Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I defer to my noble friend’s experience, but bodies such as the Institute of Directors put on training courses and provide structured guidance for directorships, so I wonder what the equivalent is for governing bodies? Is there a body which fulfils this role?

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I have also been a school governor in one form or another for getting on for 40 years. Training courses for governors are run not only by local authorities but also centrally, and they are quite detailed courses. There is also a training guide on the web. The noble Lord might like to look at the Department for Education website where he will find that under “governors” there is a sort of teach yourself course to show you what you should know to become a good governor.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, as president of the National Governors’ Association, perhaps I may be allowed to make a tiny comment. There has been a good deal of improvement in the training of school governors, but it is not uniform. I think there is a desire on the part of the National Governors’ Association to pay rather more attention to this side of things so that all governors are given some training before they start as well as ongoing training whenever that is necessary.

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[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

But the evidence is on my side. The number of exclusions by academies is very great, while the number of children at risk of exclusion by non-academies being taken in by academies is very small. That is why the amendment is important. This is not about the Government saying to schools, “You must do this, that or the other”; it is about a partnership that already exists. We are not instructing schools to form these partnerships; they exist already. The schools work together and make professional judgments. There are times when a child needs to be out of a school. Such children do not settle, the relationships are broken and the damage is done. They need to be elsewhere. The best system is when schools, through generosity of spirit and professional judgment, almost come to an arrangement to help each other out. By doing so, they also help children out.

The only point of including the local authority in the amendment is that someone has to broker the arrangement. I do not care who it is. All that the local authority does is broker the partnership that provides this better way of dealing with excluded children. The local authority cannot tell a school to take a child—and that is good. All that the local authority does is hold the ring for families of schools to make professional judgments about where these excluded children should go. My prediction, which I know is accurate, is that if academies are allowed to exclude themselves from this partnership of schools that deal with these most vulnerable children, a lot of academies will do exactly that and the burden will fall on schools that are not academies but are still in the partnerships.

I have listened carefully to the Minister. As well as emphasising independence, he has emphasised partnership. Academies under his Government have to partner with an underperforming school to raise standards. What better way is there of cementing that relationship and philosophy than by his Government also saying that academies should stay in the partnership and play their part in making sure that we deal with our excluded children as effectively as we can? We have not done that well in the past, but the partnerships that have flourished in the past few years provide the evidence that that is the best way to proceed.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I want to say how much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and, unusually, disagree with my noble friend Lady Perry. The points that she makes about partnerships are precisely correct; indeed, a number of academies are part of these behaviour partnerships, which are working extremely well. In exactly the same way, many school confederations are working well. Many of us are now saying, “What a good thing confederations are”, although initially some of us were a little hesitant about the Government forcing schools into confederations. Where there have been confederations, many members of staff have found them very useful.

I particularly endorse Amendment 73 on the need for academies to participate in the behaviour partnerships in exactly the same way as other locally maintained state schools should. As the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said, getting on the telephone and talking to other heads is precisely what it is all about. The partnership does not need to be heavy-handed or forced; it can be very light touch.

I also agree very much with the arguments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. The low-incidence special needs can be overlooked and it is extremely important that they are not disregarded.

We are all concerned about these exclusions because we do not want these young people to fall by the wayside into the category that we call NEETs—not in employment, education or training. They are drop-outs from society, so it is important that we meet their needs. Many pupils with low-incidence special educational needs get disregarded. They are not a great nuisance. They sit at the back of the classroom, playing games and talking among themselves, but they do not get educated as they should because nobody has looked at what their needs are. We have got much better at this over the past few years, but it is vital that academies, too, pay attention to these young people. The Minister has promised to come back with another look at the process surrounding special educational needs and I hope that he will incorporate the issue in the review that he is undertaking.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, as another former Secretary of State, perhaps I may say how strongly I agree with what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, as well as by my noble friend Lady Sharp. I will be brief. First, like other noble Lords, I have first-hand knowledge of the fact that, in some cases, schools have decided not to accept a child with special educational needs—for example, one who is dyslexic, dyspraxic, deaf or blind—when they believe that that would lower their standing in the league tables. The league tables have been devastating in that way, by making it difficult often for an ambitious and able head teacher who values their position in the league tables to take such children. There is a danger, as my noble friend Lady Sharp said, that if you begin to regard the position of children with special educational needs, or children who are difficult, as somehow excluding them from being part of the academy, that academy will become still further removed from the problems of the whole of society. I feel strongly about this.

