The Department for Education’s system for overseeing schools is to undergo a major shakeup after its own review warned of “internal friction” and a “lack of clarity” over who is responsible for what.
A new report published today by the department warns that the system is currently unclear to schools and says more work needs to be done to ensure the sector understands the responsibilities of the DfE, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and Ofsted.
It also warns that the DfE lacked “a unified voice for directing schools at a regional level”.
The report is a review of the work of the ESFA - an arm’s length body that works with the department and has responsibilities for funding, financial management, safeguarding, governance and admissions.
The DfE has accepted the review’s recommendation that the ESFA’s responsibilities should be reduced to focus on funding with general, non-financial oversight of academies, new schools and trusts being passed to the department.
It has also confirmed plans to reorganise the department so that it operates using the same regional boundaries as the rest of the government when it comes to managing schools.
The DfE has been operating its regional management of schools and academies through eight Regional School Commissioner (RSC) regions that it created in 2014. This included splitting London into three separate areas and combining Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire as one.
The DfE review into how the ESFA works has been led by former Ofsted chief inspector Sir David Bell. The department has also been carrying out its own Future DfE project to improve how it operates regionally.
The ESFA review points to confusion and tension between different parts of government responsible for overseeing schools and suggests that the ESFA’s responsibilities should be reduced.
The report highlights how the department’s RSCs are responsible for the educational performance of academies while the ESFA leads on financial management and both contribute to school governance.
This situation “sometimes creates points of friction internally and a lack of clarity externally, which staff work hard to manage,” the review warns.
It recognises that there is a collaboration between the ESFA and the RSCs. However, it adds: “Whilst there are many occasions when it works well, there is clearly room for improvement.
“The separation of functions on education performance, governance and finance impacts on both staff and stakeholders and makes it harder for the department to look at and engage with the school system in a rounded way.”
ESFA role to be reduced
The report recommended that the ESFA carry on as an arm’s-length body but says that it should be refocused on funding and finances. This recommendation has been accepted by the DfE today.
The review added: “Currently the agency has a wide range of responsibilities - including post 16 policy development and pre 16 roles on safeguarding, complaints and admissions - which go well beyond what would be expected in a funding agency.
“While ESFA has been able to deliver these responsibilities, the sheer breadth of its current role risks distracting from its core funding delivery role and confuses customers.”
The review said that the work the ESFA currently does that is not linked to its funding delivery role, and not required by ESFA’s accounting officer to provide assurance on school finances, should move to DfE.
This means the non-financial oversight of academies and functions related to school and academy trust governance will move to the department, along with work around new academy trusts and free schools.
Commenting on plans to redesign the DfE’s approach to regions, its permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood said: “We are serious about our purpose - to help children and learners up and down the country to realise their potential. To make sure the department is best organised to deliver on this we are making some changes.
“We are reorganising to be a department that thinks, acts and partners much better locally, not least by being aligned to the nine regions used elsewhere in government.
“They also mean we will be organised in a way that is clear and makes sense to the stakeholders we work with and will help us deliver the department’s priorities on skills, schools and families.”
This change will come into effect on 1 April.
