Shrinking council support has prompted primary schools to band together and launch academy trusts, as experts warn local authorities are reaching a 鈥渢ipping point鈥. Prospective chains with as many as 13 schools have cited 鈥渄iminishing鈥 town hall help as a factor in their moves to academise, Schools Week analysis has found. A consultant who works on conversions also said maintained schools had opted to shop around for support from existing trusts 鈥 rather than local authorities 鈥 leaving them feeling like academies in all but name. Jeff Marshall added many maintained schools had been left wondering 鈥渨hat鈥檚 the point of being with a local authority if they don鈥檛 offer the support we need?鈥 鈥淭he reason up and down the country for most of the MAT applications is because support from local authorities has diminished over the years.鈥 Marshall is working on the launch of six-school chain The Link Education Trust in Salford, which was given the green light by the Department for Education last month. He said the primaries decided to make the switch because they were already 鈥渇inding their own school improvement support outside their authority鈥. Would-be trusts cite ‘diminishing’ services In consultation documents sent to parents, the 13 schools looking to launch The Leaf Trust in South Gloucestershire noted the . Meanwhile, the Collective Learning Partnership, which consists of six primaries in Bury, told parents it felt it needed to academise partly because of the Between 22 per cent and 37.5 per cent of schools in Salford, South Gloucestershire and Bury are academies. The figure stands at 48 per cent nationwide. Marshall said council officials had told him it was 鈥済ame over鈥 once two-fifths of a district鈥檚 schools convert. The 鈥渁uthority then changes its relationship with institutions to one of a client-service provider鈥. Sir David Carter Former national schools commissioner Sir David Carter believes councils across the country have reached a 鈥渢ipping point鈥. 鈥淭here was a sense following the government鈥檚 release of the schools white paper last March that local authorities were saying to schools 鈥榳e just don鈥檛 have the staff capacity to support school improvement beyond our statutory responsibilities鈥. 鈥淐ertainly, some schools have been thinking about joining a strong trust because of this and that is a sensible and proactive way to respond to this.鈥 Responding to the claims made by The Leaf Trust, a South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson insisted 鈥渨e have not made any significant changes to our capacity to support schools in recent years鈥. 鈥淲e are working closely with all schools: primary and secondary; urban and rural; large and small, to understand their preference to convert to academy or remain LA-maintained. We do not have concerns about the ability of any particular sort of school to be able to access the support required.鈥 The spokesperson also said the authority does 鈥渘ot receive any financial assistance from the DfE to create the capacity required鈥 to fulfil its legal duty to enable conversion. Schools buy support from existing trusts Marshall added that councils have lost large numbers of staff 鈥渢hrough no fault of their own鈥, leaving maintained schools buying support in from existing trusts. For instance, in Stourbridge, Fairhaven Primary has been working with St Bartholomew鈥檚 CE Multi-Academy Trust 鈥渙n school improvement鈥. It is expected to join the MAT in the summer. It is understood six schools in the north-west forked out 拢80,000 between them for council HR advice. But they expect to pay half the price from an alternative provider. Marshall added that the cost of service-level agreements, which detail the services councils provide to schools, had 鈥済one up while the quality has gone down鈥. 鈥淚鈥檓 working with a five-school group in the Midlands, who are in the early stages of academisation. They鈥檙e saying 鈥榳e鈥檝e been finding our own SLAs for years because the authority just don鈥檛 have the facilities to support us鈥.鈥 The 拢50 million-a-year government grant for local authority school improvement activities was scrapped this year, with councils expected to top-slice school budgets instead to fund such work. Schools Week also revealed in 2019 how councils were raiding school budgets to the tune of 10s of millions of pounds to make up for the scrapping of the education services grant, which was slashed in 2017. Bury and Salford Councils were approached for comment.