BE CAREFUL what you wish for.

George Osborne announced the death of local authority involvement in local education in his budget speech yesterday.

This came not so much as a shock, but as a sudden change in life expectancy.

The evidence that academies are the best model for school improvement is severely lacking; it actually points toward the fact that in fact underperforming schools improve much faster under local authorites supervision.

As a local community, surely what’s best for our children is a local vision for schools?

Multi Academy Trusts may know something (or nothing) of the local community.

Many trusts operate a number of schools, some in different local authority areas.

It will be the vision of the trust and not necessarily the community that schools will have to adopt.

Who will act as the local voice and champion for the vulnerable, disabled and special needs child?

Local authorities must engage with parents and schools to ensure that the right provision for every child is available.

Ensuring those needs of every child are met is hugely complex and even local authorities struggle to meet their responsibilities at times.

As education is fragmented, I’m concerned about how parents will be able to negotiate the minefield that is school admissions and special needs provision, with each academy or trust being its own admissions body.

Local authorities also have a key legal responsibility to provide a school place for every child.

They have no power to require academies to expand or take on any child. Already they are warning that finding school places for all is becoming ‘undeliverable’.

For those who cheer the death of the local authority, take care the replacement may not be what you envisage.

  • James D Williams is a lecturer in education at the University of Sussex School of Education and Social Work