School Autonomy and Government Control

Introduction

The Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government elected in May 2010 has placed school autonomy at the centre of its education policy. In the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, the Department of Education (DoE, 2010: 11) argued that:

Across the world, the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt. In a school system with good quality teachers, flexibility in the curriculum and clearly established accountability measures, it makes sense to devolve as much day-to-day decision-making as possible to the front line.

Detailing the new forms of autonomy that schools in England could expect the White Paper set out several intentions. First, the removal of ‘unnecessary duties and burdens’ (DoE, 2010: 12) including reductions in the length of codes and guidance, for instance, on the National Curriculum. Second, the provision of ‘greater freedoms to reward good performance and address poor performance’ (DoE, 2010: 25) including new flexibilities on staff pay and conditions and simplified capability procedures. Third, the opportunity for all schools to ‘achieve Academy status’ (DoE, 2010: 11), including by extending existing policy on ‘transforming’ the ‘lowest performing schools’ into sponsored Academies and, perhaps most significantly, by allowing all schools to apply for the right to convert voluntarily to Academy status and hence to opt out of local authority governance.

In the two years following the White Paper, the number of Academies has increased rapidly. In August 2010 there were 203 Academies. By September 2012 there were 2306, the majority of which were secondary schools that had applied to become converter Academies. Championing these changes, Michael Gove, the Secretary for State of Education, argued school autonomy is manifestly what school leaders want. Speaking to FASNA (the Freedom and Autonomy for Schools – National Association, which grew out of the Association of Head Teachers of Grant Maintained Schools), Michael Gove (2012: 3) argued:

We know – from the subsequent embrace of academy freedoms by more than half the nation’s secondary heads – that the attractions of autonomy are now clear to leaders responsible for educating more than half the nation’s children.…[G]reater freedom and autonomy for school leaders is the route to genuine and lasting school reform.

In the context of these government statements on autonomy, we explore in this article how school leaders themselves perceive ‘school autonomy’, crucially, as it exists within the wider policy framework. We develop, first, a historical and analytical perspective on school autonomy. Second, we draw on a survey of school leaders, as well as case study data, to explore the views of school leaders on six interrelated aspects of policy: school autonomy; accountability; partnerships; external support; the local authority; and managing change. Third, we consider the implications for debates on school autonomy and central control.

Autonomy and Control

Glatter (2012) has reviewed recently, in this journal, the ‘rise and rise’ of school autonomy in English education policy. With roots in the 1960s, the rise began during the 1970s when critiques of progressive teaching methods and concerns for standards combined, under Thatcherism, with growing hostility towards the perceived excessive control of schools by local educational authorities (LEAs). These critiques reflected the wider rise of neo-liberalism and politically a New Right committed to choice, diversity and competition. The New Right drew closely on New Public Management theory to advocate the creation of markets within public services and the import of business style efficiency and entrepreneurialism (Ball, 2011).

Reflecting these influences, the Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA) developed a substantially new policy framework for schools (Whitty, 2008). Local Management of Schools gave schools control over their own budgets and daily management, devolving 85 per cent of the LEA budget to schools. Grant maintained status (GM) enabled schools, following a parental ballot in favour, to opt-out of LEA governance and receive their funding directly from central government. Open enrolment enabled schools to admit as many students as they could attract, subject to their physical capacity. This also linked funding more closely to pupil numbers, thereby placing schools in potential competition with one another. A national curriculum detailed the curriculum content schools should teach and national tests prescribed the nature of summative assessment and the publication of subsequent results. The Education Act 1992 developed a national framework for regular inspections of schools under the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).

Following ERA a range of reform has taken place, often at a persistent and rapid pace, but as Glatter (2012: 563) argues the ‘continuities have been more pronounced than the discontinuities’. The New Labour government elected in 1997 incentivized certain forms of cooperation to balance competition between schools (Higham et al., 2009), but most of the principles of ERA remained central to contemporary policy. Indeed, prime ministerial commitment to the concept of autonomous state schools has notably strengthened. As Whitty (1997: 8) details, having introduced GM status, Thatcher ‘expressed hope that most schools would eventually opt-out of their LEA to become grant maintained schools’. Major, who succeeded her as prime minister, ‘advanced the idea of introducing legislation to make all schools grant maintained’ (Whitty, 1997: 8). Blair (2005: 1), having introduced academy status, argued New Labour must ‘complete the reforms we began so that in time we have a system of independent, self-governing state schools’. Cameron, the current Prime Minister, has drawn explicitly on this legacy.