Perhaps I may refer to the interesting comments of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about Denmark. It is interesting also that the incidence of permanent exclusion in Scotland is proportionately a long way below that in England, because Scotland has chosen to go for short-term, temporary exclusions rather than for permanent exclusions that far too often condemn the child for the rest of their life to being outside society and often lead them straight on to being young offenders and things of that kind. I have a great deal of sympathy with what was said by both noble Lords. I hope that the Government will seriously consider a different kind of approach to children who are excluded.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, whom I congratulate on her open-mindedness on the issue, has indicated that partnerships play a large part in this. My noble friend Lady Sharp has seconded the view that they are crucial and significant. However, beyond that we must look at the whole situation of excluded children: why they are excluded, whether earlier intervention would save them from being excluded and whether temporary exclusions should be more common than permanent exclusions, with their devastating effect of taking the child almost altogether out of society.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said, this is a long-running problem. What we have heard from all around the Chamber this evening is that this matter concerns us all, across the parties, and that none of us is entirely sure that we have the complete and final answer. We are all aware that the early academies had an unusually high rate of exclusions. That was partly because they were going into the toughest areas and trying to reimpose discipline in schools that had lost control—there were special circumstances. I am happy to say that the figures have now come down.

We are also all aware that league tables have had a perverse effect not only on academies. I am well aware of one or two secondary schools in my part of Yorkshire of which it has been said that they have tried to avoid taking on difficult children from difficult areas precisely because of the impact that they knew it would have on their standing in league tables. I am afraid that I am unable to say anything specific about our plans on league tables; we will have to write to the noble Earl. As he will know, the question of how one can shape league tables to recognise the starting point as well as the output is being discussed, again across the parties and across the expert community, because it is recognised that league tables have had a perverse effect. We are engaged on this.

I will also say that these amendments were correctly grouped, because difficult children are often defined in all sorts of ways. I know little about the problems of educating children with autism, which is a low-incidence disability and special need. That also, in a sense, makes it easier for a school to say, “Let’s exclude that child. Let that child go somewhere else”. Therefore, there is an overlap. Children can be seen as difficult in a number of different ways.

On Amendment 72, I emphasise that academies are already required, through their funding arrangements, to take their fair share of challenging pupils through their involvement in local in-year fair access protocols. This will continue to be the case for all new academies, so they do not get out of this obligation. They should be free to co-operate with local partners in managing exclusions but, again, there is a question for the coalition of how one writes that down and in how much detail. The previous Labour Government were always in favour of prescribing everything in the most minute detail—usually twice a year, each time the name of the department or the Secretary of State changed. This, as the noble Baroness will of course admit, is a different approach.

Academies are regulated by their funding agreements, which require that they act in accordance with the law on exclusions as though the academy were a maintained school and that they have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance on exclusions, including in relation to any appeals process. I hope that that provides assurance that academies have to follow the law on exclusions in the same way as maintained schools.

I turn to the subject of low-incidence disabilities. We recognise that this is a continuing problem, especially where there are only a very small number of young people in a district with those particular needs. Again, partnerships among schools will clearly be the best way forward.

Academies’ funding for SEN is paid on a formula basis by the Young People’s Learning Agency. If a pupil with one of the different forms of low-incidence SEN attracts individually assigned resources as a top-up to the formula funding, the local authority will pay this from its schools budget and will continue to be responsible for monitoring the provision. If the academy fails to secure such provision, it will be in breach of its funding agreement and the YPLA can ultimately investigate following a complaint. Therefore, measures are already in train. I am not saying that they will entirely resolve the problem, just as under the previous Government a number of other measures did not entirely resolve the problem. We all recognise that this is one of the most difficult issues in education in England and we will all need to continue to monitor and to work with others—

