5/13/2008 8:39:00 AM
Francis Beckett; The Guardian 13 May
A single academy sponsor is controlling millions of pounds of public assets. Is this right, asks Francis Beckett .What is the most powerful organisation in secondary education? A good case can be made for the United Church Schools Trust. The biggest academy sponsor (through its subsidiary, the United Learning Trust), with 13 already set up and several more on the way, the UCST also owns 11 private fee-charging schools and employs 1,700 people. It controls hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of public assets and property (it will not say exactly how much). It has spent hundreds of millions of pounds of public money building its academies, and the taxpayer will pay it hundreds of millions more every year to use them. It runs its 24 schools in a more centralised way than any local education authority has ever done. Key management decisions, which in other schools are taken by the head or governors, are taken at its corporate headquarters in the Northamptonshire village of Titchmarsh. All its academies have websites in the same ULT house style, and the ULT's address is on each home page. It has a very corporate feel. This, says the chief executive, Sir Ewan Harper, "promotes our family of schools and academies". He points out that each school has its own uniform, and heads and local governing bodies still take "critical" decisions.Guardian
Secondary
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