As we enter the final half-term it’s important that we all start to think about the future and the policy environment we find ourself operating within.
The debate over whether councils should be allowed to run academy trusts is no longer simply an ideological argument about “academies versus local authorities”. Increasingly, it is becoming a practical question about capacity, accountability and what kind of governance structure is most capable of delivering stable school improvement in a fragmented education system.
The central question is whether local authority-run multi-academy trusts (MATs) could realistically work, reflects a broader uncertainty emerging across the sector as Labour explores reintroducing councils into the academy landscape. Indeed CEOE is working with two London borough’s exploring their options
It is probably reasonable to suggest that many councils currently lack the operational capacity to run trusts. Over the past fifteen years, local authorities have lost much of the educational infrastructure they once held. School improvement teams have been reduced or dismantled, experienced education leaders have moved into academy trusts, and council budgets have been repeatedly squeezed. Meanwhile, many established trusts have evolved into highly sophisticated organisations with executive leadership teams, finance departments, estates management functions, curriculum specialists and centralised HR operations.
In practical terms, many trusts now operate more like medium-sized enterprises than traditional public-sector education departments. Against that backdrop, the argument that councils may struggle to build equivalent capacity is persuasive. Even supporters of greater local authority involvement generally accept that councils would need significant rebuilding before they could compete operationally with the strongest trusts.
Where the argument becomes less convincing is when it implies that this weakness is permanent or structural. Critics of the academy system point out that councils did not naturally lose capability; policy deliberately removed it. Local authorities still retain responsibilities for safeguarding, SEND coordination, admissions, transport and vulnerable children. They continue to hold democratic legitimacy in ways academy trusts do not. From this perspective, the question is not whether councils are inherently incapable of running trusts, but whether government is prepared to allow them to rebuild the capacity that previous reforms intentionally stripped away.
Amongst many sector groups there remains a long-standing concern within the academy movement. They believe that council-run trusts could effectively recreate the local authority control that academisation was designed to diminish.
The 2010 Academy Act was built on the belief that schools improve through autonomy, independent governance and freedom from municipal bureaucracy. For many academy leaders and Conservative reformers, the idea of “council-run academies” appears philosophically contradictory.
Yet this argument is less dominant than it once was. Over time, many trusts have themselves become highly centralised systems. Large trusts frequently impose standardised curricula, behaviour systems, staffing models and operational frameworks across dozens of schools. In practice, some trust now exercise more direct control over individual schools than local authorities ever did. As a result, the original distinction between “autonomous academies” and “bureaucratic councils” has become increasingly blurred.
This evolution matters because it weakens one of the academy movement’s foundational claims: that structural independence automatically produces freedom and innovation. Across the sector, there is growing recognition that governance quality matters more than governance labels. Strong trusts can deliver improvement, but weak a MAT can also become remote, opaque and heavily centralised. Increasingly, the debate is shifting away from institutional ideology and towards questions of effectiveness, accountability and public legitimacy.
The same pattern emerges in discussions around scale. The early ambitions of councils to establish large trusts capable of achieving economies of scale is still deemed feasible. Also, most education leaders accept that trusts can create genuine operational advantages through shared procurement, centralised expertise, professional development and financial resilience. Larger organisations can intervene more quickly in struggling schools, spread specialist staff across multiple sites and create leadership pipelines that individual schools often cannot sustain alone.
However, consensus becomes more nuanced when scale is treated as a guarantee of success. Research and experience increasingly suggest that trust quality matters far more than trust size. Some large trusts perform exceptionally well, while others encounter governance failures, financial problems or inconsistent educational outcomes. The sector has gradually moved away from the assumption that bigger automatically means better. What matters is whether trusts are well-led, financially stable and educationally coherent.
There are persuasive in arguments that council-run trusts may struggle to attract schools. England’s education system is now dominated by established trust groups with recognised brands, mature leadership structures and longstanding relationships with the Department for Education. Many schools are already embedded within existing trusts, and high-performing schools may see little incentive to move into newly created council-led organisations.
That said, regional variation matters. In some areas, frustrations around SEND provision, exclusions, admissions coordination and fragmented local planning have created growing dissatisfaction with the current system. In those contexts, hybrid models involving stronger council participation may appear increasingly attractive, particularly where trust performance has been uneven or where local collaboration has weakened.
Perhaps there is a potential underplaying of the broader accountability debate now reshaping education policy. One reason Labour is revisiting local authority involvement is because parts of the sector increasingly believe trusts accumulated significant power without equivalent democratic oversight ( Turning the Tide - Ainscow et Al 2023) . Concerns around executive pay, exclusions, SEND responsibilities and local transparency have all contributed to the ongoing discourse.
This does not mean the trust system is collapsing ( quite the opposite) or that councils are poised to replace MATs. Rather, it suggests the sector is entering a more pragmatic phase. The binary divide between “LA schools” and “a trust led system” no longer reflects how the system actually operates. Councils already coordinate many essential services; trusts manage schools; regional directors intervene; and central government retains significant control. The system is already become hybrid.
Central to school business professionals’ considerations regarding their professional development and career trajectory should therefore be an understanding of this wider education reform background. The direction of travel in governance, accountability and system leadership has profound implications for the skills SBPs will need over the coming decade. As trusts continue to consolidate and operational functions become increasingly strategic, expertise in finance, estates, compliance, procurement and organisational leadership will remain highly valued. At the same time, any renewed role for local authorities or hybrid governance structures may create demand for professionals capable of operating across both civic and trust-based systems. For SBPs, understanding the political and structural evolution of the sector is no longer peripheral to career planning; it is becoming essential to navigating where influence, responsibility and opportunity are likely to sit within the education system of the future.
Seen in that light, council-run trusts are less radical than they initially appear. The real question is not whether councils or trusts should dominate, but what combination of governance, accountability and operational capacity is most likely to deliver stable improvement for pupils.
That marks a significant departure from the ideological certainty that shaped education reform during the 2010s. Increasingly, the sector consensus is moving toward a simpler and more practical test: not which structure is theoretically pure, but which one actually works.
Visit www.ceoe.org.uk