Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

11A: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert “, provided that the other party shall not be in financial deficit nor hold an excessive financial surplus”

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I will speak to the other amendments in this group as well as to this one, which was tabled by my noble friend Lady Morgan of Drefelin.

We discussed earlier our concerns about the impact of the Bill on local communities, and in particular on the local communities of schools. These concerns are particularly acute when it comes to finance. My noble friend Lord Adonis said in a previous debate that funding arrangements must be fair and be seen to be fair, and this was reiterated by the Minister. They are absolutely right. Unamended, the Bill runs the risk of causing great difficulties with the finances of schools in the area of an academy, to the detriment of the education of children in the maintained schools and to the detriment of the cohesion of the local community. Our amendments in this group seek to require academies to make good any financial deficits in existence at the time of conversion and prevent consequential financial loss to the other schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will reflect on that. The point of the figure is to provide some benchmark. My noble friend Lady Perry is quite right to say that individual circumstances vary greatly from school to school, and each of those circumstances would need to be taken into account in forming a view as to what is a sensible sum. That figure has been included as a rule of thumb, but I take the point that one may need to exercise discretion.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the clear response from the Minister. It is extremely helpful to have clarification on deficits and surpluses. The point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is extremely important. That would not have come out if she had not raised it, so I am very grateful to her. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but before I do that, I should inform the House that we won 1-0.

Amendment 11A withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord James of Blackheath]

I interject on behalf of the SEN pupils of boarding schools with a word of caution, and I speak, as I have said before, as probably the House’s only representative of SEN students in my day. In one term alone, there were eight suicides from a student base of 45 at a boarding school for SEN children in 1947. This was a good school, and there was no abuse—indeed, the teachers showed very great kindness and consideration—but it is very dangerous to take struggling young people away and put them together in a school in which they have to cope with their recognition of their total inability to study effectively and have no home life at the same time. Please do not put SEN children into public boarding schools.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 26, 27, 56, 57, 99, 103, 109, 111 and 120—a veritable alphabet soup of amendments.

The Government propose that outstanding schools that convert to academies should take under their wing another school that is struggling and that should receive support. This is an excellent idea, but there is no actual provision for this in the Bill. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he will in most cases wait until after conversion to put the arrangements into place, but I suggest that there might be some advantages in being a little more up front about this issue. I welcome Amendment 25 in the name of my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton in this respect.

Amendment 26 prevents changes causing untold disruption to sixth forms and colleges in the community, which I believe could be an unintended consequence of the changes. Amendment 27 deals with another seemingly unintended consequence of the legislation. Under the Government’s proposals, academies will be allowed to expand at will and will be able to include sixth-form colleges and primary schools. A school converting to an academy at, say, primary school level could in theory grow until it becomes an all-through academy for pupils from the age of five to 18, but the local authority and the local community will have had no say in the issue.

There could be serious consequences. For instance, a faith primary school could expand into a secondary school, or a grammar school could expand into primary education. Without proper public consultation, the balance of, for example, faith schools and non-faith schools in a given community could be transformed. We would not want such an unintended consequence. The Bill also erodes the ability of local authorities to plan by giving secondary schools, for example, the right to establish a primary class without the need to consult anyone. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, pointed out, primary schools are often much smaller than secondary schools. They have much less capacity to budget, to plan for the future, to have in-house services for SEN provision or to have other key shared services.

In principle, there is no reason why primary school children cannot attend an autonomous school. Under the previous Government, all-through academies happened and they were successful. But, like the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I wonder whether the academy model is the right model for primary schools right now, as it will necessitate a considerable increase in overheads for primary schools. The resources for shared services could be swallowed up by extra administration, which could have severe consequences for the wider welfare of primary school children in those communities. Amendments 99, 109 and 120 effectively ask the Government to think again about that issue and to think about a framework which might involve more collaboration, as has been mentioned, for primary schools and secondary schools. We think that that might be more appropriate. Therefore, we are thinking along the same lines.

Amendments 103 and 111 deal with what could be seen as a fundamental issue, a problem, at the heart of the Bill. The current academies programme targets areas of inadequate educational attainment and opportunity. Most academies replace existing weak or underperforming schools. Others are brand new schools in areas which need the extra school places. Academies were a key element of the national challenge. They took us to a position where only one in 12 schools fell below the 30 per cent grade A to C benchmark, which half of the schools failed under previous Governments. But I am glad to say that things improved.

Part of the real benefits of the academies programme under the Labour Government was that outside expertise was harnessed for the good of turning around failing schools and it was important to acknowledge a role for innovation. For this reason, academies were obliged to follow the national curriculum in only core subjects such as English, maths, science and information technology. The schools were also taken out of existing local authority control and given the funding for shared services, as we have discussed previously. This was so that they could use the funding to deliver the services, which many, by definition, would have had more need for than other schools, because they were often in the most deprived areas with the most overlapping problems.

Academies have had a higher incidence of pupils with English as an additional language compared to other state-funded schools. Investigating the state of play as regards pupil profile admissions and exclusions, the report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers says that the proportion of children eligible for free school meals in academies has declined at a faster rate than in other schools, with a drop of nearly 6 per cent. The PWC report also shows that the absolute number of pupils on free school meals has risen compared to their predecessor schools. We can see that the fall in proportion does not mean that free school meal numbers have declined but that more children are attending school, as well as more from other backgrounds. Of course, that is a good thing and shows that the schools are getting a genuinely comprehensive intake, which we welcome. Many predecessor schools sadly had unrepresentative intakes. But the PWC report indicates a story of sink schools with a high proportion of children on free school meals attracting a much broader intake to much more successful schools.

