Free Schools & Academies

What should the Labour party do about the strange objects littering the educational scene.  They are clearly getting out of hand and giving far too much power to the Minister, who does not seem to be answerable to Parliament for his actions. Recently a junior minister in the department changed some rules but was anyone consulted?

Local education authorities are still legally responsible for the education of the children who live in their authority. Given that the Tories are very keen on local action the answer seem to be give power back to local education authorities.

The next Labour government should promise that it would give the money to the local authorities to distribute and decision about academies and free schools would be local decisions, not ones made ny Minsters sitting in London with no apparent democratic control.

If we want to get good people involved in local government we need to give local councillors responsibilty. This would be good for both local and central government.