Miliband: Councils may run academies

THOUSANDS of academy schools could be forced back under council control by Labour, Ed Miliband warned yesterday.

In comments that appeared to go much further than official party policy, the Labour leader suggested all schools should be placed back under local bureaucrats.

Mr Miliband was speaking at the first of his pre- election ‘People’s Question Time’ events in Hucknall, near Nottingham.

Responding to a question from a representative of the National Union of Teachers, Mr Miliband said: ‘The alphabet soup of different kinds of schools – free schools, academies, trust schools and all that – is not helping our kids.’ Academies were championed by Tony Blair while free schools were introduced by the Coalition.

Mr Miliband said: ‘You have got to have proper local accountability. You cannot run thousands of schools from Whitehall – Michael Gove has certainly proved that.’ He then posed for pictures with NUT representative Laura Hastie, a primary school teacher, while holding a copy of the union’s education ‘manifesto’. It calls for all state-funded schools to be put back under the control of local councils.

Self-governance is a key feature of academy and free schools, which supporters say gives them the freedom to innovate and drive through improvements.

Labour’s Blairite education spokesman Tristram Hunt has said the party would introduce ‘parent-led academies’ – potentially adding to the ‘alphabet soup’ attacked by Mr Miliband.

A Labour source said there was no change of policy and Mr Miliband was simply re-stating his position.

In a separate development, Mr Miliband said Labour plans to offer a pay boost to thousands of workers providing care to the elderly.