Education Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I must declare an interest, first as chairman of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board and, since the Children Act 2004, as lead member for family and children’s services in Kensington and Chelsea. I have seen first hand how local government can make a positive difference to the lives of people locally. As advocates of diversity in school provision and champions of parental choice, councils and councillors really are at the heart of their neighbourhoods. Councils do not run schools, but they make sure that there are enough places for children who need them and that the admission process operates fairly so that every child gets the chance to go to a good local school. Perhaps more importantly, we oversee the distribution of funding in a cost-effective way. Councils also provide the crucial support for children with special educational needs and are the guardians of children in our care.

As the Secretary of State told the Local Government Association conference last year,

“promoting greater parental choice helps to improve standards for all children”,

and the role of councils in the education system should continue to be one in which we are able to ensure that the local school system is flexible and adaptable to local needs. I agree with the Government’s concern that there is too much bureaucracy within the education system. I have met councillors who have been told, “You don’t have the power to do that”, or, “You can’t stray outside the Whitehall guidelines”. This has the perverse effect of stifling innovative thinking from councillors and officers.

We know that this also occurs in schools. Too many forms, too much red tape and too many rules have sometimes stopped the system from focusing on educating children. The LGA is supportive of moves in the Bill to give teachers greater freedoms and flexibilities. I welcome Part 7, which abolishes the Young People’s Learning Agency—a move that will eliminate an agency which currently acts as an unnecessary middle man in the funding process. This provision will, no doubt, come as a relief to many within the 16 to 19 education and training sector who have felt that yet another burdensome central government agency may have added to the bureaucracy of an already complex funding system.

Councils also support the introduction of a national funding formula for fair and transparent funding for schools pre-16 and the reform of post-16 funding to produce a fairer funding system between different types of providers. The LGA is arguing strongly to retain local flexibility so that councils and schools can work together to adapt to local circumstances—for instance, the needs in rural areas or split-site arrangements. One potential model may be to reconsider the need to introduce an education funding agency to replace the abolished YPLA, as proposed in last year’s White Paper on schools. The current approach to funding pre-16 education through the DSG should be maintained and could easily be extended to cover 16 to 19 funding. This would be cost-effective and would eliminate the associated costs and bureaucracy of a national agency, but such a move would have the benefit of the DSG already in effect being a national formula which distributes money on a formula basis.

I also welcome the focus on the apprenticeships offer, particularly for children in care, but I ask the Government to look at other vulnerable groups of young people such as young carers, who often find it hard to access training and employment. Local government has welcomed such moves elsewhere to hand responsibility from central government agencies to local councils as part of the Government’s localism drive. It is natural then for councils to have some worries about some of the proposals in the Bill which appear to centralise matters where councils currently have discretion to make choices and react to local circumstances. For example, in Part 5, Clause 43 allows the Secretary of State to direct a council to issue a performance standards and safety warning notice to a school. Research commissioned by the LGA shows that councils, head teachers and school improvement partners prefer a collaborative partnership approach to school improvement. The study found no evidence that the increased use of warning notices would greatly assist processes of school improvement. There was some concern that such notices could be counterproductive where a school is in a gradual or fragile process of improvement. Equally, I recognise that where these partnerships are not working, then more control may be needed. While the intention may be that this new ability for central government to overrule a local decision is used only sparingly, I urge the Government, in the spirit of localism, to consider carefully the introduction of this power.

Similarly, Schedule 11 introduces new rules requiring councils that are looking to establish a new school to first seek to establish an academy, and introduces a requirement for a council to seek the Secretary of State’s approval before proceeding with exploring alternative proposals should an academy not be considered appropriate for the needs of local children and parents. Councils’ primary concern when encouraging new provision in their areas should be the needs of parents and children. That will include balancing diversity of provision to expand choice. It is imperative that this new process does not reduce the ability of local parents, education providers and councils to respond quickly and effectively to new demand and that local choice and diversity of provision is maintained. Unfortunately, there is a risk that a potentially burdensome process requiring approval and scrutiny by the DfE could restrict the ability of local communities to decide what type of school is established in their area. Councils support the many excellent academies that already exist in their areas and there is nothing wrong with a presumption that in the future, when a new school is to be established, the option of an academy is actively explored. However, I again urge the Government to apply the spirit of localism to the Bill and consider removing the requirement for councils to go cap in hand to the department for permission to explore alternative models of schools.

The final area I wish to touch on very briefly is the role of local authority school governors, to which my noble friend has already referred. I am pleased that the Minister of State for Schools made it clear that the Government did not intend to diminish the contribution made by local authority governors, and will ensure that governing bodies that reconstitute will be required to have one local authority-appointed governor. I look forward to supporting the Government in amending the Bill in this regard as we move through further scrutiny.