It is because for too long they have been languishing as underperforming schools. The authorities and governing bodies that were overseeing them have had their opportunity to improve them over many years. We feel that pupils should not have to waste a single day more in those schools. They need new leadership and new governance, and they need them now.
4.30 pm
That is why clause 8 removes the requirement for consultation by a school’s governing body or the proposed sponsor on whether a school should become an academy, in circumstances where the school is judged inadequate by Ofsted or where other interventions have failed to raise standards. That is why clauses 10 and 11 ensure that the local authority and the governing body of a failing school co-operate and help with the conversion process. We have seen too many instances of deliberate procrastination by people ideologically hostile to the academies programme.