In one of his first acts as the new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove has written to all headteachers in England asking them to register their interest in their schools becoming academies.

Schools are being offered financial incentives to opt out of local authority control and become academies, together with a promise of more freedom to run themselves how they see fit (including the ability to opt out of the National Curriculum) and less bureaucracy.

One thousand schools have already expressed an interest, but governing bodies should consider the proposals very carefully before being seduced by these enticements.

While an additional one-off grant from the Government to become an academy may seem attractive, it needs to be weighed up against the increased extra costs schools would have to pay for support services no longer provided for them by the local authority, including: m Financial services, m School improvement m Health and safety advice m Legal advice m Employment support and, m Governor support.

Academies would also need to raise any additional money themselves for future investment projects, like expanding the school site for example, and as there are no guarantees around revenue funding of schools beyond March 2011, they will need to factor in whether any squeeze affects the pay and conditions of staff which academies can set themselves.

The promise of less bureaucracy should be tempered by the fact that academy schools and their governing bodies would have to take on extra statutory functions previously discharged for them by the Local Authority.

Aside from the practicalities of the proposals, the Government’s Academies Bill removes the requirement for schools to obtain the approval of the local authority before becoming an academy; nor will schools have to undertake any statutory consultation of parents or local people before converting to an academy. This is a blatant attempt to sidestep local democracy and the community. Michael Gove is particularly encouraging outstanding schools to transfer to academy status by fast-tracking their applications. Academies were originally set up by the last Labour Government to improve educational attainment of children in disadvantaged areas.

By fast-tracking schools that are already outstanding, and offering a cash incentive to become academies, the new Government is essentially targeting, as a priority, much-needed additional resources to schools that are already achieving excellence with a finite amount of money for education that will inevitably be to the detriment of schools that re currently underachieving.

The decision to become an academy is irreversible, so parents and communities need to be made aware of the implications before a local school transfers to academy status.

Councillor Anne Hutton, Barnet Labour’s spokesperson for education, children and families