Ofsted to 'root out' failing councils in new standards drive In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said: "There are regional differences that need to be addressed if we are going to move towards a world-class system. With this regional structure, we will hold local authorities, academy chains and diocesan authorities and governance in general to account. The comments came as new figures exposed the vast gulf in standards between England's 152 local authorities. Data published following a Parliamentary question shows that in some areas fewer than one-in-five children currently leave school with decent GCSEs in the core "English Baccalaureate" subjects - English, maths, science, languages and history or geography. Last year, just 3.2 per cent of pupils gained A*-C grades in Knowsley, Merseyside, while as few as 4.9 per cent hit the target in nearby Halton. Standards were as low as 4.7 per cent in Sandwell in the West Midlands and 4.9 per cent in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. In a further 28 council areas, fewer than one-in-10 pupils gained good grades in the core subjects, it emerged. Nationally, 15.4 per cent of teenagers hit the target, rising to around a third in the best-performing areas such as Buckinghamshire and the London boroughs of Barnet, Kingston-upon-Thames and Sutton. Chris Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, and a member of the Commons education select committee, who obtained the data, said: "These figures demonstrate that there are local authorities failing some of the most disadvantaged pupils in achieving what is becoming the minimum standard for a school education. Every pupil, regardless of where they grow up, should be given the opportunity to succeed, and it is clear that this is not happening. From January, Ofsted will draft in eight regional directors covering the North East, North West, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, South East, London and the South West. Each one - reporting directly to Sir Michael - will lead a team of inspectors tasked with rooting out councils, large-scale chains of academies or faith groups suspected of failing to properly support schools. Although Ofsted does not routinely inspect these institutions, Sir Michael insisted that area-wide problems would be reported to the Education Secretary who can then order the watchdog to carry out a full probe. Sir Michael will raise further concerns over regional variations in education standards in his first Ofsted annual report, to be published later this month. Speaking to the Telegraph, he said: "We need to look behind what's happening in individual institutions to see whether there is an issue with governance... Is the governance at the local authority good enough? Is the governance by academy chains good enough? If we identify particular issues in a local area, I think it is important that we talk to the Secretary of State about it. A Department for Education spokesman said: "Sir Michael is right - standards in some local authorities are simply not good enough. We are working with them to turn round poor performance in their schools. We are identifying consistently weak schools and allowing experienced academy sponsors to take them over. The best way to turn round these schools is the strong external challenge and support from an academy sponsor. Academies have already turned around hundreds of struggling secondary schools across the country and are improving their results at twice the national average. As with maintained schools, if academies do not make the progress we expect, we take further action. This may result in a change to the sponsorship arrangements.