OXFORDSHIRE County Council believes it should no longer be running schools.

For the first time the authority has said it wants all schools to become academies, which are state-funded but independently run.

Tomorrow the council cabinet is recommended to agree an academies policy which states: “The county council wishes to support all schools to become academies.”

Council education cabinet member Melinda Tilley said the wording of the policy was deliberately blunt but simply echoed the Government’s direction.

She said: “It is the schools’ choice, not the local authority’s call.

“We are only on the tip of it now – some counties are already 80 per cent academies.

“Our message from the Department for Education is that all schools will eventually convert and we would rather be on the front foot with our help rather than the drag ends.”

The council has set aside £600,000 to support the academies programme which would cover “staff costs and any other associated costs”.

It is recommending the best schools team up with lower-performing schools to drive up standards.

Places where this is already happening include at the outstanding rated The Cherwell School, which has already converted to academy status, and is likely to become the sponsor for Cutteslowe Primary School, both in Oxford.

And Headington-based Cheney School, which has recently decided to convert, is investigating the possibility of working more closely with Bayards Hill Primary School in Barton.

Schools are also encouraged to collaborate together in multi-academy trusts, particularly at primary level, or with umbrella trusts.

But the county council policy said individual conversions would not be encouraged unless joining up with other schools in umbrella arrangements.

The picture changes day by day, but according to the council’s most recent figures, 47 Oxfordshire schools had either converted or were in the process of doing so.

Meanwhile, Didcot Girls’ School headteacher Rachael Warwick said she embraced the powers to be given the school when it becomes an academy on August 1.

She said: “The real motivation is the opportunity it will create for teachers to work more closely with other schools.”

But Susie Bagnall, headteacher at St Ebbe’s Church of England Primary School, Oxford, said: “We don’t feel there are any clear benefits for our school to become an academy.”

Primaries are not big enough to arrange services like human resources and finance, she said.

“At the moment, the local authority are still able to provide these things to a high quality that we don’t find is a problem,” Ms Bagnall said.