To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the recommendation for the establishment of a single authority for all schools at point 8.50 in the Independent Review of Education.

As reported in the Independent Review of Education, the current school management arrangements are complex and cumbersome and I support the panel’s recommendation that they need to be reformed. The Report highlighted the suboptimal support for controlled schools and this is a key priority that I wish to address.

A controlled schools Taskforce has recently been established with the aim to improve effectiveness in the short-term and plan for the creation of a managing authority for controlled schools. This does not preclude work to better support other sectors in future and, under any model, I expect that managing authorities should work together to maximise consistency.