The abandonment of the Government’s academisation legislation was met with delight by many groups representing schools, teachers and local authorities – but many of the problems the policy was attempting to address have not gone away.

The warning signs were there that this was not a workable policy. From our work with a large county council, it became clear there were negative implications. Schools were being rushed into decisions about their future without clear evidence of the benefits to pupils. Schools also told us they were concerned about their capacity to successfully convert within the short timescales. In particular, the hurried removal of councils from local education networks threatened to cut-off valuable local expertise without anything to take its place.