Bradford councillors have been warned by a panel of experts that city academies will not deliver major improvements and could threaten community cohesion.

Teaching union leaders and an university academic spoke out against the creation of the privately-sponsored independently-run schools in Bradford, at a public hearing yesterday.

A Bradford Council scrutiny meeting is carrying out an investigation after the Government revealed it plans to create several new city academies in the district to replace struggling schools.

City Academies are taken out of council control and run by a private sponsor who provides £2 million for a new building. They are given the freedom to develop their own ethos, curriculum and admissions policy.

The Government wants to create 200 across the country by 2010 to transform inner city education.

But Edinburgh University lecturer Terry Wrigley said that the first 11 academies to be opened had failed to deliver major improvements.

According to him the number of pupils achieving five A* to C GCSE grades including English and Maths has only increased from 14.3 per cent before the academies were created in 2002 to 14.9 per cent last year.

He said: "This works out at improving the performance of around three pupils across the academies, that would make this the most expensive school improvement programme in the galaxy."

Christine Blower, the Deputy General Secretary of the NUT, told members of Bradford Council's Young People and Education Improvement Committee that there was no kink between successful schools and an external sponsor. And the union's assistant general secretary John Bangs said that creating academies, which were totally independent, could undermine community cohesion within an education authority.

Stuart Herdson, senior vice-president and Bradford branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, and Jerry Bartlett, deputy general secretary of the NASUWT, also addressed the meeting.

Mr Herdson said Bradford's first academy Dixons admitted pupils of all abilities. Mr Herdson said: "Remember, with city academies the Council has no control over their finances, no control over their curriculum, no control over staffing, no check on quality of delivery, no control over the design of the buildings, little input on the governing body, little control over admissions policy, yet these schools are funded for the most part and run with tax payers money. To hand over Bradford schools to the likes Lord Bhatia and the British Edu Trust Foundation, made up of like minded business leaders of whom we know very little, would be a gross abdication of responsibility on behalf of the Council."

Dixons in West Bowling transferred to city academy status last September, having been a successful city technology college.

Bradford Cathedral Community College in East Bowling is set to close to make way for Bradford Academy in 2007. And now there are plans to turn Rhodesway School into a new city academy by 2008.

The decision sparked outrage last week because it was announced before councillors or teachers at the school in Allerton had been informed.

Paul Litchfield, the Department for Education and Skills project leader for academies in Bradford, is set to be asked for an explanation of the situation from councillors at a Council meeting next week.

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