Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 21st January 2025
(1 day, 14 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 January 2025 - (21 Jan 2025)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public and proceedings are being broadcast. Today, we will consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication, and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence sessions. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take these matters formally, without debate. I will first call the Minister to move the programme motion standing in her name, which was discussed yesterday by the Programming Sub-Committee for the Bill. Date Time Witness Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 10.00 am Coram; Centre for Young Lives Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 10.30 am Association of Directors of Children’s Services; Local Government Association Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 11.00 am Association of School and College Leaders; National Association of Head Teachers Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 11.25 am Cafcass Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 2.20 pm The Children’s Commissioner for England Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 2.40 pm Ofsted Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 3.15 pm The Children’s Society; Children’s Charities Coalition; Become Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 3.45 pm Church of England; Catholic Education Service Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 4.20 pm United Learning; Harris Federation; Dixons Academies Trust Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 4.55 pm Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association; Northern Education Trust; Confederation of School Trusts Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 5.10 pm Axiom Maths Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 5.25 pm Child Poverty Action Group Tuesday 21 January Until no later than 5.45 pm Department for Education
Ordered,
That—
1. the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 21 January) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 21 January;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 23 January;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 28 January;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 30 January;
(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 4 February;
(f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 6 February;
(g) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 11 February;
2. the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
3. proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 29; Schedule 1; Clauses 30 to 54; Schedule 2; Clauses 55 to 60; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
4. the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 11 February.—(Catherine McKinnell.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication. —(Catherine McKinnell.)
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Catherine McKinnell.)
The Committee deliberated in private.
Examination of Witnesses
Dr Carol Homden and Anne Longfield gave evidence.
The Chair
We are now sitting in public again and the proceedings are being broadcast. Do any Members wish to make a declaration of interests?
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
For the record, NAHT—National Association of Head Teachers—was my previous employer, before I came to this place.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
For the record, I am still a Lancashire county councillor. The council has responsibility for children’s services.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
Currently, I am a member of a union and was a workplace representative for a school before being elected.
The Chair
If any interests are particularly relevant to a Member’s question or speech, they should declare them again at the appropriate time.
We will now hear oral evidence from Dr Carol Homden, chief executive officer for Coram, and Anne Longfield, executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives. Will you briefly introduce yourselves and say a word or two about your work before we start any questioning?
Anne Longfield: My name is Anne Longfield. I am a newly appointed Labour peer—I should probably declare that. I have campaigned on children’s issues for many decades, as several around this table will know. Many of the measures in the Bill are things that I have actively advocated for during the past 15 years-plus—for some of them, such as breakfast clubs, double the amount of time, and for the register, half that amount of time. Most of my work and interests are around early intervention, supporting the most vulnerable children and helping children and their families to thrive.
Dr Homden: Good morning; I am Carol Homden. I am the group chief executive of Coram, which is the first and longest-continuing children’s charity, and today a group of specialist organisations dedicated to the legal and practical support of the rights and welfare of children. The evidence that I shall present to you is based on our direct work in legal advice and advocacy services, care planning, placement and personal social and health education across 2,800 schools, as well as the extensive research conducted with young people by the Coram Institute for Children.
Broadly, Coram welcomes the provisions of the Bill, but calls for specific extension and amendments, to increase focus on the timescales and needs of our youngest children, and to strengthen its responsiveness to the priorities of children and young people themselves for improved wellbeing support, and particularly access to advocacy; and overall, believes that the outcomes for children should be our central purpose rather than preferences for outcomes for the system.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Q
Dr Homden: Particularly, we are concerned that some of the very sensible provisions in the Bill, such as breakfast clubs, are not extended to infants in the early years. There are a number of areas where early years extension would be appropriate, so while we recognise that this is a Bill on children’s wellbeing and schools, none the less the children’s wellbeing elements for the youngest children are particularly important—especially the opportunities for children to receive free meals, and also for the extension of admissions priority. The provisions for the extension of recognition of quality for teaching staff could and should be extended to early years workforce issues.
The second key area is the fact that there are no provisions in relation to children’s access to advocacy—particularly 16 and 17-year-olds, those who are excluded from school, and those who face other forms of crisis in, for example, unregulated accommodation. While others will call for broader extensions of advocacy, these are the focus areas that we would recommend and commend to you as being the most effective ways to ensure that young people have the information they need to exercise decision making, and that they can hold the system to account.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dr Homden: That is indeed an extremely valid point. Many local authorities will offer family group decision making support prior to pre-proceedings, and it is important that the new duty introduced does not take away earlier opportunities to extend the involvement of the family network when children’s services are involved. Timescales are indeed acknowledged to be of critical importance in family law, and statutory guidance should make it clear that nothing in the family group decision making requirement, or the provisions of the Bill, should slow down processes, or delay solutions for babies and children.
Overall, we support the promotion of the family first decision-making approach, but point out that while we understand that it is the preference not to specify a particular model, the evidence from the randomised control trial that Coram conducted is in relation to family group conferencing, and that evidence shows very clearly the importance of independent support, and of consistent and sufficient practice. So we do call upon the consideration of the ways in which there would be a strengthening of consistency and quality of approach to ensure that this really meets the needs of children and families.
It is also worth remembering that family group decision making will not necessarily divert children from care. There has been a significant increase in kinship foster placements, now representing 19% of all active households, but all our casework in the Coram Children’s Legal Centre demonstrates that family group conferencing and well-delivered family group decision making most certainly help.
Anne Longfield: I will briefly add my support on that. There is widespread support for upholding the principles of family group conferencing. In my experience, that intervention can transform children’s and families’ experience at that point and avert decisions being made about them without their involvement, including children, but it has to be done properly. We all want families to be involved, but this is around a process of involving families and children in solutions. That will have a point that it needs to get over, in terms of the mechanisms around it and the actual formality of that. So there is something there that there is widespread support for strengthening.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dr Homden: Absolutely.
The Chair
This is a reminder to Members that is important to catch the Clerk’s eye if you want to ask a question. We will try to get everybody in during the morning and give everybody the same crack of the whip. I will now call the Minister to ask questions.
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Q
“This Bill presents a new opportunity for services and agencies supporting vulnerable children to work together and make this a reality.”
Will you outline the key measures that you feel support that in the Bill?
Dr Homden: Clearly, there are a number of ways in which the Bill seeks to do that. Quite often what we are looking for here is a strengthening of approaches that reinforce integrated working in local arrangements. There is a question in our mind, which you have clearly considered, about whether it is essential for education to be treated as a core partner in safeguarding. Our consideration is that under article 4 of the European convention on human rights, schools have a protective duty, but this should not diminish the clarity and reinforcement of the importance of roles being defined locally and of the activation of best practice in those circumstances.
I repeat that in many areas, and especially in relation to school exclusion, where it is particularly critical that the roles of schools are appreciated in relation to criminal exploitation, our suggestion to you is that direct access to advocacy for these young people may be a more timely and potentially more sufficient approach, to complement local arrangements in supporting young people’s safeguarding.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Dr Homden: Having a duty most generally would be reinforcement of the fact that these arrangements are expected and required. The duty does not in itself necessarily prejudge the nature of those local arrangements, but it does place a really clear focus on the need to have those arrangements and to make sure that they are functioning properly. We would be pleased to send you some additional reflections on that, if that would be helpful.
I do want to raise one point in relation to safeguarding, which is that we are concerned because the Bill does present an important opportunity, potentially, to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement for children, and in our view, this opportunity should not be missed.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
“It addresses issues we have been very concerned about over many years, including vulnerable children falling through the gaps and into danger.”
Will you elaborate on how you feel the Bill better protects children and keeps them safe?
Anne Longfield: I am pleased to say that safeguarding does clearly run through the whole Bill. Engagement in the kind of activities around school in the community is one of the ways that children will be safeguarded. The register is something that I campaigned for and has been committed to for some time, so I am very pleased to see that in there. It is not a silver bullet when it comes to children who are out of school, because they are often out of school for a reason and that does not divert from the root causes. But none the less, that is a very welcome move.
On the link between poverty and non-attendance in school, in our experience there is a great link to parents being very worried about not being able to afford branded uniform. That, again, is supported in the Bill. There are various measures around children’s social care as well, including the partnerships that we have just discussed.
There is a clear reset around early intervention, which we very much welcome, and around a much greater co-ordination and relationship between schools—whatever their structures—and local partners. That can only add to the safety of children. There is a lot of interest in the potential to add a wellbeing measure, which would further strengthen the Bill’s ability to be able to identify those children who are vulnerable, and enable those partnerships and services to be able to respond. That would be a very welcome addition.
That would also support the whole ambition around belonging for children. For those children who are falling through the gaps, it would give them an opportunity to have their voices heard. I am thinking, for example, about the almost a million children who end up NEET—not in education, employment or training. None of us wants to see that for them at that early age. Their involvement in advocating for their own experience of careers and other services would be very welcome. That is part of the engine that would drive many of the ambitions in the Bill, so that addition in itself would be very much welcomed.
Dr Homden: I would support that. Coram also supports the introduction of the register for home-educated pupils as the critical protection to children’s right to education and safeguarding. That should include children with special educational needs and disabilities, since all too often, home education feels like the only option available in the context of risks to the child from their anxiety, self-harm or bullying and, where appropriate, school places being not available or, commonly, not resourced.
We would also further support the reintroduction of the national adoption register to ensure that all children waiting receive a proactive matching service without sequential, geographical or financial decision making being involved in that.
I reinforce and support what Anne said about the importance of measurements of wellbeing. It is clear from our research that young people’s wellbeing is associated with being included in decision making. That needs to be thought about in relation to the family group decision-making process for older young people. It gives them a much greater sense of traction and optimism for the future.
The Chair
My main objective is to try to get all the Back Benchers in, so we want crisp questions. It is very important that everybody feels they can get in. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Q
Anne Longfield: There are some very well-established wellbeing measures, such as Be Well, operating in many areas. They are cost-effective and demonstrate what can be achieved with better understanding and information about children’s needs. We will potentially have the unique identifier, which is important within that. Overall, the wellbeing measure would seek to identify which children were vulnerable, which were happy and thriving within their community and school, and which were in need of early help, especially around mental health and other support. It would enable services to understand where they needed to prioritise their resources. You cannot prioritise your response to children’s needs unless you know which children are in need. As I say, it would create the engine for many of the outcomes that the Bill is seeking to deliver.
Munira Wilson
Q
Dr Homden: That is a really complex area to consider because of the circumstances of individual children such as my own child, who was not withdrawn from school but had no available provision for two years of his school life despite being fully known and documented. I sympathise with parents who feel that the risks facing their child in a setting, as well as out of a setting, might lead them to that position. I sympathise strongly with the driver within the Bill, but much more consideration needs to be given to that question because of the lack of provision. At Coram children’s legal centre, we are constantly representing parents where there is significant failure to fulfil the education, health and care plan, which is a child’s right and entitlement.
Lizzi Collinge
Q
Anne Longfield: It has to be. If this is to be the cornerstone of our ability to move towards a kinship model, intervene earlier and get alongside families, it has to work properly. All the evidence is based on a full family group conferencing system. Of course, you would want to take any opportunity to work around families, but this is about planning, being there at the right time and having the involvement of children and families. That is not something that local authorities themselves can decide on.
It is also about the commitment to do something with it. Without that, it could just be a meeting with families, which would be an absolute missed opportunity. I am not a specialist in this; I went along and found family group conferencing about 12 or 15 years ago. I used to call them magic meetings. Out of nowhere came solutions that changed people’s lives. I do not want to become too enthused, but it has to be done right, and the principles need to be seen through.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Q
Dr Homden: Yes, we would support that. We would also call for specific coverage in the statutory guidance on how children with family members abroad can benefit, and for consideration in that guidance on contact, particularly with siblings.
Anne Longfield: I would also look at the mechanism at other points, such as when children are at risk of becoming involved in crime and the like. But for now, yes.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
Q
Anne Longfield: Carol will probably talk about the detail more than I will, but in principle it was a really important change to be made and a really important commitment. Young people I have met have appreciated it and seen the value of it. I do not think it is yet at the point where most care leavers would say that it is meeting all their ambitions, nor of course is it anywhere. Having it as part of the Bill, to extend and strengthen it, is important, but it is there to be built on. We know from the outcomes for young people leaving care that it is crucial that that level of stability and support is in place.
Dr Homden: We support the extension of support to care leavers in the Bill. Provisions need to ensure greater consistency across the country in the support that is offered. It is important that the introduction of Staying Close provisions in this case will be offered to care leavers only where the authority assesses that such support is required. It is also important that that does not dilute the role and responsibilities of personal advisers. Young people speak very passionately in our Bright Spots surveys about the importance of the emotional and practical support that they provide. We must take care that that is not undermined.
Staying Close must mean what is close for the individual. This also extends to the legal duties to publish a local offer, which already exist, but really the question is whether we can achieve greater consistency and transparency for young people. For example, our young people in A National Voice, the national council for children in care, have been campaigning on the fact that almost two years after the Department for Education announced the increase for their setting up home grants, 10% of local authorities are still not applying it. All too often, these young people therefore experience a form of postcode lottery. Finally, our research has shown huge disparity in relation to the appreciation of levels of disability and long-term health conditions among care leavers. This needs to be a key area of focus.
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Q
Anne Longfield: I think it does need to be mandated, because it is at the cornerstone of the different way of working. It is about intervening earlier. The majority of families in that situation are living with adversity and are not coping with adversity. The whole ambition behind this is to bring in not only parents, but families around them and others.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Anne Longfield: I think a mandate makes a very clear distinction in terms of a route of travel. It is well evidenced. Carol will talk about the risks to families and to children, but it is the broader family and in some cases the other support network—
The Chair
Order. I am going to interrupt you there, as we still have two more people to get in.
Amanda Martin
Q
Dr Homden: I think we will need to send you a further briefing on that point, beyond what I have already said. The point is that if there is a duty, you are creating a framework within which there is much stronger accountability, assuming that it is carefully inspected, considered and acted on if it is not implemented.
I sympathise with the previous point. The welfare of the child is paramount and local authorities have an absolute duty to act, irrespective of any other duties on them, to ensure the safety of a child in acute circumstances. But the Bill protects that and makes that clear. Mandating family group decision making makes sure that best practice, in time, becomes the only practice.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
Q
Anne Longfield: I would say that they will begin to address that and bring it down. We are in quite an extreme situation. We know that the level of spend on children in care is very high and that it is not sustainable for any of us, for the public purse. We also know that it does not lead to the best outcomes for a lot of children. If early intervention had been in place, it could have been a very different situation.
I think it is proportionate for a first stage. There is much more that can be done, and there are things we could put in around interventions, play sufficiency, mental health support, children’s centres and family hubs that could extend that into something that can get beyond this first stage.
David Baines
Q
Anne Longfield: I think it is proportionate for now, but it needs to be strengthened in some areas if we are to tackle some of the deep-rooted issues that we know a lot of children are facing.
David Baines
Q
Anne Longfield: The only way to get around the spend in local authorities on children’s social care is to reduce those costs. I do not think that that is to deny children’s needs; it is about a different way. We know that the spending on early intervention has almost halved over the past decade, while the cost of crisis has doubled. A lot of the cost is residential provision for older children. There needs to be a focus on where we can intervene early and find alternative solutions with families.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Q
Anne Longfield: There are a number of other interventions that we could include that would strengthen children’s participation and children’s being at the centre of their communities. One of those is around children’s play. We know that children’s access to play has reduced dramatically over recent years. Play is the thing that children say they want: it is at the top of their list. We were very worried about access to play and the dominance of social media in children’s lives. Wales introduced a play sufficiency duty in 2010. It was not a huge cost. It meant that local authorities had to plan for play and respond to play. That kind of strategy would be, for a first stage, a very cost-effective way of reflecting children’s needs in the community.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q
Could you also say a word or two about the mental health of children and young people survey, wave 4 of which was most recently published by the NHS and the future of which is uncertain? Would you like to see that series of surveying and reporting carried on?
Dr Homden: Yes, we would. It is incredibly important that we are able to account for the implementation and for whether the Bill actually helps us to improve children’s wellbeing. It is also extremely important that that happens systematically across local services and in any area in which we can respond and adapt services to meet the needs of children. Generally, we feel that it is extremely important that wellbeing measurement is advanced and made more systematic and consistent.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of this session. I thank our witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Andy Smith and Ruth Stanier gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from two more witnesses. We must stick to the timings: this session must end at 10.30 am. Will you briefly introduce yourselves, please?
Andy Smith: My name is Andy Smith. I am the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. In my day job, I am director of children’s services and adult social services in Derby.
Ruth Stanier: I am Ruth Stanier, assistant policy director at the Local Government Association.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Ruth Stanier: Thank you for those extremely important questions. We very much welcome many of the measures in this Bill, which we have long been calling for, but they must be appropriately resourced to have the impact that we want.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Ruth Stanier: You are absolutely right that the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units. We are encouraged that at this stage we are already having early discussions with the Department about the implementation arrangements. We are yet to undertake the full cost estimates, but that work will be set in train with the Department.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Andy Smith: You have to cover both. It has been incredibly important and positive that the Government have taken forward measures to tackle the cost of agency workers. We are seeing the impact of the measures that have taken place already. For example, on Friday in my region we were talking about the implications and impact of the changes that have started to be implemented. We are seeing less churn of workers from one authority to another; we are also seeing some agency workers move over to the permanent books of councils, which is better for children.
It is also important to ensure that we have a sufficient approach and strategy for the workforce generally. That covers all elements of the Bill, so it would include social work but also other professions and other agencies where we have particular challenges. Yes, we absolutely need to focus on the recruitment and retention of social workers as well as tackling the costs of agency workers. I believe that that is already under way and is making some impact.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Andy Smith: I think some things are missing from the Bill. There are some things that will be positive; no doubt we will come to those. What was disappointing, from the policy paper to where we are now, was the lack of corporate parenting: we would have expected to see all Government Departments committing to corporate parenting. We see that lack as a real disappointment, actually. It feels like a once-in-a-generation time for us to focus on the wider responsibility that all Departments should have for our children in care, so that is a particular gap in the Bill.
Ruth Stanier: I very much agree on extending the corporate parenting duty—this must be the right time and the right Bill to do that, and the Government have already committed to doing so in a recent policy paper, so it is really important we get that included. We were also disappointed that the Bill does not have powers for Ofsted to inspect multi-academy trusts, which was a Government election manifesto commitment. We support the similar new powers relating to care placement providers, but in respect of trusts that is an omission.
I am sure you will want to come on to discuss the elective home education provisions. We do support those, but there could be scope for them to go further. In an ideal world, councils would have the power to visit any child where there were concerns. Obviously, that would need to be appropriately resourced, but there could be scope to go further on that provision.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
Q
Andy Smith: A strength in the Bill is the focus on family help and early intervention. We talk a lot about the cost of the care system, but we need to see this in a much more strategic context and sense. We know that there is a lot of evidence. We published research last week showing that for councils that have been able to invest and maintain early help services, it has a direct impact on reducing the number of children coming into the more statutory end of things within children’s social care or the looked-after children service.
The challenge is that we have real variability around early help services across the country, because of the difficulties there have been with council budgets over the past 10 years. Seeing these reforms and the focus on family help in its totality—this goes back to the earlier question about the funding required to implement the reforms—will make a positive impact. It is ultimately better for children to remain with their families. If not, there is a big focus on kinship care, where children remain in the family network. That is a real strength in the Bill.
Ruth Stanier: I completely agree with that. We very much support the measures on support for kinship families. We think that is a very important area.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very much support the new duty to co-operate across councils and all schools. It is something we have long been calling for. Of course, councils continue to have duties to ensure that there is appropriate education for every child in local places. Having the statutory underpinning set out in the Bill on co-operation across all schools is so important, particularly when we are thinking about councils’ duties in respect of SEND, where the system is under enormous strain, as was illustrated by an important report we commissioned jointly with the county councils network last year. We very much welcome those measures in the Bill.
Andy Smith: The education system in England is increasingly fragmented and lacks coherence. We see the role of the local authority essentially eroded, even though our duties have not changed that much. The measures in the Bill will be helpful in trying to bring some of that coherence back and in recognising the role of the local authority on directing academies, school place planning and admissions. The current system works for some children but not all. Trying to rebalance that is a positive step forward.
Munira Wilson
Q
Andy Smith: ADCS has long argued for a register of electively home educated children. For several years we carried out a survey ahead of this information being collected by the Department. We know that the number of children being electively home educated has increased exponentially, particularly since the pandemic. We need to be really clear that the measures, in themselves, will not protect children or keep them safe. The child protection powers are welcome, but we need to think about the capacity and resource that will be required to visit children in their homes and the training that will be required for staff who are going out doing visiting so that they can tune into issues around safeguarding and general wellbeing.