Yet, amidst this political consensus, Glatter (2012: 564) suggests there is a paradox: ‘despite the persistent and growing emphasis on autonomy most school practitioners consider themselves constrained by government requirements to an extent that is undoubtedly far greater than their forbearers in 1975’. At least three elements of ERA appear to have contributed to this paradox. First, the nature of school autonomy, which from 1988 focused on the delegation of financial and site management and aspects of deregulation, while the traditional fields of professional autonomy, including curriculum and assessment, were prescribed through the National Curriculum and tests. Second, the nature of accountability, which included from 1992 national inspections and published tests, but which subsequently expanded, to include central target setting, intervention and oversight underpinned by government analysis of pupil level data (Ozga, 2009). Third, the operation of the quasi market, which created incentives for schools to respond to competitive pressures to attract (particular types of) students and which, while varying locally, has further intensified the significance of external accountability judgments and resultant league tables.

In these ways, England has mirrored a wider international trend for enhanced school autonomy to be accompanied by new forms of state control. As Helgoy et al. (2007: 198) argue, this trend includes both strong accountability and ‘re-regulation’ where the ‘centre reclaims control, often in an indirect manner, through target setting, performance measurement and the use of quality indicators’. As this occurs, however, states have often continued to emphasize aspects of policy that focus on decentralization and autonomy. As such, autonomy can become a relatively ambiguous and subtle concept (Glatter, 2012) about which clear-cut decisions can be hard to uphold (Helgoy et al., 2007).

Autonomy and Leadership

In light of these complexities of autonomy and control, the implications for school leaders of the post-ERA policy framework are debated. Many commentators note that, as a result of the simultaneous centralization and decentralization that followed ERA, school leaders have had to manage the competing pressures of local governance, parental choice and central control, in what Simkins (1997) terms a ‘balancing act’. There have also been well-documented increases in the workload of school leaders. Earley et al. (2002), for instance, found schools post-ERA had become more complex to manage, especially in terms of budgets, human resources, professional development and administration, and this had led to longer working hours. Partly for these reasons, however, the importance afforded to leadership, in particular by government, has been seen to increase (Bush, 2008), with a premium placed on ‘effective leadership’ and knowledge about it. Certainly, for Caldwell and Spinks (1992: 22) – early proponents of ‘self-managing schools’ – ‘leadership is central to achieving success under these conditions’.

Despite this rise in the language of leadership however, and notwithstanding the substantial evidence base on effective school leadership (Day et al. 2009; Robinson et al. 2009), a growing body of research has questioned whether school leaders commonly are or can fulfil the tasks recommended by many post-ERA effectiveness studies. Fink (2010: x), for instance, argues there is a contradiction between the requirement for leaders to be visionary, creative and entrepreneurial and the policy realities they live with, which encourage leadership that is reactive, compliant and managerial. Forrester and Gunter (2009) question whether school leaders have autonomy to develop their own practices or are in fact ‘local implementers of reform’. School leaders, they argue, are not naïve readers of policy, and have their own histories, values and interests, but the combination of market forces, accountability and associated central government policy has often constrained local possibilities for thinking and action. School leaders may talk the language of vision but the space in which they can lead may be narrow and in many cases be, as Hartley (2007) argues, tactical interpretation rather than actual strategizing. Lewis and Murphy (2008: 135–6) argue much of the school leadership literature seems to:

assume that the headteacher is in charge of the school’s destiny…Yet the reality is that, in some respects, many headteachers are more like branch managers than CEOs. They are handed down expectations, targets, new initiatives and resources – all of which may or may not be manageable in their context.

