At the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in 2010 which Ruth attended, the party raised a number of concerns about the expansion of academies, including the assertion that local education authorities should retain strategic oversight for the provision of school places funded by public money. 
 
The party called on the government to ensure that schools remaining within the Local Authority family are not financially penalised by the creation of academies.
 
What Liberal Democrats have campaigned on is:

•  for all schools to be given the freedoms that academies enjoy
• wider freedom for headteachers
• that academies should be required to pay the full cost including administrative overheads for any services they buy back from the Local Authority 
• that academies should have only observer status on the Schools Forum as they have placed themselves outside the democratic system for the funding of education.
   
  In particular, the Lib Dem Manifesto stated we would: “Introduce an Education Freedom Act banning politicians from getting involved in the day-to-day running of schools.”  The schools white paper addressed many of our concerns, removing much of the centralised and stifling bureaucracy imposed by Labour. Every school will have more autonomy, but the white paper also includes provision for local authorities’ strategic oversight.
   
  The manifesto also called for: “Reform the existing rigid national pay and conditions rules to give schools and colleges more freedom” . The white paper announced that we would give schools greater flexibility and freedom to set pay.
   

The Liberal Democrats are an independent, democratic party and it is clear that party policy will sometimes differ from coalition policy. Our members respect that in a Coalition government some of the policies that go forward will be Conservative ones and some will be Liberal Democrat ones. Compromise is inevitable and healthy.
 
As well as free schools and academies the Government is introducing a Pupil Premium to give extra funding to schools taking the poorest pupils, a key Lib Dem manifesto commitment. This will be worth £2.5bn a year by the end of the Parliament and will make an enormous difference not only to disadvantaged children but all pupils.
 
Michael Gove speech
 
In his speech on Thursday 16 June, Michael Gove announced that the weakest 200 primary schools would become academies in 2012/13.
 
This announcement needs to be put in context. For the first time, the Coalition has put in place a minimum standard by which primary school achievement can be judged – 60% of pupils reaching a basic level of English and Maths at 11, and where children make below average progress between seven and 11. Currently, 1,400 primaries fall below that standard. Of those, 200 have been persistently below that standard for five years and 120 of those for more than 10 years.
 
The bottom 200 primaries have been failing for a significant amount of time and attempts to turn them around have clearly failed. It is in these circumstances that the decision has been made to turn them into academies. It is hoped that by turning these schools into academies, it may succeed where other measures have failed.