal)

Second, due to this degradation of power and diminution of status, local authority representatives have withdrawn themselves from local governing boards (where they still exist), resulting in both a democratic deficit and a knowledge deficit of local education policy and community issues. This had worrying implications for community representation. Despite several of the academies in the study serving large Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, trust boards were largely white British. This, together with the physical distance of the central MAT to its academies, prompted one local governor to reflect on the MAT’s empathy with and understanding of the local communities:

‘[The MAT doesn’t] understand the complex background of working-class communities from different racial backgrounds’ (local governor)

Third, and somewhat ironically, the perceived professionalisation of the local governor role has led parents to believe that their lay and tacit skills were not of value, and so they were reluctant to be involved:

‘I can’t actually think of any skills [I have] … I think it would exclude a lot of parents’ (parent)

These findings contribute to the growing body of literature (for example, Allen & Gann, 2022; Glatter, 2017; Greany, 2022) which raises concern for the marginalisation, if not exclusion, of local figures with their insider knowledge, and the implications for localised democratic oversight and appropriate representation within the academised system. With local priorities and interests being overridden by policies and policymakers from outside, local governors and parents were experiencing ‘policy as discourse’ (Ball, 1993, p. 14), which determined ‘who could speak, when, where and with what authority’. They had been reduced to micro-actors in a system where the action of governance was distanced from the local players. This is particularly relevant given the government’s policy to ensure by 2030 a fully academised system overseen by MATs which would typically run at least 10 academies.

I argue that true participative accountability could only be instigated through and with the will of those in charge of the MAT, who would need to recognise the democratic deficit. Any introduction of a system which included more horizontal and downward accountability would need a fundamental change in how MAT management viewed the flow of power in their organisation, and an acknowledgement of the value of local representation, knowledge and expertise.

This blog post relates to a paper presented at the BERA Conference 2024 and WERA Focal Meeting on Wednesday 11 September at 9:00am. Find out more by searching the conference programme here.

References

Allen, A., & Gann, N. (2022). The architecture of school governance: Rebuilding democratic legitimacy within an academized system. Management in Education, 36(1), 11–17.

Ball, S. J. (1993). What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13(2), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630930130203

Ball, S. J. (2017). The education debate (3rd ed.). Policy Press.

Glatter, R. (2017). ‘Because we can’: Pluralism and structural reform in education. London Review of Education, 15(1), 115­­–125.

Greany, T. (2022). Place-based governance and leadership in decentralised school systems: Evidence from England. Journal of Education Policy, 37(2), 247–268.

Gunter, H. (Ed.). (2011). The state and education policy: The academies programme. Continuum.

Wilkins, A. (2015). Professionalizing school governance: The disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors. Journal of Education Policy, 30(2), 182–200.