Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am unable to give any more clarification on that point at this stage. I am sorry that I cannot say anymore to your Lordships.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I realise that the Minister is not able to say anything further about the timing with regard to Committee and Report, but could she say anything further in response to my noble friend Lord Knight about regulatory review, leaving aside the question of Report?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have already said at the Dispatch Box that the regulatory review will begin within weeks. I am unable to say anything further about the other stages of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Blower]

60: Clause 29, page 23, line 24, at end insert “only with the consent of the governing body that is the subject of the application”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that a local authority cannot apply for an Academy order to be made unless it has the consent of the governing body.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 60, perhaps I might be of assistance to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. This amendment specifically says that nothing will be applied for without the consent of a governing body. It seems to me that that this would add to the points made by the noble Duke and to his position.

All the amendments in this group—I have added my name to Amendments 60, 61, 62, 69, 70 and 75—are about consultation. I would have made this point in the earlier debate but, knowing that I would come to it with this amendment, it seemed appropriate to wait. I think that there is a way round this. We could have something in the Bill to preclude the possibility of a school being forced to change its status if the consent of the governing body could not be achieved. It may be that this is a helpful amendment.

I am very grateful to the National Governance Association for all the work that it has done on this. I have been a governor at various schools and have had the pleasure of being a local authority-appointed governor, a staff governor, and a parent governor. These roles are all very important and I continue to believe that membership of the local governing body is an important role which is of value to the institution and the individual. As we have seen, it may be even more important if it is able to protect certain kinds of establishment.

The governing body should both provide the link to the community and be the voice of the community. For that reason, Amendment 60 is important. It is a way of saying that without that voice the status should not be changed. Hitherto, this central role of working with the school but also connecting with the local authority or with other relevant parties is really about how good decision-making should continue.

It appears that the Government’s intention is for all schools to be in a MAT. We are not quite sure whether that is genuinely their intention, so let us say that it is not the Government’s intention to force anyone, but that it is their intention that all schools should seek to be in a MAT, and that any movement out of the MAT into which a school or a stand-alone academy has been put or finds itself would be only in exceptional circumstances.

The National Governance Association has described that relationship as the possibility of

“marriage with no prospect of divorce.”

This may warm the hearts of those who think that divorce should never happen, but divorce does happen. On this basis, it is important that governing bodies should engage with schools and local authorities to make the possibility of an unhappy marriage a distinctly avoidable one. Therefore, the notion that there should be proper consultation with all relevant and interested parties before decisions are made is really important.

The NGA says that governors should consult widely with stakeholders, including staff, parents, pupils—we should note that—and the wider community, on all possible options. That is significant. The NGA is suggesting that the stakeholders should think about what the possibilities are for the institution with which they have been associated. If, ultimately, joining a MAT is required or desirable, it should certainly be one that the school feels is appropriate to its current ethos. That point is made several times by the National Governance Association.

I turn to Amendments 61, 62 and 75. The NGA has some clear and particularly helpful advice on consultation. It says:

“Formal consultation will need to be carried out as part of the official process”


and that:

“Stakeholder engagement is a core governance function and buy-in from the school community will be essential in making a success of any decision to form or join a MAT.”


It talks about ensuring therefore that all stakeholders are able to engage properly in that. It makes some suggestions as to how that consultation can be done: staff meetings, engagement with the relevant trade unions, a letter to parents, information on the school website, a question and answer session. Here, the National Governance Association is really talking about the widest possible and, from its point of view, the most effective consultation, to ensure that whatever path is chosen has the biggest possible buy-in, because it must be clear that if that is the case, the way forward for the school is likely to be the most successful.

It also says that a school

“may also wish to set out what it regards as the advantages of joining or forming a MAT”.

That is critical. In making this decision, it should be clear why it is being taken. Accepting that particularly the noble Baronesses opposite are enthusiastic to make sure we have a successful system, an individual institution must also explain why it is to its advantage to join a MAT or, as the noble Duke has said, not to join a MAT. There is a lot to be considered here and significant amounts of work for governing bodies to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am glad that I have been promoted to be the noble Lord’s “noble friend”; things are looking up. I am very happy to take this offline with the noble Lord. It is just not case that the decision is made at that point, but I would be happy to meet with him and we can go through this in more detail, if that would be helpful.

Amendment 75 is concerned with existing stand-alone academies joining multi-academy trusts, which we discussed at length in the earlier group. The process by which an academy joins another trust is not set out in legislation; it is a matter for agreement between the two trusts and is subject to the approval of the regional director. I hope that noble Lords can forgive me for repeating myself. When considering any application for a stand-alone academy to join a MAT, the regional director will consider what stakeholder engagement has taken place, and the views expressed by stakeholders.

I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to provide for very specific consultation requirements in legislation. Stakeholder engagement is already embedded in the decision-making process. However, I agree that the process by which academies join trusts should be transparent—here, I am a little more optimistic about reassuring the noble Baroness, the noble Lord and other noble Lords opposite. As part of the regulatory review, which I have mentioned previously, we will consider the scope to clarify the arrangements for engaging with stakeholders when a stand-alone academy joins a multi-academy trust.

In the light of Amendment 68 in my name, and given these assurances, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, to withdraw her Amendment 60, and that other noble Lords do not move their amendments. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, that I did not echo the birthday wishes, but I wish her a very happy birthday.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Before I begin my remarks, I wish many happy returns to my noble friend on the Front Bench.

Never in my wildest dreams would I think of the Minister as Machiavellian—absolutely not. However, the lived experience of many people is that discussions over issues to do with academisation, moving into MATs or other such things have not always been open and the system has not always been transparent. I am personally aware of representatives of particular unions who, after being called in to see head teachers, have been briefed and then been told that the matter is absolutely confidential, and that they must say nothing to any member outside that room. I am not saying that this is the position the Minister would take, but it is the lived experience of a lot of people who genuinely believe that there should be proper and open consultation. We can say that those head teachers were doing it completely wrongly, but the fact is that it would have impacted those union members, and there is the impact of someone in the school now knowing something which the parents and students do not know.

There is clearly something here about the need constantly to reinforce the fact that consultation should be open, appropriate and transparent. This is probably why, although the Minister said these things in very reassuring tones, I cannot see why we would not specify the need to consult with particular groups of people, including parents, staff and so on. This remains an issue. I am delighted that the Minister thinks that it is inevitable, but my experience is that consultation has not always been inevitable. However, I would like to believe that it was.

I will comment on the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about neatness, which I thought was very entertaining. To him, I would add: I do not think that all local authority schools are like cookie cutters and exactly the same; they pride themselves on the fact that they have a particular ethos. That comes from the student intake, the particular group of staff they have, the governors and the head’s style of leadership, so I do not think that they are all the same.

I am sure that those who have visited very many maintained schools will agree with me that they are quite different, whether they have a uniform or not—all sorts of things do make them different. But I was entertained by the noble Lord’s remarks about neatness. Again repeating that nothing in my remarks suggests anything Machiavellian, although I am not completely reassured by everything, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.