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There is little difference between a group of colleges and a local authority, says Fiona Millar in addition to a lack of accountability

Autonomy, liberation, transfer of funds to the front and the banishment of bureaucracy - The recent spate of government announcements to colleges and independent schools was accompanied by the trumpeting of the now familiar themes.

Issued a few weeks before Michael Gove's latest call to arms, made by Sir Bruce Liddington, Schools Commissioner in the last Labour government, now CEO of the Academy chain E-ACT and one of the makers in the world of the academy, made a speech in which he be carried out his vision for a "world-class education system".

The words freedom and empowerment didn 't seem much. Instead, the focus was on government grants to nonprofit foundations running chains of schools in networks with centralized back-office services and the possibility of making a profit in the long run. In a particularly revealing passage Liddington presented his organization 's five-year business plan. From a low base - 11 academies in 2010 - the group has big ambitions. By 2015 he hopes to 40 colleges, 21 independent schools and 65 "converter" academies. Elsewhere he has to speculate as to e-ACT may one day run more than 250 schools registered.

The vision of an education system that bloom in the thousands of autonomous institutions, nourished by the total control over their budget, superficially at least, was the Holy Grail for politicians on the right side for almost 20 years.

But scratch the surface and an alternative vision of the future is, one in which a patchwork of government-funded chains, each running with a strong brand, thousands of schools, top-slicing sales in the same way that local authorities have done years and thus protected from the public gaze, the outgoing head of Ofsted, Christine Gilbert, recently urged ministers to bring them under inspection.

How you walk into the atrium of the King Solomon Academy, a new 3-18 school in North London, run by the education charity Ark Schools, the most notable feature is a large overhead banner that proclaims: "Climbing the Mountain University" .

The Ark chain has high expectations for the schools it has been slowly acquiring Labour 's Academy Program was introduced more than a decade ago. Its secondaries are expected to be 80% five A *- C grades including English and mathematics achieve in five years. Last year there was a 12% increase in the number of pupils achieving this benchmark.

Lucy Heller, Managing Director of Ark and Venessa Willms, Principal of King Solomon, the primary phase are clear. Academy status has brought precious freedoms, especially the ability to extend the school day in areas of high deprivation. But it is the ark brand than individual autonomy of the school as a strong entrepreneurial vision, strong relationships between headquarters and schools, and very strict quality control from the center administers.

His "six pillars" - high expectations, good manners, depth before breadth, small schools, excellent teaching and longer school days - are carefully introduced from the heart of the Ark-operation. Each school receives a trimester or bi-trimester monitoring visit by one of two directors of education, is Sir Michael Wilshaw also headmaster of Bourne Moss Academy in Hackney, East London from where. The directors then direct feed to the governing body (most of whom are appointed by the trust), often present without the school administration.

The Ark Trust clawed back 4.5% of the schools budget for central services such as HR, purchasing, finance, school improvement and research in education. Heller describes the approach as one of the Ark "Stewardship" monitor instead. "Each school has its own very distinctive character but all share a vision and ethos ark. We see our school as a common social good for which we currently have responsibility. I am glad that academy recognize their responsibility for the chains results. It has to be something apart from Ofsted, standing between schools and open error \. "

A similar approach is also followed by other major academy groups, although the Reverend Steve Chalke of Oasis Community Learning, which also holds 4.5% of the schools 'funding of central services, dislikes the term "chain".

"It isn 'ta word we would use the \," he explains. "We prefer to see ourselves as a family of academies. Our goal is to provide opportunities for young people who don 't currently have and we believe we do better if we belong to a family. We started enter a school, but realized that we needed to bring more value by adding more schools. If you build a cluster, the free transfer move of know-how, cost, procurement and teachers can order. Each school is better than would be it was his own. "

So what's the difference between an Academy-chain and a local authority? Heller suggests that many municipalities are too big for the relationship and the monitoring is to enable the ark, and may lack high enough expectations, although they describe hearing the Ark Model I was wondering if there were many brave Councils enough to exercise such extensive influence at a time when she publicly demonized as for bureaucratic control.

The amount retained by the school councils budgets vary enormously. Some take only 3%, others up to 10%, and some new ways found to bring dramatic improvement in the school. The Learning Trust, a social enterprise, education is seen running on behalf of Hackney Council for 10 years, GCSE results in a shoot once demonized London Authority, the schools are back the trust of many local parents.

Alan Wood, director of the Children 's Services in Hackney, says: \ can "work together, a partnership of community, parents and schools to a variety of independent schools, including academies, embrace and even higher standards for children and youth in our communities \. "

Moreover, the moral purpose of chains such as Oasis and Ark articulated risk risk when entering other more sober and business groups that field. The accounts of the larger chains, published on the Charity Commission website, show how much money is at stake, and how little transparency there is on the money flow between the government parties trust and the schools, many of which households are not publicly accessible.

Both Oasis and Ark saw its central budget increase of around ? 3 million in 2006 to ? 117 million and € 70 and in 2010, as they acquired more schools. The income of the E-ACT from € 15.5 million to nearly EUR 60 million in 2009-2010 increased. And the United Learning Trust, which the Labour government had ordered was not ready to take on more academies, saw their income rise from € 60 to € 138 million between 2006 and 2010.

No more than an efficient local authority could devolve - - that leaves a hefty sum in the hands of the trust, with little detail about how the central funds are spent, even if 95% of the central grant to the schools passport. Eyebrows were raised when it turned out that Liddington 's own salary was ? 154,000 in 2009 to ? 280,000 (presumably more than ? 300,000 in pensions and bonuses included) have risen in the last year. The E-ACT-General now earns more for the execution of 11 schools as many board members for advice, the monitoring of multi-billion pound budget to get, and almost twice his paymasters, the education minister, Michael Gove. The accounts of the E-ACT, which is 5% of schools 'budgets also show that trustees paid for consultancy work and is now setting up a charitable arm, E-ACT Enterprises, to sell to services back to school, although profits are invested back into the charitable arm. Even without the potential to make a profit, the financial returns can be significant to those in the school chains.

For some discrete Department for Education's mediation of transactions between the academies, schools and free chains, the clearest sign yet of a long-term objective of enabling non-profit schools. Martin Johnson, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "We 've argued for some time that many colleges would struggle to go it alone and would lead to a new friend we turn also predicted a trend for these are swallowed. Friends of large organizations, and ultimately by the private sector. A relaxation of the prohibition of profit is sure to follow. "

According to a spokesman for the DfE, there are "no limit" to the number of schools that can be taken on a chain if it is perceived to make a good job. "The Secretary would also say it is up to the chain, how they manage their funds and how much they keep for the central deployment," he adds.