Fears over academy links to BSF funding

LGA seeks assurance from DfES after councils complain they must build academies to obtain BSF funding.

Mounting concern that the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is forcing councils to build academies in return for funding under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme has prompted the Local Government Association (LGA) to write to education secretary Alan Johnson.

News over the link between academy funding, which is likely to slow the school programme even further, comes in the same week that John Laing's chief executive Adrian Ewer berated BSF for its slow progress and complexity.

The letter from LGA vice chairman Sir Jeremy Beecham was prompted by a recent Sunday Telegraph report claiming Sunderland Council had been told by DfES officials that "no academy position" in their BSF bid was not an option.

In the same report Durham county council's former education director Keith Mitchell claimed Durham had suffered similar pressure from DfES officials when applying for BSF funding.

Referring to the report, Sir Jeremy wrote that he and other council members had "long been concerned at the leverage exerted by the department on councils through the BSF programme to secure agreement to the creation of academies".

He said he had raised the issue with David Miliband when he was schools minister and "received his categorical assurance that agreement to inclusion in BSF was not conditional on an authority creating an academy".

He added: "The Telegraph report this week confirms that in fact without such agreement councils will not succeed in bids under BSF. If this is correct, it would represent an unacceptable hardening of the position (although in practice the threat was but lightly veiled)."

He asked if ministers had sanctioned "such an explicit approach" and whether the same policy is being adopted towards the use of the Local Education Partnership.

Speaking to Contract Journal, Sir Jeremy said: "Academies should not be linked to BSF funding decisions, nor the use of LEPs. A number of councils are concerned at the hardline approach DfES seems to be taking on these issues, which is why I wrote to the minister."

A DfES spokesman said: "BSF funding is not dependent on having academies. It is dependent on local authorities demonstrating a strong vision to improve standards."

[Contract Journal, 30 August 2006, p 1]