THE government has rejected a proposed amendment to an education bill proposed by Bishop Jonathan.

The bishop suggested in a late-night debate in the House of Lords that there should be church inspections of multi-academy trusts where they contain schools with a religious designation.

This would bring multi-academy trusts in line with individual church schools, which are inspected as part of the Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools (SIAMS) framework. This allows an inspection of their ethos, RE and collective worship.

Bishop Jonathan explained that more than 42 per cent of Church of England schools are academies, amounting to more than 20 per cent of all academies in England. Including Roman Catholic academies and those with other religious foundations brought the number to around a third of the entire academy estate.

He said: “All these academies will fall under the proposed new requirement for the inspection of multi-academy trusts. However, at present there is no provision for the specialist denominational inspection of those multi-academy trusts that have direct responsibility for the leadership and governance of academies with a religious foundation.

“There is no provision within the Bill as drafted to deliver expert, individual, school-based evaluation and accountability for multi-academy trusts containing schools of a religious character and foundation. This is an omission or oversight with potential to affect adversely the quality of accountability and inspection for approximately a third of the academy estate.

“My amendment addresses this omission by seeking to mirror current good practice for multi-academy trusts containing schools with a religious foundation.

“Led by the inspectorates of religious bodies such as the Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools, inspections would combine, as they do most effectively today, the application of expert religious knowledge with inspection expertise to ensure that the accountability regime for the proprietors of academies includes all significant elements of the life, leadership and governance of schools in their purview.”

However, Baroness Smith of Malvern, the Minister of State for Skills, responded by suggesting that the current framework for inspecting denominational education and worship is already a complex mixture of statutory and non-statutory provisions. She declined to accept the amendment.

She said: “Moving directly to a statutory framework for academy trusts at this stage risks adding further complexity to that element of the inspection. It is therefore important that we take the time necessary to develop any future approach carefully so that trust-level inspection of denominational matters aligns with existing arrangements of this nature for individual settings, and functions coherently with the wider inspection system.

“Officials have had discussions with officers from the Catholic Education Service and the Church of England Education Office. We are committed to working with the churches and other faiths to developing a non-statutory framework as an initial and constructive step, ahead of considering opportunities for potential legislation in the future. That work will include pilots, which have been developed with faith bodies and trusts to pilot inspection of collective worship and denominational education trusts with faith schools.”