Last week, Stephen Twigg opened up an important debate about the government’s academies and free school programme. He was right to support the creation of academies and free schools in some areas of the country. New school providers can make our public education system more innovate and exciting, as schools such as School 21 in Newham and the Greenwich Free School have shown. Where there is a lack of good school places – and that means places of a high enough standard to meet the expectations of the local community – it is right that new schools can be set up.

But the key challenge facing Labour is to identify how free schools and academies can be managed to ensure they deliver high standards. Converting a school into an academy is not, on its own, enough to guarantee high standards. IPPR’s latest report ‘Excellence and equity’ argues that the rapid expansion of the academies programme has led to a fragmented school system, with a lack of coordination or oversight at the local level.

The Department for Education is now responsible for directly overseeing 3,000 schools. There are already signs that central government is too remote and too stretched to do this. Last year 14 of the new flagship ‘convertor academies’ fell below the minimum performance target, and some academy chains have been accused of financial mishandling.  We need a more robust system in place to deal with poor school performance.

The world’s leading school systems all have some sort of ‘middle tier’ of governance between central government and a school headteacher. In Canada it is done by a local schools superintendent – usually an outstanding headteacher that has been promoted to oversee schools in their area. IPPR has recommended that England should follow a similar model by creating local school commissioners, who could be appointed at arms length by local authorities, and who would be tasked with monitoring and supporting schools to improve. It is not enough to rely on the occasional Ofsted inspection to drive improvement.

The next challenge facing Labour is to identify exactly which freedoms schools need to help them raise standards. It is a good idea to give schools more space to set their budgets, design their school day and the curriculum they teach. Rather than seeking to micromanage public services the state should empower skilled professionals to get on with the job. But as Stephen Twigg noted, there is little justification for allowing schools to hire unqualified teachers. In the world’s top education systems, the best graduates go into teaching. In Finland, teaching is a skilled profession that requires a master’s degree, not one for the unqualified. Michael Gove’s decision to give schools freedom to hire unqualified teachers was a retrograde step that will only harm standards.

Another thing that could be added to this list is school admissions. Writing in IPPR’s report, Rebecca Allen shows that schools have become more segregated as a result of recent policy changes, with some schools ‘cream skimming’ children who are easier to teach. There is no reason that having the freedom to control admissions helps schools to provide a better education. It would be better for admissions to be administered by an impartial body such as a local school commissioner. This would prevent accusations of unfair play, save headteachers from endless rounds of appeals, and free schools up to focus on the core business of teaching and learning.

Free schools and academies have the potential to transform the school system and Labour is right to embrace them. But they need more robust oversight, with proper systems in place to deal with poor performance.

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Jonathan Clifton is a senior research fellow at IPPR. He tweets @jp_clifton

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Photo: Shira Golding