The measures in the Bill are certainly very detailed in terms of what is contained in a register, and there may be some reflection on whether there needs to be such a level of detail captured. That in itself is not going to keep children safe.
There is also some reflection about the relationship that local authorities have with parents, because the reasons why children are being electively home educated have shifted. We have moved away from the kind of philosophical reasons why parents might decide to home educate. Often, children are being home educated because of bullying, because of mental health challenges, or because their parents are being encouraged by schools to electively home educate.
We are also seeing an increasing proportion of children with SEND who are being electively home educated because parents are not getting the provision that they want—it is not available—or because of the tribunal processes. The kind of relationship that local authorities have with parents in that SEND context is quite challenging, and yet the local authority will be going in to the family home, with an officer asking lots of questions about the nature of that education. I think there is some reflection around the detail.
Local authorities need much clearer guidance on what a good elective home education offer looks like so that there is greater consistency across the across the piece. At the moment, we just have not got that because we are talking about very old legislation.
Munira Wilson
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very strongly support those measures in the Bill, and we have been calling for them for some time. Just creating the powers sends such an important signal to the market in and of itself, but should it not have the desired impact, we hope the Department will go on to put regulations in place. The level of costs has just spiralled out of control, leaving councils in an absolutely impossible situation, so it is excellent that these measures are being brought forward.
We very much welcome the measures in the Bill to put in place greater oversight of providers, because clearly there is that risk of collapse, which could have catastrophic impacts on children in those placements. This will not solve the problems with sufficiency in the number of placements, and we continue to work closely with the Department on measures to tackle that.
Amanda Martin
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very much welcome this measure, which we have long called for. Councils continue to have the duty to ensure that places are available for all local children, and having the flexibility to bring forward new maintained schools, where that is appropriate, is clearly helpful.
Andy Smith: ADCS’s view is that the education system must absolutely be rooted in place, and directors of children’s services and local officers know their places really well. The measures in the Bill around direction of academy schools are a welcome addition. The end to the legal presumption that new schools will become academies, and allowing proposals from local authorities and others, is very welcome. Local authorities understand planning really well, and they understand their place and their children really well. I think that will ultimately be better for children.
Damian Hinds
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very much welcome the provisions in this Bill around breakfast clubs. We think it is incredibly important that—
Damian Hinds
Forgive me, but that is a different question. We know what the legislation proposes for primary school breakfast, but my question was about whether you have heard anything—whether you have had any guarantees—about the future of existing support for breakfast clubs in secondary schools in underprivileged areas, or for the holiday activities and food programme.
Ruth Stanier: On the first of those issues, I am not aware of any such guarantees or representations. I can see the point you are making, which is important. In respect of holiday activities, I have seen recent media coverage that seems potentially positive. Clearly, we very much want that support to remain in place.
Andy Smith: My view would be similar to Ruth’s. The evidence and the impact of HAF are so tangible. We absolutely strongly support that continuing for the most vulnerable children.
Damian Hinds
Q
Andy Smith: We have not made a estimate about how much cost would come with the system. Clearly, there would need to be a new burdens assessment on any changes, because you cannot do these reforms on the cheap. It is really important to make that point.
From previous surveys that we have done with local authorities on elective home education, it is evident that over the last 10 to 12 years, the capacity has been hollowed out. You are often talking about not even a full-time post. In my authority, for example, we have less than one full-time equivalent worker on EHE, who goes out and knocks on doors and tries to talk to parents. If you superimpose the changes envisaged by the Bill, that provision would be significantly insufficient. This is much more than an administrative task. Some councils have an admin-like role that undertakes this function.
Notwithstanding whether there is currently too much detail, if we think about the practical things around visits, understanding the offer, trying to understand what is happening to children and building up that picture, there would need to be sufficient capacity to get sufficient workers in post across places to do that, and they would need be sufficiently trained. That is probably more important in terms of the line of sight on the child than having a huge amount of information and detail about mums and dads and carers.
Damian Hinds
Q
“The advice and information to be provided is whatever the local authority considers fit”.
You mentioned a moment ago that there would be some benefit in having more consistency across the country. Would you give a few thoughts on what you think “fit” is in terms of that support? In particular, a question that often comes up from parents is about entry into examinations.
Andy Smith: What constitutes a good elective home education offer will be very different depending on the parent and on the context, and depending sometimes on the rationale around why parents decided to implement EHE for their child. There should be some consistency around what those expectations are. We know that parents provide some fantastic enriched opportunities for their children through EHE and they are able to also sit exams, and there will be some learning from that.
The challenge in this space is that we are not starting with a level playing field. We have moved from a context where we were maybe 10 or 15 years ago, where you had parents who were EHE because of philosophical reasons around that being important for children and for their particular lifestyle. We are now often talking about kids who are not in school because they have been sidelined or discriminated against, because they are SEND or because they are being bullied. There needs to be some expectation and understanding around their starting points as well as what a good offer looks like.
We need to work that through based on the research. We need to try to co-produce that with parents. We need to do that in a way that we think will be broad enough not to tie parents down, but to ensure some consistency, particularly in terms of what the local authority role is and understanding the impact of that.
Ruth Stanier: I want to stress that if it were to be mandatory for councils to pay for exam fees, because clearly there is a case for that, it obviously would need to be funded.
The Chair
We still have six keen people wanting to come in, so can we have brief single questions and answers, please?
Lizzi Collinge
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very much expect that these measures should, over time, lead to a reduction of some of the extremely high costs that have been set out in recent research we have done. That should free up some additional funding for all the other things councils need to be doing.
Andy Smith: If you look at the breadth of measures in the Bill around having the right placements for the right type of child in the right part of the country, and having regulations to try to move away from unregulated placements—we have seen the proliferation of those in recent years—over time we should start to see a more consistent provision of accommodation and placements across the country. There is a focus on fostering, kinship care and prevention as the continuum that we need for children, and there is a real focus on trying to keep children out of care in the first place.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Ruth Stanier: We certainly would want to see corporate parenting duties extended at a national level to Government Departments and relevant public sector bodies. We think that is incredibly important. Otherwise, we are very much supportive of the measures in the Bill in respect of the kinship offer, though we think it is important that there is a clear threshold for that support so that it is realistic and affordable and can be implemented.
Andy Smith: I would support that. A national offer for care leavers is an interesting concept. There should be some absolute minimum requirements we expect in an offer, and I think you would broadly see that in many councils in what is provided for children in care and for care leavers. It is usually co-produced with representatives who were care leavers, and with councils and so on. I think that would be an important reflection within the context of a much broader understanding of corporate parenting.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Q
Ruth Stanier: We very much think that the measures in the Bill will help to pull funding to the left, further upstream into prevention. We warmly welcome the Government’s recent investment in the children’s prevention grant. We think that the measures should help to improve outcomes and reduce costs over the longer term.
Andy Smith: It is absolutely a false economy not to invest in early help and early intervention. We know that the evidence base is so strong on children escalating into higher-cost services. My authority has invested in early help services, and we have an edge of care team that targets children on the edge of the care system. When we are able to prevent them from going into care, we track the cost avoidance, looking at what a typical placement might have cost. We have saved in excess of £5 million over the last three years in cost avoidance.
The case is well argued. The challenge is that councils are at different starting points because of the way in which funding has been eroded over the last 10 years and the fact that many councils have to prioritise the higher-cost services, which often take away from early intervention. It is a false economy. If we can get the funding right, the Bill offers us an opportunity to invest in family help and early help services and start to see impacts much more consistently. We are beginning to see some of that from the 12 Families First pilots that are taking place.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Andy Smith: I cannot absolutely rule that out. We have significant churn in social work, and that is part of the challenge—that we are struggling, as a system, to recruit and retain social workers. We have lots of routes into social work, and we are doing lots to promote the role. I am a social worker. I love it, and it is brilliant, even though I have not practised for a number of years now. The measures in the Bill will go some way in setting some rules around how and when social workers can move into agency social work, but I cannot guarantee that it will stop or prevent the churn in the system. The Bill outlines one tool that will help with the stability that we need in the workforce, and that ultimately leads to better outcomes for children.
Matt Bishop
Q
Ruth Stanier: It is an interesting question. I am not sure that that would necessarily follow. As Andy has set out, we see these very clear upward trends at the moment, in part driven by the significant problems in the SEND system and the challenges that many children face, with the schools that they are in, in accessing the support that they need, including mental health support. I am not sure that that would necessarily follow.
Andy Smith: You have to overlay the implementation timeline of this Bill with what needs to happen around a new system for an inclusive education. That will start to impact on some of the cohorts of children who are missing education or being electively home-educated. There is such a strong SEND component now, in a way we did not see before the pandemic. We have to overlay the two things to understand what those impacts might start to look like.
Tom Hayes
Q
Andy Smith: An agency social worker costs around a third more than a social worker on the books of a local authority. You can extrapolate what that would look like from a team of eight or nine social workers to two or three times that. Financially, it is definitely a much better option than having an agency worker. That is not to say that agency social workers are bad—that is not what I am saying—because there could well be, and are, occasions when local authorities need to employ agency social workers to cover sickness or maternity leave, or where there is a particular pressure. But it should be an exception rather than the rule.
It is about creating the conditions that enable social workers to want to stay on the books of local authorities, as well as putting rules around it so that workers have sufficient training and development, and cannot move to agencies too quickly before they have had that breadth of experience. Ultimately, it would be cheaper to the public purse if we had fewer agency social workers and more social workers on the books. It would also be better for children in terms of consistency and stability, because we want to try to reduce the hand-offs and the churn in the workforce.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Q
The Chair
We have 30 seconds. We have to stick to the programme motion; I am sorry.
Ruth Stanier: We very much welcome the fact that the Government are now asking Ofsted to look specifically at inclusion. We think it is so important for precisely that reason.
The Chair
Thank you very much to our witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Julie McCulloch and Paul Whiteman gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Julie McCulloch, senior director of strategy, policy and professional development services at the Association of School and College Leaders, and Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. You are very welcome. Do you both want to say a brief word of introduction?
Paul Whiteman: I am Paul Whiteman. We broadly support the provisions within the Bill, as far as they connect with schools. The Bill builds upon a lot of the policy positions and ambitions that we have held for some time. We do not see it as a revolution in education, but the provisions are broadly sensible.
Julie McCulloch: We are in a similar place in our schools. There is much in the Bill that aligns with our existing policy positions. We have a few logistical questions about how some of the proposals might play out, and perhaps some questions about how they sit within the Government’s broader vision and strategy for education, but we are broadly in favour of the proposals in the Bill.
Neil O'Brien
Q
“work will be needed to get these measures right…Further changes must be done with care and must not seem ideological.”
You talked about some of the issues that you want to see addressed as we amend the Bill. What are they?
Julie McCulloch: They are largely about the fact that these proposals are landing in a particular context. There are three areas where those logistical challenges exist. The first is that they are landing in the context of a system that has been systematically underfunded for many years. That particularly relates to the proposal about breakfast clubs. We have some questions about ensuring sufficient funding for breakfast clubs.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: That is our understanding. Is that yours too, Paul? There will be the provision of additional funding for the children who most need it, but you can provide provision around that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: I am not sure I would be as confident as that. We have started to have some conversations about that, but not detailed ones.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: We absolutely would, and continued funding.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: I have two other thoughts, just to finish my point about the context within which this is landing. The second is about the challenge around recruitment and retention in schools. Although the proposal about qualified teacher status is absolutely welcome and the right thing in principle, we have had some concerns from our members about the challenges of ensuring that can be followed through, when they are already really struggling to recruit.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: In some cases, yes. That is a sad place to find ourselves, but sometimes that is the case, particularly when we are looking at vocational subjects at the top end of secondary school and into colleges. There are some excellent teachers and lecturers in further education colleges and secondary schools on vocational subjects, who do not necessarily have qualified teacher status, and we need to make sure we can retain them.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: Yes. We absolutely in principle think that there should be qualified teacher status, but it is about that contextual piece.
The third area where we have some concerns about the context is the extent to which there is capacity in local authorities—you have just heard from local authority colleagues—to pick up some of the additional requirements on them. Again, we do not have any concerns about the principle, but some of our members are concerned about whether there is that capacity, and whether that expertise still exists in local authorities.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: No, it is absolutely not a significant number at all. We hear from our members that the vast majority do use the national curriculum as their starting point and as a benchmark, and they innovate on top of it.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: In our view, it is right that there should be a core national entitlement curriculum for all children and young people; we think that is the right thing to do. The devil is in the detail—we are going through a curriculum review at the moment. Our view is that that entitlement is important—on the ground it might not make an enormous amount of difference, but it is still important.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Paul Whiteman: We do think it will help local authorities—we think there has been a gap in terms of their ability to ensure that their admissions duty is fully met. To that extent, the difficulty of some parents to find the school that their children really should go to has been fettered. Therefore, we think these provisions are broadly sensible and to be welcomed.
Julie McCulloch: We agree. The more join-up we can have between local authorities and schools on admissions the better; there are some areas where that is working really well already, and there are others where that statutory duty might help.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Paul Whiteman: It is important to preface my answer by saying that the success of academies can be seen, and the improvement is very real, but it is not always the only way to improve schools. We have held that belief for a very long time. With the extent to which we rely on data to support one argument or the other—of course, it has been the only option for so very long, and the data is self-serving in that respect.
Academisation is not always a silver bullet, and does not always work according to the locality, status or circumstances of the school. We absolutely think that different options are available. The introduction of the Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence teams to offer different support and different ways of support is to be welcomed to see if that is better. Academisation has not always been a silver bullet, but it is really important to preface by saying that that is not an attack on the academy system—there are very good academies and there are excellent local authority maintained schools as well, and we should make sure that we pick the right option for the schooling difficulty.
Julie McCulloch: I would start in the same place. It is important to recognise the extent to which the expertise and capacity to improve schools does now sit within multi-academy trusts—not exclusively, but that is where a lot of that capacity sits at the moment. It is important to make sure that we do not do anything that undermines that, but our long-standing position is that accountability measures should not lead to automatic consequences, and that there does need to be a nuanced conversation on a case-by-case basis about the best way to help a struggling school to improve, which we welcome. There are some challenges. I think some members have raised some questions about whether that slows down a process to the detriment of the children and young people in those schools who most need support; clearly that would not be a good place to find ourselves. However, in principle that sort of nuance is welcome.
Paul Whiteman: It is worth adding that we do have examples of schools that are in difficult circumstances where an academy chain cannot be found to accept them, because the challenge is too difficult for an academy to really want to get hold of them.
Munira Wilson
Q
Julie McCulloch: I think it has some important priorities, and the ones you highlighted are first among them—the register, for example. There are certainly other issues that our members would raise with us as being burning platforms at the moment. SEND is absolutely top of that list, with recruitment and retention close behind, and probably accountability third. Those are the three issues that our members raise as the biggest challenges. There are some really important measures in the Bill that talk to some of those concerns. Certainly, there are some things in the Bill that might help with recruitment and retention. But it is fair to reflect the fact that our members are keen to quickly see more work around some of those burning platforms.
Munira Wilson
Q
Julie McCulloch: I think there are two different questions there. On the QTS measure, I think it is about recognising the acute situation that we are in, and that in some circumstances our members are saying that they have a good member of staff delivering teaching who does not have QTS but is maybe working towards it. There is some devil in the detail there about where exemptions might be, and how working towards QTS might work.
On the changes around applying the school teachers’ pay and conditions document to academies as well as maintained schools, if the way we understand that measure is right, we think it will help with recruitment and retention—if it is about a floor, not a ceiling. We are not entirely convinced that that is how the Bill is worded at the moment, but if that is the intention and how it plays out, we think that is helpful.
Munira Wilson
Q
Paul Whiteman: May I add something in response to your first question, and then deal with your second question? In terms of QTS, we agree with what Julia said, but would add that it is a legitimate expectation of pupils and parents that they are taught by someone who is qualified to do so. Therefore, the provisions in the Bill meaning that people travel towards becoming qualified teachers are very important. That necessity has a marginal impact on recruitment and retention, frankly.
Recruitment and retention is so much more than the flexibilities that may or may not be allowed to academy chains under pay and conditions. Those are sparingly and judiciously used at the moment—we have no objection to how they have been used so far. But those flexibilities have a marginal impact. What affects recruitment and retention is more around workload stress, the stress of accountability, and flexibility within employment, rather than those flexibilities.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: Yes.
Amanda Martin
Q
Paul Whiteman: We absolutely support that. A statutory duty for schools and educators to be consulted in that respect is necessary, and it will widen the voices within that. After all, it is in schools that children are most present and visible, and teachers and school leaders already play a role in noticing changes and issues.
Julie McCulloch: We feel the same way. I would simply add that it is a growing set of responsibilities on schools—burden is not the right word, because schools absolutely need to do it. We are hearing a lot about the pressures on designated safeguarding leads in schools. While we also welcome schools’ having a statutory role here, we need to recognise that schools will need support and sufficient resources to deliver that.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Whiteman: I think you are asking the wrong people. I do not know what is in the minds of Government.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Whiteman: Damian, you know me too well. I cannot answer what was in the minds of Government. Broadly speaking, as I have said, I think it is a legitimate expectation of parents that a teacher in front of their child is qualified to teach them. On the push from both your Government and this Government for standards to be the voice of parents, and in talking about doing this for the expectations of parents, I think that gets alongside that ambition, so it is welcome.
On the pay flexibilities, the debate is louder than it needs to be because of the point that you made—we have not really deviated much from the STCPD. The whole point of having an independent pay review body to establish what the floors should be has worked in that regard but we need it to offer more, and obviously we would always say that. Where I would phrase it slightly differently, on the question of whether we would ask for an amendment for a floor and not a ceiling, is I would talk about a core rather than a floor. There should be a core of terms and conditions that means a teacher or school leader is agile within the system and portable. We do not want people being stuck and unable to move because the terms and conditions vary so widely. That would work against our ambition of delivering the very best education system and getting the best teachers in front of children.
Julie McCulloch: I would not disagree with anything there. Core is a better term and it suggests not a minimum but a core entitlement, and I think that is right. On pay and conditions, yes. We hear from our members that some of them have exercised some upward flexibilities and they are keen to able to continue to do that, and to recognise the context in which they are operating. They are keen to maintain that while keeping that core. QTS is a very small number, but where that number exists, there might be reasons for it. It is important to recognise the balance between wanting a fully qualified professional and some of the nuance there.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Whiteman: As a trade union that is politically independent and speaks to all of you, I have no insight into what might be in Labour’s next Bill.
The Chair
I think that is not a terribly serious question, Damian. Darren, let us get on with it.
Darren Paffey
Q
Julie McCulloch: I think it does in the vast majority of cases, but quite what working towards it looks like needs thinking about to ensure that it does not exacerbate existing crises. The only exception I might look at—I think there may be exceptions for this anyway—is at the very top end of secondary, and going into the college and vocational sphere, where there might be a slightly different set of skills needed in the people teaching those young people. But broadly, as a principle, I would agree.
Darren Paffey
Q
Paul Whiteman: We do. I would not go as far as suggesting that it is a lottery, but there are differences of relationship and of quality of relationship, so putting that on a statutory footing will help. Our one concern is that schools are often seen as the thing that will fill any void that occurs, or that will assume a greater responsibility. This is really about making sure that, through the conversations with those safeguarding teams, all the services that support children are there to help them, and that schools have a voice in that, rather than having to assume some of the responsibilities of the other agencies, as has happened more and more over time. We see it as a positive step, but there is a risk that somehow more and more responsibility is placed on schools, which would not be correct.
Julie McCulloch: I strongly agree with that. We have been doing a lot of work with our members recently about the additional responsibilities that they have been taking on, some of which they have been expected to take on and some of which they have felt that they had no choice but to take on, because the agencies that had normally delivered those services previously no longer exist or have incredibly long waiting lists. The relationships that might be improved through this measure are really important, but there is a huge capacity issue as well.
Darren Paffey
Q
Julie McCulloch: I think they could probably be clearer.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Julie McCulloch: We would.
Ellie Chowns
Could you elaborate on that?
Julie McCulloch: Happily. We would like to see the expansion up to 18—at the moment, it goes up to only 16 —and we would like to see it expanded to all children in families receiving universal credit.
Paul Whiteman: We are in a similar position. We absolutely accept the evidence that well-fed students perform and work better. Our only concern is the level of funding that comes with it. The provision has to be funded properly, not just for buying the food but, importantly, for the capital costs to make sure that those things can be delivered properly.
