Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I have Amendment 82 in this group. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said about the importance of parent governors. My amendment differs from hers only in that I have specified a range of numbers of parent governors, including a minimum, rather than a percentage, because schools can become tied up in knots if the percentage is calculated to include a fraction of a governor. We would not want a set of legs without the brain. The range that I have specified caters for very small primary schools and larger secondary schools. In both cases, the elected parent governors are an important factor in the governance of schools and fulfil the coalition commitment to involve parents more in the education of their children.
The composition of the governing bodies of maintained schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, is set out in the School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2007, but academies are not covered by any such regulations. Their governance arrangements can vary widely, depending on the views of the proprietor. In any case, it is vital that on the principal governing body, the board of the academy, or whatever it is called, there is proper representation of parents, staff and the local authority—all of whom have a vital and obvious interest in the good management of the school as part of the local community. My amendment also includes a requirement to have as governors two members of staff, one of whom must be a teacher, and a member of the local authority. Of course, if one of the academy partners—one of the sponsors—is the local authority, one would expect it to have representation on the board anyway. However, all academies should have this.
We have heard from many noble Lords that what makes a good school is not its legal status or how it gets its funding, but the quality of teaching within its walls. I agree, but the staff must feel that they are an integral part of the school, including of its governance. That is why it should be not just good practice but an essential requirement that staff are represented on the governing body.
The Secretary of State has also made it clear that the new academies will have a robust relationship with the local authority. Part of achieving that will be to have at least one member of that authority on the governing board. I am not talking about a majority or even a large number, because it is intended that the school should be autonomous and free from the local authority; but it will be easier for academies to be seen as serving the local community, which they will have to do, if local authorities are represented on their boards.
I was distressed when the previous Government introduced academies with a requirement only to have one parent governor on the board. That is not enough, and I hope that this Government will put it right.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I will intervene briefly, partly because I was the Minister who introduced the Taylor report, which laid down a requirement that school governors should include representatives of the staff, of the non-teaching staff, of parents and representatives of the local authority, roughly in the order of a quarter each. It was one of the more successful education reforms, for reasons eloquently set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, and also because deep within the sense of the school was a feeling of it being owned by, and part of, the local community. That was where the significance of parent governors came in. The parent governor often shared the same income and problems of living as the community, and spoke for the community in a way that governors appointed by the proprietor or the agency simply could not do.
Secondly, it is vital to have some representatives from the staff on the governing body, so that they speak as part of the entity of the school and not simply as representatives of a staff union or association: they become part of the body and success of the school. As regards non-staff governors, anyone who knows the extraordinary record of teaching assistants—I thank the previous Government for this—will know that, particularly with respect to children with special educational needs, their role has been crucial and can be represented only by a governor who represents the non-academic staff of a school.
It puzzles me—I hope that the Minister will think hard about this—that a Government committed to the idea of decentralisation, of the big society and of involving far more citizens in building and creating that society, should dream of going back to a situation where we have just one elected parent governor in an academy. One reason for this was that it was felt that in the very deprived communities from which the early academies sprang, they would find it difficult to find more than one parent governor, because so many husbands and wives would be working all day long and would find it very difficult to attend governing body meetings. The much more privileged group that we are likely to see now coming into the world of academies of outstanding schools will certainly find it easier to produce governors, but that is no reason to move away from the principle that in every school—whether the community is deprived or not—there should be a clear commitment to the school by the community. I plead with the Government to reconsider the mistaken decision to cut down the governing body and its composition to just one, at a time when we should try to rebuild and strengthen relationships between parents, schools and the community. It is clear from the coalition agreement that the Government are committed to this.
I will leave this hanging in the air: will the Minister consider ways in which we can bring back the community and its parents to the support of, and involvement with, the school? What was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and by my respected and distinguished noble friend Lady Walmsley, suggests that this is something well worth thinking about.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I, too, ask the Minister to give this important matter further consideration. One of the great strengths of our education system over the past few years has been the involvement of parents in schools through PTAs, voluntary work in schools or, indeed, helping in classrooms. In my experience and that of many others, strong parent governors can enhance the quality of governance within schools.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, made a strong point about why the circumstances that applied to the original academies and those that apply to the situation before us now, whereby many schools are projected to become academies, are quite different. I also remind the Minister that we are talking about academies that are to be established without formal consultation and without the involvement of the local authority. If we take that together with the fact that academies at the very least will not be encouraged to have a large number of parent governors and the fact that decisions by Ministers, who are taking a huge amount of power to themselves, will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, then the situation regarding parent governors begins to fit a certain picture.
My concern is that we are seeing the development of almost private institutions without sufficient scrutiny at either local or national level. One way to counterbalance that would be to come back to the Bill, either tonight or at a later stage, with a much greater reassurance about the involvement of parent governors on these governing bodies. I believe that the same argument applies to staff members. My experience is that by and large they add value to the institution and enhance the confidence of staff in the governing body. It is important that there continue to be links between the local authority and individual schools. Again, in my experience, the local authority-appointed governors often bring a breadth of experience to the governing body. It would be very disappointing if that were lost.
