Hackney’s schools to be back in local hands

The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, has announced plans to end the government intervention in Hackney’s schools and hand responsibility for education back to the Council.

The day-to-day running of education in Hackney is currently in the hands of The Learning Trust, a private not-for-profit company. The Government intervened to create the Trust in 2002, following a damning OFSTED report which labelled the local authority’s education services a failure.

Mr Balls, speaking at the National Children and Adult Services conference in Harrogate, said that he did not wish to ”intervene in any local authority for longer than is necessary.”

The announcement could signal the responsibility for schools moving back to the Local Education Authority. When the ten-year deal with The Learning Trust expires in 2012, Hackney will have seen a decade of ‘quango’ control.

A Hackney National Union of Teachers (NUT) spokesman broadly welcomed Mr Balls announcement, “The Learning Trust meets in secret, a local education authority meets in public. We would welcome a return to the democratic accountability that was given up in 2002.”

A spokesperson for the Trust countered that the intervention has been a success for Hackney’s schoolchildren, “over a ten year period, we are the second most improved borough nationally.”

The NUT remains sceptical of the importance of the role played by The Learning Trust in local school’s recent statistical advances. The spokesman claimed there has been “no real difference” between the performance trends of Hackney compared to other LEA-controlled boroughs during the government intervention.

The borough’s recent upturn in exam results and consequent rise in league tables have certainly not gone unnoticed though. The Cabinet Minister added, “following the improvement…I am minded to end our involvement as soon as I am convinced that progress will continue.”