Issue - meetings
Academies - Identification of Sponsors for New Academies required to Support Housing Growth
Meeting: 18/09/2012 - Cabinet (Item 101)
PDF 175 KBCabinet Member: Education
Forward Plan Ref: 2012/105
Contact: Allyson Milward, Academies Manager Tel: (01865) 816447
Report by Director for Children’s Services (CA7).
In the next five
years the authority is likely to have to procure a number of new schools due to
planned housing growth. The Education
Act 2011 determined that all new schools should be academies or Free schools
unless no sponsor can be found by the authority or DfE. Existing legislation which deals with the
creation of new maintained schools is no longer applicable to the Authority's
decision making process. The authority
has embraced the idea of academies and seeks to identify the best provision it
can for school places in Oxfordshire.
The purpose of this report is to set out
procedures which will allow the authority to identify preferred providers, by
agreement with the Secretary of State, to open new academies or free schools
for the benefit of local communities. The
DfE has recently issued guidance on procedures for
local authorities in this matter and the proposed system to be used by the
County Council based upon this guidance, along with the outcome of consultation
with interested parties, is set out in the report.
Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to approve
the process to identify academy and free school providers for new schools in
Oxfordshire.
Minutes:
Cabinet considered a report that set out
procedures to allow the authority to identify preferred providers, by agreement
with the Secretary of State, to open new academies or free schools for the
benefit of local communities in line with The Education Act 2011 which had determined
that all new schools should be academies or Free schools unless no sponsor could
be found by the authority or Department for Education (DfE).
The DfE has recently issued guidance on procedures
for local authorities in this matter and the proposed system to be used by the
County Council based upon this guidance, along with the outcome of consultation
with interested parties, was set out in the report.
RESOLVED: to approve the process to identify academy and free school providers for new schools in Oxfordshire.