THE Government’s target of making all schools into academies is wasteful and destructive.

Schools that are no longer affiliated to local authorities are no longer publicly accountable.

Local authority staff tend to be hard- working and knowledgeable.

Their expertise has built up over time and allows them to disseminate good practice.

We will be aware of what has been consistent and good when we have lost it.

Individual schools will often fail to replace what is being deliberately destroyed. Voters will have no say in how their schools are run.

Contrary to what many people are being led to believe, academies will not get extra money.

They will get a share of the money currently being spent by local authorities on all the schools in their jurisdiction.

Providing services for hundreds of schools is much more cost-effective than each school doing it on its own.

And as the central pool of funding becomes depleted, remaining council schools will be deprived.

The first big sign of privatisation will be profit-making companies offering to make up some of the deficit.

The USA experience, on which the current British policy is based, has some 30 years of demonstrating that many academies (or ‘charter schools’) have declined and large numbers have gone out of business.

The current anatomisation programme represents another privatisation of a publicly accountable, publicly funded and owned service that has the best possible chance of delivering high standards to all people.

LARRY SANDERS (Cllr) Green Party Oxfordshire County Council SUSHILA DHALL Chair Oxfordshire Green Party