The FT have reported that the forced academies plans have been shelved.
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c3110f6-07ac-11e6-a70d-4e39ac32c284.html
*Another day, another policy slide. As reported in Thursday’s Financial Times, the brakes are being applied on one of the major announcements from March’s Budget: the proposal to force all British schools to become academies. Instead of putting forward legislation in the coming weeks or months to force the academisation of state schools, the proposals have been kicked into the long grass and will be introduced closer to 2020, if at all.
There are several reasons why the government has ended up in this embarrassing situation. First, it is yet another demonstration of how focused No 10 is on the EU referendum campaign.
Fighting for a Remain vote has consumed the strategy and media arms of the Downing Street operation. Introducing such a major policy one month before the referendum campaign began meant it was never going to get the attention needed to see it through.
The policy was a key announcement in George Osborne’s most difficult Budget, designed to distract attention from poor growth figures. We can assume that the Treasury played at least some role in developing it. At first, it looked as if this would be a successful strategy but, as the row over the cuts to disability benefits intensified, the academisation plans fell by the wayside.
The role of Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, is also crucial to understanding why the policy has been delayed. Ms Morgan was brought in to the Department for Education as a calming figure, following the battles fought by her predecessor Michael Gove. She was meant to perform a role similar to Jeremy Hunt’s at the Department of Health, a steady hand on the tiller.
Both of them kept the status quo at first, before shaking things up. Both Mr Hunt’s changes to thejunior doctors’ contracts and Ms Morgan’s academisation plans have fallen into a familiar government trap of not thinking things through.
The academies policy marked a radical shift and ended up in another confrontation that the government does not need right now. To see through a policy of this nature, Ms Morgan would have required the political support of the prime minister and chancellor. They have been distracted by other political matters of late.
This episode offers another window on David Cameron’s relationship with his backbenchers. The disgruntlement of Tory MPs over the EU referendum has created considerable bad feeling and there is little goodwill available to help sell a tricky education policy.
Many MPs were worried about the proposals and the intervention from a great reforming education secretary of the past, Lord Baker, only made matters worse. Messrs Cameron and Osborne can look forward to tackling these issues of trust and co-operation on the other side of the referendum vote, if they survive.*