What term is commonly used by sociologists to describe a school that is no longer under local authority control and whose funding is provided directly by central government?

Academies are state-funded schools in England which are directly funded by the Department for Education and independent of local authority control. The academies programme was designed to give schools more freedom from local authority control over their curriculum, finances, and staffing. They were first introduced under the Labour government in 2000 and the programme was significantly expanded under the Coalition government from 2010.