“( ) An Academy is a public authority including for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010.”
Baroness Williams of Crosby
Given the late hour, I shall make my remarks fairly brief. The amendment concerns the issues raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission about the Bill. By looking at them closely, we can go at least a little way towards comforting, among others, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, who raised the issue of the minimum levels of special educational need, which might be so easily overlooked as a result of the Bill. Let me briefly explain that the Equality Act 2010 dealt precisely with the rights of children to be treated in an even-handed way by the schools which they attend, in particular with regard to children who have what are called protected characteristics—that is to say, children with disability, racial or religious minority issues which might lead to their being unfairly and unequally treated within the school.
Let me be precise about the things that are covered by the legislation. Issues such as harassment, victimisation, intimidation and bullying are part of what is assumed by the phrasing about children with protected problems and how they might be victimised at school. We do not have to go very far into theory to see that that is the real issue. There is the serious issue of homophobic bullying, to take just one example. There are also issues of racial bullying in our schools, which are mostly well dealt with by the staff and the head teachers, but which would nevertheless raise serious issues if they were ever to get hold. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has made it very clear that it regards this as one of the areas where it needs to keep an eye on how children are treated in schools.
In that context, it is perhaps worth remembering the so-called public sector equality duties, which fall on everyone in the public sector, holding them to that same set of obligations. There is considerable concern in the Equality and Human Rights Commission that because in the past independent schools have not been brought under the umbrella of the legislation, academies, which fall into a new hybrid area, as it were, might also be excluded from the operation of the legislation. I say again that the legislation covers quite a wide range, but it certainly covers provision for special educational need and minorities who might be otherwise seriously affected in schools. Provision for disseminating proper behaviour and proper monitoring of such behaviour falls within the terms of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and of the law of 2010.
Let me take one other example, which I think is important. Under the legislation, the Minister has power, in extreme cases, to make directions to order that the body concerned—in this case, a school—take action to ensure that that behaviour is dealt with and ceases because it is outwith the law. If there is no system of monitoring—a point raised very effectively earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—if there is no attempt to discover what is actually going on and if no one has power to insist that it is put right, the effects of the equality law become immediately blunted. It is so easy to say that equality law is some kind of political legislation, but the issues of intimidation, harassment and bullying are real, with us here and now and need to be dealt with.
In view of the lateness of the hour, I will not pursue the debate further, but I ask the Minister two questions. First, does Section 85 of the Equality Act 2010, which lays responsibility on maintained schools to accept this legislation and to deal with the issues that I have raised, still stand? In particular, what will happen about Section 87, which specifically excludes independent schools? Where will academies lie? Will they lie with the maintained schools, from which they are mostly converted, or will they go into the independent schools which were, in my view, curiously, exempted from that legislation? Secondly, will the Minister say whether, in the general provision of legislative requirements, the independent schools, which were again left out of the overall principles of the equality legislation, will in future be separated and exempted? Where will the academies lie? In view of the lateness of the hour, I will not pursue the matter further. I should be most grateful if the Minister could address these two questions. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am happy to confirm that this Government, like the previous Government, accept that academy schools are public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act and that, consequently, they are under a duty to act compatibly with the convention rights in their dealings with parents, pupils and others. The Act does not spell out or list all possible public authorities. This is for an obvious reason: some private bodies also carry out limited public functions and, for the purposes of those public functions, they are also public authorities, but only in respect of those functions. It is not possible to identify all of them at all times. Nevertheless, when they are providing a public service—schooling—they are clearly public authorities.
The noble Baroness will know that academies will be required to comply with all the duties in the Equality Act that apply to schools more generally with respect to disability, non-discrimination, reasonable adjustments and the like. It is quite correct that academies are not currently listed in Schedule 19. However, Schedule 19 will be updated before the duties come into force in 2011, and academies will be included in time for that. This will also deal with the suggestion in Amendment 81 that an academy should be a public authority for the purpose of the Equality Act. I regret that I do not have immediate information on the inclusion of independent schools. I hope that the noble Baroness will allow us to write to her on that issue.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
I am very grateful and, in view of that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope that I can provide some reassurance on the concerns raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, which he has made consistently throughout Committee. The Department for Education publishes comprehensive statistics each year on the school workforce—I give way to my noble friend.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
I was expecting the number of my amendment to be called. I apologise; I will be very brief. First, as it is the last amendment in this long Committee, I should like to say a word of tribute to the Minister, Lord Hill of Oareford, because after a baptism of fire—perhaps a baptism by exhaustion is a more favourable phrase—he deserves great credit for having sat through the whole thing and been so helpful in his responses.
My amendment is similar in many ways to, but not the same as, that of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The noble Earl is particularly concerned about the issue of monitoring and of the effect on the teaching workforce. I have sympathy with him, because we know that there has been recruiting of head teachers to academies over and above the normal recruiting of head teachers. There is a real worry about weakening the quality of the teaching force in maintained schools. However, my reasons are rather different. I will mention them in a couple of sentences. They are all about accountability.