David Baines
Q
Paul Whiteman: I certainly do not think it hinders that. On the extent to which the Bill addresses some of the struggles that we have had about attendance and support for children, it will certainly help. Often, when we are discussing such things, the language is very unhelpful, because most schools have high and rising standards already—it is a very small percentage of schools that are in real difficulty. My eye is therefore drawn to the provisions for when intervention occurs, how that support occurs and whether that will help, and I absolutely think it will. Having alternatives, not just one answer, will assist the local education economy and the local education effort to collaborate more and to help more. One of the things that we need to make sure that we are doing much better in a fragmented system is encouraging more collaboration between different trusts and schools.
Julie McCulloch: I certainly do not think that there are things in here that will hinder that, and there are some things that will help. More broadly, a lot of the measures that would help with high and rising standards in schools sit outside schools, perhaps in the Government’s broader opportunity mission. That links to the previous discussion around broader children’s and family services, and children living in poverty. There is absolutely some helpful stuff here, but much of the answer probably lies in other parts of the Government’s work.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Paul Whiteman: I am not sure that I have said that I have confidence in the RISE teams. I think I referenced the RISE teams as having a role in improving standards, in that they will come and support as well. I do not know whether there is a word-for-word record to check that, but if I was saying that I had confidence, that was not intended.
I think the problem with the RISE teams, and all the rollout of the Bill’s intentions, is to do with the practical application of the Bill’s provisions later on. Of course, making sure that those teams are properly resourced and funded so that they work is a challenge. There are other issues about the context in which they work, and I think the change of context from a discussion of intervention to a discussion of support is a much more positive footing for those teams to interact with schools locally.
Julie McCulloch: It is important to remember that the RISE teams are as much about triage as they are about delivering support. We need the kind of recognition that I started with of where the expertise sits in the system, which is largely within schools and trusts.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Julie McCulloch: I think there is a role for both. There is a role for central co-ordination and central support. If the RISE teams deliver, that is what they could provide, but that support for schools does need to be done on the ground. That links to parallel conversations that are going on about how we might change inspection and accountability, as well as doing more to recognise the role that schools and trusts play across the system for school improvement, not just in their own individual institutions.
Paul Whiteman: Just to add quickly, I do not see the RISE teams as the only participants in that school improvement. We see one of the roles of the RISE teams as identifying helpful local practice and trying to broker collaboration which, at the moment, sometimes does not happen in the way that it might. Access to multi-academy trusts could do something very well to schools that are not in their local authority.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Paul Whiteman: Unfortunately, local academy trusts looking outside their own boundary does not happen quite as often as we would like in terms of helping schools that are not part of their trust, unless they become formally part of it. What we need is more collaboration across all school types in local areas.
Ian Sollom
Q
Paul Whiteman: The data we look at shows quality schools and improvement outside the academy system as well as in the academy system. Where you get particular schools that are very difficult to broker, or have been re-brokered on a number of occasions, we need a different answer. I think it sits with the locality, and the local education networks and economy, to run to the aid of that school and try to improve it. I was also careful to say that my comments are not an attack on academies or the good work they do. It is about finding the answer for the individual school.
Ian Sollom
Q
Paul Whiteman: For me, it is not necessarily about the legal status of the school. It is about the collaboration and support around that school from the rest of the education network and society around it. We have seen some really good work in the last few years in the north-east with the way it has been building those networks around schools that happen to be in trusts and schools that are not in a trust, and making sure that support is delivered. The provisions in the Bill mean that you could make different decisions about the school’s legal status and actually make sure the support is delivered in a way that works for that school.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Jacky Tiotto, chief executive of CAFCASS—the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Please could you introduce yourself?
Jacky Tiotto: Thank you. My name is Jacky Tiotto. I am the chief executive of CAFCASS and have been there for five and a half years.
Neil O'Brien
Q
“Before a local authority in England makes an application for an order”
it has to
“offer a family group decision-making meeting”.
Those meetings are generally a very good thing. They are in statutory guidance already, but I have two nagging worries as we move to mandate a good thing, as it were. The first is about pace. I worry that through people using the courts or their legal rights, some people will slow this down, or I worry that the local authority will sometimes worry about fulfilling this requirement when the priority should be the pace of getting a child away from a dangerous family. And I worry, on the other hand, that because we are saying that they should think about this and do more of these meetings just before they put an order in, you are at the point where the meeting is not going to be that useful because you are already not into a consensual process. We want to try and get local authorities to do this earlier more often. Do you have worries about the pace, particularly for very young, very vulnerable children? Could we amend the clause to try to address some of my nagging doubts?
Jacky Tiotto: I think they are good doubts to have. I should say at this point that CAFCASS is not involved before the application to court has been issued, so it does not technically affect the work that we do. But when the proceedings are issued, we are interested in why they have been issued and what has not happened for the child. Our position is that if you are introducing something largely consensual about engaging people in the care of children in their family at a point when you are going to formalise a letter that says, “If you do not act now, we may remove your children,” I think it will be very confusing.
As drafted, the Bill probably could move it down to the point at which there are formal child protection procedures starting so that the family can get to know what the concerns are, work with the child protection plan for longer, understand what the concerns are and demonstrate whether the protection can happen. On the second point, if the Bill were to stay as drafted at the edge of care, I think there are risks for very young children, and babies in particular. The meetings will be difficult to set up. People will not turn up. They will be rescheduled—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: I do not know, but I would think it is a number of weeks.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: For very young children when you are concerned, if they are still with the parents, which is sometimes the case, or even with a foster carer, you want permanent decisions quickly. That does not negate the need for the family to be involved. You can have it much earlier because you have been worried for a while at that point.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: There are a few bits that it would be good to talk about. I do not know if you have a set of questions.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: If I speak too long—because this is a great opportunity—please interrupt me. To go back to family group decision making and make a point about CAFCASS, we are the largest children’s social work organisation in England. We see 140,000 children through proceedings every year. The Bill tends to focus on those who are in public law proceedings. Two thirds of the children we work with are in private law proceedings, where there are family disputes about who children spend their time with and where they live. Very often, those children are in families where conflict is very intense. There are risks to them; there is domestic abuse. The Bill is silent on children in private law proceedings, and I think there is an opportunity for that to be different.
One suggestion I would like to make on CAFCASS’s behalf is that family group decision making should be offered to families where the court has ordered a section 7 report—a welfare report that, if ordered to do so, the local authority has to produce for the court in respect of what it advises about where children should live and who they should spend time with. I think the opportunity for a family group decision-making meeting for those families is important. I just put that on the table, if I may.
I want to talk a bit about clause 10, which is on deprivation of liberty—I do not know whether you have spoken about it yet. Obviously, CAFCASS is involved in 98% of those applications; to give you a sense of the span, last year there were 1,200 applications to deprive a child of their liberty. As I am sure you will know from the research briefing, that is an increase of about 800% since 2017, because the provision to secure children is not there. This is therefore a welcome change to section 25, but it is a missed opportunity to deal with the arrangements around deprivation, and some better, stronger regulations could be made for those children—who, let us face it, are actually being secured, or deprived of their liberty.
Our data shows that 20% of those children are aged 13 or under. Currently, if a local authority applies for a place in a secure unit for a child aged 13 or under, the Secretary of State for Education has to approve that application. I think an assumption is made in the Bill that that strength would remain in the amendment. We need to make it clear that, for all applications for 13-and-unders into places where they will be deprived, the Secretary of State should still approve. That has been unnecessary because the courts have been using their jurisdiction to deprive children. This clause will remove that, and make the accommodation usable legally, but we need to ensure that for young children it comes back. That is one point.
The second point is that for those young children, the review of their deprivation should be stipulated in terms of how regularly that deprivation is reviewed. For a 10-year-old deprived of their liberty, a week is a long time. The children who we work with tell us that they do not know what they have to do to not be deprived of their liberty, and very young children will be confused. So the frequency of review, I think, becomes more regular if you are younger.
I very much feel that the Department for Education should definitely consider what has happened to the child before the deprivation application is made. From our data, only 7% of those children were the subject of child protection plans, and it is hard to imagine going from not being protected by a statutory child protection plan to being in a court where they might deprive you. The relationship between child protection and deprivation needs strengthening.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: As soon as that child becomes the subject of a concern, such that you might be making an application to deprive, you hold a child protection conference and you have a plan in place to protect that child beyond the deprivation, so including and beyond—it helps with the exit.
The final point is about the type of people who apply to run this provision as amended: Ofsted needs to be really sure who they are and what their experience is. I have run this provision; I have worked in it. These kids are really needy. They need specialist, highly qualified people, and at the moment the provision that they get is not run by those sorts of people.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Jacky Tiotto: The intention to be family-centred and to promote families as being the best place for children to grow up in is a good one. As I said, I think it is too late when you are in a panic and get a letter that says, “We may remove your children”—you are going to engage very differently at that point than if you were involved earlier. I think it is a good thing, but the problem with mandation is that just because you say it has to happen does not necessarily mean that people will come, and it does not necessarily offer protection to children. The principle is right but how it becomes operationalised will be important.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Jacky Tiotto: I think it is fantastic to be acknowledging those people who often give up a big chunk of their lives to look after those children. Formalising the offer for them is a no-brainer, really. At CAFCASS, we clearly will be involved in assessing some of those carers if they have come into proceedings and have been named through the proceedings. We will be assessing them as we do special guardians now, so all to the good.
Munira Wilson
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Yes, I was thinking about that on the way here. The intention to be child-centred is great, but there is confusion. Look at the advice that exists now, say, from the Ministry of Justice about the meeting you would have in pre-proceedings about removal of your children: it is not to bring your children because you would be in a meeting where something scary would be being discussed. You can understand that advice. Now, perhaps the week before, we may have a family group decision making where the plan is to encourage children to come. I think that more thought needs to be given to how children will experience family group decision making.
To the point about it being earlier, I think a very special provision should be drafted about the need to seek children’s views and present them in that meeting. Whether they come or not is a matter for local authorities to decide, but, very critically, the adult voices will become the loudest if the children do not present a view.
Munira Wilson
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Yes, but with care.
Munira Wilson
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Well, I think we have to go back to the needs of the children, and they are pretty significant. In large part, when a local authority becomes involved on behalf of the state, they are worried: there will be matters of children not going to school, or them being at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation. There will be some quite serious issues in their lives if they are older children; if they are younger children, not so much so, but nevertheless the kinship carer’s life will not continue in the way it had before, in terms of their ability to work, maybe, or where they live.
We know that local authorities are under huge resource pressure, so there is going to have to be something a bit stronger to encourage people to become carers, whether that is related to housing or the cost of looking after those children. People will want to do the right thing, but if you already have three kids of your own that becomes tricky. It has to be about resource and support—not just financial support, but access to much better mental health support for those children and the carers.
Amanda Martin
Q
Jacky Tiotto: It is a long way back from us, but I was a director of children’s services before this and we were always clamouring to have a much more formal arrangement with the police and with health, so this is a fantastic opportunity to get that resourced and to put child protection formally back on the platform where it was, which is multi-agency. We have “Working Together”, which is the best multi-agency guidance in the world, but it has been hard to express without mandation. So thumbs up!
Ellie Chowns
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Deprivation of liberty, definitely. May I say something about elective home education and also the Staying Close provision? The Bill’s intention to formalise elective home education is long overdue, and children’s views about that education should be well and truly sought before any decision is taken to permit it. It is a bit permissive at the minute, in terms of how section 47 is drafted: if the local authorities had cause to think that you had been, and now have established that you have been, significantly harmed or at risk of significant harm, then on no day of any week could it be okay for you to be out of sight being educated somewhere else.
I think it should be a flat no if you are on a child protection plan. If you are a child in need under section 17, there should be more regular review of the child in need plan if you are being electively home educated. But every time, that child should be asked how it is going: “Is this helping you, are you feeling safe?”
More generally, at every one of these points where we are mandating something about safety, the first thing should be: what is the view of the child? If the child cannot speak, or is a baby, then somebody with the ability to speak on their behalf should be asked. We should tick nothing off without that being the case.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Again, another welcome introduction and formalisation. CAFCASS is involved with 25,000 children a year in public law proceedings. It would be nice if the drafters could require CAFCASS—at the end of proceedings, in its closing letter to the independent reviewing officer—to say, “We think, having come to know this child, that x, y, or z would be an appropriate provision for them in terms of Staying Close.” We will have got to know and had a relationship with that child throughout the proceedings.
The same could apply when we are asked to discharge care orders, which is 10% of our work—again, asking us to write back to the local authority as the child’s guardian and say, “This child will not benefit from being housed 45 miles away,” or “This child will need access to grandma.” Asking us to do that at the end of proceedings would be an important addition to regulations or guidance. We are a bit missed out from the process, and we bring that voice of the child.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Jacky Tiotto: All good. It is the same thing.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Jacky Tiotto: Yes, it is. I have worked with many children who are terrified of the cliff edge of 18; in fact, they start worrying about it at 16. It often blights the last few years of their care.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Jacky Tiotto: The provision mandated to 21, everywhere. I will probably be shot for saying that—
Catherine Atkinson
Q
Jacky Tiotto: It is difficult. We have primary legislation in the Children Act 1989 that says that, in this country, we think the best place for children is growing up in their family or with relatives. When the 30-year review of the Children Act happened, people still signed up to that; this Bill definitely reminds us and provokes that intention again.
The difficulty is that the formality around protecting children is burdensome, rightly so. So in my view some of the construction of this has to be a bit more thoughtful about the children who are going to do well in their families and the children who are not going to stand a chance and need, quickly, to move to permanence and to other places.
Residential care is not doing particularly well for children with very special needs. We struggle to recruit foster carers because the resources around them are not there. It is the shape of what is around those other places, not residential care, that needs to be elevated, in order to reduce the number of children coming into care. Just having family group decision-making conferences or kinship alone is not enough; I do not know anyone saying it is.
I do not know how many of you are familiar with the chief social worker paper from a few years ago called “Care proceedings in England: the case for clear blue water”. A very good, strong case was made for, “Don’t come into court with children where it is going to end up either with them back at home or with a supervision order that gives no statutory power to the local authority. Come into court for the kids that really need a care order and protection and to go somewhere.” We could revisit the extent to which that is an effective situation.
A third of children who come into family proceedings now either remain at home or go back home. I make no judgment about that, but a third of children going through family proceedings is expensive. We need to think about what the point at issue was and what was needed at the time. Will the serving of that order deal with the problem at the time? Often, what has gone wrong in child protection will not be solved by just making a court order, particularly a supervision order. I could be here for a long time on that, but that is another Bill, probably another day.
Darren Paffey
Q
Jacky Tiotto: I do not think so, in terms of the strengthening of section 25 of the 1989 Act so that other accommodation can be used that is not a secure children’s home, but I think there is a gross underestimation of how intensive it is to look after those children. That is not just a today thing—it has been coming for 20 years, when we stopped running children’s homes in local authorities, really. The provision of the accommodation in the way that the Bill sets out is good but, as I said before, the issue is about who runs it and how much the staffing costs are for running very specialist provision—
The Chair
Order. I am afraid that under the programme motion we have to end exactly on time. I apologise. Thank you very much, everybody.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 21st January 2025
(1 day, 14 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 January 2025 - (21 Jan 2025)
The Chair
Before we take evidence from further witnesses, we have a declaration of interest.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
I want to make the Committee aware that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary humanist group. That may become relevant because of evidence submitted to the Committee.
The Chair
Thank you. I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, but as I will not be making any comments, that may not be relevant.
Examination of Witness
Dame Rachel de Souza gave evidence.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I am the Children’s Commissioner and have been since 2021, and before that I was a school leader in the most disadvantaged areas for 20 years, so I am very interested. I am pleased to see a Bill on children’s wellbeing; it is great that we are getting some legislation on that. I was well consulted around the first part of the Bill, on wellbeing, and I was able to take the children’s voice through. I worked closely with the Department for Education and others to ensure that it was honed, refined and made really good, as I did on some bits of the schools part. But I do not think that anybody got to see the schools bit until it was published.
On the schools bit, what I feel more than anything is that we now have a period of time when we need to see a vision for a new, vibrant and transformative schools system—how it will work locally, with local authorities, to do the best for children, particularly the most vulnerable children. I have a number of outstanding questions around that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Look, I need the school system to be as ambitious for children—as Children’s Commissioner, I represent children—as they are for themselves. I had hoped that we would get to a point where we were not talking about old binaries—academies or council schools—but talking about schools, families of schools and building up our local authorities so that everyone can play their part to support standards in the post-lockdown period.
I have two issues with the academies provisions. First, I cannot let children remain in failing schools, so if those are going, I need to know what is going to happen. Childhood lasts a very short time, so if a child is in a failing school, how will those schools be improved, immediately and effectively? Secondly, as well as a real vision for the schools system—I know that it is there—I would like to see what will happen to attainment data, under what is envisaged as replacing it, so that no child, particularly the most vulnerable, is disadvantaged.
I was a headteacher for the first time in 2006. It was a Tony Blair-sponsored academy—I was his No. 67. That school had been failing for 20 years, and I got it to outstanding with the support of everyone around me. It has never gone back to less than good. Any new system has to deliver for the most vulnerable as well.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I think, Neil, that you have given quite a thoughtful comment, which people new to education might not quite get. Probably the main reason for academy orders was to try to expedite improvement quickly against a backlash. Would it not be great if we could get everyone on side to be able to act really quickly, together, to improve schools that need improving? I am not going to get hung up on this bit. What I want to see is the vision for how we are going to work together with the best knowledge we have about school improvement, and with a sense of absolute urgency about making sure that no child is sitting in a failing school, because childhood lasts such a short time. What makes a great school? Whatever background you are from—whether you are from the academy sector or the local authority sector—the evidence is clear: we need a great headteacher and great teachers allowed to do their jobs, with support from a family of schools, whatever that family of schools is. That is what we need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Yes. Before I do, I want to praise the fact that the children’s bit of the Bill really listens to children, because it has tried to do that. I want the schools bit to do the same. Since Minister Morgan is asking the question, I will say that he was the first person to speak to my ambassadors and actually try to take on board their views. That is important for all of us—we need to hear from children all the time.
I have been obsessed with the unique identifier from the second I got into my role. I do not need to spell out why—well, maybe I do. In my first couple of weeks in the role, I visited a violence reduction unit—a police crime reduction unit—in Bedfordshire, and it had a spreadsheet of children that were on nobody’s roll. They were not on any GP system or school roll; they were known by nobody. We cannot, in this century, with the tech capacity we have, find ourselves in that position.
I spoke to Professor Jay yesterday about the terrible abuse of young girls that has been going on and what to do about it. Do you know what she told me? She told me that one local area she was working with had a massive increase in sexually transmitted diseases in girls aged 13 and 14, but the health authority would not share the data with the police, under a completely misguided view about data sharing. My view is that we must invest in a unique identifier. Had Sara Sharif’s social workers had a unique identifier, they would have had the information and tech to know from other authorities she had been in that she was a child known to social services. The school would have known. Children, particularly vulnerable children, think we already know their stories. They think that we, the adults, are already talking to each other. For children, that is just how they think it should be—the adults who care for them should know.
Let me be clear, and be under no illusion: the parlous state of data systems means that the unique identifier will be a huge job. However, I am so pleased to see it committed to in the Bill. If there is one thing I would like to see before my term ends in the next couple of years, it is the unique identifier on the way. It will underpin so many things that we want in education, in child protection, in gluing the systems together and in the multi-agency work, so absolutely, we need it.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: On the children’s social care side, I can absolutely assure you that vulnerable children’s voices have been taken through. On deprivation of liberty orders, I did research with children deprived of their liberty and took their voices through. On many of the multi-agency points, and lots of other things, their voices have gone through.
We have an opportunity to take children’s voices through on the schools side, but I do not think it has been done. I have had a million responses from school-aged children about what they want from their schools. The top things that they tell me they want are to study and to have a curriculum that they are really interested in and motivated by. They know they have to do the core, but they want all those things that they are really interested by in there too. They also want proper mental health support. There has been a tsunami of mental health concerns since lockdown, and that is why we need our LAs and CAMHS and everyone working together.
On SEND, the cri de coeur from children is, “I want to succeed and I will roll my sleeves up and work hard, but I need the support—support, support, support.” The children with special educational needs who feel their needs are met in school have told me—I did a snapshot of 95,000 of them—that they are happier in their schools than the rest of the cohort, but the ones who think their needs are not being met are unhappy. They also want to know about adult life and have deep concerns about wanting better relationships and sex education that is relevant and teaches them how to be better adults. They also want to know about the workplace. They are incredibly teleological. I would have loved it if they had all wanted to learn Dickens, but, no, they want to know how to get great jobs and what to do. They are very ambitious.