Considering this balance of autonomy and control from the perspective of power, Simkins (1997) differentiates between criteria and operational power. Criteria power concerns the definition of the aims and purposes of a service (what Simkins terms the ‘why and what’). Operational power concerns decisions over how the service is to be provided and resourced (termed the ‘how’). For Simkins, while the operational power of school leaders and governors increased significantly following ERA, criteria power was drawn much more firmly into central government and away from LEAs and the teaching profession. In this way, Simkins (1997: 22) argues, the resulting domains of autonomy for school leaders ‘lie partly at the edges of the “what” – determining aspects of the character of the school…but primarily with the “how” of school management: the organization of school’.

Importantly, the extent to which school leaders draw upon this limited criteria power – or ‘autonomy around the edges’ – may vary between schools. Russell et al. (1997: 248) argue this variation depends on how leaders interpret policy – that is, whether they see a specific policy as a ‘a strait-jacket, or set of constraints which nevertheless leave considerable opportunities for the exercise of creativ[ity]’. Bush (2008: 777) suggests there is also a values dimension, where leaders may have more freedom to pursue their own values where these are consistent with those of government. If they are not, leaders acting autonomously risk censure by, in particular, Ofsted. For Gewirtz (2002: 48) the responses of school leaders to policy are influenced by a range of contextual factors, including the market position of their institution and the professional histories of key institutional players.

Across these potential influences, Hoyle and Wallace (2007) argue the English school system can be characterized by three main types of leadership response to policy. First, leaders who are committed to implementing external direction. Second, leaders who are uncommitted to external managerialism and who manifest this in minimal compliance. Third, leaders who fashion their own commitment to policy while maintaining a steadfast focus on pupil interests. The latter group, Hoyle and Wallace argue, display principled infidelity – that is, they are principled by adapting policy to the needs of students, while also creating the appearance externally that policy is being implemented with fidelity.

Researching the Views of School Leaders

In the context of these perspectives on school leadership in the post-ERA era, we have explored recently how school leaders view contemporary policy change and how they are planning to respond to it. For many observers of the English education system, contemporary policy is undergoing a period of rapid change (Baker, 2010). For instance, on school governance, there has been a rapid increase in academies, through both central intervention and most numerously voluntary conversion. On accountability, the Ofsted inspection framework, against which schools are judged, has been reformed, with plans also for examination and National Curriculum reforms (Glatter, 2012). On local strategic leadership, the role of local authorities is changing in response to both an increase in self-governing academies and significant central funding cuts (Hastings et al., 2012). On wider support for schools, a number of national agencies have been closed, with government support instead for a school improvement market and a Teaching Schools agenda (Smith, 2012). The government has argued its reforms will increase the autonomy of schools. Given the complexities that exist, however, in the balance between autonomy and control, our research has sought to understand how school leaders perceive school autonomy, as it exists within the wider policy framework.

The research, undertaken as part of a review of the school leadership landscape in 2012 (Earley et al., 2012), triangulated a number of methods. First, a survey was undertaken to capture the views of school leaders nationally. Data was collected separately from the headteacher, two senior/middle leaders and the chair of governors in each school using three surveys containing overlapping questions tailored to each respondent group. A copy of each survey was sent electronically and by post to a stratified random sample of 3692 schools in January 2012. A total of 1949 surveys were returned from 1006 schools, including from 834 headteachers, 347 governors and 769 senior/middle leaders. The data were analysed comparatively by respondent group and by school type, school phase, free school meals (FSM) eligibility and Ofsted grading. A latent class analysis examined key patterns across headteacher views on contemporary policy. ¹

Second, eight case studies were undertaken in June 2012 following interim analysis of the survey. The case study sample, selected purposefully from 265 headteacher respondents who had agreed to be involved further, included a mix of schools by phase, type, size, location, Ofsted grading and FSM eligibility. Each case study was conducted over one day and consisted of semi-structured interviews with the headteacher, chair of governors, one other senior and two middle leaders, two teachers and one member of support staff. Views and opinions regarding the changing policy landscape and its implications for the school were sought. Third, 20 semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with headteachers in June and July 2012. A similar sampling strategy and set of interview themes were employed. Fourth, three focus groups were conducted to discuss the emerging findings in July 2012. The groups consisted of between six to eight members and comprised primary headteachers in the government region of the North, secondary headteachers in the Central region and a mixed group of school leaders in the South.