My great concern about the Bill is that there is very little structure of accountability in it. Once local authorities have gone and once the consultation has gone, we begin to look at the frightening prospect expressed by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts when he talked about the possibility that the powers rested with the Secretary of State and his department, almost unchallenged all the way down to the schools themselves. That is why I propose a report to Parliament to bring one body of accountability back into the picture. There have been very few countries—the Soviet Union was one exception, and Germany under the Nazis was another—where there was no accountability whatever between schools and central Government. That continues to trouble me. Although I do not pretend that my amendment will by itself meet the need, there is a serious need for greater accountability. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hill, has accepted that. We look forward to what he has to say at Report.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Forgive me for having pre-empted my noble friend Lady Williams; I will make a second stab at it. Before I do so, I thank everyone who is still here at this late hour and everyone has been here throughout this Committee. My noble friend pointed out that it has been something of a baptism of fire, but noble Lords’ comments have been unfailing helpful, courteous and stimulating, and I am extremely grateful.
I understand the desire of the noble Earl and my noble friend Lady Williams for information. The department publishes comprehensive statistics each year on the school workforce in England, which may well provide him with some of the information that he is interested in on teachers. Those data are published provisionally in April and the final data are published in September. They contain information about the number of teachers and other school staff in academies compared with previous years. The noble Earl would be able to see that information, and it may provide him with some of the facts and figures that he wants.
In relation to his fears about what might happen, from a practical point of view, it is the case that the first wave of new academies will all be outstanding schools, so it may well be the case that the impact on staff will be less pronounced than was the case with some earlier academies where there was a bigger turn-around job. Common sense says that there will be more continuity in a school converting from maintained to academy status. I agree with the noble Earl’s underlying point. Our job overall is to attract more good teachers into all schools. I do not think that one should accept the premise that there is a given number of good teachers and therefore be afraid that that fixed number of good teachers will just be parcelled up throughout the system. I think all noble Lords would agree that we need to do all we can to increase the supply of good teachers. We will aim to do that by working to raise the esteem of the profession, which is clearly vital, strengthening the ability of schools to improve discipline, removing some of the bureaucracy that we have discussed in this Committee to enable teachers to get on with teaching, and extending programmes such as Teach First and Future Leaders. I hope that provides some reassurance to the noble Earl.
However, we are not convinced that if we provide more of this kind of information, an annual report by the Secretary of State is necessarily needed to address the issues of substance. We are not certain that it needs to be in legislation. So far as the annual report and the points made by my noble friend Lady Williams are concerned, I accept that we need to have information out there on which people can make decisions. In part, I hope that will be helped by our earlier discussion about freedom of information, which will be part of making more information about academies available. As part of my commitment to think about how one gets more information out in general, we need to look at how parents can get information about schools more readily.
The academies programme will continue to be evaluated, and the results will be published. The National Audit Office and the Education Select Committee are likely to have a continuing role in monitoring the provision of education at academies. With that panoply of different forms of scrutiny, our view is that a formal report to Parliament would not be necessary. That said, I accept the underlying force of the points made by my noble friend and the noble Earl. I hope that will provide some reassurance and I urge the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.
“Reports to Parliament
The Secretary of State shall make a report to Parliament on the progress of schools which have converted to Academies, and on the implementation of this Act, not more than 12 months after its commencement, and each year thereafter.”
Baroness Williams of Crosby
I thank the Minister for his response, and thereby sadly, but not necessarily permanently, will not move the amendment.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lucas
I shall speak to my Amendments 31 and 34 in this very diverse group. Amendment 31 proposes that,
“substantial freedom is given to the school to innovate”.
When I am going round schools I notice how hidebound they are by the restrictions that are placed on them in trying new things. Although the previous Government introduced an ability to innovate, it was subject to applications in triplicate to the Secretary of State and an extraordinarily cumbersome procedure. I hope we will now see a pronouncement in favour of innovation. I suggest that where a school does innovate it is merely necessary to inform the Secretary of State that this has happened—this becomes a risk factor for Ofsted in its decision on when and where to inspect—and that there is a requirement on the school to keep proper records so that the benefits or otherwise of the innovation can be judged in subsequent years. The whole tenor should be in favour of innovation. There are many good and experienced teachers out there who are capable of doing a great deal of good for the system if we let them have a go.
On Amendment 34, one of the good things to come out of the past 13 years of government was an increasing interest in schools co-operating with each other. Neighbouring schools will always be a little at loggerheads, but there are good examples—both those induced by the Government and those that have occurred privately—of schools forming networks to share problems and good practice and generally to get together and get beyond the confines of what is possible within a school, particularly a primary school. I am thinking particularly of the transition from primary to secondary and how schools can work together. There have been some excellent examples of that and I would not like the process of becoming an academy to be seen as an excuse to be isolated and a star on your own. It ought to be a process of becoming more co-operative and more linked into schools generally.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Garden and Lord Phillips of Sudbury and explain what is troubling me about academy orders.
