THE core of the Schools Bill as ori­­ginally published was clauses 1-18 that gave the Secretary of State de­­tailed control of many aspects of the governance and management of all academies.

Although supported by the Bishop of Durham on behalf of the Church of England Edu­cation Of­­fice, these clauses were with­drawn by the Government after severe criticism in the House of Lords. No replacement clauses have yet seen the light of day, and their detailed wording is crucial to their accept­ability in relation to the re­­­­quire­ments of the Companies Act and the Charities Act.

There is perhaps, we believe, gov­­ernment confusion between con­­trol and accountability; and an unre­solved tension, too, between the un­­der­standable desire for na­­­tional or regional planning in the Church and the actual statutory inde­pend­ence of each Diocesan Board of Education.

The Bill has not yet reached its Third Reading in the House of Lords, and the parliamentary web­site indicates that no date is yet set for this. Com­­mentators have sug­gested that the Bill may be con­siderably delayed (to allow time for new ministers to have policy dis­­cussions about replace­ment clauses 1-18), or may just be dropped pend­ing a rethink.

We hope that the rethink will extend beyond clauses 1-18. We understand that clause 30 (transfer of land) is also the subject of discus­­sion, and correspondence with the DfE has left us very uncertain about their intentions about the nature of the trusts on which such replace­ment sites would be held. This would have severe implications for most existing C of E school trusts, especially those subject to reversion to the heirs of the original donors.

We are con­cerned, also, at the absence of any requirement for the transfer of extended sites, or of sites for new church academies, and at the pos­­sibility that local trustees would be permitted to refuse to accept a replacement site and thus bring the present purposes of their trust to an end.

The historical position since the Middle Ages, and continued in the Education Acts as they now stand, is that church-provided schools nor­mally occupy charitably owned sites with the purposes of the site trusts’ guaranteeing the permanent church character of the school. This Bill brings that arrangement to an end.