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

Can the Minister explain how this will be monitored? He said that, if it is a low-incidence special educational need, the YPLA will be responsible for paying an extra premium in respect of that need. However, the YPLA is a payment agency, not an inspection agency. How will it monitor matters to ensure that needs are met in an academy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure that I can provide an instant answer on that. Particularly in relation to low-incidence disabilities, whether it is to do with deaf or autistic children or those with other needs, a specialist voluntary organisation will often also be doing its best to monitor the situation. Therefore, when I say “following a complaint”, very often the relevant specialist society will be doing its best to support the pupil and will make sure that the YPLA and the local authority are informed and concerned if the need falls short. However, we are looking to develop partnerships among schools. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, went a good deal wider than this and spoke about young people in care going beyond the education sector to the other local agencies that deal with difficult young people. That is the way in which we have to go forward. On that basis of reassurance, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I shall speak to Amendments 47 and 127. I agree that the clause to which the noble Lord referred needs to be freed up a bit. Amendment 47 would allow exceptions to pupils being drawn from the local community. At the moment, the clause is very prescriptive, and my amendment would allow a broader intake of pupils. It could also have an impact in other areas, and I declare an interest as it would be of interest to faith groups. On the other hand, I am trying to strengthen the argument for the local community being the main user of these schools by shifting the burden of proof from that they might or might not be community schools to the general rule being that they are. That is why the Church of England is committed to the academies programme. My amendment would secure its interest and would also allow what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, wants, even though we want to press for something more specific. However, in general terms, we are making a similar point.

If the Minister were to be sympathetic, it would strengthen the arm of those of us in the Church of England who want to be able to say to our people that we are in this business to serve the community, not primarily to further a particular faith position. My amendment would strengthen that position, and I hope that not only would it be of benefit to the Government in implementing the Bill but will help us ensure that our people remain on side when it comes to why we are in the business.

Amendment 127 is rather different. I am fishing in the same waters as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in the debate on the previous group and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton, in this group. The amendment is to do with the relationship between academies and other schools. I want to strengthen the Government’s arm when it comes to ensuring—not just hoping for or expecting—that these schools will form partnerships with weaker schools in the vicinity. They will be required to do so, subject to certain exceptions because there will be exceptions. A school could be situated somewhere where there are no other schools close by that are practically able to partner in that way. That is acknowledged in my amendment. The fundamental principle is to beef this up and turn it from hope or expectation to a requirement, with the possibility of exceptions where they might arise in the judgment of the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I shall speak to Amendment 63 which is in my name and that of my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Garden. It is a fairly simple amendment and relates to Clause 1(6)—as my noble friend Lord Greaves said, we are still on Clause 1—which lists the basic characteristics that will be required of schools converting to an academy. In a number of the amendments, we have been discussing further characteristics that noble Lords would like to see attached to this subsection. The purpose of Amendment 63 is to probe what sort of machinery the Government are thinking of for monitoring all these characteristics. In subsection (5), the undertaking is given that these schools will adhere to these characteristics, but we are asking for some sort of monitoring machinery to make sure that they adhere to them, rather than regarding them as something that they agree to when they sign the agreement, but subsequently do not bother about very much. We would like to hear from the Minister precisely what sort of undertakings and monitoring machinery there will be.

I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend Lord Greaves who wants to eliminate the term “independent school”. When we first started to discuss academies, Tony Blair, when he was Prime Minister, described them as independent state schools. If we are going to have independent state schools, let them be called independent state schools. I always felt that they were an anomaly, and I cannot say that I like them very much. Nevertheless, my noble friend Lord Greaves is absolutely right that it is misleading for the Bill to use the term “independent schools”, which are well understood in this country to mean independent private schools.

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[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

I am reluctant to intervene further when the dinner break is approaching and I can see that the Minister is anxious to respond. I have only a few points. I have been prompted to raise the first by the interesting comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, followed by those of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Precisely because there seems to be a serious debate, it is possible to reach different conclusions from the same premise. That is a good reason for going quite slowly in relation to primary schools. An issue that has been of concern to noble Lords throughout the Committee stage is what is perceived to be the haste with which this legislation is being progressed. That could be an indication for the Minister that, at least in relation to primary schools, there should be an opportunity to pilot a scheme to see whether this should happen at all. I would say personally that, in promoting the academies agenda, which we are anxious to do, it would be considerably easier if we were working with a timetable that did not address all our schools at once, but allowed for some kind of phasing-in of the initiative so that, when schools go for this option, they do so after due consideration and consultation and in the light of all the circumstances and facts. Finally, talking of facts, although the Minister may not know this off the top of his head, what is the proportion of secondary schools to primary schools among the 1,700 declarations of interest that have been made?

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

Just before the Minister responds, I should say that I have not spoken to Amendments 185A and 188A tabled in my name, among others, because they should not really have been included in this group. I will speak to them separately later.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

A diverse set of themes and topics has come up. I shall come back to the point about “wholly or mainly” in a moment, because it is one of the themes that have emerged on which I hope to be able to provide a little reassurance. I shall take my responses in the order in which I have them before me.