Section 14 of the Education Act 2002 is incorporated into Clause 1(4), therefore enabling academies to be dealt with by what might be called the fast-track process of essentially calling into aid the powers given to the Secretary of State in that Act. The difference is that only very specific use was made of the power in Section 14; I do not think that it was intended to embrace a whole category of school in the way that will be possible under the Bill. My straightforward concern is that, where we are looking at the possibility of removing many statutory forms of consultation, virtually no restraint will be placed on the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said, and that he will be accountable to no one but himself. The combination of Section 14—the powers of the Secretary of State—being incorporated into the Bill with the fast-tracking of the academy orders means that an academy could be approved, or for that matter rejected, with the involvement of virtually no one but the Secretary of State. Within a democratic structure, that is not an acceptable way to go.
We must therefore look very closely at the amendments that have been tabled. They would bring academies back into the structure of the academy agreement—my noble friend Lady Garden referred to this—which would enable us to set conditions and requirements for the schools that have to be met under the academy agreement but that do not have to be met in the same way under an academy order.
I, too, would be very grateful for greater enlightenment from the Minister on what accountability there is in mind. For example, it might be possible to look at the report from the education department on the experience of academies, their standards, their meeting of the admissions orders and other requirements under the academy agreements. That would enable Parliament to debate how far those requirements and conditions had been met and to distinguish between the effects of academy orders and academy agreements.
Perhaps even more significant than the proposals that my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, have put forward is the need for this Committee to look closely at the level of accountability for academies and at academy orders under the Bill.
The Earl of Listowel
I rise to support Amendment 96 and Amendment 31, which is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I support the former because, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, rightly said, further education colleges can be particularly beneficial to disadvantaged cohorts of pupil. Children in public care may find themselves in a further education college earlier than their peers, meaning that they can carry on with an education that they might otherwise have been denied. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, has been a strong advocate of equal treatment. I am very pleased to hear that there will be no threat to progress in that area.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asks in Amendment 31 that substantial freedom be given to schools to innovate. He reminds me of the eminent American philosopher and educationalist, John Dewey, who died in the middle of the last century and was very much admired by Bertrand Russell. He moved our thinking on with regard to the gaining of knowledge. He said that we were not simply spectators: we learnt because we had a reason to learn and because there was some impulse to our learning. That is particularly relevant to children who are disillusioned with the mainstream system. Schools need to innovate and find ways of working that engage such children. For example, Lent Rise Combined School in Slough, which has a large Traveller population, works each year to enable young people to work with local businesses to design products and then attempt to sell them at an open day. Those sorts of innovative approaches where Traveller people can see the application of their learning are very helpful. That may be some of what was meant by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
The Minister has eloquently defended flexibility in relation to Amendments 124 and 125. As regards accountability, those amendments would create a statutory structure that could be questioned in Parliament. Will he say a little more about accountability, which for many of us is absolutely cardinal?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I was about to make a point that relates to the issue that the noble Baroness has raised. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House, which has reported on the Bill, has made it clear that it does not consider it necessary or appropriate for these orders to be made by way of statutory instrument. It made that clear in its first report of this Session, published on 17 June.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
Foundation schools, both Anglican and Catholic, are allowed to appoint a majority of governors, and those schools in turn have the right to be admissions authorities for their own schools if they are voluntary aided. It is a very important power that currently exists. It is not clear from the Bill—perhaps the Minister can tell us—whether the foundation retains the right to appoint a majority of governors. Does it retain the right, if it is a voluntary aided school, to be involved in the admissions process? Can he tell us broadly whether that situation is expected to continue?
Baroness Murphy
I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, although he has not yet spoken to them. I also support the amendment of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Garden and Lady Sharp.
We have not yet addressed this fundamental problem relating to faith schools. My questions at Second Reading about the status of faith schools, and the Government’s approach to encouraging the development of faith schools, have not been responded to. Does the Minister have the teeniest anxiety that a quarter of academies are presently faith schools and that the Bill will encourage more?
I shall recount a tale of two schools. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, in his place, because I am going to talk about Brockdish primary school. He and I are probably the only two people in this Chamber who know where Brockdish is. It is my local school, serving the entire community of Brockdish. It is a Church of England school that has received an outstanding report and will be in the running to become an academy. It is an extraordinarily good school. I love it dearly and hope very much that it does become one, for all those reasons.
It was established in 1843 in the parish workhouse for the children of paupers. The curriculum then was the Catechism and the Ten Commandments for half the day. In the other half of the day, when they were not at work—they had to do some work in the fields as well—they did the three Rs. That was 160 years ago. During the past 160 years, the curriculum at Brockdish Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School has changed dramatically. As it is the only school in the village, it is entirely inclusive. If you ask people in Brockdish about the school, they will say that they do not really think of it as a religious school. Its teachers come from all faiths or none; it has a non-denominational assembly; and it gives the most brilliant education.
However, according the Bill as far as I understand it, the school has two choices when it becomes an academy. The first is that it could become more religious and more faith-based, which would be an imposition on our local community. The Minister looks puzzled. The school might have to stay with the religious denomination which it has adopted historically but from which it has gradually been moving away. Under the Bill it would have to stay like that and would have no option to become a more generalist school. There would be no choice for those of us who live in the community because the other schools are too far away. It is our local school. It is a good one and we would like it to stay as it is.