Damian Hinds saw a group of students with me to discuss what they wanted from the curriculum. We need to do more of that. We need to get their voices. We have a period of time now when we can get their voices and concerns through, and we should do it.
Munira Wilson
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: What I said to her yesterday was, “Stop thinking of it like the Health and Safety Executive and start thinking of it like the National Crime Agency.” I think there is a debate to be had about whether we should do it. Look, my job came in 20 years ago when Victoria Climbié was brutally murdered by those who should have loved her most. Nobody murdered her but them, but the agencies around her did not talk. Every time a child dies, we give exactly the same set of recommendations, including better multi-agency working and better join-up, yet time and again—Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Sara Sharif—we find ourselves saying the same things.
The positive in that idea is having some way of making sure that social care and the other agencies really work together. The unique identifier is building the architecture to do it. The solution is either something like that, or we need our agencies to be working far more closely around children and to make multi-agency a reality.
I read every single report of a child who is killed—mainly in the home—and all the horrific things we are reading at the moment about girls and the so-called grooming gangs, and we know that the multi-agency piece is not working. Professor Jay’s idea should be considered—it would need to have teeth—but I am also open to other ways of doing that.
The Chair
Several Members want to be called. I cannot call everybody.
Dame Rachel de Souza: I will try to be brief.
The Chair
If I do not call you in this session, I will call you in a future one. Can we have questions to the point, so we can get on, please?
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I really do not remember that word, but I did that article with Nadine Dorries because I was absolutely desperate for the Online Safety Bill to get through. I spoke to Lucy Powell and Bridget about it. I felt that there were forces in the Government at the time that were trying not to let the Bill go through, because of freedom of speech issues. I knew that the NSPCC was working with Labour, and I stuck my neck out in that article to try to convince everybody that the Online Safety Bill should go through.
I am totally independent. I do not think that any Government or person I have worked with thinks otherwise. I challenge you to find anywhere—I mean, this is a word in an article. I think you will find that I have been strong and robust on online safety. Sometimes I use “our” when I am talking about the school system, children, or the country and the Government, and if I have used it inappropriately, I am sorry.
Amanda Martin
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Always. I would not come to Parliament and do anything else.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: We have always been worried, and successive Governments have felt that maybe there was a need for this—I think you, Damian, did the first consultation on it a long while back—and there has been a debate going on about whether we should have a register of children not in school. I am delighted to see it in this Bill.
The number of children missing from education is getting worse. We know that post-lockdown, there was a massive rise in children persistently absent and severely absent, and a massive number of children missing from education. I have made it my business to look into who those children are; I did that in 2021. We have three pots of children: children with special educational needs who went off in 2019 and have not come back; children with mental health/anxiety concerns; and children who really have just gone, who are at risk of CSE. We really need a register.
We have another problem, which I have investigated. I looked at last year’s roll and compared it with this year’s roll, and we found at least 13,000 children who we could not account for, plus another 10,000 who were CME. They had gone to be home-educated, because they did not feel that their needs were being met in school and they felt that they were driven to that. We absolutely need a home register.
The Chair
We will have one final, brief question—hopefully with a brief answer—from Darren Paffey.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I am delighted with the measures for vulnerable children. I am hopeful for the measures on the schools side, but we need to see a bit more of a vision before I can answer. What is that system going to look like? My recommendation would be focusing on how, in local areas, we can build up and strengthen our local authorities so that they can be the champions of children, particularly vulnerable children, and convene the trusts and the schools so that everyone can work together to share their expertise. If we do that, we will have a great shot at it, and I think it could be really good.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of this session. I know there are other Members who want to get in; I will try to call you during the next session.
Examination of Witnesses
Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston and Yvette Stanley gave evidence.
The Chair
Will the witnesses from Ofsted please introduce themselves?
Sir Martyn Oliver: I am Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted.
Yvette Stanley: My name is Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for early years regulation and social care inspection and regulation.
Lee Owston: I am Lee Owston, one of His Majesty’s inspectors and Ofsted’s national director for education.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: No, we do not find that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We do not actually look at the backgrounds of teachers and check to that level of detail, so I could not give you a quantitative answer. I do know that increasingly, as schools are finding it difficult to recruit and retain staff, they are looking at alternative measures. It is massively important that people be qualified to teach children to the highest possible standard in the specialism in which they are delivering.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Speaking as a previous headteacher, absolutely. Bringing in external expertise to supplement high-quality qualified teachers is clearly of benefit to children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“if any key judgement is inadequate…we will place the school in a formal category of concern.”
How will that work in future? If a school is in the bottom tier of one of your new categories of assessment, what will happen?
Sir Martyn Oliver: The legal powers for Ofsted are that I identify to the Secretary of State a school that is in special measures or requires significant improvement. That requirement—from, I think, the Education and Inspections Act 2006—will not change. Ofsted will still be under a duty to pass that on to the Secretary of State. Very imminently, I will consult on a new framework that will strengthen and raise standards further. I am interested to see what the Department for Education will release alongside my consultation to explain those academy orders further.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Yes, but I think it is very imminent. I am very happy: I feel that we are going to hold the system to account to raise standards better than ever before.
The Chair
It will help if those Members who wanted to ask a question last time but were not called indicate if they want to ask a question in this session.
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Yes, absolutely. We very much welcome the introduction of the Bill, which will deliver some of the important legislative asks that Ofsted has made for a long time, especially to keep the most vulnerable safe and learning. That includes removing loopholes that enable illegal schools to operate, improving Ofsted’s powers to investigate unregistered schools that we suspect may be operating illegally, enabling Ofsted to fine unregistered children’s homes for operating unsafe and unregulated accommodation for vulnerable children, introducing a register of children not in school—I could go on. We are very happy with large parts of the Bill.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Our top priority is the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. The ability to look at illegal or unregistered settings, unregistered children’s homes and illegal schools is hugely important. When they are out of Ofsted’s line of sight, it causes us great concern. I think that this Bill or a future Bill could go further and look at unregistered alternative provision, because all children educated anywhere for the majority of their time should be in sight of the inspectorate or a regulator. I do think that we will see significant issues with addressing the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, especially in part 1, on children’s social care.
Munira Wilson
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We think that there are grey areas where the legislation will help us get it right, but we do think that we can go further. For example, the feasibility and administrative costs of carrying out searches of illegal schools and the requirement of getting a warrant would be very burdensome for Ofsted, and we will need additional resource to manage that. It is massively important. We will always use those powers proportionately and with care. For example, in a commercial setting, the ability to have different powers that allow us to search without a warrant would be far more reasonable. Obviously, in a domestic setting, I would expect safeguarding measures to be in place and to require a warrant, because forcing an entry into somebody’s private home is entirely different from doing so in a commercial premises. There are resources there, but I am assured that my team, particularly my two policy colleagues here, have been working with the Department for quite some time on these asks. We have been building our measures and building that into our future spending review commitment as well.
Yvette Stanley: To build on what Martyn has just said, from a social care perspective we would like to go further on the standards for care. National minimum standards are not good enough; the standards should apply based on the vulnerability of and risk to children. A disabled child in a residential special school should not be getting a different level of support: the same safeguards should be in place whether they are in a children’s home or in a residential special school.
We would like to go further on corporate parenting. That is something to be addressed. We would also like to look at regional care co-operatives and regional adoption agencies. Those things tend to fall out of our purview as an inspectorate. There is a range of really detailed things, but to echo what Martyn says, we are working actively with our DFE policy colleagues to give our very best advice through the Bill process to strengthen these things wherever possible.
Munira Wilson
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: The consultation will meet the Government test and will run for 12 weeks imminently. The Bill will obviously pass through the House at that time. I think it will bring it all together in a more joined-up system. The system has been calling for inspection and accountability to be joined up, and we are about to deliver that in, I hope, the next few weeks. Of course, the consultation is not a fait accompli. I will be really interested to receive feedback from everyone, and we will respond to that at the end and see where it takes us. I hope that at the end it will be a better system for vulnerable and disadvantaged children, alongside all children, to keep them safe and well-educated.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Again, it would depend. In the past, I have brought in professional sportspeople to teach alongside PE teachers, and they have run sessions. Because I was in Wakefield, it was rugby league: I had rugby league professionals working with about a quarter of the schools in Wakefield at one point. I had a tremendous amount of help from the local rugby teams, but that was alongside qualified teachers carrying out that work. That was important to me, because those qualified teachers could meet the risk assessment regarding the activity of teaching children rugby league. Having that specialism is key. There is a reason why you train to be a teacher and it is a profession.
Matt Bishop
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Ideally alongside. I personally would never have done “instead of” as a first choice. That would have been a deficit decision, based on my ability to recruit and retain staff.
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Lee and I will answer this one together. The components we see are the ones that we set out in the Ofsted framework, on which I am about to consult. The quality of leadership and governance from those running the organisations is always No. 1. Then, very quickly, it is the quality of the curriculum, the ability of teachers to deliver that curriculum, and the outcomes that children receive. It is then everything else: behaviour, attendance, personal development, wellbeing. All these things form part of our inspection regime. We test and check them all.
Lee Owston: In my 13 years as one of His Majesty’s inspectors, I have always observed in schools that there is a mix of colleagues who are delivering the curriculum. The absolute beauty and purpose of inspection is to get underneath, on the ground, the difference you are making to the children in front of you, whatever qualification you might have, if any. It means asking questions of the leaders about why they have decided to do what they have done in the context in which they are working. Ultimately we report on whether whatever decision a leader has made ultimately has the intent of making a difference so that, whatever background a child comes from, it is allowing them to succeed.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We see quite a number of issues. I spoke recently in my annual review, which I laid before Parliament in December, about home schooling and flexi-schooling. To be clear, many children are very well flexi-schooled and home-schooled, but I am very concerned about those who have been withdrawn from the school’s register for all the wrong reasons. Dame Rachel recently mentioned the very sad case of Sara Sharif.
If a school is recommending that a child be placed in front of the child protection team, it should clearly not be possible for a parent to then withdraw that child from that oversight of the professionals and place them in home education. Not only is having a register of children who are not in education massively important for keeping individuals safe, but it will be of significant benefit to Ofsted. In the Bill, there are sharing powers between the DFE, the local authority and Ofsted that will allow us to investigate for unregistered and illegal schools, so we will be better able to determine where they might be taking place. That will be hugely beneficial for keeping children safer.
Catherine Atkinson
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Speaking as a qualified teacher of fine art, absolutely.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Actually, the education inspection framework that we currently use significantly reduced the deviation of academies because it set out the need to carry out a broad and balanced curriculum. That was interesting, because it was not what was set out in the articles of the individual academies and those freedoms, so Ofsted has been in tension with those articles for quite some time.
The Bill puts everyone on the same footing. I think that there is good in that, but speaking as HMCI, as a previous chief executive of one of the largest trusts, as a headteacher and as a teacher for 30 years, I would always want to give headteachers the flexibility to do what is right for their children, as long as it ultimately delivers the broad and balanced education that you would expect all children to receive.
Damian Hinds
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: The most typical reason is a focus on the core standards of English and mathematics. We often see that, but I am afraid that in some cases it goes beyond improving core standards: there are some that hot-house to the exclusion of being broad and balanced. It is important that a headteacher always retains a broad overview of a child to make sure that children get the core standards for their future, but also a well-rounded education in total.
Damian Hinds
Q
Lee Owston: That would currently come under our quality-of-education judgment. It would not be seen as good if we could not, through the evidence we collect, determine a broad and balanced curriculum for all children.
Sir Martyn Oliver: I am about to consult on a measure that will allow more nuance and better identify that.
Damian Hinds
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We have been involved in that for quite some time, even with previous Governments, whether it was about online education or all these aspects. I think that all our intelligence, for years, has carried forward into this Bill.
Lizzi Collinge
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: To answer your last question first, absolutely: it is a significant improvement on our powers. Since 2016, we have carried out almost 1,400 criminal investigations into almost 1,300 unique unregistered settings. Not all investigations lead to an on-site inspection. We have carried out almost 900 on-site inspections and issued 200 warnings, meaning that in over one fifth of on-site inspections, we were able to secure sufficient evidence that a crime was being committed, despite our limited powers at that point and under the current legislation. We have worked with the Crown Prosecution Service to successfully prosecute seven cases, including a total of 21 individual convictions.
The new powers will significantly improve our ability to do that, and the speed at which we can do it. It is very difficult to carry out those investigations. It is incredibly resource-reliant and takes significant time—regularly between 12 and 24 months—if we can get it to that position. The changes will help to address those loopholes in the law, but we think that there are some areas for improvement. As I have said, the need to get a warrant in all cases will be incredibly bureaucratic and expensive for Ofsted. Obviously we want to do it with care—we do not want to break into people’s homes and inspect them—but on commercial premises we think that there is a more proportionate response, which will reduce bureaucracy, reduce the cost to Ofsted and allow us to focus on keeping children safe.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Q
Lee Owston: Obviously there is a review, from Professor Becky Francis, of what the national curriculum will contain, and we are speaking frequently with members of that review. From an inspector’s position, it will always be about how providers are adhering to the legal requirements set by Government and Parliament. Obviously, we look forward to seeing what the Bill produces in how we then interact with it. In terms of a broad legal requirement, and what all children as a minimum should be able to access, I would support that statement.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of this session, and we will move on to the next panel of witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Mark Russell, Lynn Perry and Katharine Sacks-Jones gave evidence.
The Chair
If Members did not get in for a question last time but indicate that they would like to this time, I will try to call them. We now have witnesses from a number of children’s organisations. Could you just begin by introducing yourselves, please?
Lynn Perry: Good afternoon. I am Lynn Perry and I am the chief executive at Barnardo’s. I am here this afternoon representing the Children’s Charities Coalition, which includes Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, the NSPCC, Action for Children and the National Children’s Bureau.
Mark Russell: Good afternoon. I am Mark Russell and I am the chief executive of the Children’s Society.
Katharine Sacks-Jones: Good afternoon. I am Katharine Sacks-Jones and I am chief executive of Become, which is the national charity for children in care and young care leavers.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: The coalition broadly welcomes the potentially transformational proposals that are contained within the Bill, including those for a single unique identifier, which is one of the things that the coalition has been specifically calling for over a period of time. Multiple reviews have found that information sharing between agencies is problematic, so that is one of the things that we think could really aid child protection, safeguarding and multi-agency working. I would say that to really shift the dial we need further investment in early intervention and early help across our communities, and much greater focus on embedding that consistently and universally. We also need some further clarification on some of the areas that the single unique identifier will need for effective application, I think it is fair to say.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: Yes, certainly. I will raise the third area and then I will come back to that, if I may. The third area is mechanisms for ensuring that the voices, wishes, feelings and experiences of children and young people really influence the provisions in the Bill, and to put those at the heart of support.
On the single unique identifier, there are some questions that we think are worth some further scrutiny. The first of those is the question whether the single unique identifier would be assigned to all babies, children and young people, and a confirmation that that would be for children between the ages of nought and 18. We also think there is an opportunity to extend the use of the identifier, the scope of which is currently limited in the Bill to safeguarding and welfare purposes. A wider emphasis on wellbeing of children and young people and positive outcomes is one of the things that could be further considered here.
As ever, implementation cannot wait, and it would be helpful to have some indicative timescales for when the Secretary of State might introduce regulations for the consistent identifier and how people will be required to use it within their systems. Finally, while acknowledging the need for data protection, there is an opportunity to make better, data-informed decisions in the future about the commissioning and scoping of services that will effectively meet the needs of children and young people, as well as taking account of some of their emerging vulnerabilities and risk and need factors.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Mark Russell: I associate myself entirely with everything that my colleague has said, but I have a couple of extra points. I would want the Bill to include a measurement of children’s wellbeing. I welcome the fact that the title of the Bill mentions children’s wellbeing, but we have no measurement of children’s wellbeing. We in the Children’s Society measure children’s wellbeing, but we are a charity; we are measuring a sample of children rather than all children. The Government talk about wanting to be child-centred. A measurement of children’s wellbeing would be real data on what real children think about their lives, and that would provide a huge amount of information for local authorities to ensure that local services meet the needs of young people. That is one thing.
Secondly, I would welcome schools becoming a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, because so many safeguarding challenges are first identified by schools—I speak not just as the chief executive of a charity, but as a school governor. Thirdly, I hugely welcome the breakfast clubs and the changes to the rules on school uniform; the Children’s Society has campaigned on school uniform for many years. Those will help families. I understand why the Government have made the breakfast clubs a universal offer, but with limited funds, I would like to see secondary school children included in it, but with the breakfast clubs available first to children from families receiving universal credit. The free school meal allowance has not gone up for a very long time. We think that around 1 million children in this country who are living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and we know that hunger hugely limits what children can do in school and their learning. If we can change that, we will improve the opportunities for, and wellbeing of young people.
Katharine Sacks-Jones: I want to focus on the provisions on children in care and young care leavers. There are some welcome steps to better support care leavers. At the moment, young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, where support falls away, often on their 18th birthday. A huge number go on to face homelessness —one in three become homeless within two years of leaving care—and that has meant a big increase in statutory homelessness among care leavers: a 54% rise in the past five years. There is a real challenge to ensure that we better support young people leaving the care system.
In that context, extending Staying Close up to the age of 25 and making it a statutory provision is welcome, but we think the Bill could go further in strengthening the legal entitlement for young people leaving care. There are two areas in particular. The first is that we are concerned about the how the Bill assesses whether a young person’s welfare requires Staying Close support. Where you have those kinds of assessment, particularly in times of scarcity, the extra support is often rationed, which will mean that many young people are not eligible for it or are not assessed as being in need. We think that rationing needs to be removed. Instead, there should be an assumption that a young person leaving care does require some extra support; the question should be what that support looks like, and we would like to see the provisions in the Bill broadened to allow local authorities to provide other types of support beyond what the Bill provides for at the moment, which is largely advice and guidance.
We welcome the strengthening of the care leaver local offer to include provisions around housing and homelessness. As I said, those are big issues for young people leaving care. We also warmly welcome the Government’s recent amendment on homelessness intentionality, which would remove intentionality from care leavers. We hear from young people who have found themselves homeless because, for example, they accepted a place at university in a different part of the country, and they were then deemed by their home local authority to be intentionally homeless and so not eligible for further homelessness assistance. We think that needs to change. That is a welcome step.
We think the Bill could go further in looking at priority need for young people leaving care. At the moment, that goes up to 21; we think it should go up to the age of 25, in line with other entitlements for young care leavers. We are also disappointed not to see in the Bill the extension of corporate parenting—something that the Government have previously committed to.
There are some welcome measures that will increase oversight and accountability, and help with some of the structural challenges, in relation to the provision of homes for children. We do not think those go far enough in addressing the huge issue around the sufficiency of placements for children. That issue is seeing more and more children moved across the country, moved far from their local areas and being moved frequently—a huge amount of instability. That is a big challenge. We would like to see a requirement for a national strategy that looks at the issue of sufficiency and collects better data, as well as an annual report to Parliament on progress against that strategy. Finally, to reinforce the point made by colleagues, young people’s voices are really important. The importance of considering young people’s wishes and feelings is set out in other pieces of legislation, and there are a number of areas in the Bill that would benefit from the inclusion of that, too.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Mark Russell: Perhaps I should say that we are working with about 75,000 young people around the country, and so many more young people are reporting as being hungry than have been for quite some time. We know that families are under huge strain. We saw in our “Good Childhood Report” this year that 84% of parents were anxious about being able to pay their bills, and we also saw that one in three parents were struggling to pay for a hot meal every single day. As they are provided to all children in the school, I think breakfast clubs will provide a real sense of uniformity and equality, and will give every child the best possible start to the day. Children who are hungry cannot learn and cannot thrive. I have friends who are teachers, and they are telling me that in classrooms around the country they are seeing children who are hungry and living in homes that are cold. Anything that we can do to support families is really important, so I welcome breakfast clubs. As I said earlier, I would like to see secondary school children helped, and if the pot is limited, I would probably step back from universality and provide for those most in need.
Also, alongside that, this needs to link up with the Government’s child poverty strategy that is coming later this year, which we are very much looking forward to seeing, about how we lift more and more families out of poverty. According to the stats, there are 4.3 million children in this country in poverty, and those children will not get the best start in life or thrive in school if they are hungry and cannot succeed. I obviously very much welcome the measures on that in the Bill.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Lynn Perry: Certainly. I am looking at Mark because I know that has been an area of campaigning and influencing for the Children’s Society. I will first touch on the breakfast clubs, without wanting to repeat what Mark has said; we do welcome those. We are concerned about poor health outcomes for children and young people and health inequalities, particularly for the 4.3 million children and young people who are living in poverty, 1 million of whom are in destitution and whose basic needs are not being met. That means that in the provision of breakfast clubs we would like to see some real guidance, and monitoring of the guidance, on healthy and nutritious food with which children can start their day. We know that they are unable to attain educationally if they are going to school hungry and coming home to a cold house.
