Legal
Working together for success
Schools are increasingly seeking ways to collaborate in new ways, write Chloe Brunton and Yvonne Spencer
In the past few years there have been rapid increases in the number of schools working together with new and innovative models to drive up standards. The benefits for all schools involved are wide-ranging as schools share their professional expertise and resources to improve academic achievement and attainment and securing the Every Child Matters five outcomes for their students.
DCSF policy is firmly behind this approach with additional funding streams being made available to those schools that propose to work with one another under shared governance arrangements. In this section we look at the following sources of funding that target schools working under such arrangements:
• the Standards and Diversity Capital Fund;
• National Challenge; and
• funding available from the Independent/State School Partnerships.
So, what do we mean by shared governance arrangements? Such arrangements might include:
• a federation (hard or soft); or
• schools working together with a single joint trust.
Hard governance federations
These are formed where two or more maintained schools share a single governing body and can be used in particular for one school to support another school by helping to raise standards. A federation is not be confused with an amalgamation (where the schools merge).
Schools within a hard federation continue to receive individual delegated budgets, but it is possible to apply this funding to other schools within the federation, provided that an audit trail is in place for each school budget. There is also an increase in purchasing power achieved from economies of scale.
Soft governance federations
Under this model, the schools retain their own governing bodies, but together establish a joint committee to which powers are delegated under the School Governance (Collaboration) (England) Regulations 2003. It is now also possible for maintained schools to form soft federations with FE colleges.
Trust schools
The DCSF Trust School programme launched by the Education and Inspections Act 2006 is aimed at developing long-term sustainable partnerships between schools and external organisations. These organisations, known as trust partners, might include local and national businesses, FE colleges, universities, other maintained schools (often feeder primaries) and independent schools.
The trust partners form a charitable trust which holds title to the school's land and has a right of appointment (either minority or majority) on to the governing body. The trust is not responsible for the running of the school, (which stays with the governing body) but rather supports the strategic direction of the school, bringing in added value to drive up educational standards.
It is possible for two or more maintained schools to connect to (or acquire) the same trust. Unlike in a hard federation, the governing bodies remain separate but by sharing the same trust there is an element of collaboration between the two schools. So, how can these models increase your access to funding?
The Standards and Diversity Capital Fund
This fund, managed by the DCSF, totals £327 million to be applied 2008-09 and 2010-11. It is targeted at smaller scale projects where investment through BSF, the Primary Capital Programme or devolved funds is not available (or where it will not come through quickly enough).
Projects that qualify include those that will help raise standards through increased parental choice and diversity of provision in an area through:
• the expansion of successful and popular maintained schools;
• Fresh Start Schools;
• federations of schools; and
• groups of schools working together under a single trust.
There is also funding available for maintained boarding schools, non-maintained special schools, Music and Dance Scheme schools and projects aimed at removing significant numbers of surplus places.
The DCSF expects local authorities to co-ordinate applications for this funding and priority will be given to projects that:
• include innovative models to address poor performance and surplus places in a weaker school eg through a federation with a stronger school; and
• increase the number of places in strong schools that are oversubscribed.
The schools or the local authority are typically required to make at least a 20% contribution to the funding of the project.
The National Challenge
This £400 million DCSF fund is targeted at raising standards in lower performing schools so that at least 30 per cent of the students in all schools achieve 5 GCSEs at A-C, including English and Maths by 2011 (the "National Challenge").
National Challenge Advisers, allocated to the schools, are working with those schools identified, the local authority and the DCSF to create a package of support targeted at raising standards. These tailored packages are now largely agreed but remain under review.
It is proposed that schools that are at a higher risk of not achieving the National Challenge will be targeted with structural intervention to transform their governance and leadership.
The types of structural interventions identified in particular are hard federations, trust schools or National Challenge Trusts. This last option is a more radical option where the existing school is closed and opened as a new trust school, with the trust necessarily having a majority appointment onto the board. There is also the option of bringing these schools within the academies programme.
The programme is again targeted at bringing in the support of stronger schools to transfer, for example, the skills of its leadership team, systems and also innovative strategies that are in place. Revenue funding has been made available to support these schools to ensure that they are able to sustain their own performance while, for example, releasing members of staff to the weaker school.
The Independent/State Schools Partnerships (ISSPs)
The ISSP, which manages this fund, was established in 1997 and has since brought 330 schools together in structured partnerships with £10 million in government funds. The fund, applied between spring 2008 and March 2011, is approximately £4 million.
The fund is targeted at developing relationships between the maintained and independent sectors to share professional expertise between the sectors and ultimately raise standards.
It is aimed at maintained schools that are working with other maintained schools and an independent school. The ISSP is particularly interested in proposals that include the shared governance models referred to above.
This fund is not to be applied for capital expenditure, but to meet the costs of setting up, running and evaluating the partnership. A cluster of schools would be likely to receive £50,000-£75,000 per year for items such as:
• staff costs to backfill where staff are deployed elsewhere to deliver the partnership activities;
• to purchase services from independent and maintained schools or other providers; and
• transport for pupils to share experiences at each others' schools.
In summary, there are various models available to schools that want to work together under shared governance arrangements to drive up standards. These models are supported by the DCSF which seeks to make funding available to facilitate such arrangements and to ensure that the performance of a strong school is not compromised.
Chloe Brunton is senior staff solicitor at Veale Wasbrough Lawyers. Chloe can be contacted at cbrunton@vwl.co.uk or telephone 0117 3145 301. Yvonne Spencer is a partner at Veale Wasbrough Lawyers. Yvonne can be contacted at yspencer@vwl.co.uk or telephone 0117 3145 202.
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