Now take the case of the Ebrahim Academy in Whitechapel, an academy school for boys. It is highly selective and employs only male Islamic teachers. The school day is, again, just like 160 years ago in Brockdish primary school, divided into two sections. The school day begins with Tahfeez, which is reciting the Koran and getting the pronunciation right, which takes up half the day. Then the national curriculum takes up the second half of the day. It is a state-funded, tax-funded madrassah for the Islamic faith.
Perhaps that is an extreme example, but there are many such faith schools. I stress that I have no objection to Sunday schools—I was a Sunday school teacher. Noble Lords might be amazed to hear it, but it is possible to deliver good Sunday school teaching without any faith whatever. I suspect that it is like the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, to Anglicanism. It was possible for me to do that and I enjoyed it greatly.
I have no objection to families teaching their faith in their own time and making sure that every child has an understanding of all religions. But is the Minister not the teeniest, weeniest bit worried about the creation of more faith schools under the freedoms that we are providing today? What reassurances can he give to those of us who do not like these divisive, incohesive schools that they will not further separate a divided community?
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on state boarding schools. It is my experience that, for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, the boarding school solution can very often be the only one that works.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I support very strongly the arguments made by my noble friend Lord Greaves on removing primaries from the present list of schools that can become academies. I will very quickly provide a few additional arguments in support of his well-argued speech.
First, primary schools are in many ways the fundamental building blocks of community throughout the country. Sometimes they are Church of England primary schools, sometimes they are not, but in almost every town or village where they exist that is what they are seen to be by the populations of those areas. They are therefore not only educational institutions; in many ways, they are crucial social institutions that help to hold communities together. In fact, more and more, the local primary school is at the heart of whether a village survives as a village or becomes in effect another suburb.
Secondly—my noble friend Lord Greaves implied this, but I want to underpin his arguments—primary schools are heavily dependent on local authority advice services, whether in relation to special educational needs, staff relationships or legal matters. They very often simply cannot afford to buy in advice or get advice from a private source because they are too small, as my noble friend argued, and often too isolated to be able to master that advice. However, they need it, and, for a very small primary school, getting that advice can make disproportionate demands on the school budget. Primary schools simply cannot sustain these services easily—and special educational needs are one of the most central—if the local authority advice services disappear. One question for the Minister is this: if one gets to the point at which those advisory services are mostly disappearing because such a large proportion of the schools that are served by them have chosen to become academies, will he look at the possibility of some sort of residual advisory service for small schools that simply cannot afford to sustain such advice themselves?
In addition, primary schools often require assistance on matters such as appeals and dealing with children who, for one reason or another, have disciplinary problems and are likely to be excluded. It is too much to ask primary school heads too often to take difficult decisions that require legal advice on their own—a position in which some primary school heads find themselves.
Thirdly, primary schools could suffer from a talent drain if they had to battle against a small, or perhaps even substantial, number of primary school academies in which, say, teachers of mathematics or teachers with special abilities with SEN children are very much in demand. In that case, primary schools would come at the very bottom of the pecking order.
Last of all, primary schools—at least in my view—require the support of their local community to a greater extent than secondary schools do, so the argument for having governing bodies that sustain and include members of the local community is particularly strong.
What does that add up to? As my noble friend has argued, it adds up to treating primary schools at least as a more distant case for becoming academies than secondary schools are treated. It would be very easy to disrupt the primary school system if one is not careful, and, once a proportion of primary schools become academies, it begins to become virtually impossible to decide strategically how to meet the needs of all children in an area. I therefore suggest to the Minister that serious consideration should be given to the possibility of considering primary schools at a later stage and to permitting a few primary schools to go ahead with becoming academies as part of a pilot scheme. If the new politics means anything, it means that we must be able to look at experiments without insisting that they are universalised before we know whether they work. For the reasons that I have given, the argument for considering primary schools at a later stage, if at any stage, should be made very strongly in our discussions, because they are different, they are dependent on the local authority, they are central to their local communities and they are in a different position from that of secondary schools.
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.
Lord Adonis
The noble Lord does his noble friend Lady Williams a disservice. It was she who abolished them.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
That is also untrue. They were abolished by my predecessor, Mr Fred Mulley.
Lord Greaves
One thing about the House of Lords is that we are all so old that somebody at least knows the truth about these matters.
At the time, we all thought that that was absolutely right; in retrospect, we see that it was a mistake, because it drove most of the schools into the independent sector. Most of them are now fully fee-paying schools, yet they are not boarding schools or the classic kind of independent school. They probably serve a wider community than the immediate area as defined in the Bill. Nevertheless, some Government, some time, ought to get a grip on finding ways to provide greater integration of at least some of these schools—on a voluntary basis, obviously—with the state sector. They are almost all highly performing schools and if you cannot afford to go there, you cannot go there. A few of them have foundation scholarships and so forth but real efforts should be made to integrate these schools.
