Improving outcomes for children - where will local authorities fit in?

Dr John Dunford talks about the changing relationship between local authorities and schools and how the need to share data on children is more important than ever.

There has been a major transformation in the responsibility local authorities have to improve outcomes for children since the coalition government came to power. The changing education landscape has seen many aspects of their role – from raising pupil attainment to driving school improvement – shift to school level.

The main focus for councils will be to act as the eyes and ears of parents and to provide support for the most vulnerable children and families, but there are still some key areas of education where they will have an important role to play.

With change comes opportunity

Change continues to be a constant companion for many school leaders and children’s services staff. The academies and free schools programme is changing the face of education across the UK. The autonomy of these schools has been accompanied by a considerable reduction in the amount of central government guidance being sent to all schools and major changes have been made to the way pupil funding is calculated.

A review of the national curriculum has been published, the English baccalaureate has become one of several new school accountability measures and the government intends to increase floor targets for GCSEs up to 2015. Changes to the examinations process are on the cards and reforms have been introduced to the Ofsted inspection.

But change often leads to better ways of doing things. Authorities need to embrace the future and see it as an opportunity to make a real difference to children’s lives in the years ahead – and they still have plenty of opportunity to do so.

Accountability

While councils and schools are still coming to terms with this emerging map of state education, school leaders are applying for academy status in increasing numbers. Free school applications are flowing in too.

Early convertors to academy status – all schools with an outstanding grade from Ofsted – were keen to be freed from the local authority and, having studied the progress of previous reforms, considered that there may be some financial advantage to becoming an academy.

Whereas sponsored academies had been given academy status in order to make major changes that would improve their results, the early convertor schools have done so in order to remain as successful as they had previously been.

Convertor academies have to partner with at least one other school and some are part of chains of 3 to 20 schools. As a result school-to-school support will now be the engine of school improvement.

A middle tier will remain between central government and the individual school, but this will not always be the local authority. Many school chains have chief executive officers and a management structure in place and so bear a passing resemblance to a local authority, albeit operating in a very different way.

One of the biggest changes taking place is that local authorities have moved from being service providers to commissioners with regards to improving standards in schools. As more schools take on academy status and expertise in school improvement falls among local authority staff, the delivery part of the process is now firmly rooted in school-to-school support.

The process of school improvement

The process of school improvement includes four stages:

• identifying the problem – this requires good quality data to be regularly monitored
• brokering the right sort of support, through intervention, using a database of excellent practice, and resources such as national leaders of education
• commissioning that support
• delivering support, generally through the expertise of another school

Good local authorities do the first three of these for their maintained schools, but it will increasingly fall to other bodies to carry out these tasks.

Nonetheless, it will remain important for local authorities to have good data on all the schools in their area if they are to fulfil the expectations of them that were set out by the government in its white paper, The Importance of Teaching, published in November 2010.

The critical role of the local authority

According to the white paper, the role for a local authority is:

• as the champion for parents, families and vulnerable pupils
• co-ordinating children’s services
• carrying out specific duties, such as school places and admissions co-ordination
• developing its own school improvement strategy

It will be a challenge for authorities to fulfil these duties – or monitor their success – without the ability to access information on children from schools and academies. And although the Education Bill is expected to ensure that all schools work with local authorities and other agencies to support the welfare of children, the finer details of what this will entail remain to be seen.

Anne Birch, Commissioner for Education and Skills at Staffordshire County Council, spoke about the importance of data and the authority’s changing role at an event hosted by Capita SIMS.

“The desire to improve lives and outcomes for children and young people in this country is what gets us up in the morning. It’s that passion and commitment in knowing that what we do can make a difference.

“Local authority staff understand the importance of ensuring schools and headteachers have the information they need to make sure that they're on track. We still have a critical role to play in shaping the lives of all children and young people. We need to continue to influence, challenge and support our schools and build on the long-established trust and relationships we have with them.”

The future for local authorities

So with the different challenges it faces, how will a local authority adapt? And what will a successful council look like in the years ahead? Here are some of my thoughts on this:

• It will offer services at a fair price and at high quality. Nearly all academies buy into some local authority services, but they will increasingly test the market on a regular basis, so quality must be the watchword for local authority managers.
• It will get the basics right. Local authorities will continue to carry out core tasks, such as school places and admissions co-ordination, transport and special educational needs. Schools and the public will expect these to be done efficiently and effectively.
• It will be the eyes and ears of parents. To carry out this task, local authorities will need high quality data on the performance of all schools in their area and will need to find ways of using that data in an accessible way.
• It will provide in-time joined-up support for vulnerable children. Data sharing between different agencies will be a priority if this is to be done well.
• It will have a clear relationship with its schools. No matter how many academies there are in a local authority area, it remains important for the local authority to have a relationship with all its schools, so that young people and their parents can benefit. This will be a matter for discussion between local authority officials and school heads and governors.
• It will have no under-performing schools in its area. Effective use of data and timely intervention, either at first hand or through facilitation, is the first step in avoiding the spectre of failing schools.
• It will have an in-time school improvement strategy. Long gone are the days when school improvement staff sat in County Hall waiting for something to go wrong. With intelligent use of data, local authorities can continue to facilitate the right sort of support at the right time.

The new road ahead

The full school accountability picture is still emerging but we already know that Ofsted inspections are changing and that schools graded as outstanding will no longer face routine inspection. The school improvement partner (SIP) role has been abolished and local authority school improvement services cannot do what they used to, so it will be essential for schools to retain a degree of external challenge by employing their own equivalent of the SIP.

Governing bodies will continue to need support, especially in holding school leaders to account and in interpreting data, both for general accountability and for the head’s performance management. Without the self-evaluation form (SEF), governors will need support to ensure a rigorous self-evaluation system.

Translated into education, the government’s focus on the Big Society means that schools – and governing bodies in particular – should seek to become more directly accountable to parents, with more data and greater transparency. Schools can explore collectively how to do this and the local authority is in the best position to facilitate these discussions.

Support for governing bodies is a key role for schools and, as with so many aspects of the emerging role for authorities in education, good quality data and its effective use will be at the core.

As Anne Birch says, “The need to keep children safe, keep them healthy, ensure they learn and achieve and are happy, that they are prosperous and become contributing members in our society is more important than ever. So as we work our way through this new landscape, let's remember why we all do the job we do.”

Dr John Dunford was general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). He is currently chair of Whole Education and works as a consultant with Capita SIMS.

Published January 2012