Autonomy and the Current Policy Framework

Across the respondents, six themes emerged as being of particular importance. These were: school autonomy; accountability; school partnerships; external support; the changing role of the local authority (LA); and managing change. In this section we review these themes in detail. In the subsequent section, we discuss the implications for debates over autonomy and control.

School Autonomy

Survey respondents were asked about their views on school autonomy in general and about gaining academy status in practice. On school autonomy in general, three broad perspectives emerged. First, half of headteachers (52 per cent) were positive about the potential impact of their school becoming more independent and autonomous (while one-third were negative). Second, headteachers and governors held similar perspectives on the potential use by schools of greater autonomy. Half of both groups felt greater autonomy would enable their school to improve teaching and learning and to use financial resources better to support school priorities (while less than one-quarter disagreed). Third, however, despite current policy statements, over half of headteachers (56 per cent) did not think their institution would actually gain more autonomy in practice. (One-quarter thought they would.)

There were significant differences on these matters among headteachers. By school type, an overwhelming majority of academy principals (97 per cent) were positive about school autonomy in general, while among community school headteachers 50 per cent were positive but 36 per cent were negative. By school phase, a majority of secondary school headteachers (68 per cent) was positive about school autonomy in general, while among primary headteachers 49 per cent were positive but 37 per cent were negative.

On becoming an academy in practice, 10 per cent of schools had already or were currently transferring to academy status, 8 per cent were planning to become an academy and 79 per cent had no plans to do so. (These proportions were in keeping with the national proportion of schools that were academies at the time of the survey sample creation in November 2011.) A significant phase difference was again apparent. As Table 1 demonstrates, while 56 per cent of secondary schools had already become or had plans to become an academy, this was only true for 12 per cent of primary schools.

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Table 1.

Plans to become an Academy among headteachers

	Primary %	Secondary %
Already happening	5	38
Planning to	7	18
Neither	88	45
Total %	100	100
N =	409	262

Among case study and interview participants, a number of motivations emerged for not converting to academy status, particularly among primary schools. First, several headteachers reported their school was already relatively independent and had gained new autonomies over procurement as LA service provision declined. One headteacher summarized, ‘more autonomy is not a big issue for us’ (interview 4 July 2012). Second, several headteachers were not certain that academy status would secure additional resources for their school and also noted their LA provided, as one headteacher described, ‘protection if things went wrong – which they can sometimes do’ (focus group 12 July 2012). Not wanting to lose this support, they were happy for others to ‘test the water’. Third, a number of school leaders were concerned that a direct relationship with government could lead to greater oversight or intervention. As one chair of governors argued:

Autonomy is good…but centralizing could be just as dangerous. We would rather seek to protect our school community. We may not be seen to be outstanding by a centralized gaze. (Interview 4 July 2012)

School leaders that had already or were contemplating converting to academy status also discussed a number of motivations for doing so, particularly among secondary schools. First, several school leaders had converted to academy status to ‘stay the same’ (Interview 25 June 2012). They did not anticipate making changes to teaching and learning or pay and conditions and decided to become an academy in the face of external change. Second, not all schools converted to Academy status from a position of strength. Several had chosen to become an academy in partnership with another school to avoid potential forms of intervention, including sponsored academization. As one headteacher described, this was to ‘take charge of one’s own destiny’ (Interview 14 June 2012). Third, several other school leaders said they had contemplated conversion to support other schools. One primary academy principal, for example, described plans for an academy trust were:

to provide a local solution for other schools…[so they] did not get hoovered up by a local secondary, or a chain. (Focus group 12 July 2012)

Academies, and schools becoming academies, also commonly referred to the financial incentives of conversion. The Association of School and College Leaders reported from a 2011 survey of 1471 secondary schools that 72 per cent of respondents saw financial gain as a reason for pursuing academy status (Mansell, 2011). Among our case study and interview participants these incentives were clearest among two groups. First, ‘early converters’, that calculated the additional funding schools received on conversion, the Local Authority Central Spend Equivalent Grant (LACSEG), was initially on the generous side. Second, ‘net beneficiaries’ that did not regularly use LA improvement services and calculated LACSEG funding would be greater than the additional costs of academy status, such as financial management or pension contributions. A third group, of more recent converters, expressed concern about being ‘left behind’ in an LA system with declining funds. In these ways, rather than autonomy per se, a majority of schools converting to academy status expressed contextual and financial influences for doing so. For most, autonomy was not a primary driver and often appeared imprecise or uncertain.