Certainly, in the north of England, these schools—Bradford Grammar School, Wakefield Grammar School and Manchester Grammar School—represent their wider communities. Modification of an academy model might be attractive to some of them. If that could be done it would be worth while.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I also support my noble friend Lord Northbourne’s amendment. I emphasise that there is much to do. Some children need smaller schools and special teachers to work with them, but others do not, even though they may face serious challenges at home. Good support can be offered in schools to include these children to the benefit of all. I give one example: the charity Voluntary Reading Help, which works in over 1,000 schools. It recruits volunteers to work for one or two lunch hours a week with particularly difficult or challenging children. I have seen for myself in a primary school nearby how the volunteer will sit down and read with a child for half an hour and then play a little game. The child chooses the book and they enjoy their time together. A significant number of these volunteers are men, which is particularly valuable given that we have so many young boys growing up without fathers. These are important relationships that can be built up over the course of a year, which is the minimum commitment. This is the sort of thing that helps to include children who might otherwise be challenging. It is important to consider who should make up the governing body and what its function is. It should take a strategic view and be able to adopt sensible approaches like the one I have outlined.
I was encouraged when Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said last week that he intended to recruit more men into early years childcare. I hope that he will also look at primary schools and how initiatives like Voluntary Reading Help might be developed. The charity is keen to expand in order to be able to help more children.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I follow directly on what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said, as well as what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. The House has been concerned about the position of children with special educational needs. It is one of the areas where a good governing body can make it very clear indeed that the school must make provision for children in this group. Indeed, the force of governing bodies has been one of the pressures that has encouraged the move towards children being educated at least partly in mainstream schools if they possibly can be. Not the least of this has taken place in primary schools, where the governing body is often a crucial factor in ensuring that these youngsters are given the education they need and deserve.
I do not want to detain the Committee for long. First, I ask the Minister whether more assurances can be given on the position of children with special educational needs, about which we have learnt a great deal more in the past 10 years. Far more children are now helped in schools, in some cases through one-to-one assistance, to overcome the obstacles they encountered as very young children so that they often catch up with their cohort. In the long term their special educational needs are not a handicap to them. We would like to associate ourselves closely with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and of course by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock.
I want to make one other point quite strongly. It was the former Secretary of State for Education who brought in the requirement that governing bodies had to include representatives of parents, teachers and non-teaching staff. Will the Government consider very carefully whether we should not consider, as is implied in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, widening somewhat the requirements in the Bill so that governing bodies are rather more representative than the single parent governor that is presently required for the academies? In the country as a whole, there are some 300,000 governors, or at least vacancies for governors. This seems to be a perfect example of what the Prime Minister meant when he talked about the importance of the big society, because these are men and women who volunteer their time and energy and make a fantastic commitment to ensuring that their schools are as good as they can be. I have seen it over and again, particularly in respect of smaller primary schools through what I should declare as an interest in my capacity as the chairman of the judges of the Teaching Awards. Among others, we give awards directly to the governors of schools. It has been striking to see governors from often deprived parts of the country committing themselves deeply to getting their communities involved in their school. It would be a tragedy to see that go.
With regard to special educational needs, can the Minister say a little more to ensure that such children get the care and attention they need? Given the large number of academies that are to be created, I also ask him to consider again whether we should not ensure, at the very least, representation of parents—I share the view that it should not be a majority—and staff, including non-teaching staff, on the governing body in order, to put it bluntly, to ensure that those non-teaching staff members are strongly committed to the successful outcome of the school. That is a very important part of making education responsible and responsive to the community and the country as a whole.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I add to the welcome given by many noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, as he takes over his challenging position. I wish him well in his dedication to trying to get the best education system that we can. It is appropriate to begin my short speech by referring to the Prime Minister’s speech earlier today, which set out in dire terms the economic situation that we face. It is important in this debate—and in all debates that we will have on public services—to reflect on the effect of those dire circumstances on public services. When I speak today about the Academies Bill, I will very much bear in mind, as I hope all noble Lords will, the effects that we are likely to see, not this year when we are still living in what one might call the aftermath of the election honeymoon, but in the coming years, of the severe cuts in public services on education, health and other services. We bear those in mind when we talk about the best way to handle education.
I should add that in my view, as a member of the coalition, we all accept compromise here. However, because we accept compromise and because we are trying to bring together the best heritage of both parties, it is all the more important that Parliament in no way abdicates its role of scrutinising, examining and, wherever possible, improving legislation. In some ways, at the beginning of a very new kind of government, we need that role from the House of Lords and the other place more than ever before, and I shall address my remarks on the Academies Bill bearing that very much in mind.
Perhaps I may roll back for a minute and talk briefly about what I think were the real achievements of the Labour Government. Particularly in the early years of new Labour, they included, among other things, the excellent training of teachers, and not least of head teachers, so that they would fulfil their leadership role. They also included the creation of hundreds of teaching assistant posts. In the rather more academic discussion that we are having, we should not forget that teaching assistants have probably done more for deprived children—children who are deprived not only because of the poverty of their background but also because of their emotional and other needs—than for any other group in the community.
