Regionalism doesn't have to mean another reorganisation

Andy Burnham has put regionalism firmly back on the agenda. But, in education, perhaps we should resist starting with the familiar question: who should control what?

Instead we might ask something more practical: what could we do differently within our regions, using the organisations, expertise and powers we already have?

Our work examining education systems across the UK suggests that effective systems share three characteristics. They connect, learn and lead.

They connect people and organisations around a shared purpose. They learn by finding, sharing and mobilising knowledge already within the system. And they develop leadership capable of operating beyond individual institutions.

The key to effective education systems

A region can contain excellent schools, trusts, local authorities, colleges, universities and professional organisations and still perform below its potential if it operates largely in isolation.

I was once lost in a hotel while attending a headteachers’ conference. A cleaner pointed me towards my room. When I complained that the signs made no sense, she replied that she knew that - but nobody had ever asked her to help.

The person who understood the problem had never been invited to help solve it.

Education systems can behave similarly. Somewhere in our region, somebody often already knows something that could help us. We need to draw on every ounce of intelligence in the system.

Where should we intervene?

The Pareto principle offers a useful way of thinking. Rather than attempting to change everything, we should identify the relatively small number of interventions capable of producing disproportionately large benefits.

That thinking influenced the development of Association of Education Advisers (AoEA) accreditation.

In 2016 I convened a meeting at the Department for Education involving government, Ofsted, local government and professional bodies. Faced with an increasingly fragmented system, we asked: where could a relatively modest intervention have a much wider impact?

We focused on the people working between organisations, supporting, challenging, connecting and enabling improvement. If they shared professional standards, language and expectations, their influence could extend across the system.

The result was the AoEA quality standard and accreditation process. It has been adopted by nearly every type of school and education authority across the UK. It is now extending internationally.

It is one example of seeking a relatively small intervention capable of strengthening connections, professional learning and leadership across organisational boundaries.

Could we apply the same thinking to regionalism?

There is already an interesting example in Greater Manchester. Burnham has championed a stronger regional approach to education and skills, but some developments do not depend upon wholesale changes to school governance.

In December 2024, Greater Manchester Combined Authority agreed that work on inclusion, attendance, teaching and post-16 provision should begin immediately, explicitly identifying areas where progress did not require agreement from central government.

Its developing approach to technical education provides another example. The Greater Manchester Baccalaureate is bringing schools, colleges and employers together around pathways into employment and the needs of the regional economy.

That distinction matters.

Regionalism does not have to begin with another reorganisation.

Of course, structures and powers matter. But we should not wait for the perfect governance arrangements before improving the way existing organisations work together.

Four key questions

So perhaps every region should bring together its schools, trusts, local authorities, colleges, universities, employers and other partners and ask four practical questions:

1. What capacity and expertise do we already have?
2. Where are there gaps, duplication and weak connections?
3. What could we change now without waiting for government?
4. What is our Pareto intervention: the relatively small change that could have the greatest wider impact?

Then it could choose one or two priorities. Test them. Measure what happens. Learn. Adapt. Scale what works.

Map what we have. Connect what is disconnected. Mobilise what works. Develop people who can lead across boundaries.

Perhaps that is how regionalism becomes real. Not another big bang. Not simply moving responsibilities around the system.

Start with what we have, change how we work together and build the region’s capacity to improve itself.

Les Walton is chair of the Association of Education Advisers