External Support

Headteacher survey respondents were asked about the external support they accessed more widely. Headteachers were asked to indicate: which sources of external support and advice do you currently access; which three sources do you currently consider most important; which three sources do you anticipate will be the most important in 18 months’ time. The results are shown in Table 2. The LA (54 per cent), the school improvement partner (SIP, which is no longer statutory) (52 per cent) and informal support from another state school (31 per cent) were most commonly reported by headteachers to be one of their three most important current sources of support. Notably, however, it was among these three sources that headteachers anticipated a decline in support over the next 18 months, particularly the LA and SIP. Overall, the anticipated level of decline (-51 per cent points) was broadly similar to the increases in support anticipated elsewhere (+43 per cent point). The anticipated increase, however, was spread across a wide range of providers, many of which were not currently used by most schools. These included commercial organizations, Teaching Schools, National and Local Leaders of Education and the central services of a chain.

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Table 2.

Current and future sources of external support among headteachers.

	Current sources of support (tick all that apply)	Three most important sources now (tick only 3)	Three most important in 18 months (tick only 3)	Change in three most important sources
	%	%	%	% points
Local Authority	87	54	29	−25
School Improvement Partner	77	52	32	−20
Informal support from another school	56	37	31	-6
Professional Association/Union	56	23	23	0
National College for School Leadership	46	19	19	0
Ofsted	35	13	15	+2
A private consultant or small consultancy	28	19	20	+1
Diocese Board or Chain	28	13	13	0
Schools Forum	22	7	7	0
Commercial organisation	19	9	15	+6
Specialist Schools and Academies Trust	15	6	11	+5
National or Local Leader of Education	11	6	14	+8
Teaching School	8	4	13	+9
Central services of a school chain	3	2	7	+5
Specialist Leader in Education	2	1	5	+4
Other	8	7	7	0
No response	2	5	8	–
N =	833	827	826	–

Note: more than one answer could be put forward so percentages may sum to more than 100.

These trends in support were consistent with the actions headteachers reported undertaking at a whole school level. On LA services, 41 per cent of headteachers had stopped or intended to stop using some of the services provided by their LA. A majority of schools (69 per cent), however, reported they were already or planned to collaborate with other schools to fund aspects of the LA to ensure specific services were sustained. Indeed, for many case study and interview participants, external changes to the LA and its capacity to continue to deliver services, rather than the purposefully use of school autonomy in procurement, appeared to be a significant driver of change, particularly where school relations with the LA were historically strong.

Managing Policy Change

In the context of this wide range of reform, school leaders were asked finally about managing change. Over 80 per cent of each survey group reported their school had the confidence to manage current policy change. There was a range of views, however, on the aims and potential impacts of policy. While one-third of headteachers, for instance, agreed they felt able to work with current policy to support their school’s aims and values, another third disagreed. Similarly, while 20 per cent of headteachers agreed their pupils would benefit from current policy reforms, 41 per cent disagreed.

In light of these differences, a latent class analysis (LCA) was undertaken to provide an overarching analysis of how headteachers understand and plan to respond to current policy changes. By searching for key patterns across responses, LCA reveals underlying types of similar individuals (known as latent classes). Four latent classes of headteacher respondents were identified and defined thematically. Table 3 sets out the size and thematic definitions for each class.

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Table 3.

Four Latent Classes

Classes	N	%	Thematic definition
Class 1	183	22%	Positive about school autonomy and confident about actively pursuing new policy opportunities.
Class 2	286	34%	Moderately positive about school autonomy, but cautious about engaging with policy.
Class 3	264	32%	Apprehensive about school autonomy and concerned about the potential impacts of policy.
Class 4	100	12%	Neutral on school autonomy, but critical of the aims and constraints of policy and negative about the potential impacts.

The association between each class and school background characteristics was analysed, including by school phase, school type, FSM eligibility and overall Ofsted grading. No statistically significant relationship was identified between the classes and FSM bands. There was however a statistical likelihood of: academy principals and headteachers of ‘outstanding’ secondary schools being located in class 1; ‘good’ schools, in both primary and secondary phases, being located in class 2 and class 3; primary, community and voluntary controlled schools, as compared to foundation schools and academies, being located in class 4.

