I note the noble Lord’s intervention. He has not disappointed me; we discussed this morning where comparisons might be made with the NHS, so I knew that he would jump up because he has vast experience in the matter of the health service. My point is that action in the NHS is immediate and swift. I shall come on to explain the “must” and “may” point. There are circumstances in which the Secretary of State may be able to revoke her academy order, so it would not always be “must”.
As to the point I made about NHS trusts, I fundamentally agree with those who say, “Should we not have a similarly urgent and clear response to tackling school failure?”. On too many occasions we have seen local authorities and governing bodies putting up barriers and delaying processes in order to prevent the school becoming a sponsored academy. A case in point is Uplands, which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned earlier, which has been in special measures for 22 months. The IEB was appointed by the local authority in December 2013. It considered a number of proposed sponsors, a missed opportunity for much-needed change. I first wrote to the local authority confirming that I was minded to intervene in February of this year and, after much debate and challenge, the Secretary of State was finally able to reconfirm her decision to appoint her own IEB in September of this year. This was especially needed in the light of Ofsted’s most recent inspection in June confirming that the school was not making enough progress to remove special measures under the local authority’s IEB. A sponsor match has now finally been able to be made.
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