Leora Cruddas CBE, Chief Executive, CST
In February 2019, the Civic University Commission launched its final report, Truly Civic: Strengthening the connection between universities and their places. The report sets out how universities have the capability, opportunity and responsibility to be civic partners and further support the places where they are based to solve some of their most pressing and major problems.
The late Lord Kerslake, then Chair of the Civic University Commission said: "The deep economic and social changes that are happening in Britain today have, alongside Brexit, made the civic role of universities even more vital to the places they are located in.”
CST gave evidence at the Commission. I believe school trusts are also well set up to play this role. CST first made the case for school trusts as a new form of civic structure in January 2020. Since then, we have had a global pandemic followed by a period of significant geo-political tensions and economic challenges. This has had an enormous detrimental impact on some of our children and communities.
This year (2024), we almost certainly face a general election. It is likely that education policy will become fiercely contested and timelines foreshortened to the next political cycle. We live in a democracy, and it is important that we engage with parliamentarians and policy. Education policy and health policy is inextricably linked to government policy if only because of public funding. But we also need to think in terms that are longer than the short-termism of political cycles. This is because we are building public institutions.
Centennials
I recently read Alex Hill’s insightful book, Centennials – the 12 habits of great, enduring organisations (2023, Cornerstone Press). Hill offers a fascinating set of insights into organisations that have lasted a hundred years or more. He argues that their strategies for maintaining excellence and success frequently fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
A key premise of the book is ‘stable core, disruptive edge.’ The trust sector grew from a disruptive mindset and a key part of our success has been the ability to innovate. Now that more than 50% of pupils in England are educated in school trusts, it is perhaps easy (and desirable) to argue that trusts are part of the establishment. We are. We should hold on to this. And we should make the powerful, evidence-informed, values-driven case for all schools to be part of a strong and sustainable group working together in deep and purposeful collaboration in a single legal entity, with strong governance.
But, but, but…There is something unsettling in this. Yes, we want a stable core. Yes, we are part of the establishment, but we also need to continue to innovate. We need a disruptive edge.
Hill quotes Paul Thompson, the vice-chancellor of the Royal College of Art who says that the college is ‘radically traditional’:
"Out of this balance emerges the energy that propels them forward and a stability that ensures that no-one loses sight of what each centennial is there to achieve or forgets what has led to success in the past.” (p. xv)
An interesting feature of Hill’s disruptive edge is the habit of ‘get better, not bigger.’ This is controversial perhaps in our sector. Growth for most trusts is a priority. Hill says that growth for centennials is something to be cautious about: "They worry that the pursuit of growth at all costs can all too easily be a distraction from core goals and values. Excellence can change the world. Growth on its own won’t.” (p. 132)
Building trust
In our work on civic and system leadership, we have consistently made the case for trust leaders to work with other civic leaders for the wider common good and for trust leaders to act on the system, rather than just in it.
Hill says:
"Centennials look at the whole of society, and every possibility, and ask themselves: ‘How can we shape how society thinks, and behaves, not only today, but for the next twenty to thirty years?’” (p. 7). He cites Catherine Mallyon, the executive director of the Royal Shakespeare Company: "If you don’t positively shape society then, at some point, it will stop supporting you. At some point, it will stop wanting to work with you.” (pp.7-8)
We know that trust and confidence in public institutions is a concern right now. We see this in our schools through the problems with pupil attendance, behaviour and the exponential rise in parental complaints.
We also know that the legitimacy of public institutions is crucial for building peaceful and inclusive societies. The United Nations says: "Trust is integral to the functioning of any society. Trust in each other, in our public institutions and in our leaders are all essential ingredients for social and economic progress, allowing people to cooperate with and express solidarity for one another. It allows public bodies to plan and execute policies and deliver services.”
So, it is essential that as public leaders, we work with our parents and communities to repair the social contract and to rebuild trust in schools as public institutions.
Building back
The recent PISA (2022) England Report gave us the stark and terrible finding that one in ten UK pupils reported that they did not eat at least once a week because there is not enough money to buy food. And we have seen recently from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, Destitution in the UK 2023, that there are now more than one million children in the UK living in destitution—that is, living without proper shelter or without enough food.
And in December, UNICEF published a report which shows that child income poverty rates in the UK are the highest among the world's richest countries, and that we rank bottom of the table for changes in those rates in the past decade (see figure 14, p. 27).
To be clear, we do not think that public institutions, even working together in civic partnership, can solve the complex problem of poverty. This is why we are calling on all political parties to ensure that urgent action is now taken across government to eradicate child poverty.
It is worth returning to Lord Kerslake’s prescient words from 2019. The situation he described then is even more complex now with greater implications for our public services and our public institutions. The deep economic and social changes that are happening in Britain today have made the civic role of public institutions even more vital - not just to the places they are located in, but in leading a response to the renewal of our communities and of civic life.
This requires something different of public leaders - it requires us to think in longer term horizons and to build school trusts as public institutions.
This is how we will build the resilience of our school system. It is how we will build back.
You can register for updates for our next annual conference on the theme of building which will take place on 7 and 8 November 2024 at the ICC in Birmingham. Bookings will open later this term.