Quite often, we speak about attainment in education as though education is unrelated to things such as housing, health or the opportunity to move out of one’s immediate circle. These things have a great deal to do with educational poverty and they are one reason why, when we finish talking about how wonderful academies and other school systems are, we should never forget that, even today, the social background of a child is still the single most significant factor in whether he or she achieves the outcomes that we all want to see. That is hard to understand because it means that we cannot look only at education. However, it is very important to say it because it is what the whole challenge is really about.
I believe that in the second part of its time in office, Labour made the great mistake of pursuing attempts to control to an extent that could not be justified. Here, I declare an interest as the chairman of the judges of the Teaching Awards, which provide awards for the most outstanding teachers in the country, whether they are in state schools, faith schools or, indeed, independent schools. They have taught me a great deal about the challenges of teaching. In that second period, new Labour made the great mistake of accepting not so much local authority control—the Bill talks a great deal about that—but far too much central government control. That was where the control over teaching really came from, and the regime of testing, examination and endless monitoring made it very difficult for creative teachers to be creative. I welcome what has been done in this Bill to strip away that bureaucratic control over teachers and to recognise the importance of their contribution. I also welcome in the Bill what I consider to be the very important recognition of the leadership provided by head teachers.
Having said that, I turn to a number of troubling questions that arise from the Bill. In many ways the Bill is very loosely drafted, perhaps because some of the details have not yet been fully worked out. Some of the questions that I wish to ask have already been asked by other noble Lords but I want to emphasise them yet again.
The first question, which although not necessarily the most significant is very important, arises, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out, from Clause 1, where there are direct references to academic agreements and also to a new child on the block known as “academic arrangements”. I am troubled by what those are. They appear to make very few demands of an academy. They are expressed in subsection (6) but very broadly. So far as I know, they do not include requirements about admissions or about provision for educationally troubled or challenged children; nor, so far as I know, do they include many of the requirements that are implicit in academic agreements, yet Clause 1 refers to both almost as though they were the same thing. They clearly are not. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: what is an academic arrangement? What forms of accountability are there? How far can we be sure that the admissions and other codes are implicit in academic arrangements, and how is the academy concerned to be accountable for the money provided to it by the Secretary of State?
There is also a second question, which has been raised by a number of noble Lords. What now constitutes accountability? Governors of academies are appointed usually by the proprietor of the academy or will be in the future, but it is not at all clear where the governors will be drawn from and what contribution they can necessarily make to the running of the academy. They may be outstanding, but not all have been outstanding successes and there may be a weakness at the level of the governing body. How does the Secretary of State see the accountability of academies that are governed by an arrangement, as distinct from an agreement, and how will he deal with the problems that therefore arise?
The third question was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and others, including my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal. What happens to schools that are not academies, which are not accepted as academies or do not apply, and which at the other end will benefit to some extent from pupil premium? I deeply believe in the pupil premium; it is one of the best ideas that Liberal Democrats came up with. In the present straitened financial circumstances it is not clear how they will be financed. The danger is if they are financed by running down existing programmes, such as ESN, monitoring and one-to-one programmes rather than adding to them. Related to that is the serious issue of exactly what incentives will be provided to maintain schools that will continue to be the largest section of our educational system for quite a long time.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, in an excellent speech, referred to the original motivation behind academies, a motivation which, among others, motivated the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It was that academies should provide an alternative route for children in the most deprived communities or in the most challenged personal situations. The decision by the Secretary of State indicating that he will accept academies if they are from outstanding schools leaves the huge question that the right reverend Prelate asked. What then will happen to the least advantaged children who do not get a pupil premium as they are above the pupil premium level and will no longer be likely to see academies in the more impoverished and desperate parts of our community?
I have two final questions. The first was raised forcefully by my noble friend Lady Garden, who talked about the almost total absence of any degree of parental involvement in future academies, let alone the possible free schools where we could have a great deal or very little. It will not do to write parents out of the system. They are as crucial as schools in raising children with a capacity to learn, to love knowledge and to be good citizens. They are at least as important as schools. The big division that is emerging from this Bill between the role of parents and the role of teachers and governors shows that we are looking at a very troublesome issue.
Last of all, I say simply that we should approve and be pleased by the extent to which the Bill will raise the pressures on teachers and, in particular, the endless flow of directives, requirements and orders, which was the serious downside of new Labour’s achievement in education. It is not surprising that we have seen a slow decline in the past couple of years in comparative tables with other countries, to which the noble Lord, Lord Low, referred because we have probably reached the end of what one might describe as the bureaucratic model. The new model must be democratic, not just managerial. We have a strong obligation in this House to ensure that as we pass the Bill through its essential and important processes, that democratic, responsive and accountable element is very clearly seen to be there.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her kind words. I am grateful also for the kind words that have been said by many noble Lords in welcoming me, even by some who know me—which makes it even more remarkable that they paid me such tributes.
It has been an excellent debate. I am beginning to learn about the very important job that this House does in improving legislation and holding the Government to account. I said last week that I would try to listen and learn, and I have listened and already learnt an awful lot this afternoon. It really is a great privilege to be able to listen to so many forceful speeches from such distinguished educationalists—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, four former Secretaries of State. That makes it quite a daunting occasion for me. One problem that I am discovering in this House is that the contributions are so powerful that I find myself nearly agreeing with all of them, even with that of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, at one point, when she made her powerful and impassioned speech.