I want to touch on child poverty, if I may, because there is a need to join this up with the work in the child poverty strategy. Those two things should go hand in hand on parallel lines. On school uniforms, there is a question of affordability for a lot of the families that we work with. We ran the attendance mentoring pilot in seven areas, and we have had families that have been unable to get their children to school, not because of school refusal but because they cannot afford the right uniform, they do not have school shoes or transport is an issue. All those things need to join up to get children into school and to get them a breakfast, which will not only allow them to learn but destigmatise some of their experiences when they do not have the right school shoes or uniform.
Mark Russell: May I add something else? At the Children’s Society we have campaigned on uniform for about seven years, and we were very grateful to the previous Administration for backing a private Member’s Bill that we were working with an MP on, which placed the non-statutory guidance on school uniform on a statutory footing. That was designed to reduce the cost of uniform by providing for consultations with parents, using pre-loved items, reducing the number of branded items and not having one sole supplier. Since the Bill became law, our research has shown that a significant number of schools around the country have not changed their uniform policies. In our poll from last year, 60% of parents believed that their school uniform policy had not changed. I want to welcome the measures in the Bill that will tighten that further and reduce the number of branded items. Uniform should not be the thing that breaks the bank for parents. We know that children who are not wearing the correct uniform frequently end up being excluded from school and are then at a higher risk of being exploited by criminal groups.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Katharine Sacks-Jones: They are very welcome. We would very warmly welcome the extension of Staying Close support, because we know that too many young people do not get the support they need at that point of leaving care. That can often literally be on their 18th birthday—we regularly hear from young people who are perhaps told 24 or 48 hours before their 18th birthday that they will need to leave on it. Often the planning is poor and support is inadequate, and sadly many go on to face homelessness. We would like to see the provisions strengthened.
Our concern is that at the moment the assessment made by local authorities will enable them to ration support, and actually this should be a provision for all young people leaving care who need it. It could be a small amendment which would really strengthen the support available to young people and make sure that it is sufficiently different from what is already available on a statutory footing.
Munira Wilson
Q
Mark Russell: In a word, yes. A national wellbeing measurement would be a really good place to start, because it would give us the data showing how children’s lives really are, and would put the voice of children at the centre of this. In the meantime, there is the measurement we have. We are part of a coalition of charities, as well as the Children’s Charities Coalition, involving pro bono economics. Lord Gus O’Donnell said the national measurement is the missing piece in the Bill.
As a group of charities we have also been urging a wider improvement of early intervention support for young people around mental health. Young people too often wait until crisis before we intervene. In the period between when a GP diagnoses that a young person needs help and when they finally get it, that young person’s mental health spirals further out of control. That has an impact on their whole family and their ability to attend and thrive in school, and it means that more young people end up in the children’s social care system as well. An investment in early intervention is a long-term investment to improve children’s mental health, which, in my view, would create stronger adults as well.
Munira Wilson
Q
Katharine Sacks-Jones: There are some really welcome measures in here, and increasing Ofsted’s powers and increasing oversight, particularly of private providers, is all welcome. One of the challenges is the imbalance in the market and the fact that these private providers have so much power because they run over 80% of all children’s homes. There is nothing in the Bill that really increases sufficiency and brings on board more public sector provision and more charity sector provision. While you have that imbalance, some of these challenges will remain, so we think there needs to be more to address sufficiency and we would like to see a national sufficiency strategy to address that.
The provisions as set out also do not cover the providers of supported accommodation, which is accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds—children—who are still in care, and that can be hostels or bed and breakfasts. We would like to see these provisions extended to that group as well. The Government have previously said that that is something they would consider in time, but we think this is an opportunity to legislate to include the providers of supported accommodation to children in the provisions that are set out here, which would increase transparency and scrutiny of that section of children’s home provision—supported accommodation provision.
The Chair
A number of Members want to get in. I ask Members to direct their question to whoever you think might be the most appropriate to answer it, and then if the other members of the panel say they agree, we will move forward. If they do not, of course they can say that.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Q
Mark Russell: Thank you, Tom; we have corresponded before about your previous work. I welcome a huge swathe of what is in the Bill on this. We have been campaigning on this for many years, including the identifier for young people to ensure data is shared. Home schooling is a really significant area. As the commissioner and Ofsted said earlier, a significant number of young people are home-schooled, which is really good and beneficial for them. It is also important to say that some are home-schooled because the school is unable to meet the special educational needs that those young people have, or they are struggling with their mental health. The measures in the Bill to provide for a register are really important. The local authority consent for young people is really important.
I also want to mention that we had an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which was seven years long. We heard from more than 7,000 survivors of abuse, and there were a swathe of recommendations that have not been acted on. I know we have heard from the Home Secretary that there is a plan coming on that, which is really welcome, but time and time again we read the same recommendations, in report after report. We know that so many young people experience sexual abuse in family settings or in settings where there is an adult that they should be able to trust. There are clear things we can do to tighten safeguarding and minimise those risks. The Bill takes a step in the right direction. It is also really important because it has been quite a while since we had a piece of legislation entirely focused on children. That, in itself, is welcome.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Lynn Perry: We think that this is an opportunity for that to be addressed in legislation. As a charity that works across the devolved nations, we have obviously seen change in other areas. Now is the opportunity for us to address the defence of reasonable chastisement in legislation and give children equal protection. It is important to note that values, public attitudes and the way in which we frame childhood have changed significantly, so to consider that further would be very welcome.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Lynn Perry: We would.
Amanda Martin
Q
Mark Russell: There is a great deal in the Bill that will improve safeguarding arrangements for children, which is really important. The role of the local authority is critical, and local authorities are under enormous pressure. We all work with local authorities right around the country. We hear from directors of children’s services and their teams about the sheer pressure.
Alongside that, we need to look at how local authorities commission services for children and young people. I always find it slightly bemusing that local authorities can commission a bin service for 10 years, but cannot a commission a children’s service for two years. That would not cost the taxpayer any more money. If we improved the length of the periods at which commissioning were done, it would allow organisations such as ours to invest in services and teams to build stronger services locally. The environment in which local government finance works does not make our lives any easier in supporting children and young people.
Lynn Perry: We have to think about this pre-school. Early intervention in early years services is absolutely critical to ensure school readiness for children. That is not just for those children in educational terms, but for their families to be able to establish a network of support as a parent or carer and to access universal and targeted provision. We need to take a whole-family approach to support children to start well in school. What that requires, of course, is a significant shift in investment. Currently, most of the spending in the children’s social care budget is on late interventions and the children in-care population. We need to re-engineer and reset the system so that there is more investment at a much earlier stage. All of that helps with school readiness, attendance and attainment. As we know, schools are at the heart of a lot of that multi-agency working across communities and the safeguarding system, in terms of their opportunity to identify children, so it is important that children have a positive experience of starting school and staying in school.
Damian Hinds
Q
Mark Russell: That is a very good question. I understand why the Government have taken the decision they have; I really do. Particularly in a primary school, you want to be as universal as possible.
Damian Hinds
It would be the whole school, as it is now under the school breakfast programme.
Mark Russell: Yes. With limited resources, I would probably have targeted it more at those most in need and included secondary school children in that mix. We will continue talking to the Government about secondary school children; I am deeply concerned about them as well.
Damian Hinds
Q
Lynn Perry: I have not yet seen any change on the ground. We deliver a number of mental health support teams in schools. We consider them to be an effective way to reach children and young people at an early stage, and to intervene before they reach crisis point. There are often relationships of trust. Quite frequently, people know their children very well within the school context and can manage that supported and enabled engagement with provision in schools. I have not seen anything that has translated into a direct change in practice at this juncture, but we think it is a really important area of work. We think that there is potential to do more in that space, by looking at what might be described as an MHST+ type model.
Darren Paffey
Q
Katharine Sacks-Jones: As I said earlier, these are welcome measures. There is very little oversight of the providers at the moment, so a number of measures will improve that oversight. The missing piece is that if you do not tackle sufficiency, the power imbalance will still sit in the hands of the providers who provide the majority of homes for children. Greater oversight needs to come alongside improving sufficiency. One way to do that is to have a national strategy, which is missing at the moment. We think the Bill is an opportunity to introduce that.
Darren Paffey
Q
Katharine Sacks-Jones: I think there are benefits to be had in regional commissioning. We are concerned to ensure that provision for children is not then condensed in certain areas of a region, which could mean children still being moved great distances. We would like to see a safeguard in the Bill around not moving children far from home unless it is in their interest, to go alongside the new regional co-operation arrangements.
Lynn Perry: I echo some of what Katharine said there. There has to be a focus on outcomes for children in care, and in particular for all providers to be able to demonstrate that they are taking the sort of steps that Katharine describes, which would lead to better outcomes for children. We need to recognise that with 80% of existing provision being provided privately, any sudden exit might also cause some challenges for children. So, the sufficiency piece is really important, but we need to rebuild what I reluctantly describe as the market, to provide care for children in a different way. That will take some time.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
Q
Lynn Perry: As an individual charity, we run 800 services. However, right across the coalition, we are seeing an increased level of presenting need. A number of factors are influencers in that: of course, the long shadow of the covid pandemic and then, hard on its heels, the cost of living crisis, which has really impacted a lot of the families that we work with across our charities. Our practitioners across the charities also tell us that thresholds for services are getting increasingly high. Even within some of our early intervention services, we are working with increased complexity of need. That is a really important factor to recognise, because families are under pressure for much longer, which leads to issues that are much more intractable and difficult to address. That is part and parcel of the picture that we are seeking to address.
Without a significant investment in early intervention and early help—the level of spend—I do not think we will be able to achieve the radical transformation that the Bill aims to achieve. We have been doing a report since 2010 that looks at children’s services and funding and the spend on them. We are now seeing a tipping point. If we do not invest now in early help, it will be very difficult for the pendulum to swing back.
Mark Russell: I absolutely endorse all of that. The data in that report shows that councils in England spent £12.2 billion on children’s services, and that is an increase of £600 million on the previous year. However, expenditure on early intervention and support for families has halved during that period, and support for later interventions has doubled, so we are spending all the money at the crisis end. That is the first thing.
Allied to that, the cost of living crisis has hit families really hard around the country. My colleagues who work directly with children are having to buy food for children. We are having to buy shoes for children, duvets for children, and beds for children, who are struggling really deeply right now. I have always had a quote over my desk at home by an American writer called Frederick Douglass, who said:
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
I think he was right. I welcome the Bill and also the engagement that our organisations have had with the Government on its content. Thank you for having us along to present our voice to this debate today. However, we need to do much more to give every child in Britain the best possible start in life.
Katharine Sacks-Jones: Just to add, children in the care system are some of the most vulnerable children in our country. We have more children in care than there have been historically—84,000 in England. The outcomes for them are getting worse on a number of issues, including more children being moved away from their local area, away from their family, brothers and sisters, and away from their school. Frequently, they are being moved just because there are not enough places for them to live closer to home. We are seeing an increase in young people leaving the care system and becoming homeless, so on all those issues the outcomes for children in the care system are getting worse. This is an opportunity to address some of those issues, and we very much welcome some of the provisions in the Bill, but there is an opportunity to go further to strengthen it and to really change things for children in the care system.
The Chair
I thank all the witnesses for coming today and giving evidence to the Committee. We now move on to our next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Nigel Genders and Paul Barber gave evidence.
The Chair
We now move on to representatives from the Churches. Could you begin by introducing yourselves, please?
Nigel Genders: My name is Nigel Genders. I am the chief education officer for the Church of England, which means that I have the national responsibility for the Church of England’s work in education, and I oversee 4,700 schools, which educate 1 million children.
Paul Barber: I am Paul Barber. I am director of the Catholic Education Service, which is the education agency of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales, and we provide just over 2,000 schools across England.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: The cap is a policy rather than law. We would very much like to see the cap lifted. My understanding of the current policy is that it applies to free schools, and we would very much like to see that lifted. The consultation took place and there has not, as yet, been a Government response to that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: I do not—that is not in my hands.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: You are right to raise the issue of behaviour. When we talk to teachers across the country, one of the biggest things that puts people off teaching, in terms of the retention and recruitment crisis, is children’s behaviour. I am not sure there are particular things that you need legislation for in that space; it is about just giving teachers greater confidence. We are doing work in teacher training and leadership training to equip teachers to be really fantastic teachers, which are all important tools available to the system to really prioritise that area. I cannot think of anything particularly in the legislative space that would be needed.
Paul Barber: I agree with Nigel that discipline is definitely a factor in the recruitment and retention of teachers, and it is something that we need to give some attention to. Like Nigel, I do not think there is anything specific that is required legislatively, but I think what is needed is an overall accountability framework within which schools have the flexibility to respond to the needs of their particular pupil populations. Our schools have a very good track record of being orderly, and I think that is one of the reasons why they are very popular with parents. It is about school leaders and professionals being able to do what is in the best interest of their pupils and enabling the behaviour to be what it should be in our schools.
Neil O'Brien
Q
My second, more specific question is whether there is anything you would have concerns about being in the curriculum. I am particularly thinking of religious education and topics like that. Are there ideas out there that you would be concerned about being forced into all schools?
Nigel Genders: As previous panels have said, there is a slight complexity about the timing of the Bill and the intention to bring in a national curriculum for everyone. In broad principle, I think it is right. There are one or two caveats I will go on to talk about, but in broad principle it is right to create a level playing field and have a broad and balanced curriculum across the piece for everybody. The complexity is that this legislation is happening at the same time as the curriculum and assessment review, so our schools are being asked to sign up to a general curriculum for everybody without knowing what that curriculum is likely to be.
Certainly among the schools and leaders I have spoken to the hope is that through the process of the curriculum review, and certainly in the evidence we have been giving to that, we will end up with a much broader, richer balance of both academic and vocational and technical skills within the curriculum. We hope to have something of broad appeal to everybody that is at a high level, and under which everybody can find an equal place in that space. But we do not know at the moment.
The Chair
We do not want to go too far into the curriculum today, because it is not really part of the Bill.
Paul Barber: I will keep my remarks brief. We have a very clear understanding of what a curriculum is in a Catholic school. It is very much a broad, balanced and holistic curriculum in which there are no siloes and the curriculum subjects interact with each other. There is of course the centrality of RE, which you mentioned. We are hopeful that the review will provide a framework within which we will be able to deliver alongside other views of curricula in other schools.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Nigel Genders: The Church of England’s part of the sector is very broad in that of the 4,700 schools that we provide, the vast majority of our secondary schools are already academies, and less than half of our primary schools, which are by far the biggest part of that number, are academies. We would like to see the system develop in a way that, as is described in the Bill, brings consistency across the piece. In terms of the impact on our schools, my particular worry will be with the small rural primary schools. Sorry to go on about statistics, but of the small rural primary schools in the country—that is schools with less than 210 children—the Church of England provides 65%.
The flexibilities that schools gain by joining a multi-academy trust, enabling them to deploy staff effectively across a whole group of schools and to collaborate and work together, is something that we really value. What we would not like to see is a watering down of the opportunities for that kind of collaboration. We set out our vision for education in a document called “Our Hope for a Flourishing School System”. Our vision is of widespread collaboration between trusts, and between trusts and academies. The diocesan family of schools is one where that collaboration really happens.
We want to ensure that this attempt to level the playing field in terms of the freedoms available to everyone is a levelling-up rather than a levelling down. I know that the Secretary of State commented on this in the Select Committee last week. I also know that the notes and comments around this Bill talk about those freedoms being available to everybody, but, for me, the Bill does not reflect that. It is not on the face of the Bill that this is about levelling-up. In terms of risk to our sector, I would like to see some reassurance that this is about bringing those freedoms and flexibility for innovation to the whole of our sector because we are equally spread across academies and maintained schools.
Paul Barber: Equally, we have a large foot in both camps. Slightly different in shape, we are involved in all sectors of the school system but the vast majority of our schools are either maintained schools or academies. Currently academies make up just over half. Because our academy programmes are led by dioceses in a strategic way, we buck the national trend in that the number of our primary schools, secondary schools, and academies is almost identical. I agree with what Nigel said. This is a jigsaw of many parts. What we need is an overall narrative into which these reforms fit. It was good yesterday to be able to sign the “Improving Education Together partnership”, to collaborate with the Government in a closer way to create that narrative.
Munira Wilson
Q
Nigel Genders: I have a couple of things to say on that, if I may. I think where this Bill makes a statement in terms of legislative change is in the ability for any new school not to have to be a free school. That opens up the possibility of voluntary-aided and voluntary-controlled schools as well as community schools and free schools. In each of those cases, you are right, our priority is serving that local community. It is an irony that there is a part of the Bill about new schools when, actually, most of the pressure is from surplus places rather than looking for more places. In particular areas of the country where there is rapid population and housing growth, or in areas of disadvantage and need, we would be really keen to have every option to open a school. I am concerned to ensure that local authorities are given the capacity to manage that process effectively, if they are the arbiters of that competition process in the future.
For us, opening a new school, which we do quite regularly as we are passionate about involvement in the education system, is done with the commitment to provide places for the locality. Where schools can make a case for a different model, and in other faith communities as well, which I am sure Paul will go on to say, is for them to do. Our position is that a Church school is for the whole community and we will seek to deliver that under the 50% cap.
Paul Barber: As I understand the Bill, it removes the academy presumption, so if a local authority runs a competition, there has to be a preference for academies. The provision for providers to propose new schools independently of that has always existed, currently exists and is not being changed, as I understand it, in this legislation as drafted.
In terms of the provision of new schools, we are in a slightly different position because we are the largest minority community providing schools primarily for that community but welcoming others. Our schools are in fact the most diverse in the country. Ethnically, linguistically, socioeconomically and culturally, they are more diverse than any other type of school. We provide new schools where there is a need for that school—where there is a parental wish for a Catholic education. We are very proud of the fact that that demand now comes from not just the Catholic community, but a much wider range of parents who want what we offer. We would not propose a new school, and we have a decades-long track record of working with local authorities to work out the need for additional places.
Admissions is one half of a complex thing; the other is provision of places. Our dioceses work very closely with local authorities to determine what kind of places are needed. That might mean expansion or contraction of existing schools. Sometimes, it might mean a new school. If it means a new school, we will propose a new Catholic school only where there are sufficient parents wanting that education to need a new Catholic school. The last one we opened was in East Anglia in 2022. It was greatly appreciated by the local community, which was clamouring for that school to be opened. That is our position on the provision of new schools. We will try to provide new schools whenever parents want the education that we are offering.
Munira Wilson
Q
Nigel Genders: That is a really important question. Broadly, all our schools are really supportive of the breakfast club initiative and think it is helpful to be able to provide that offer to children, for all the reasons already articulated during the previous panel. You are right that there will be particular challenges in small schools in terms of staffing, managing the site, providing the breakfast and all those things. As the funding for the roll-out of breakfast clubs is considered, it may be that there need to be some different models. The economies of scale in large trusts serving 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 children are quite different from those of a school that has 40 or 50 children, one member of staff and probably a site manager. The ability to provide breakfast for every child in a fair way needs further consideration. The legislation is right to endeavour to do that, but the detail will be about the funding to make that possible.
Lizzi Collinge
Q
Paul Barber: Clause 51 does not change the parameters within which we can open new schools. As drafted at the moment, the Bill leaves that possibility exactly as it is today. I have outlined my position on when we would seek to open new schools. The idea of opening new schools and creating new places is to satisfy all the parental demand. The provision of places and admissions are two things that work together. If an area has insufficient places in Catholic schools for all the families who want to take advantage of that education, obviously the longer term solution is to create more places, but in the shorter term it has always been part of the system—in our view, very reasonably—that if there are insufficient places, priority should be given to the community who provided the school in the first place, with others afterwards. That has always been part of the system that we have operated in since the 19th century.
Lizzi Collinge
Q
Paul Barber: We are talking about oversubscription criteria, which only kick in when there are insufficient places to satisfy parental demand. In those cases, we would wish to continue to give priority to Catholic families.
Nigel Genders: Again, Paul has identified a difference in policy area between the two Churches in this space. My answer is the same as previously: that would not be the case for the Church of England. We are much more interested in some of the other parts of the previous consultation, which have not come through yet—around special schools and the designation of special schools with religious designation. The Church of England would love to be able to provide special schools in those circumstances. In the provision of new schools, whether voluntary-aided free schools or voluntary controlled, we would not be looking to do 100%.