In class 1, headteachers were found to be positive about school autonomy in general (89 per cent), with a majority perceiving they would gain new autonomies in practice (58 per cent). They felt able to work with policy to support their school’s aims and values (76 per cent) and believed their students would benefit from current policy (69 per cent). They welcomed the changing role of the local authority (71 per cent) and were commonly planning to or already pursuing new policy opportunities, including by becoming an academy (56 per cent), a Teaching School (22 per cent) or part of Teaching School Alliance (50 per cent).

In class 2, headteachers were moderately positive about school autonomy (58 per cent). They were uncertain (78 per cent), however, about whether schools would gain more autonomy and 88 per cent did not currently plan to become an academy. They were negative about the changing role of the LA (72 per cent) and, while being moderately positive about policy on Teaching Schools, the majority did not currently plan to become a Teaching School (91 per cent) or part of a TSA (77 per cent).

In class 3, headteachers were concerned about school autonomy. Over half (56 per cent) felt greater autonomy would impact negatively on their school and the vast majority (92 per cent) did not plan to become an academy. They were concerned about the changing role of the local authority (83 per cent). Half saw incentives in policy for partnership working, although 75 per cent did not plan to join a TSA. Two-thirds saw ‘very little’ incentives in policy for school improvement (67 per cent) (rather than none at all).

In class 4, headteachers were negative about policy and critical of its aims. They were mixed in their perspectives on school autonomy, but did not plan to become an academy (92 per cent) and felt the changing role of the local authority would impact negatively on their school (86 per cent). The majority reported policy did not (‘not at all’) provide an incentive to improve pupil achievement (84 per cent) or to focus leadership on teaching and learning (83 per cent).

Discussion

In exploring how school leaders view contemporary policy change and how they are planning to respond to it, we have considered a variety of perspectives on school autonomy and how autonomy is influenced by accountability, central control and local support and collaboration. We now draw out three themes that both summarize the main areas of consensus and disagreement among school leaders and point to the wider implications. These are: the balance between autonomy and control; variations between school leaders; and the implications of reform.

First, on the balance between autonomy and control, the views of a majority of school leaders related closely to the conceptualization proposed by Simkins (1997) of criteria and operational power. Simkins argued operational power – over how the school is organized – was increased for school leaders in 1988 under ERA, while criteria power – over the aims and purposes of schools – was simultaneously centralized. In 2012, a majority of our respondents reported the continuation of these two trends.

On operational power, schools noted the further delegation of managerial power and responsibilities, many of which were at the expense of the LA, extended the trajectory of ERA. Academy status, in particular, was seen to create additional spheres for schools to manage, including financial and site management, pay and conditions and the procurement of services and support. Importantly, however, it was not only academies that reported change, but also schools in contexts of LA decline where greater operational power was being delegated in part by default rather than by intent or design of schools.

On criteria power, school leaders commonly considered the aims and purposes of schooling to remain tightly held by central government. Contemporary change was seen to include refinements to the ERA policy framework, but in a way that sustained government control including through the definition of standards, inspections and intervention. In fields where government claimed new autonomies for schools, for instance, over aspects of the curriculum and assessment, many schools reported further refinements to central control, for instance through new definitions of measures of success. Partly for these reasons, while a majority of school leaders viewed autonomy in general positively, they did not anticipate gaining further autonomy in practice.

Within this overarching perspective on the balance between autonomy and control, the second theme for discussion concerns variations in experience and practice between school leaders. Russell et al. (1997) have discussed the existence of different interpretations of policy among school leaders. Hoyle and Wallace (2005) explored different responses to policy and Ball et al. (2012) detailed the complex influences of context on policy enactment. Our data suggests two further related aspects are also of importance to differentiation among school leaders. These concern specifically ‘who has autonomy’ (Cribb and Gewirtz, 2007), where autonomy is understood as the freedom and capacity to act (Lundquist, 1987; Helgoy et al., 2007).

