THE redundancies at Oxford Spires Academy and the threat of teacher posts being chopped is something that should concern people outside of East Oxford.

Spires is one of five academies in the city and there is currently a rush away from Local Education Authority control.

There are many things to commend schools becoming academies but for many months we have retained concern about the impact on the consistent management of education in the county as a whole if everyone effectively goes their own way.

The situation at Spires will be unique to that school. Pupil numbers have yet to recover because of the bad reutation it built-up during its previous incarnation and the uncertainty during the process leading to it becoming an academy.

In many ways you can’t blame parents for taking what they felt were safer options for their children rather than wait to see if the new academy would improve – which it has, greatly.

But it is now planning a 10 per cent cut in its budget and with it 16 jobs will go. What we must do is remain vigilant about how the authorities at other academies approach their finances.