Amendment 63 concerns monitoring and whether we need to have independent monitoring arrangements. The Bill requires compliance with the characteristics set out in the academy arrangements. How that works in practice is that the Secretary of State ensures at the outset of an academy project that it meets those characteristics. Compliance is then monitored by the Young People’s Learning Agency. It has the duty to monitor compliance and, if the Secretary of State is not satisfied, he has the power to terminate an arrangement.

Amendment 17, moved by my noble friend Lord Greaves, is concerned with language. I agree that language is important. Personally, I quite like the word “independent” and the concept of independence. I take his point about how certain words carry freight. One could argue that one should call independent schools “private schools” and academies “public schools”, but the amendment would make academies maintained schools rather than independent schools, which would in effect prevent them from gaining the freedoms that are the purpose of the Bill.

On Amendment 22A, the Bill as drafted requires those setting up academies to meet the demands of both paragraphs (a) and (b). I am advised, and can assure noble Lords, that adding the word “and” to this subsection would not change the meaning of it. We do not believe that there is ambiguity in the current drafting.

Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his new position and thank him for his clear exposition of the Bill. I join others in congratulating him on its brevity and clarity. It is no secret that we Liberal Democrats have for some time had reservations about the academy programme because, like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, we have not seen the freedoms that were offered to academies as making the difference. We recognise that what made the difference was the teaching and learning under which many schools were turned around—although there were failures—by bringing in new heads and good leadership.

Above all, where we differed from the Opposition and my noble friends in the Conservative Party was that we have never seen local authorities as oppressive powers. Above all, we have seen education as a system which serves a local community; it is very necessary for schools to work together, whereby nursery schools link with primary schools, which then link with secondary schools. Together they should provide for the educational needs of the local community. Serving the local community was, therefore, the most important part of the system. You needed to have some kind of authority which could judge the needs of the local community—whether it was in the provision of new places, helping to orchestrate admissions and exclusions, providing for special educational needs and other specialist services, or, for the smaller schools, especially primary schools, the provision of important back-office functions in terms of employment and payroll.

It is also important to realise that since the Education Reform Act in 1988, local authorities have not run schools. Governing bodies and heads run schools. The bureaucracy that we all rail against—I did my bit of railing against it during the debate on the Queen’s Speech last Thursday—has been imposed by central government. I mentioned in that speech the report from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of this House which looked at the impact over the years of the statutory instruments, guidance and directives that had been issued to schools. I noted that typically a school received 760 pieces of guidance every year. That is an appalling figure. It is freedom from this bureaucracy—imposed by central government, not by local authorities—that schools really need.

The main worry of many people about the establishment of academies is that they will fragment this local community of schools that we see as so important. However, the academies introduced by this Bill are a different breed from those introduced by Labour. As many noble Lords have mentioned, for Labour, academies were introduced to raise the standards of poorly performing schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This usually meant turning over a new leaf—a new building, a new head and a new governing board. In some circumstances, they have been very successful; in others, they have been somewhat less successful. This Bill introduces important changes. Academy status is aimed not only at reversing poor performance, although that decision will not now be jointly taken by local authorities and the Secretary of State, but will be that of just the Secretary of State. Academy status will also be a reward for good performance with the promise of a fast-track procedure for those 2,600 schools—900 secondaries and 1,700 primaries—which are currently judged to be outstanding by Ofsted. Again, the decision whether a school may become an academy is just that of the Secretary of State. The governing board, which includes the head, has to make the application, but the decision whether to grant academy status is that of the Secretary of State. The local authority plays no part in either the application or the decision.

A number of noble Lords have spoken already of their reservations about the democratic deficit that this implies—whether the Secretary of State should have these powers without the requirement to consult with stakeholders, including the staff, parents, children and the communities which the schools serve. Other noble Lords have spoken of their concerns about whether, as independent state schools, academies will be able to cope adequately with the requirements of those from disadvantaged backgrounds—especially those with special educational needs—and how far the schools will remain within the community as local schools in relation to matters such as admissions and exclusions. I do not wish to add anything further on that, but my noble friend Lady Walmsley will, I know, talk about some of these issues.

I want to probe the Minister on procedures, because the Bill as it stands is not quite clear on what is involved in these fast-track procedures, and neither the Explanatory Notes nor the impact assessment provides further clarification. First, as I understand it, the Bill comprehends two procedures for acquiring academy status. The first is the old procedure whereby failing schools are converted into academies, involving fairly lengthy negotiations over an academy funding agreement which sets out the details of how the new academy is to operate. This does not change much, except that the Secretary of State alone has the power to decide whether such a school should become an academy. What I am not clear about is whether in future such a school has to have a sponsor, as in existing procedures. If not, who appoints the governing board?

