In April 2006, the education secretary announced that underperforming schools were to be under watch after the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) revealed that an estimated one in every four schools in England is underperforming.

Local authorities would have the power to suspend school funds and send in personnel to turn the school around. Prior to this action, councils were only allowed intervention rights if a school was badly mismanaged or had consistently low exam results.

The new action targets both schools with high and low exam results as they contend this may not be an indicator of the underlying mismanagement.

Thousands of apparently successful schools will face the threat of being taken over by their local authorities under powers unveiled by Ruth Kelly, Education Secretary. Schools that are just sliding by or failing to stretch pupils to their potential will be given just 15 days to make improvements detailed in written warning notices issued by councils. Failure to respond will trigger intervention by town hall hit squads with powers to take control of a school's budget and appoint new governors.

Schools will be able to appeal to Ofsted if they disagree with the council's assessment. The guidance states that an appeal may trigger an inspection to determine whether the council's action is appropriate.

Ms. Kelly intends to rewrite the definition of what constitutes poor performance to include thousands of 'coasting' schools, where data suggests that children should be doing better even if their exam results are good in comparison with other local schools. Ofsted has declared that one in four schools is "coasting". A school where the absolute level of attainment is apparently satisfactory may nonetheless be caught by the definition if pupil performance is persistently below levels expected when pupils' prior attainment and the school's context is taken into account. This provision is specifically designed so authorities can tackle underperforming schools, as well as those with outright low standards."

Furthermore, due to the rise in violence of pupils, the compensation payouts to teachers rose to £7.6m in 2005, which is an increase of £850,000 year over year. Although assaults on teachers over the past six years have more than doubled, they are asked to keep those attacks quiet to avoid negative press for the schools they serve. This situation will also be linked to the school monitoring.

John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called the guidance disturbing. "This is very far from the Prime Minister's vision of schools being more independent from local authorities."