Just a short update on my previous blog about academisation. The DfE have confirmed the £1/2 billion estimated cost of the proposal claiming that budget provision was made. It did take the DfE two weeks to find the money after the budget. However other estimates now put the cost as high as £1.3 billion. Of course until it happens its impossible to tell which estimate is right.

One point that another commentator has made (and I had not thought of!) was of course the land passes out of Local Authority control. Why does that matter? Well there might be some concern about suddenly stripping LAs of billions of pounds of assets but that is a moral/political argument to be had. The more serious practical issue is that this makes have big strategic redevelopment of education provision virtually impossible.

Regeneration at scale requires the control of land to mange the whole estate at scale and facilitate redevelopment. The reprovisioning of nearly every school in North Solihull is a good example of that, which would have been virtually impossible to achieve in a fragmented system.