The second procedure is the real innovation. This is the one that allows any school to apply for academy status and particularly encourages those schools which have been judged to be outstanding by Ofsted to apply. Here I seek clarification as to whether I have understood the procedures correctly. Under the first part of the procedure, in Clause 3, the school’s governing body expresses an interest and submits an application. The department examines the application and either accepts or rejects it—but on what criteria? The department has already received as a result of all the letters it sent out—not just to the 2,600 outstanding schools—1,100 expressions of interest, yet the impact assessment published with the Bill makes the assumption that only 200 schools will convert to academies this year and only 200 in the following three years. It seems that many schools may be disappointed. What will be the choice criteria? How will the Secretary of State decide, among all the applications that he is likely to receive, which schools will go forward to become academies?

When a school is accepted for academy status, Clause 4 states that an academy order will be given. That enables a school to convert to an academy. But precisely what is involved after that? Does the school have to negotiate an agreement similar to the agreements for existing academies, which essentially lay down the way in which the school is to be run? If there is to be a standard form of agreement, it will still have to be individualised for each school. How long will that take? Presumably, the fast-track schools, which are the outstanding schools, will have priority over the other schools, but even with the fast-track procedures, how long will the negotiations over the agreement take? Is it feasible for schools to be established by September?

Once a school has opted for academy status, can it revert to being a maintained school, as some of the grant-maintained schools did in the 1990s? Can the procedure go backwards? Since TUPE regulations will apply to any conversion, in so far as the school exercises its freedom to recruit teachers on its own terms, who bears the cost of meeting any redundancies? Will the schools be liable for those redundancies? Once an academy agreement has been concluded, will the detailed financing and, in an audit sense, the supervision of the academy, fall to the new quango, the Young People’s Learning Agency? How detailed will that supervision be? What happens if the school fails? Some schools that were judged outstanding were two years later judged by Ofsted to have serious weaknesses. Head teachers count enormously and a different head can make a great deal of difference. Presumably, the YPLA will have not only to look out for fraud, but to keep a supervisory eye on what is happening at the school.

Finally, once a school has converted to academy status and become a company limited by guarantee, with the existing governing board as directors and trustees, presumably it will become a self-perpetuating governing board appointed by its own successors. Will there be any provision, for example, for elected parent governors? How is the local community represented? Is it all by choice of the governing board?

I would like to probe a little further on the impact assessment. In a meeting with the Minister’s officials last week, it was made clear that the figure given in the impact assessment about the establishment each year for the next four years of 200 academies was merely a guess—perhaps one should say a guesstimate. That is okay, but I worry in the light of that guesstimate whether expectations have not been raised too high in the 1,100 schools that have already written in expressing an interest, although not yet applied. On the basis of 200 a year, it will take more than five years for those schools to become academies. That is a very different picture from being able to become academies by September. I understand that the department was just guessing and will adjust according to demand, but there are clearly limits to the number of schools that can be processed in this short period.

September is less than three months away and, as indicated, an academy order is one thing and an academy agreement another. If thousands of schools apply properly before the summer holidays, can the Minister give the House an estimate of the realistic number of academy orders that are likely to be processed over the summer and how quickly those orders are likely be turned into agreements? I worry that there is a real expectation among schools that they can move forward quickly. If that is not going to be the case, it is important for Ministers to damp down expectations now.

Talking of managing expectations, it is also important not to raise expectations among these schools about how much extra money they will get from being free from local authorities. I have spoken to a number of local government colleagues, and it is clear that the proportion of the budget going to the local authority is not 10 per cent. It is more likely to be 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Again, schools are talking quite loudly about how much they may get. It is important that that is realistic.

I have two further questions for the Minister. In relation to the impact assessment, all the costings are of course related to the guesstimates of 200 academies a year being processed. The one-off costs are put at £66,000 per school or £17 million a year for the 200. The annual costs are £275,000 per school rising from £33 million for the coming year to £198 million in four years’ time, when it is estimated that 800 academies will have been established. Clearly, if more schools convert, those costs rise. If 1,000 schools were to convert this year and a similar number next year, the bills would be very different and much larger—much closer to £1 billion than £200 million.

Finally, will the Minister clarify the position of academy applications already in the pipeline? A number of schools are currently being processed. Are those likely to be held up while the department processes the schools applying under the new procedures? Will outstanding schools wishing to convert be given priority in the conversion process?