High Court judge rejects bid to halt academy conversion

A High Court judge has rejected a parent’s bid to halt the Education Secretary’s decision to convert a primary school in London into an academy.

Michael Gove had sought to use his powers of intervention after Downhills Primary School in Haringey was put in special measures in February following a critical Ofsted report.

In June the Department for Education confirmed that the school would become a sponsored academy run by the Harris Foundation, an educational charity that already runs a number of academies.

However, a judicial review action was launched last month by law firm Hickman and Rose on behalf of parent Susan Moyse.

The claimant put forward four grounds of challenge:

• A failure to fulfil the requirement that, prior to conversion, there is a consultation under section 5 of the Academies Act 2010. This was because the governing body which conducted the consultation, the Interim Executive Board, had not reached its own decision on whether conversion should take place, deferring instead to the Secretary of State;
• The consultation process had been unfair because parents had not been given an opportunity to formulate a concrete proposal for how a restored normally constituted governing body would run the school;
• The Education Secretary had breached the requirement in section 9 of the Education Act 1996. This says that regard should be had to the general principle that pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents, so far as that is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure. The claimant said a survey of 94% of stakeholders said they did not want the school to convert; and
• There had been an unlawful failure to ask the right question. The decision by the Education Secretary had been based on the past and current performance of Downhills and the respective track records of the Harris Federation and the local authority, but Gove had failed to consider how a fresh normally constituted governing body could conduct the school.

However, following an expedited hearing Mr Justice Parker in the High Court has now refused permission to apply for judicial review. The judge concluded that the claimant’s grounds were unarguable.

Clive Sheldon QC and Patrick Halliday of 11KBW were counsel for the Secretary of State. Rachel Kamm, also of 11KBW, represented the Interim Executive Board, an interested party.

Philip Hoult