Government finally hands education system over to the Church of England

The Church Times reports this morning that the Church of England is to be given direct control of a multi-million-pound academy-expansion programme through a new framework agreement.

The Church anticipates that the development will lead to up to 100 new Anglican academies. Dioceses will be free to make contracts with the Board of Education’s list of leading educational consultants. A separate company will be set up to oversee the programme.

Already, prestigious international consultants are being considered for the C of E approved list, after it was advertised in the official journal of the European Union. They include a company from the United States, which runs many of the successful Charter schools in the US, and a Swedish company headed by a former education minister, which has developed similar schools in Scandinavia.

At present, the development of all academies, whoever is the sponsor, is undertaken by a project-management company whose responsibility ends when the building is complete. The brief of companies approved by the Board would go further: they would be expected to have proven success in turning around what the Government calls “schools in challenging circumstances”. In return, they would be offered seven-year contracts with dioceses that are planning new academies.

The new framework agreement will also cut the cost to dioceses that want to develop academies. Under the present rules, sponsoring bodies must make a £2-million contribution to a new academy. This is reduced to £1.5 million after three academies have been built. The framework agreement would enable dioceses to be regarded as one organisation, thus qualifying for the discount.

The agreement will also allow diocesan staff with the right skills to be seconded to a national church company set up for the purpose. This new company, Church of England Academies Services Ltd (CASL), jointly owned by the academies, will provide services such as payroll management, human-resources advice, and project management.

The company will help the Church of England to support its growing number of schools — at present, it has about 5000. The Church’s education arm is equivalent in size to ten or more large local authorities. The diocese of London alone, with 150 schools and 44,000 pupils, is larger than most urban education authorities.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “Perhaps this is Tony Blair’s final anti-secular flourish. Christian Research predicts that by 2020, the CofE will “be in financial trouble, selling off assets to remain viable.” Membership is projected at around half a million, compared with 1.25 million now and 2 million thirty years ago. To seek out such an organisation as a business partner – far less to give it a blank cheque- raises more questions about the Prime Minister’s judgement.”

NSS May 2007