By contrast, the Government propose to implement a reform which is aimed at improvements for 20 per cent of schools already rated outstanding by Ofsted. Of course, these schools are likely to have fewer children on free school means attending. There is a real risk that by giving advantages to the strongest and not to the weakest, we entrench rather than erode the inequalities in the education system in this country. That is why it is so important that these excellent schools work strongly with the schools in the most disadvantaged areas, which is precisely why I welcome Amendment 125 in the name of my noble friend. It is important that we deal with this issue up front and I would like to make it explicit in the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That could not happen. To clear up another often expressed concern that may lie behind the questions of my noble friend and other noble Lords, an academy trust cannot be a profit-making body either—although, clearly, the people providing the service will be paid for doing so.

Amendment 26, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred, would require future academies to continue any formal collaboration arrangements established between a former maintained school and FE colleges. As Section 166 of the EIA 2006 allows only for formal governance structures to be established between maintained schools and FE colleges, any partnership would operate on an informal basis. That is what happens currently and it is the right way to continue. It is happening in Luton, where Barnfield College, an FE college, is sponsoring two academies. In practice, that approach seems to be working.

Amendment 27 would prevent an academy trust from changing the age range to which it would provide education—and there was a long discussion subsequently, which I may come back to on later amendments, about the role of primary schools. The amendment would prevent an academy from, for example, providing early years education if it did not do so from the point of conversion and it could prevent it from expanding its provision from secondary to sixth form. However, given proper safeguards, those are the kinds of developments that we want academies to have the freedom to deliver. If that is what local parents want, we want academies to be able to do that.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

It is a point about consultation. I am not seeking to prohibit academies from expanding the age range, but the fact is that they would do so without consultation. This harks back to the whole consultation issue and I hope the Minister will consider that point.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am considering that. On the specific point of sixth-form expansion, an increase in places would require a change to the admissions arrangements, which would itself require local consultation and agreement by the Secretary of State. That may provide the noble Baroness with some comfort.

Amendments 45, 47, 48 and 49 revolve around the debate we had about “wholly or mainly”. I share the views expressed on all sides of the House about boarding academies. I am very attracted to the idea and wish to see whether we can do more with them. Other points were made around a particular specialism and one would not want provisions in the Bill which made that problematical.

As to the specific question about the existing 35 state boarding schools—this provides the answer to the substantive question behind it—yes, they are able to apply for academy status. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Duke of York’s Royal Military School will become a boarding academy within the current requirements—which, as he rightly said, date from 1988 wholly or mainly—so they have not prevented that from happening. A performing arts academy has been set up in Birmingham to serve that city’s pupils, and I am advised that that has been possible within the “wholly or mainly” requirement. I am alive to the point—I have asked about it within the department—and I am keen to encourage the kind of developments referred to by the noble Lord and others, including the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I am keen to do this and I am told that it is not a practical obstacle. I shall be happy to take up the noble Lord’s offer to discuss the issue subsequently and make sure that I am right in my understanding.

Amendment 56, which was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, seeks to ensure that an academy continues to provide for CPD and suggests making it a requirement for future academy arrangements. Everyone would agree on the need for continuous professional development in academies, as in all schools. I am advised that it is one of the areas without the sort of requirement that she suggests. Academies often do particularly well as a result of the overall way in which they approach staff issues and pay and conditions. Academies are supported by education advisers whose role has included looking at this area in particular. I am told that it is working well, so we are not convinced that it needs to be a statutory requirement.

Amendment 57 would require that corporal punishment be prohibited in academies. The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 amended the Education Act 1996. It effectively abolished corporal punishment in all schools by providing that there should be no defence to criminal or civil proceedings as a result of any corporal punishment being given to a child being educated at a school. That provision applies to academies as well as maintained schools and has been in force since September 1999.

Amendments 58, 99, 109 and 120 would restrict academies to particular types or age ranges. Nursery schools are not able to become academies because they cater for pupils below compulsory school age and, to be established, academies must have at least five pupils of compulsory school age. I listened with interest to the debate on primary schools and understand some of the concerns raised. My noble friend Lady Sharp suggested federations of primary schools, which is exactly the kind of thing that one would want to encourage. We have said—this responds in part to my noble friend Lady Williams—that we will work with local authorities to address these issues as the scale and nature of academy conversion becomes clear. As I have said repeatedly, we are approaching this conversion permissively. We are not seeking to make all primary schools convert. We are committed to thinking through the issues that she raised about the practicalities involved for primary schools. We will continue to reflect on that and work with local authorities. That said, we are keen that primary schools of the sort that I visited in Edmonton on my second day in the department—it is a fantastic primary school which has been turned around—have the chance to convert. The headmistress there, Patricia Sowter, was very keen on academy freedoms. Primary schools should have that chance and we do not want to stand in their way.

Amendments 127 and 25 raise a theme that we have debated in previous groups. They would require a school converting to an academy to join forces with a weaker school unless particular circumstances led the Secretary of State to decide that it was not the right thing to do. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that we have used warm words and that one is looking for more than that. I shall continue to try to heat them up even further if I can. I completely agree with her and other noble Lords who made similar points. The importance of partnership between outstanding schools converting to academies and other schools cannot be underestimated. We have been explicit that each outstanding school will be expected to sign up in principle. They will have to set out their plans as part of that process. However, it is still our view at bottom that approaching partnership on a volunteer rather than a conscript basis may make those partnerships more fruitful, in that they will be willingly entered into rather than perhaps approached more grudgingly. Amendment 127 is not limited to outstanding schools. Our view is that if a school is not yet outstanding, to burden it with a requirement to partner with a school eligible for intervention would not be a sensible way forward.

I hope that my answers have provided some reassurance, particularly on the “wholly or mainly” point, which I recognise is important and am happy to discuss further. On that basis, I urge noble Lords not to press their amendments.