Multi-academy trusts should step into the “vacuum” in national politics by coming forward with “clear initiatives” of their own, a former Ofsted chair has said.

Baroness Sally Morgan, who chaired the inspectorate until 2014 and worked as an aide to Tony Blair when he was prime minister, also bemoaned “a desperate lack of focus” on education across the political spectrum.

She was talking at the spring conference of the Confederation of School Trusts - an organisation which represents academy trusts.

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Lady Morgan said: “Notionally, I’m still a Labour peer - although it doesn’t feel like it very much - but I think there is a complete vacuum, frankly, across the political spectrum, whether you look at the current government or you look at the Labour Party or you look at whatever possibly might split at some point in between to enlarge The Independent Group.

Academies ‘should seize the opportunity’

“Across the piece, it seems to me there is a space and you have a choice - you either seize the opportunity or you don’t.

“There is such a desperate lack of focus at the moment on education - as with virtually every other aspect of the government agenda - and that’s the same for the [Labour] opposition as well, all the opposition parties.”

However, she said that this could be “the most enormous opportunity” for academies “in terms of coming up with clear initiatives and a sense of purpose and a set of propositions”. 

In recent years concerns have been raised about whether MATs are truly accountable on a local level, with Labour pledging to make them answerable to local communities. 

Lady Morgan said academies should respond to this by setting their own agenda.

“My view, for what it’s worth, on local autonomy is that if you define yourselves, how you are going to engage in the local education ecosystem if you like, actually you’ll probably win the day,” she said. 

“If you don’t say anything, and you don’t come up with your own agenda, then there is a tendency for it to be imposed.

“So seize this space would be my very strong advice to you as an organisation, because I think it really is a pretty empty space at the moment ... it’s there to be had.”