Schools: Performance

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hill of Oareford

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, overall the Ofsted annual report showed that the performance of schools has improved, with 70% of schools rated good or better compared with 64% five years ago. However, it also showed marked variations in performance between different local authorities with similar levels of deprivation. The department undertakes its own analysis of individual school performance alongside that of Ofsted. It uses this to identify schools which could benefit from academy status.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer and I share his concern about variations. Can he confirm that the report highlighted that in Barnsley, 20% of children attend good or outstanding schools, whereas in Wigan the figure is 95%? In the leafy borough of Merton in London, 45% attend good or outstanding schools, whereas in Tower Hamlets the figure is 78%. Does this not nail the myth that performance in schools has anything to do with levels of social deprivation? Will he move with all pace to do all he can to exercise the powers he already has to take schools that are failing our children from local authority control and give them academy status?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My noble friend is right to highlight some of the variations that the Ofsted report illustrates. We should all look at that. The conclusions he draws are the same that the chief inspector draws: that it is possible for outstanding schools in areas of deprivation to perform extremely well for their children. So far as the second point is concerned, if we can find an agreed way forward for a sponsored solution with local authorities in the cases of under-performance, that is the route we would prefer to go down. However, I can reassure him that in cases where that is not possible, we will use our powers of intervention.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hill of Oareford

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I understand why the amendment has been tabled and in many ways find the argument that has been put forward persuasive. I wonder whether the reason why it is necessary in the first place is that it is proposed that catchment areas will be too narrowly drawn. If catchment areas for new schools are too narrowly drawn, they will clearly have a disproportionate effect on neighbouring schools. Would not therefore an answer, along with the amendment proposed by my noble friend, be to broaden out the catchment area of schools to cover, perhaps, a local education authority area or even two local education authority areas? There is a precedent for that. When my noble friend Lord Baker introduced the Education Reform Bill in 1987, which allowed for city technology colleges, the Government overcame the problem of too great an impact on one, two or three schools by broadening the catchment area to cover two local education authority areas. In that way, the impact on neighbouring schools was diminished a little.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, as I said in Committee when we discussed this last time, establishing new schools is, I know, what exercises my noble friends and, I think, noble Lords across the House, in particular, the new free schools, to which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred. I take this opportunity to welcome the noble Lord formally to this House. I hope that I made it clear in Committee that it is very much the Government’s view that the implications for other schools in an area should be considered. The amendment moved by my noble friend brings us back to that debate.

I start by thanking my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lady Williams, and other noble friends, for the time that they have spent with me on this issue. I think that it is fair to say that they accept the reassurances that I have given that the Secretary of State would certainly consider any representations from those affected by academy proposals and that he would want to support only proposals for new schools that lead to an overall improvement in provision. As I have argued to my noble friend Lord Phillips, the general requirements on the Secretary of State to act reasonably will, in our view, provide sufficient protection. That is the answer to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. We think that the protection is there.

However, I certainly accept that my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lady Williams, and other noble Lords, have made the case to me for some further reassurance in the Bill with a great deal of tenacity and great courtesy. I have listened to those concerns and, having listened to this debate today, decided to act on them. I am able to say to my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lady Williams, that I accept the purpose of their amendment in principle. I suggest that my noble friends and I talk further and return to the issue at Third Reading. I hope that that is agreeable to my noble friends and, in the mean time, I ask them to withdraw the amendment.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hill of Oareford

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, one of the great joys of this House is the realisation that when you raise an issue, you suddenly find several world authorities in the Chamber with the answers ready to hand, which is fantastic. I will not delay the Committee except to say this. Under the new mechanism the school will be separated from the local authority, which will not provide these functions going forward to an academy. Given that, could there be a role for the governing body of the academy to take a more detailed view—almost a form of Ofsted standards “light”—of the institution? That would provide some internal checks and balances while at the same time it would strengthen the governing body’s understanding of what is actually going on in the institution for which it is responsible.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as in so many areas, this has been an interesting debate which again has ranged further than the specific scope of the Academies Bill, and I have been struck by a number of the points made. It seems that we have been talking about three separate strands: one is to do with information for government and accountability; one is to do with support for a school; and one is to do with information for parents. In that context, if I am not puffing my noble friend Lord Lucas too much, the Good Schools Guide, which I heard him mention earlier, is a good example of how parents can be given human and anecdotal information about a school. That is an extremely informative way to find out what is going on. Generally, going forward and thinking of the ways in which parents can access more frequent and better information about their children’s schools, it is clear that this is something the Government should think about. We have said that we will try to reform the league tables to make them more relevant, but I should like to reflect on some of the points made more generally by my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lady Perry outside the context of the Bill, and perhaps we could discuss them further. The question of how one gives parents information that lets them know what is going on in a school in a regular and relevant way is an interesting one which I should like to explore further.

