Chief architect of the academies programme was Lord Adonis

The academies programme was set up by Tony Blair’s government in 2000.

Chief architect of the policy was Andrew Adonis (now Lord Adonis), a former Labour minister who was the Prime Minister’s education advisor. Lord Adonis father comes from Limassol.

An academy is a school which is independent of local authority control but is publicly funded (from central government) with some private sponsorship.

Although the programme was founded by a Labour government it has been accelerated rapidly by the Coalition since it came to power in 2010.

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has said he wants all secondary schools to be academies by 2014.