I shall do my best to respond to the main themes raised today. However, as I am new to this, I hope that noble Lords will bear with me a little. I may not be able to answer the many hundreds of points that have been raised and the questions that I have been asked. A lot of them will be taken forward in Committee but, before then, I shall write to noble Lords and respond to as many of the points that have been raised as I possibly can.
I start by paying tribute to so many in this House who have done so much to support academies and who are so knowledgeable about them. I refer in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, whom it is extremely nice for me to see after a very long gap and who spoke inspirationally about the Harris academies and what they have achieved. Many thousands of children have reason to be grateful to him, as I certainly am. I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for the work that he has done on university technical colleges, a subject that he has raised repeatedly in my short time in the House and assiduously outside this House. I look forward to discussing it with him further and reading the book that he gave me—and I do not know whether I have to declare it as an interest, but it was a very cheap book—about the importance of brain and hand working together. I am very attracted by the work that his trust and Edge have done and extremely interested in seeing whether we can do more to help with taking forward this idea of technical academies, which I know has been welcomed by many noble Lords.
With few exceptions, there seemed to be broad support for the idea of more academies, and I was grateful for that. However, there are clearly a number of practical concerns on all sides of the House, which require further clarification. Obviously I shall work as hard as I can to provide that clarification in the days and weeks ahead.
What is also clear from this debate is that we all start, on all sides of the House, with the highest ambitions for our young people and the highest expectations for school standards. It is also apparent that there is great respect on all sides of the House for the teaching profession and the superb work that teachers, head teachers, governors and others do every day to give children the best possible education. It is my belief that the respect that we feel for teachers can be better reflected in our education system and that professionals should be trusted with the decisions that they are best placed to make as leaders and staff at our schools. We are keen that they should be enabled to do so without constant intervention from government. That is what this Bill seeks to achieve; it says to schools, “Here is a mechanism for school improvement that you can adopt if it best meets the needs of your school and, more crucially, your pupils”. That in part is my answer to one main thrust of the extremely powerful speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. She asked what evidence there was that academies were better and whether this was worth the effort.
We talked earlier about some of the statistics that we believe support the case on this side, but I recognise that education is about a lot more than statistics. Many head teachers of academies argue persuasively that academy freedoms have helped them and have helped them improve standards. The fact that more than 1,100 schools have already expressed an interest tells us something about the relationship that they feel they have with their local authority and how they think academy freedoms may help them to do a better job. That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland made, and I agree with him on that.
I shall take some of the main themes raised this afternoon and try to respond in broad terms. The one that struck me most was special educational needs. The noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Turnbull, the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, and most recently the noble Lord, Lord Rix, spoke extremely forcefully and persuasively about that. I recognise totally that we will need to provide more reassurance to those noble Lords and others in the organisations for which they speak. However—this picks up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall—academy funding agreements will require academies to have regard to the SEN code of practice in the same way as maintained schools. Local authorities will retain responsibility for pupil SEN assessments, statementing, funding of statemented pupils, ensuring that arrangements are in place for statemented pupils, and the monitoring of statemented pupils. Academies will have to ensure fair access and deliver provision. This is such an important area—I want to get it right—that I am keen to organise a special briefing on the subject before Committee for Peers who are interested. I think that my office has been in touch with the noble Lord, Lord Low, about that, and we are working on a date. I hope that as many Peers as are interested will be able to come along, and we will do our best to respond to some of their points.
Admissions was another broad area raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, the noble Lord, Lord Low, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. The academy funding agreements will require academies to comply with the school admissions code and law, as with all maintained schools. The code and related legislation outlaw additional selection and require the highest priority to be given to looked-after children.
Points were raised about governance and parental representation by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady Garden. As has been pointed out, the governance arrangements are not in the Bill, and they need not be. Governance structures are set out in an academy’s articles of association. We expect that an existing foundation or trust will continue to appoint the majority of governors. We do not anticipate that the existing trustees would consent to the conversion unless they were satisfied with the proposed governance arrangements. Academies are required to have at least one parent-representative on the governing body, and of course many choose to have more.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Massey, raised points about charities and charitable status. The thinking behind the provisions on charities is that deeming academies to have automatic charitable status should make the process of establishing an academy easier by removing the need for each one to apply for charitable status individually. Given the number of potential academies, we think that will reduce a burden on those schools. It will make academies consistent with voluntary and foundation schools, which are already deemed charities in law and will shortly be exempt charities. It will be important for academies’ compliance with charity law to continue to be regulated and, in response to questions raised about that, I will discuss further with the Minister for the Cabinet Office who would take on the role of principal regulator for academies. I will report back to the House as soon as I am able to inform it of those discussions.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
Before the Minister leaves that area, can he say whether the so-called academy arrangements are required to meet the same requirements on admissions and other issues that he referred to in the case of funding agreements?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I fear that, if I may, I will need to write in more detail to the noble Baroness. I understand her point, but I do not want to get myself into deep water. I will follow this up with her specifically.