Paul Barber: We would also welcome having more. We already have special schools, but we would like to have more.
The Chair
Order. Is that relevant to the Bill? As long as you relate it directly to the Bill—
Damian Hinds
I promise you, Mr Betts, that it will be relevant to the Bill. As Nigel I think rather charitably said, his schools would be “asked” to sign up to something without knowing what the something is—but I do not think they are going to be asked, Nigel; I think they are going to be told. You also said that we hope—I include myself in that “we”—that it will be a broad framework, which will allow everyone to do their distinctive thing, as they do today. That is a hope, but we do not know. For example, there is a movement to rebrand religious education as “world views”—does that make you nervous?
Nigel Genders: I am in danger of getting into the curriculum discussion, rather than the—
Damian Hinds
I will, absolutely. Do you feel any nervousness or concern about the removal of the safety valve that says academy schools can deviate from the national curriculum?
Nigel Genders: With all the discussion about the curriculum and the national curriculum, RE is part of the core curriculum; it is not in the national curriculum at the moment. Levelling the playing field up or whichever way you want to do it, there is a requirement to teach a breadth of RE within that curriculum as a core subject, but it is not defined in the national curriculum. We are happy with that position but, either way, the important thing is that we enable a broad, rich and holistic curriculum to develop—for the reason of behaviour that Neil mentioned as much as anything. We want children to enjoy coming to school, and the curriculum is a fundamental part of that.
Paul Barber: Maintained schools have to follow the national curriculum, and over half of ours are maintained schools currently. We have a very rich religious education curriculum. Recently, we published a curriculum directory, which I can share with the Committee if interested. Our position on RE is also well set out in our evidence to the curriculum and assessment review—again, we can give copies to the Committee if that would be helpful.
Damian Hinds
Q
Nigel Genders: I think our point is that we would like to see that flexibility within the national curriculum available to everybody. I am very much in favour of levelling up, as long as the curriculum gives the space to do that.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Barber: From what I can see, I do not think it is any more or less likely. In terms of the directive power, my understanding is that the position in VA schools remains the same, and that it is academies that will have a direction-making power similar to that which already applies to voluntary aided schools.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Barber: Sorry; I misunderstood. You are talking about the restrictions on schools unilaterally changing their published admission number. Our position on that is that it is because of this relationship between admissions and the planning of school places, which must be planned in some way. Our diocese has a long track record of decades of working with its local authorities and with the diocese in the Church of England to work out what is required in the future, and looking forward for places and planning that. Having some kind of regulation of schools’ published admissions numbers is quite helpful in ensuring that that works smoothly, because if you plan it and three schools then arbitrarily decide to increase their published admission number, that creates some real problems locally with place planning.
Nigel Genders: We would agree with that. Not to rehearse all that Paul has just said, but a further point is that when it comes to resourcing local authorities to carry out their role in the allocation and direction of schools to take particular pupils, we are really keen to see that done in a way that makes fairness the arbitrating factor to ensure that there is a real fairness of approach. The collaboration between maintained and academy and diocese and local authority very much needs to happen, and we would welcome that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
The Chair
Let us have a fairly quick answer. One other Member would like to ask a question as well.
Neil O'Brien
Do we know whether that is the case?
Nigel Genders: There is the question of how to make all that possible within the allotted hours that staff can be directed. It needs resourcing. It does not have to be teachers who provide those breakfast clubs—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: They will have to be resourced to do it in other ways to make it possible.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Q
Paul Barber: We are very content with the current position. If there were proposals to change that, we would need to work very carefully with everybody to try to get to a position that retains the necessary safeguards, as we see it, contained in the current position.
Nigel Genders: I would agree with that.
The Chair
Thank you very much to our witnesses. We will move on to our next panel. I do not know how long we will have, because we will have votes in the Chamber at some time, but we can at least make a start.
Examination of Witnesses
Sir Jon Coles, Sir Dan Moynihan and Luke Sparkes gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now move on to representatives from various academies. If you could begin by introducing yourselves, that would be helpful to the Committee.
Luke Sparkes: I am Luke Sparkes, and I lead the Dixons Academy Trust. We run urban complex schools in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool.
Sir Dan Moynihan: I am Dan Moynihan, CEO for the Harris Federation. We run 55 academies in and around London, most of which were previously failing schools.
Sir Jon Coles: I am John Coles, and I run United Learning, which is a group of just over 100 schools nationally—again, mostly previously failing schools. Before the 13 years I have spent doing that, I spent 15 years in the Department for Education, and the last four on the board.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Jon Coles: My top concern is about pay and conditions freedoms. We take schools that have got themselves into serious difficulty and look to turn them around. If you want to turn around schools that have failed seriously—often generationally—to give children a good standard of education, clearly you need to attract very good people to come and work in those places; the quality of a school is never going to exceed the quality of its teachers. Therefore, the things that we do with pay and conditions are designed to make sure that we can attract and retain the very best teachers to do the toughest jobs, which I think is our fundamental role as a trust.
I think we really need those freedoms. They are very important to us. Obviously, that applies to this Bill, in relation to schoolteachers’ pay and conditions, but it also applies to the Employment Rights Bill, in relation to the school support staff negotiating body. Those are fundamentally important to us.
I have been hugely encouraged by the Secretary of State’s remarks that what she wants is a floor but no ceiling, and that is something that we can absolutely work with. I hope that that is what we see coming through. At this moment, that is not what the Bill says; it says that we have to abide by the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. I think there is an ongoing conversation to be had about whether that is where we end up, because that is not quite a floor but no ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Having looked at that document, it does have a whole bunch of different maximums in it. It has quite specific maximums as well as minimums.
Sir Jon Coles: The thing about the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document is that it is fundamentally a contract. Section 122 of the Education Act 2002—it happens to be an Act that I took through Parliament as a Bill manager, when I was a civil servant—essentially says that the Secretary of State may, by order, issue what is commonly known as the pay order, but the pay order includes a lot of conditions. Section 122 of the Act says that that applies as if it were a contract. Indeed, if you are a teacher in a maintained school, typically your contract will literally say, “You are employed under the terms of the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document,” so it is your contract.
Therefore, the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document has to act as a contract. It has to be specific. A teacher looking it up has to be able to see, “What are my terms and conditions? Have I been treated properly?” and so on. That is how the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document needs to work, so if we have to abide by it precisely, that is what we would have to abide by.
I think that officials—I speak as an ex-official—should be asked to look again at whether the Bill they have produced for Ministers does what Ministers want it to do, and whether it actually provides a floor but no ceiling, or whether there is something slightly different that would enact Ministers’ policy.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: We have taken over failing schools in very disadvantaged places in London, and we have found youngsters in the lower years of secondary schools unable to read and write. We varied the curriculum in the short term and narrowed the number of subjects in key stage 3 in order to maximise the amount of time given for literacy and numeracy, because the children were not able to access the other subjects. Of course, that is subject to Ofsted. Ofsted comes in, inspects and sees whether what you are doing is reasonable.
That flexibility has allowed us to widen the curriculum out again later and take those schools on to “outstanding” status. We are subject to Ofsted scrutiny. It is not clear to me why we would need to follow the full national curriculum. What advantage does that give? When we have to provide all the nationally-recognised qualifications —GCSEs, A-levels, SATs—and we are subject to external regulation by Ofsted, why take away the flexibility to do what is needed locally?
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: They are very useful when it comes to conditions. As Jon was saying, the narrative coming through about a floor and no ceiling is encouraging. I can see that working for pay, but I am not sure how that would work for conditions. My significant concerns with the Bill are about conditions. We have done more than most as a trust to try to position ourselves as a modern organisation. We know that post-millennials are not going to accept the norms that currently exist in our sector. We have also tried to overcome the rigidity of the job with innovations such as the nine-day fortnight. That innovation is starting to diffuse across the sector.
We want to be even bolder. We are really starting to think about how we can totally re-imagine the school workforce. That is because most complex schools—the kind of schools that we lead—have become, in many ways, the fourth emergency service. That is by stealth and not by choice. We have had to address the scope and intensity of the job.
I wanted to make that position clear. It is from that position and understanding that we still believe that a rigid set of expectations around conditions will stifle innovation—the kind of innovation that the three of us have led across our trusts. Leaders working in our context need the freedom to do things differently. That, of course, was the point of Labour’s academy policy in the first place. I accept that in some instances, it is possible to negotiate around standard conditions, but not everybody can do that. The innovations we are leading will not be scaleable if we are all forced to align to a set of rigid standards.
It is also worth knowing that our most successful schools at Dixons—the ones that are getting the best results for disadvantaged students nationally—would have to fundamentally change as schools if they had to align to a set of rigid standards. That would be bound to impact negatively on outcomes for children, and not just academic outcomes. It would be a significant backward step. Finally, an interesting point is that our most innovative schools—the ones that are using their freedoms the most—actually have the highest staff engagement scores. These freedoms benefit and are attractive to staff.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: Certainly, around the areas that I have just described.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: It is an excellent idea. Too many children disappear off-roll and are not monitored sufficiently. I would say it probably does not go far enough. When any child leaves the school roll, whether they are at risk or not, we should know why it happens and whether the parent can make proper provision for them, so it is a really good idea. My concern is whether local authorities have the resourcing to make this thing work. As we all know, they are under immense pressure. However, it is about time that we had it, and it is a real move forward. The question is about their ability to deliver it.
Sir Jon Coles: I agree with all that. I am not sure quite how many Secretaries of State have thought it was a good idea to do this, but it is a lot of them, and they have all backed off it before now. I think it is good, important and brave that it is being done, because while I support the right of parents to home educate, and I think that is an important freedom in society, those of us who work in challenging areas can see that there is an overriding child protection and child safeguarding risk. That risk has grown, is growing and does need to be tackled.
Luke Sparkes: I echo that. I think the correlation of families who apply for elective home education, for example, and the vulnerability of those children is known. Whether it is in relation to attendance, unsupportive parenting or poor relationships with schools, challenging EHE is the right thing to do. However, as Sir Dan said, it will need significant additional resource if a school is to ensure that the child is supported to integrate into school in that way.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: It is important for all schools to co-operate. With 9 million children in schools, I think only 55 directions were given in 2023 by local authorities. For me, the key issue is that it is important that there is co-operation, but there is potentially a conflict of interest if local authorities are opening their own schools and there are very hard-to-place kids. There is a conflict of interest in where they are allocating those children, so there needs to be a clear right of appeal in order to ensure that that conflict can be exposed if necessary.
Luke Sparkes: It is important for academies to work with local authorities. I think we accept that the current arrangements are fractured, but—similarly to what Sir Dan said—it is that conflict of interest that we have been concerned about. Although there is going to be an independent adjudicator, the question is whether they will be well placed to make those policy and financial decisions—almost becoming a commissioner role—and whether that would be the right way or not.
Sir Jon Coles: The short answer is yes. I do think it is important. I would like to see Government issue some guidance on how the powers will be used, and to say to everybody, “Here are the rules of the game, and this is what good practice looks like.” I think people are worried about whether there are conflicts of interest and poor practice. Of course, these powers could be abused, but my personal concern about that is very low. I do not think they will be abused. However, I think it would give everyone a lot of reassurance if the Government—you, as Ministers—put out some guidance saying, “This is how we would like this to work. These are the criteria. This is what good practice looks like. This is how we want the system to work.” I think that would make everybody feel comfortable that things will be done fairly.
Sir Dan Moynihan: Could I add to my previous answer, please? Some of the schools we have taken on have failed because they have admitted large numbers of hard-to-place children. I can think of one borough we operate in where councillors were very open about the fact that there was a school that took children that other schools would not take. They said that openly, and the reason they did not want it to become an academy was because that process would end. The school was seen as a dumping ground. I think there are schools that get into difficulty and fail because there is perceived local hierarchy of schools, and those are the schools that get those children. That is why there needs to be a clear right of appeal to prevent that from happening.
Munira Wilson
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: indicated dissent.
Sir Jon Coles: indicated dissent.
Luke Sparkes: indicated dissent.
Munira Wilson
Q
Sir Jon Coles: The provisions, as drafted, in relation to pay and conditions, would make a big difference to us. It is interesting that you say that the data says that not many people are doing it. I don’t think there is good data on that question—I have never seen any. Among the schools that we take on, including both maintained schools and academies, more schools are deviating from the rules than think they are. It is very common for us to take on both maintained schools and academies that have, usually in small ways but sometimes in slightly bigger ways, adopted different terms and conditions to the national terms and conditions. They have made local agreements without necessarily having themselves identified that they are diverging from national pay and conditions. There are more examples than people might think of schools using some flexibility.
In relation to the other things, as Dan says, there are specific circumstances in which people do vary in relation to the curriculum for specific reasons, in specific circumstances, and tend to do so for short periods of time. There are specific occasions on which people use the QTS freedoms, usually for short periods of time, usually while people are being trained, sometimes because they could not get somebody for other good reasons.
Fundamentally, my top concerns and priorities are pay and conditions provisions because they will have a serious impact on us.
Munira Wilson
To clarify, my point about data was based on DFE data in the briefing from the House of Commons Library. Should we look at it the other way? Rather than trying to restrict academy freedoms, should we give those freedoms to all schools so that we are not differentiating between academies and other types of schools?
Sir Dan Moynihan: Yes. The public purse is going to be hugely constrained, as we all know, for years to come. The base at which we are constraining schools is inadequate and we are freezing the system where it is now. If we want a world-leading system in the future, given that the resource is not going to be there to materially change things, one key way to do it is to give schools the freedom that academies have had to transform failing schools in the worst circumstances. Why should every school not have that freedom? It makes sense.
Luke Sparkes: Yes, and the majority of schools are academy schools, so it would make sense to level up rather than level down. On the innovation point, there are more academies that innovate than we would perhaps think. Innovation tends to happen on the edges and our schools, the most complex schools, are on the edges. The idea is that a few innovate, then that innovation diffuses over time and becomes the norm. If we lose the opportunity for anybody to innovate, we will just stifle and stagnate.
Sir Jon Coles: I agree with all of that. If it were up to me, I would be saying, “More freedom; more accountability.” What has made a difference in improving education and public services, not just in this country but internationally, has been giving more responsibility to the people who are accountable for performance. If you are the person who has to achieve results and do the right thing for children, the way to get strong performance is to make you the person responsible for making the decisions and then hold you to account for them. I think that is a good system-wide set of principles, not just in education but in public service reform generally: sharp accountability for decision makers, and decision makers as the people accountable for performance. That is what drives us. I would absolutely make the case to free up everybody.
Sir Dan Moynihan: It is not clear what problem this is solving. I have seen no evidence to suggest that academy freedoms are creating an issue anywhere. Why are we doing this?
Amanda Martin
Q
Sir Jon Coles: The worrying trend being poor attainment and the widening gap?
Amanda Martin
Yes.
Sir Jon Coles: I suppose everything we do addresses trying to tackle the gap. We take on schools in areas of severe deprivation, places where schools have failed, where children are not succeeding. We look to turn those schools around. I guess my starting point for this is that we do already, in the overwhelming majority of cases, work with local authorities on admissions. None of our schools change their admission arrangements when they become academies. We stick with the pre-existing admission arrangements, unless we are asked by the local authority to do something different. That is our fundamental starting point for everything we do. As I said, I do not have concerns about the provisions around admissions; we are basically happy with them. If the Government issue guidance on how those are to be used, I think other people’s concerns will go away as well.
The one thing that I would love to see the Government do is really set out their strategy for improvement, how they think things will work and how we will drive improvement across the system. I think part of the reason for response to the Bill has been that the Government have not published a policy document ahead of publication, so people have read into the Bill their concerns and fears and worries. There has not been a clear Government narrative about how the Bill will drive forward improvements in the school system overall and how we are going to tackle the achievement gaps.
We want to work with Government. We want to work with local authorities—we already work with local authorities and other trusts and maintained schools. We want to do that. We think we are all on the same team trying to do the right thing for children. Our worry about some provisions in the Bill is really just a concern that in future we might be prevented from doing things that we do that we know are effective.
Sir Dan Moynihan: On the disadvantage gap, the biggest thing was the coalition’s introduction of an explicit strategy focusing on disadvantage, and they introduced a pupil premium. It was highly effective for probably five years, then withered and disappeared. The Government, in my view, need an explicit strategy for tackling disadvantage, whether that is a pupil premium that is higher or whether it is metrics. That is not something that we have seen for a long time and not something that we have yet seen in the new Government, but it is a door that is wide open. The system wants that. That is the clearest thing: making it a Government priority.
The second thing for me, to be a bit more controversial, is that good schools should reflect their local area. Sometimes that does not happen, including for many selective schools. If we are really going to have a world-class system, that needs to be addressed.
Luke Sparkes: I do not have anything of significance to add. We try to work as closely as we can with local authorities. In north Liverpool, for example, we took on a school that would have closed had we not taken it on. We take on the most challenging schools and try to do the very best we can for disadvantaged children.
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Q
Sir Jon Coles: That is a very tendentious way of describing the Bill. I think you would struggle to substantiate that. To give you my perspective, whatever this Bill does, I am still going to be accountable for running the schools that we are accountable for running. They will still be in the trust. I will still be line-managing the heads. We will still be accountable for their performance. We will still be accountable for teaching and learning.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Sir Jon Coles: I am not sure.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Sir Jon Coles: I would like to see what the Government’s policy underpinning this is. What is the Government’s school improvement policy? Is it their policy to do what you have just said? I do not think the Bill does that. The question is: what is the Government’s preference? Do the Government actually want to see as many or more schools become academies? I don’t think we know that, and I don’t think the Bill says one way or the other what the answer to that is.
In due course, we will see a new framework from Ofsted. In due course, I imagine the Government will say how they want the accountability system to work. When the Government say how they want the accountability system to work and Ofsted says how it wants the inspection system to work, we will see whether there will be more or fewer academies, but I do not think the Bill does that one way or the other. That is why we want to see the Government’s overarching strategy for school improvement.
I do not want this to be political knockabout; I want this to be about children in schools. I want this to be about how we are going to make the schools system better. That is the fundamentally important question, and it is the only question I care about—how are we going to do better for our children? I don’t want to overreach and say that I know what the Government’s policy is on that, and I don’t.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Sir Jon Coles: I don’t think it does that. What I am reacting to is that point, because it does not do that.
Sir Dan Moynihan: There will be fewer academies because, by definition, if the Secretary of State is making the decision that a school that fails will not automatically become an academy, that must be because the intention is that some failing schools will not become academies. Therefore, there will be fewer than there would otherwise be. I think that is a huge mistake, because all our experiences are that academy conversions are sometimes very hotly politically contested and opponents are prone to go to judicial review, which can leave children in a situation of failure for months or even more than a year. By using ministerial discretion, the opponents are likely to go to judicial review on those decisions, because they will want to know on what basis that discretion is given. Then the schools that are not considered to be failing enough to become academies will be subject to the new RISE—regional improvement for standards and excellence—teams, which are being run from within the DFE. My view is that if you want to improve a school in difficulty quickly, it is much better to give somebody, such as an academy trust, full power over that school to improve it and to do what is necessary quickly. That must be more effective than a RISE team going in that does not have that authority over the governance of the school.
Patrick Spencer
Q
Luke Sparkes: I do not have a huge amount to add beyond agreeing with what colleagues have said. My most significant concern, as I have said, is about conditions for teachers. On the point about capacity within local authorities—I can only speak on the local authorities that we work with, which we try to have positive relationships with—they probably would not have the capacity to do the kind of things you said around school improvements.
Trusts were set up purely for the purpose of running and improving schools, and nothing more or less than that, so we have the expertise and capacity to do that school improvement work. I agree with Sir Dan that, when trying to turn around a very challenging school, it is much better when it is within the accountability structure of a trust as they are able to move much quicker. I am interested to see how the regional improvement for standards and excellence teams develop. They seem similar to what national leaders of education were in the past, and they did not always necessarily have the teeth to do what was needed, so I am interested to see how they develop, but for me, the significant concern is about conditions.
Catherine Atkinson
Q
Luke Sparkes: In terms of curriculum, we have always tried at Dixons to give as much breadth as possible. Our curriculum is fairly traditional. It does focus on the EBacc, but it has done so since before the EBacc existed. We have always specialised in the arts and sports as well. We have two schools with an arts specialism. We have always valued those, so I would agree with you that breadth is really important. There is a place to have, at a macro level, some kind of framework that is evidence-informed around the subjects that should perhaps be taught, but we also need the ability to enact the curriculum in a responsive and flexible way at a local level. I can see the desire to get that consistency, but there needs to be a consistency without stifling innovation. I support the idea that there needs to be breadth, but I think we have demonstrated that.