On the capacity to act, differentiation among our respondents related most clearly to school phase. Secondary school leaders were more likely to be positive about academy status and the changing role of the LA. Primary school leaders were commonly negative. This may relate, in part, to a longer experience of independence from the LA among secondary schools. Certainly, larger schools appeared more able to absorb additional operational power. For smaller schools, new roles and duties were more likely to be seen to have the potential to disrupt a focus on teaching and learning. Rather than phase per se, however, this also reflected wider variations in the capacity of schools to manage increased operational power. For stand-alone schools vulnerable to LA decline, additional autonomy over finance, human resources and the procurement of services could appear as unwanted burdens.

On the freedom to act, the LCA identified an association between headteacher views on policy and the most recent Ofsted judgment of their school. This may point to school quality and the effectiveness of leaders themselves (Sammons et al. 2006) as an influence on views on policy. Conversely, it may (also) point to the pressures of school performance and accountability in shaping school responses to policy (Ball et al. 2012). Our data suggests a third dimension is significant. Across a range of policies, Government has purposefully differentiated schools by Ofsted judgments (and student attainment). On this basis schools have gained differential access to academy and Teaching School status and different inspection and audit cycles. For some school leaders, this implies easier access to ‘autonomy around the edges’ of criteria power that Simkins (1997) identified. Headteachers in our latent class 1, for instance, anticipated greater autonomy in practice including through Teaching School alliances or school chains across which they could influence the character of a school alliance. For other schools, however, ‘autonomy around the edges’ appeared less accessible as Government regulates differently the freedoms schools have to act.

These perspectives on differentiation between school leader respondents point, finally, to two wider implications of the current reform agenda. The first concerns a hierarchical segmentation among schools. Brian Lightman (2011), the general secretary of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, has talked recently of ‘confident’ and ‘constrained’ schools. Confident schools, he argues, with a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ recent Ofsted report and student attainment above the national average, can choose to disregard aspects of policy and develop a long term vision of leadership and learning. Conversely, constrained schools, close to government floor targets and at risk of an Ofsted visit, are reactive to policy and unable to relax about accountability.

Our data partly bear out this differentiation, but also suggest it misses out a majority of schools that are neither strongly confident nor strongly constrained. The LCA situated two-thirds of respondents in classes 2 and 3. These schools might best be described respectively, in the language of Lightman, as ‘cautious’ and ‘concerned’. While a simplified typology, summarized as confident, cautious, concerned and constrained, the latent classes point to how a combination of increasing operational power, declining support from LAs and differential regulation of schools has the potential to intensify local hierarchies that exist between many schools (Waslander et al., 2010).

These potential fault lines point, second, to the importance of external support. With the anticipated decline of many LA functions, government argues schools will gain support from a mixed economy. On the one hand, Teaching Schools, academy chains, NLEs and other aspects of the so-called self-improving system. On the other hand, schools, LAs and commercial organizations selling services within a school improvement market. Our data reflected these changes, with schools anticipating a greater diversity of support but also movement away from known and well-used sources. A concern for school leaders focused on replacing an old system, in which the quality of support varied by LA postcodes, with a new system where variations will stem from a complex amalgam, including: the moral purpose of ‘confident’ schools; the capacity and willingness of schools most in need of support to engage in collaboration and procurement; the motives of for-profit providers; the differing evolutions of LAs. While some school leaders welcomed access to a wider pool of services, for most it was unclear whether this patchwork of provision would provide appropriate and equitable support.

Conclusion

In this article we have considered school leaders’ views on school autonomy, as it exists within the wider policy framework. School leaders commonly anticipated greater power over aspects of school management but not over the aims and purposes of schooling. Considerable variation was also found in school leaders’ perspectives on their freedom and capacity to act. This related to number of factors but most importantly to school phase, size and inspection judgment. On capacity, among smaller and many primary schools there was considerable concern that additional managerial powers and duties would both disrupt a leadership focus on learning and come hand-in-hand with a lack of support. On freedom to act, government was seen to retain tight control over schools, but also to be differentiating control by inspection judgments and national test results. Summarizing the resulting differentiated autonomy for schools, we proposed a typology of confident, cautious, concerned and constrained schools. A key implication is that increasing operational power for schools, changing external support and differentiated school autonomy have the potential to intensify existing local hierarchies between schools.