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Housing Seminar: Partnerships with the Public Sector – Avoiding the pitfalls
Thu 31 May 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
Mixed public response to academies plan
Mon 23 Aug 2010
The government's plans to create more academies in Britain have been met with a mixed response by members of the public.
A survey by the Guardian and ICM found that 23 per cent of voters believe the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition is doing a good job on education.
However, 42 per cent said they are not in favour of the reforms that are currently taking place.
This is despite the fact that the government has a relatively high approval rating overall.
The Academies Bill was given Royal Assent ahead of the summer parliamentary recess.
Lord Hill, parliamentary under-secretary of state for schools, recently welcomed the high level of interest in becoming academies across the country.
He said changing their status would give schools greater power to manage their own affairs, instead of having politicians and bureaucrats deciding what is best for them.
However, Lord Hill insisted that schools are not under any pressure to become an academy.
Andrea Squires, a partner at Winckworth Sherwood Solicitors, commented: "Given the speed with which the new academies programme has been implemented by the coalition government, it is not surprising that support is hesitant.
"Now that the legal infrastructure is in place, the government needs to concentrate on winning 'hearts and minds'.
"This will be made easier if the department can show that the freedoms available to academies are genuinely reducing bureaucracy and that concerns about reduced regulation leading to a fall in standards or unfair treatment of staff are not realised."