Catherine Atkinson
Q
Luke Sparkes: I cannot speak for the whole sector,but I can say what we believe.
Sir Dan Moynihan: I agree with you on breadth, and we too emphasise the EBacc. Around 40% of our kids are pupil premium and another 30% are just about managing, highly disadvantaged children, but we want them to learn history, geography and a modern language to 16 because that gives them cultural capital that they will need. That does not mean that they cannot be doing high-quality vocational qualifications alongside. The only way to engineer that is to broaden the range of qualifications that will count towards measures such as Progress 8. That will be the incentive that the system needs.
Collaboration is, of course, a good thing as long as it is focused on standards, and does not alternate or deviate from that. It is possible to spend a lot of time talking in talking shops, but what we need is collaboration between multi-academy trusts and schools that is about sharing best practice. That will raise standards.
Sir Jon Coles: On collaboration, it has always been an issue in the school system that practice gets trapped within the boundaries of institutions. Around 20 years ago, when I was setting up and running London Challenge, you could walk from one school to another in London and you would find outstanding practice in one school, and in the next school down the road they would have absolutely no idea what was going on. Occasionally you would find a forward-thinking, energetic and effective local authority—such as Tower Hamlets in what it did with primary school literacy and numeracy, which had created a really collaborative structure in which great practice was being shared and standards were improving. But if you went to the next borough, it would—almost because Tower Hamlets was doing it—not be doing it.
This problem of practice getting trapped within institutions has always been there and remains an issue in education. One of the things I set up post-Department was Challenge Partners, which is about sharing practice across the system and trying to use some of the school-to-school collaboration ideas we had in London Challenge. That is powerful and effective, and where that is working it is good.
The best collaboration in the system at the moment is within academy trusts, because they are under a common governance and people are sharing practice very openly. The next challenge is how we share practice and get collaboration working beyond the trust. We do a lot of work on that: working to support schools that are struggling, sharing leaders and leadership, sharing our subject advisers beyond the trust, working with governors and leaders in other trusts to support them, trying to be part of professional development programmes for leaders and staff, and offering our curriculum resources and our professional development beyond the trust.
Of course, the risk is that people think you have some ulterior motive for doing that or that it is predatory. It is an ongoing piece of work. I think it always will be ongoing within the education system.
The Chair
We will have to leave this evidence session there; we have come to the end of our time for it. I thank all three witnesses for their evidence. We will now move on to the next panel, but I will have to suspend briefly because one of the next witnesses is online and we have to make sure that we can get the connection right before we start.
The Chair
We have three witnesses representing headteachers and trusts. Can Jane Wilson, who is online, introduce herself? I will then come to the witnesses in the room to do the same.
Jane Wilson: I am Jane Wilson, the deputy chief exec of Northern Education Trust. Our trust is 30 schools— 17 secondary schools and 13 primary schools—working predominantly in the north of England between Blyth and as far down as Barnsley.
The Chair
Could the two witnesses in the room introduce themselves as well?
Rebecca Leek: I am Rebecca Leek. I am currently the executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association. There are 253 primary schools in Suffolk; around a third of them are local authority and two thirds are academies. I am currently also an interim headteacher in a local authority school. I have been a headteacher in an academy school and a CEO of a trust, and I have worked in inner-city London, urban Ipswich and rural Suffolk.
Leora Cruddas: I am Leora Cruddas; thank you very much for the invitation to give evidence to this Committee. I am the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, which is the national organisation and sector body representing school trusts in England. Around 77% of all academy schools are in membership.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Do you have concerns that the general power is a bit untrammelled at the moment? Might it be sensible to table some amendments to that, so that we have some proportionality and do not have the Secretary of State being constantly sucked into intervening in schools and being pressed to do so by lots of different activists?
Leora Cruddas: The first thing I should say is that we really welcome the children’s wellbeing part of this Bill. There are a lot of good things in the Bill. We do have some concerns, as you say, about the schools part of the Bill, including, as you have heard from my colleagues, about pay and conditions. We welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification on that in her evidence to the Education Committee. We now need to work with the Government to make sure that the clarification around direction of travel is reflected in the way that the Bill is laid out. We do not think that the Secretary of State’s intention is properly reflected in the clause as it stands.
We do have concerns about the power to direct. We think it is too wide at the moment. We accept that the policy intention is one of equivalence in relation to maintained schools, but maintained schools are different legal structures from academy trusts, and we not think that the clauses in the Bill properly reflect that. It is too broad and it is too wide. We would like to work with the Government to restrict it to create greater limits. Those limits should be around statutory duties on academy trusts, statutory guidance, the provisions in the funding agreement and charity law.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I worry about that, particularly in the context of falling school numbers in some areas, which will make these questions quite acute, because of the lack of any guidance or trammelling around it. For example, if there is an outstanding school and one that is struggling and may shut, where is the prioritisation? Where are the rules that say, “You must not treat academies unfairly compared with your local authority schools.”? Do you share any of those concerns? Do you think that there is scope to make amendments to improve the Bill?
Leora Cruddas: I start by saying that we really welcome the duty to collaborate at a local level. Trusts already work with local authorities; you may have heard that from my colleagues in the previous session.
We are concerned about some of the potential conflicts of interest. We say “potential” conflicts of interest in the context, as you point out, of falling primary school rolls. We would like to work with Government to set out a high-level, strategic decision-making framework that would mean that, in a local area, we know our children really well and we get our children into the right provision at the right time. That means working together strategically around pupil numbers, admissions, falling rolls and the sufficiency of need in a local area. Those conflicts of interest can be managed, but they would need to be set out in a very carefully framed decision-making framework so that they are managed properly.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“We accept current arrangements are fractured: introducing the Schools Adjudicator worsens rather than improves this”.
What do you mean by that?
Leora Cruddas: We are not sure what the intention is behind the Government’s need to bring forward the clause in the Bill that would introduce greater powers for a schools adjudicator. That is one of the conflicts of interest that we would be alive to—if a local authority could bring forward a case to resist an academy trust’s pupil admission number, that would be a source of concern for us. That is why we need this high-level decision-making framework.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“The schools bill working its way through Parliament…is not good legislation.”
You described it as “micromanagement” and “stifling”. You talked about some of your experiences as a headteacher. Can you expand a bit on the overall vision and direction of travel?
Rebecca Leek: Yes. I love being a headteacher—I was a headteacher yesterday, doing an assembly—but I have stood in both camps, and I have worked in very rapid turnaround situations with trusts.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: One of the things about the school sector is that it is incredibly complex, so you have to have complex solutions for complex systems—if you know anything about systems thinking. To support such a complex system, there needs to be room for agility, so the reason why I was writing that—we will talk about my specific experience as well—is that I know quite a lot about systems theory and governance. I have written a book on governance, subsidiarity and why it is important to have flexibility and agility in localities. That comes from theoretical knowledge about how to create good systems that meet the needs of very complex things, which is what schools are. I cannot impress on the Committee enough how much diversity there is in the school system, and how much there is the need for agility.
As a headteacher on the frontline, my dominoes can topple within a term: I am in a small school; I lose two senior teachers; a safeguarding issue happens because something in the locality changes, and I suddenly have to find a pastoral lead, because there are more safeguarding issues; I am trying to get more engagement with some of the local services, which might be struggling because they are undercapacity; and there is a recruitment crisis with teachers, honestly, and also with headteachers—hence I am an interim headteacher, as we can never recruit headteachers, because it is such a hard job, given so much grit in the system. There is that fundamental need for agility.
I do therefore have a concern, and my colleagues share that. I speak to headteachers and CEOs all the time in Suffolk—I met a trust last week and spoke to a CEO of a trust with 12 primary schools on the phone yesterday. We went over some of the things in the Bill. We know that the agility that the academies legislation and other changes brought into the system have helped us to be very adaptive to certain circumstances. Anything that says, “Well, we are going to go slightly more with a one-size-fits-all model”—bearing in mind, too, that we do not know what that looks like, because this national curriculum has not even been written yet—is a worry. That is what I mean. If we suddenly all have to comply with something that is more uniform and have to check—“Oh no, we cannot do that”, “Yes, we can do that”, “No, we can’t do that”, “Yes, we can do that”—it will impede our ability to be agile around our school communities and our job.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: There are a few specific things, and some other things. I had to step in as an interim headteacher in Ipswich just prior to covid. I did not have an early years lead and we had Ofsted six weeks in: we got RI—with good for leadership and management, thank you very much—but I still did not have an early years teacher. I needed to solve that incredibly quickly, so I liaised with three different agencies and made contact with various different people. There was someone who was not a qualified teacher, but who had been running an outstanding nursery. She had decided to stop running it, because of her work-life balance, and she thought she might want to work in a school. I took her on, and although she was not qualified, she was really excellent. I was able to do that because it was an academy school, and it was not an issue. In a maintained school, there is a specific need for a qualified teacher to teach in early years, so I would not have been able to take her on.
That is just one example. Another example is that maintained schools, I think under the 2002 legislation, must have a full-time headteacher—they must have a headteacher at all times. In a small rural school, that is financially a real burden, and it is one of the reasons why I am not a permanent headteacher. Last year, I was an interim headteacher. I came to an agreement with those at the local authority that I would do it on four days a week, and they kind of accepted that—it was a bit of a fudge, because it is actually non-compliant. They asked, “Will you carry on?”, and I said, “No, because I am not going to be full-time.” At the moment, I am three days a week and, again, it is okay because I am interim—academies can have great flexibility around leadership arrangements.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: It is a real problem for small rural schools particularly. They function really well in little pockets of two or three schools together, with maybe one executive head dealing with some of the headaches—because there are headaches—and with some things that are more systematic across the three schools. Yes, definitely.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: There definitely are trusts that have used their freedoms around the national curriculum. I would say it is not unreasonable for a state to want a high-level national curriculum framework—that is not an unreasonable position—
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: That is exactly right. Under this legislation, we could end up with a high-level national curriculum framework—once again, as I said on pay and conditions, with a floor but no ceiling. That would protect the right of schools and trusts, all schools and trusts, to innovate, to be agile, to respond to local context, and to be centres of curriculum excellence—you heard Sir Jon Coles talk about his curriculum. We want to retain that notion of curriculum flexibility, curriculum freedoms.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: It would be very helpful to have clarity on that position. Obviously, we have not had the curriculum and assessment review report yet. I have absolute confidence that Professor Francis will be eminently sensible. She is a very serious person, and will follow the evidence; but I think we need to be careful that we are not tying ourselves into high levels of prescription in all parts of the Bill, including the national curriculum.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Again, I would cite the Secretary of State’s evidence to the Select Committee, where she made clear that it is also her expectation around curriculum to have that floor and to be able to innovate and have flexibility above that floor.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Yes, I would say that was true.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Rebecca Leek: I can only tell you, from my experience, that there is a lot of collaboration where I work. We have Suffolk Education Partnership, which is made up of local authority representatives, associations, CEOs and headteachers. Admissions are not really my area, in this Bill, but my experience is that there is collaboration. We are always looking to place children and make sure that they have somewhere if they are permanently excluded. There is real commitment in the sector to that, from my experience where I work.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Rebecca Leek: Yes, I do.
Jane Wilson: I agree with that completely. We work with our local authorities and follow the local admission arrangements in all of them. We think it is really important, and we obviously want children to get places in school very quickly.
Leora Cruddas: The duty to co-operate does that. We really welcome that duty.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Leora Cruddas: Thank you for that important question. Our position as the Confederation of School Trusts is that we must not just think about the practice as it is now, but consider what we want to achieve in the future. The freedom, flexibility and agility that Rebecca talked about is important if we are to ensure that leaders have the flexibility to do what is right in their context to raise standards for children. It is also important in terms of creating a modern workforce. We know that we have a recruitment and retention crisis. We know that there is a growing gap between teacher pay and graduate pay, and that the conditions for teaching are perhaps less flexible in some ways than in other public sector and private sector roles. So it is incumbent upon us to think about how attractive teaching is as a profession and think in really creative ways about how we can ensure that teaching is an attractive, flexible, brilliant profession, where we bring to it our moral purpose, but also create the conditions that the workforce of the future would find desirable and attractive.
Munira Wilson
Q
Leora Cruddas: The conversations that we would be having with any Government prior to a policy being announced or a Bill being laid are typically quite confidential. There is also something about what you mean by the term “consultation”. We did have conversations with the Government, and those conversations were constructive and remained constructive. I would say that CST is committed to continuing to work with the Government to get the Bill to the right place.
Munira Wilson
Q
Leora Cruddas: I think the answer to that is yes. The Government are bringing forward a consultation alongside Ofsted imminently, which might be an opportunity to set out some of those accountability arrangements.
I would also say that academy trusts have really proved their mettle here. You might want to go to Jane next, because the Northern Education Trust is such a strong northern sponsor trust and has taken schools that have not been good in the history of state education, turned them around and made them into schools that parents and communities can be really proud of. The school that I often cite is North Shore, which was really struggling and is now an absolutely brilliant school with high levels of attendance. There is a proven model here, and I would say that if Ofsted decides that a school is in special measures, our view is that a governance change is necessary.
However, I do take the policy position that the Government have put forward that they need a range of levers to improve schools. We are not opposed to there being a range of levers to improve schools, but we would want to acknowledge the fact that trusts have excelled in that area and have turned around those schools that have been failing for a long time.
Munira Wilson
Q
Leora Cruddas: That is a question that we have raised. We hope that the curriculum and assessment review will address that issue, but it is also for the Government to address it, because the review will look at the high level of curriculum and assessment, whereas it is the Government who have laid the legislation. We have raised that as a specific issue, and we have also raised the issue about special schools and what it means for them.
Damian Hinds
Q
Leora Cruddas: I am an advocate for academy trusts, because of the clarity of accountability arrangements, the strong strategic governance, and the powerful, purposeful partnership between schools in a single legal entity. If a school is part of an academy trust and it is perhaps not improving or the quality of education is not as strong as it could be, and a conversation is had with that school, the school cannot walk away. The accountability for school improvement—the partnership mindset—is hardwired into the trust sector.
For the last 20 years, spanning all political Administrat-ions, trusts have been building their school improvement capacity. Again, I would cite Northern Education Trust, which has an incredibly strong model of school improvement, and that is how it has turned around failing schools in the way that it has. The school improvement capacity sits in the trust sector.
That is not to cast aspersions on local authorities—I was a director of education in local government for most of my professional life—but over time, as local authority settlements have decreased and local authorities have reduced their school improvement capacity, so we have seen the rise of school improvement capacity in the trust sector. That is not true everywhere—Camden Learning, for example, has a very powerful model of school improvement—but overall, we see that the capacity for school improvement is in the trust sector.
Damian Hinds
Q
Jane Wilson: We have breakfast clubs in our primary schools and our secondary schools that children can attend. Most of those are free or charge a very small amount for the food and care that the children receive. It is an offer that we have across the trust. In terms of attendance, it enables children, often from very disadvantaged backgrounds, to have a very settled start to the day and receive care and attention before the school day starts. It means that once the school day does start, learning can become the priority. So they play a fundamental role in improving attendance in our academies, particularly for those disadvantaged children—and we serve communities of real disadvantage. We have roughly twice as many disadvantaged students as the number seen nationally across our trust.
Damian Hinds
Very briefly, Rebecca, what role does uniform play in identity for your school and the sense of belonging?
Rebecca Leek: I think that uniform does play a role. It is sometimes a really useful mechanism to improve a school—to sort it out—as well. I do have some further things to say about uniform, if there is time and anyone wants to ask me about it.
Damian Hinds
Q
Rebecca Leek: School uniform is generally very affordable. You are asking a primary school, so we do not have blazers, but certainly it is very affordable. It has never been an issue. We also give away free uniform. I think there are problems in the Bill with the uniform wording.
Darren Paffey
Q
Rebecca Leek: I do believe that a broad entitlement for children is really important. What I am concerned about is that, first, we do not know what will be in the national curriculum and, secondly, schools sometimes need a little bit of flexibility to maybe not do a couple of subjects because they are addressing something that has happened within their school community over a couple of years or months or a term.
I had a school in south Essex in a trust that I led where we needed to reduce the curriculum for a little while. It was post covid. You may say, “Well, that was covid,” but we do not what is coming. I needed to work with some children in key stage 2 on a slightly narrower curriculum to really help them with their maths and English so that they would be able to access secondary school. That is what we decided to do, and it was an academy school, so I had the freedom to address that. I think that it was a moral duty for me to make sure that they got those core skills, so that they would be able to access a broad and balanced curriculum in the secondary.
I am just very worried about there being these kind of concrete bricks. If there is permissiveness and agility within it, then that is fine. I do agree with the concept of an entitlement for children to a broad and balanced curriculum.
Darren Paffey
Q
Rebecca Leek: It is a risk. Basically, sometimes schools have to do things that are a bit of an emergency, or to handle a crisis situation. We do not have a factory line of ready-prepared teachers that are already available. We also have fluctuations in pupil numbers. Some years we have to put together years 2 and 3, sometimes we have to put together years 4 and 5, and then the next year we have to put together years 2, 3 and 4 because of the pupil numbers. So we just have to have a certain level to be able to work around. We do not want headteachers to always be worrying in the back of their heads, “Am I allowed to do this? Am I not allowed to do this?” There just needs to be a certain level of permissiveness.
What I say in my headteacher assembly at the end of year 6 is that I want to give all my children a travelcard to all zones in London. I do not just want to give them a zone 1 and 2 travelcard. We all believe that as school leaders, but sometimes we just have to focus on one thing, or we have to do some crisis management, so there has to be some agility within the system.
Jane Wilson: Can I comment? I think Ofsted has played an important role in that. As a serving inspector, part of the work I do on every inspection is to look at whether the curriculum is meeting the needs of the children; that where modifications have been made, they are appropriate; and that the curriculum the children are receiving is of equal quality to the national curriculum. So I think Ofsted, with the work it is doing, is already enabling that oversight of curriculum entitlement across the country.
The Chair
Thank you to the witnesses for the evidence you have given—sorry for the interruption in the middle of it, but we cannot help that.
Examination of Witness
David Thomas gave evidence.
The Chair
Good afternoon. May I ask our next witness to introduce himself?
David Thomas: I am David Thomas. I am a former teacher and headteacher, I co-founded Oak National Academy, and I was an adviser in the last Government, in the Department.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I want to ask you first about the national curriculum and its imposition on all academy schools. We have heard about the use of that flexibility as a form of freedom—where schools are being turned around, they might do something different for a while and diverge from the national curriculum. But I know there are also trusts and school leaders who use it on a longer-term basis—they make a conscious choice to focus on, for example, the core academics, often in situations of great difficulty, in order to secure what they regard as the most important, core things for their students that will enable the maximum number of choices later on.
Obviously you have been a maths teacher—you have been in that core discipline—and I wondered whether, in an education system where parents have school choice and can choose different things that are right for their child, you thought it was legitimate for people to have different models and to have that flexibility, and whether it was useful to have that freedom from the national curriculum.
David Thomas: We need to strike a careful balance. It is absolutely a central purpose of education to make sure that all children going out into society have some shared knowledge in common and can interact as a society and function in that way. That is very important. It is also important that people running schools get to look at their children, look at the challenges they are facing and have bold and ambitious visions for what they want those children to go on and do and what that community wants for itself, and that they can be flexible and go on and achieve that. That is why you need a balance of different things.
At the moment we have statutory assessments that apply to all schools, whether an academy or a maintained school. We have Ofsted making sure that you teach a curriculum that is at least as broad and balanced as the national curriculum, so that you cannot go narrow. But you need to be ambitious for your children, and my understanding from Sir Martyn’s evidence earlier was that that system appears to be working for children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: No, there is not one that I can see.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Clause 43, as drafted, goes beyond the explanatory notes and what Ministers have stated their intention to be. If the intention of the clause is to allow Ministers to intervene where an academy trust is breaching a power, but to do that in a way that is short of termination, that is a very sensible thing to want to do and the Government should absolutely be able to do that. If the purpose is, as it says in the explanatory notes, to issue a direction to academy trusts to comply with their duty, that feels like a perfectly reasonable thing to be able to do. The Bill, as drafted, gives the Secretary of State the ability to
“give the proprietor such directions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.
I do not think it is appropriate for a Secretary of State to give an operational action plan to a school, but I think it is perfectly reasonable for a Secretary of State to tell a school that it needs to follow its duty. I think there is just a mismatch between the stated intention and the drafting, and I would correct that mismatch.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Yes.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: On pay and conditions, I agree with the Secretary of State’s stated intention to spread the freedom to innovate, and to make teaching a more attractive profession, to all schools. I think we are only scratching the surface as a profession of what it means to offer flexible working within education. I do not think anyone has really mastered that, and it is a really big challenge. We need to be allowing the maximum freedom for people to be able to innovate. Of course, we have just done an experiment in what happens if you tell lots and lots of schools that they do not need to follow the statutory teachers’ pay and conditions: people only ever exceed it and offer things that are more attractive, because you want the very best teachers in your school.
