Ministers’ plans to build a reserve army of trustees to parachute into failing academies are set out in a rehashed version of a board recruitment scheme abandoned last year.
The Department for Education is testing the water with suppliers about effectively reviving the Academy Ambassadors programme, while tightening eligibility rules and taking more control over who gets support.
The move to bolster the current intervention toolkit comes only two months after the government formally abandoned the schools bill, dashing ministers’ hopes of securing further powers.
The previous trustee recruitment programme, DfE-funded but run by the New Schools Network (NSN), allowed any trust to apply for free tailored support to find business leaders to join its board.