I think it is essential that we have that freedom, and it is not enough for a Government to say that their intention is to grant that in a future statutory teachers’ pay and conditions document. It needs to be there in legislation for trusts to know that will be the case, which is really important for both pay and conditions. If you want to nail flexibility and offer that to teachers, you need to be able to trade off around conditions to make something more flexible. I think that is really important, and I agree with the Government’s intention, but I do not think that the Bill, as drafted, achieves that at the moment.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I think it would absolutely work, as CST has suggested, to say that statutory teachers’ pay and conditions should be an advisory thing that schools and trusts need to have due regard of, and to continue with something like the School Teachers Review Body. As it is at the moment, they are effectively setting a default starting position from which people can innovate out if they want to, rather than capping what people are able to do.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have concerns about limiting the number of people with unqualified teacher status who are not working towards qualified teacher status.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have worked with some fantastic people—generally late-career people in shortage subjects who want to go and give back in the last five to 10 years of their career—who would not go through some of the bureaucracy associated with getting qualified teacher status but are absolutely fantastic and have brought wonderful things to a school and to a sector. I have seen them change children’s lives. We know we have a flow of 600 people a year coming into the sector like that. If those were 600 maths teachers and you were to lose that, that would be 100,000 fewer children with a maths teacher. None of us knows what we would actually lose, but that is a risk that, in the current system, where we are so short of teachers, I would choose not to take.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
David Thomas: Yes. I find it very odd how little flexibility lots of teachers are given. As a headteacher I remember teachers asking me questions such as, “Am I allowed to leave site to do my marking?” and I thought, “Why are you asking me this? You are an adult”. I absolutely agree with that direction of travel, but I do not see that reflected in the wording of the Bill, so I think there is an exercise to be done to make sure that that is reflected in the Bill. Otherwise, the risk is that it does not become the actual direction of travel.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
David Thomas: I absolutely still hold that view. I think that, as I said earlier, a core purpose of education is to ensure that people have a core body of knowledge that means they can interact with each other. That is really important. I think that we should update the curriculum and not hold it as set in stone.
My concern would be that the legislative framework around the national curriculum does not ensure that the national curriculum is a core high-level framework or a core body of knowledge. It is simply defined in legislation, which I have on a piece of paper in front of me, that the national curriculum is just “such programmes of study” as the Secretary of State “considers appropriate” for every subject. We have a convention that national curriculum reviews are done by an independent panel in great detail with great consultation, but that is just a convention, and there is no reason why that would persist in future. I would worry about giving any future Government—of course, legislation stays on the statute book beyond yours—the ability to set exactly what is taught in every single school in the country, because that goes beyond the ability to set a high-level framework. I agree with the intention of what you are setting out, but there would need to be further changes to legislation to make that actually the case.
Amanda Martin
Q
David Thomas: Yes, that is correct.
Amanda Martin
Q
My second question is around the qualified teacher status element. Many parents. and in fact pupils. in my constituency tell me that they do not see training to be a teacher in a profession as bureaucracy. They see that it is a profession, and people want their children to be taught not just by a qualified teacher, but by a specialist qualified teacher. Do you agree that this Bill does not really make a change in allowing people to work toward QTS, but it does put QTS and qualified professionals at the heart of classrooms and the heart of our kids’ education?
David Thomas: On the first point, of course an amount of flexibility is available within the system, but we are not talking about the status quo; we are talking about the creation of powers that can be amended in the future. Statutory teachers’ pay and conditions are set by the Secretary of State, and that could be different next year from what it is this year. We have to ask what powers we want people to have rather than just saying whether the status quo happens to be acceptable or not. Even that status quo is limited, and I do not think we know what the right flexibilities are within the system to be able to give people optimal flexible working. That is something we are learning by innovation. There are great innovations, but they are all quite new. People have not been doing this for a very long time, so I would not want to cap us at the flexibility we have now; I want us to be ambitious and innovative about the future.
On qualified teacher status, the goal is a subject specialist and a qualified teacher who has as much experience as possible. That is the gold standard you want to be shooting towards. The reality on the ground is that you do not always have that choice in front of you on an interview panel. You might have a subject specialist or a qualified teacher, and you have to make that judgment call. You are there, you know your timetable as a headteacher, you know which classes need to be staffed, you can see those people teach some lessons, you are aware of their past experience and you have to make that judgment call. Ultimately, headteachers should be able to make that judgment call because they are the ones who will have to manage those people, and to look parents and children in the eyes and tell them that they believe they have made the right decision for them.
The Chair
We will have to leave it there; we have come to the end of the allotted time for the witness. I thank the witness for coming to give evidence to the Committee today, and we will move on to the next panel.
Examination of Witness
Kate Anstey gave evidence.
The Chair
Thank you very much for coming. Apologies; we are a little bit later starting than we had anticipated because of the delay for voting earlier. Could you introduce yourself?
Kate Anstey: I am Kate Anstey, the head of education policy at Child Poverty Action Group.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: We certainly welcome the introduction of free breakfast clubs in the Bill. We speak to children and families in schools extensively and carry out extensive analysis. We know that where breakfast clubs are provided freely, they make a huge difference to low-income families —they make a big difference to lots of children, but to lower-income families disproportionately. The fact that provision is universal is very important; we know that removes a lot of barriers for parents. Where there is any kind of targeted approach, there are issues around stigma and families are less likely to use provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, exactly. Take-up of breakfast clubs varies, but the fact that it is universally available is very important.
I would say that it feels like secondary school pupils need more attention. They are being missed in the Bill. More could be done to support those families. There is also the issue in primary schools of how much support breakfast clubs can provide in terms of childcare, which is much more needed at primary level, but secondary school pupils certainly need support. They need support to get to school and they need food available as well.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: My understanding is that the HAF funding for holiday programmes has been committed to until 2025—some time this year. There are concerns about what will happen next with holiday programmes. In terms of funding for breakfast clubs more generally, there has been commitment to carry on funding the national school breakfast programme until 2026. That supports some secondary schools that meet the criteria. That is welcome, but one of our concerns with the work going on around breakfast clubs is funding and commitment to funding. We know that there is funding until 2026.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, there is no certainty after that. The costs cannot land on families—we know that that will be a major barrier—but they also cannot land on schools, which need to know that they can continue that provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Around 75% of schools have some form of breakfast provision already, but, as you say—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: There is a higher proportion in primary, but that 75% is across all. Sorry—I have forgotten your question.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: A large proportion are already running breakfast clubs. It is a real mixture in terms of how that is funded, whether it is through schemes or other things. In primary schools, it is much more likely that parents are paying in some form for that. Again, it is a mixed picture. There is a postcode lottery for families. If you are in a more affluent area, you are more likely to have breakfast club provision available to you, and you are more likely to be supported by family.
In what the Bill is trying to do on breakfast clubs, we really welcome the fact that it is bringing consistency and ensuring that there is access for all families. In the early adopter phase, it would be good to understand what schools are doing already and how this can work, but I think that standardised limit that includes both time and food for families should be standardised for everybody. There might be other things that go around that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: It is probably worth speaking to organisations; I am sure that Magic Breakfast will be able to speak more to that. There are certainly economies of scale that can help you bring down costs, but again, our area of expertise is free school meals, and schools are struggling with the funding that they have for free school meals. I would imagine that 65p might be a struggle for schools—I do not know. You would have to have conversations with some of the providers about that.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Kate Anstey: We were very pleased to see Government taking action on reducing the cost of the school day, and uniforms are a huge pressure for families. We have done some research looking at the cost of uniforms for families. If you are a primary-aged family, the cost is £350 minimum, and it goes up to about £450 for secondary-aged families. That is for one child, of course, so that multiplies if you have more children. Part of that includes the fact that schools sometimes have excessive lists of compulsory branded items, so we were very pleased to see that acknowledgment in the Bill and the recognition that that needs to be limited. We think that that will make some difference to families.
The Bill could have gone further. I am not sure why the difference has been made between secondary and primary on the minimum. I think that those should be the same; there should not be a discrepancy there. I encourage Government to consider going further on this and bringing down the branded items as much as possible, because that is one of the things that place pressure on families.
In addition, the Bill could go further to support families with the cost of uniforms. In every other UK nation, families get grants and support with school costs. England is the only one that is lagging behind in that area, so we would like the idea of lower-income families getting more support with the cost to be looked at. This is two-pronged: schools need to do more, but families really do need help to meet some of those costs as well.
One more thing on uniform that comes up a lot in our research with children and young people is that children are being isolated or sent home from school because they do not meet requirements around uniform. DFE data showed that 18% of children in hardship were sent home for not meeting uniform requirements. I find that kind of shocking when we have an attendance crisis. Something needs to be done around the guidance for behaviour in schools to ensure that children are not sanctioned for poverty-related issues or issues relating to uniform. Those are areas where I think that the Bill could have gone further, but we certainly think restricting branded items is a good thing.
Munira Wilson
Q
Kate Anstey: I think the Bill was a real missed opportunity to do more on free school meals. Again, school food comes up in every conversation we have. At the moment, we estimate that about one in three children in poverty do not qualify for free school meals because that threshold is painfully low. It has not been updated since 2018. As CPAG, ultimately, we want to see means-testing removed from lunchtime altogether. We want children to be in school and able to learn. They have to be there at lunchtime. There is no reason why we should not feed every child universally and make it part of the school day, but I think there is an urgent need to increase that threshold as much as possible to support more lower-income families.
Munira Wilson
Q
Kate Anstey: As I say, we would like to see universal provision, but the fact that currently you can be eligible for universal credit and state-funded benefits and yet your child cannot get a bit of support in the form of a hot meal at lunchtime is completely wrong, in my mind. I think, at the very least, it should go to all families on universal credit.
Munira Wilson
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes. The data on auto-enrolment shows that around one in 10 children who are eligible for free school meals are not registered. That is for a whole host of reasons, including families not knowing they are entitled and families struggling with the admin. There is a very clear fix to this: if the DWP and the DFE work together to do the right data sharing, those children can be automatically enrolled. At the moment, many local authorities are doing a brilliant job of putting opt-out schemes in place, but that is highly onerous and those systems are not perfect, so they still miss children. We absolutely would say that increasing eligibility for free school meals is a priority, as is making sure that everybody who is entitled is getting one. The children who are missing out because they are not registered are some of the poorest. They are missing out on the meal and the benefits that go alongside that.
Munira Wilson
Q
Kate Anstey: As I said, take-up of breakfast clubs or different schemes is around 40%, whereas the vast majority of children are in school for lunchtime. Children will be there and able to access that hot meal, so they are more likely to feel the benefits, whereas the effects of breakfast clubs depend on whether that offer is taken up.
The Chair
Order. It is not acceptable to have this backwards and forwards across the Committee. Please ask a question of the witness.
Tom Hayes
Q
The Chair
You have one minute to answer.
Kate Anstey: Food that is given at breakfast time has to be in line with school food standards. Those standards certainly need to be looked at and more could be done around them but, again, I pivot back to the fact that although there is a need to look at what children are getting at breakfast, there is even more of a need to look at making sure that more children can get access to food at lunch time.
Schools themselves will say that there are sometimes struggles in terms of meeting school food standards because of the costs. Schools have faced increased costs of food, and they do not want to pass those costs on to families, so there are challenges there, but there is a will from schools to try to meet those standards and give children a complete meal. That can hopefully happen at breakfast and at lunch time. It is fundamental that children are able to have that nutritious hot meal, and we know it has really fantastic benefits for the rest of the school day.
We recently evaluated the Mayor’s universal free school meals policy in London. We found that, as well as the health benefits, families are also able to spend on food at home when they save that money. Children are also much more likely to try new foods when they are around other children, when teachers are there and when they are socialising, so there are multiple health benefits to children eating well at school. We need to support schools to be able to do that.
The Chair
We now have to move on to the next panel. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence to the Committee.
Examination of Witnesses
Catherine McKinnell and Stephen Morgan gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell): I am Catherine McKinnell, the Minister for School Standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan): I am Stephen Morgan, the Minister for Early Education.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I want to say first that the Government’s mission through the Bill—
Neil O'Brien
Could you answer the question?
Catherine McKinnell: I will answer the question.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham North) (Lab)
We are supposed to be polite to each other.
Neil O'Brien
We have limited time. Can you please just answer the question. I have incredibly limited time.
The Chair
Order. We have had a question, and the Minister is going to answer it.
Catherine McKinnell: The Government’s mission through the Bill is to deliver on the ambition of giving every child a national core of high-quality education, while allowing schools more flexibility and to innovate beyond it. We know that excellence and innovation can be found in all school types, so our priority is to create a school system that is rooted in collaboration and partnership so that we can spread that best practice throughout our very diverse system, which was commented on in the evidence we heard today. That is just the schools part; there is obviously a whole other section on children and safeguarding, and making sure we bring forward the landmark reforms that we need to see in child safeguarding.
In direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, the factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s education in schools and colleges is high-quality teaching, but there are severe shortages of qualified teachers across the country. We know that they are integral to driving high and rising standards, and they need to have an attractive pay and conditions framework. That is essential to both recruiting and retaining teachers who are qualified in every classroom.
We know academies have made transformational change, and we want them to continue driving those high and rising standards for all pupils, but especially disadvantaged pupils. That is why, as the Secretary of State set out, we want to create a floor with no ceiling, enabling healthy competition and innovation beyond that core framework to improve all schools. That is what we intend to deliver. We have heard the feedback from the sector. I have listened very carefully to the evidence that has been given today.
What this means for our ambition for teachers pay and conditions is that it should be clearer. In the same way that we have tabled other amendments to the Bill to make sure the legislation delivers our objectives, we are also intending to table an amendment to the clause covering teachers’ pay and conditions. That is entirely in line with the Government’s approach to providing clarification on the intention of legislation while we go through Committee stage.
The amendment will do two things. First, it will set a floor on pay that requires all state schools to follow minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. Secondly, it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teacher’s pay and conditions document. In doing so, we make it clear that we will deliver on our commitment to create a floor with no ceiling, so that good practice and innovation can continue to spread and be used by all state schools to recruit and retain the very best teachers that we need for our children.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: As I said, the amendment will require all state schools to follow the minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document, and then it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. This is so that we can deliver that core offer to all state schools, but without a ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We are in close consultation with all of the stakeholders that we have been collaborating with to make sure we create the best framework of legislation that will deliver opportunity for all children, and we will continue to do so.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I can respond to the hon. Gentleman on the new power in clause 43 that he has raised a number of times today. It will provide the Secretary of State with a more proportionate and flexible remedy, where it is really important to address quite a narrow or specific breach regarding unreasonable behaviour within an academy trust. I can give you an example as to why this is necessary: at the moment existing intervention powers require the Department for Education to use a termination warning notice and subsequently a termination notice. That is not always necessary or appropriate when dealing with an isolated breach of a legal duty.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We need a proportionate response and that needs to be framed—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about a point that he has made on that or a point that—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Obviously, we will listen to legitimate concerns on that. At the moment our view is that it is a much more proportionate way of dealing with a breach by an academy of a legal requirement within the legislation, so that we can avoid disruption to children where there is another way of dealing with it.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I am conscious that other Members of the Committee might want to actually ask about the legislation, but I am happy to set out our overarching vision.
The Chair
Order. Given the shortage of time, this is moving further away from the legislation than we should allow. Can we move on to Munira Wilson?
Munira Wilson
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I would point blank refute your last assertion on the basis that any measures in the Bill are very much intended to tackle some of the challenges with recruitment and retention. We are committed to making sure that not only do we have the teaching professionals we need in our schools, but that they are suitably qualified and that we drive those high and rising standards. We know that having excellent teaching and leadership in school, and a curriculum that is built on high standards and shared knowledge, means a system that will break down the barriers that are holding children back.
On the specifics you raise in relation to mental health and other challenges in the school system, we are very alive to these issues. I am conscious that I have done all the talking so far, so perhaps Mr Morgan wants to come in on that point.
Stephen Morgan: To echo my ministerial colleague, this is a landmark Bill, and we are really pleased to be bringing it forward so quickly in the new Government’s term. We are looking forward to working with all Members as we get into the detail of the clauses in the coming weeks.
On mental health, you will be aware of the commitment we set out in our manifesto to recruit 8,500 new mental health professionals and to introduce dedicated mental health support in every school. We also have our young futures programme. We take extremely seriously our commitments on mental health, because we know that it can be a barrier to behaviour and attendance at school. While they are not specifically included in the Bill, we will bring forward further measures to support children and young people with their mental health.
Munira Wilson
Q
Stephen Morgan: There is more work to do before presenting the impact assessment to the Committee. It is currently with the regulatory committee, but we acknowledge that this is information that should be brought before the Bill Committee, and we will do so as quickly as we can.
Munira Wilson
Q
Catherine McKinnell: That was an awful lot of questions, and I am not sure whether we have time to address them all, but our fundamental approach is that all children have the right to a safe and suitable education, whether they are educated at school or otherwise. We have given quite significant consideration to, and had consultation with stakeholders on, how to get the balance right and having a proportionate approach: ensuring that local authorities can be assured that children not in school are receiving a high standard of education, which every child deserves, but not making any changes to a parent’s ability to educate their child. We absolutely support their right to do so. The information that will be required to make those determinations has been carefully thought through, but there will be an opportunity to discuss all these matters in great detail in Committee. I reject the hon. Lady’s framing of this issue, because I think it is right that we have the provisions in place to ensure that every child is safe. We have a duty to do so.
Stephen Morgan: It is worth saying that we will engage with stakeholders to ensure that any burdens the registers impose on parents are minimised, and that we will consult on statutory guidance to support local authorities and schools to implement the measures in a proportionate way. We have heard today from witnesses about how strong those measures will be and what a difference they can make.
Catherine Atkinson
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Those are two quite big issues. Do you want to start on cost savings, Stephen?
Stephen Morgan: As we have heard today, too many children are growing up in poverty in our country, and that is why it is important that the ministerial taskforce concludes later this year and decides what actions can be taken forward. As of 2023, one in four children were in absolute poverty, and that is why I am so pleased with the many measures that will make a big difference to children’s lives up and down the country. Take breakfast clubs, which we know are good for attainment, behaviour and attendance: they will put £450 per child, per year, back in the pockets of parents, but also bring real benefits to children. More broadly, the commitments around uniform limits will make a real difference, as we have heard today, and will save the average parent £50. A series of measures in the Bill will make a real difference in the cost of living challenges that parents up and down the country are facing. Thank you for the question.
Catherine McKinnell: On keeping children safe, I know that this is an area that you have spent a lot of time working in and have spoken about. The register of children not in school will be an important step, and has had cross-party support in this House for some time. We will also have the single unique identifier, which will be a way of making sure that information about a child does not fall through the gaps, and that children do not fall through the safety gap.
There is also a whole raft of changes that aim to ensure that multi-agency working is embedded in our approach to safeguarding, as well as measures to try to keep children within the family unit, wherever that is possible, and strengthen the approach to kinship care. We have put funding in place to support local kinship care arrangements and are trialling better information being available. There is a range of measures, and clearly this is a big priority for us in the Bill.
Damian Hinds
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I appreciate the premise of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I appreciate that he is very experienced in this place and that he has had the experience of being in government for quite some time, and having the opportunity to do all those things and make the necessary changes. We wanted to move as fast as we could to make the impact that children need to see, particularly in safeguarding. We also wanted to make the long thought-through changes to our school system to support our opportunity mission and break down those barriers to ensure that every child has every opportunity to succeed. Admittedly, we are not going to lose any time in making the changes that we want to see, and we have the opportunity in the parliamentary time allocated to us.
Damian Hinds
Ah.
Catherine McKinnell: It is very important that we use it. We are a Government on a mission, and we have a lot of things to do.
Amanda Martin
Q
Catherine McKinnell: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is very much at the heart of what we want to achieve through our changes to schools. We want to ensure that every child has a good school place; that every parent can be confident that their child will be taught by a qualified teacher within their local mainstream school wherever possible, being educated with their peers; that no vulnerable child falls through the cracks; and that we know where they are if they are not in school. We are making important changes on admissions to ensure that all the schools in a local area collaborate with their local authority on place planning, so that we can really deliver on that vision.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of today’s sitting. The Committee will meet again at 11.30 am on Thursday 23 January to begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Vicky Foxcroft.)