On the specific point of the amendment, and bearing in mind some of the reservations expressed by my noble friend about Ofsted, to give that body an obligation to carry out an annual report on each academy strikes me as a little excessive. Further, the fact that such a requirement would apply only to academies and not to maintained schools seems a little odd. That said, I would be happy to discuss this further and I will not charge £300 a day for the conversation, which I think is the going rate. With that response and some reassurance, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hill of Oareford

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The terminology is getting to us all. I do mean that. I come from an inner city urban area on Tyneside and it happened quite regularly that, where you had a failing school in a suburban area, dissatisfied parents who could afford to, or opted to, would take over an old large Victorian terraced house and its grounds—we have all seen them—and set up a new independent fee-paying school. The parents who could afford to opt out of the system would then pay fees for their children to go to that school. This movement still exists and is happening within the private sector. I cannot understand how anyone who has a passion for narrowing the gap and giving greater opportunity could possibly object to it. We should do all of these things in inner city areas and make them free and available to everyone. That would be entirely laudable.

I wish to make two other brief points, the first of which relates to catchment areas. If there is going to be a greater number of schools, broadening catchment areas would be a good thing. When the city technology colleges were established, they covered not only one entire local education authority area but often encompassed two or three. In other words, if the parents were prepared to undertake the duty of getting their child to school and it was not going to damage the child’s education, it was deemed acceptable for the child to attend there. Where there is greater choice the catchment areas need to be broadened. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, rightly made the point that narrow catchment areas could have too severe an effect on neighbouring schools.

The final point on which I seek clarification from the Minister concerns the properties that could be used. There are many buildings in inner city areas—including, many educational buildings—under the control of local authorities. Indeed, where they have a surplus of places they are paying additional money for them. Does my noble friend agree that local authorities should look at their existing stock of prepared educational establishments, embrace this change and, where there is a surplus, hand over existing buildings to a new school provider? That would give the authority an additional income and would mean that the provider was not forced into premises that might not be suitable.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, it has been wide-ranging debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, pointed out, we have in some ways already got on to some of the issues that we will discuss in later groups of amendments. We can pursue them in greater detail then. Given how wide-ranging the debate has been, it would perhaps be helpful if I briefly restated the amendments and their purpose.

Amendments 2 and 3 would mean that academy arrangements could be made only with the governing body of an existing school rather than any other group. They are linked in this group to Amendment 24, which would mean that, for future academies, the academy proprietor would have to ensure that its governing body was not controlled by a majority of parents of pupils at the academy—which was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.

Amendment 13 seeks to ensure that the SEN annex of an academy agreement, which sets out the school’s detailed obligations in relation to pupils with SEN, would apply also to the arrangements for academy financial assistance. Amendment 33 seeks to prescribe in the Bill that the academy agreement includes details of the roles, composition and continuance of the governing body. Amendment 76 seeks to ensure that academy funding agreements include additional provisions on SEN, including a requirement to comply with special educational needs legislation and regulations as if it were a maintained school.

Perhaps I may start with Amendments 2 and 3. The Government want to make it easier for teachers, charities, educational groups and groups of parents to start new academies. As the 2005 White Paper stated:

“We believe parents should have greater power to drive the new system: it should be easier for them to replace the leadership or set up new schools where they are dissatisfied with existing schools”.

We debated that earlier. I do not feel that I need to go through much of it again.

I should make it clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan—I think that my noble friend Lord Greaves also raised the point—that a free school could be regulated either through a funding agreement or a grant under Section 14 of the 2002 Act. In both cases, similar requirements will be placed on free schools as are placed on academies which convert from a maintained school. The only difference would be more flexibility in relation to the length of the funding period, a point that I made in our earlier debate on the Urgent Question. The more flexible arrangement would be used mainly in cases where new providers did not have a previous track record.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hill of Oareford

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for tabling Amendment 4 and giving us the opportunity to look again at Clause 1(6)(d), because there is a potential difficulty for the Government down the line. We intend to provide freedom for people to establish schools, yet paragraph (d) says that,

“the school provides education for pupils who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, has just spoken. Of course, the city technology colleges were successful because they did not have that restriction. There was nothing to say that they had to “wholly or mainly” draw pupils from the area of the school. Therefore, they could draw them from a wider area, which was how they became beacon schools.

From my reading, Swedish schools are not subject to the same restrictions in terms of having to draw from very narrow boundaries. There is a potential risk, particularly in the primary sector as distinct from the secondary sector, of deleterious effects on neighbouring schools. I ask my noble friend to look again at the wording of that clause and see whether “wholly or mainly” needs to be included or whether a general statement about pupils being drawn from the area in which the school is situated would suffice.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, there have been times in the past half an hour or so when I thought that I should contract my job out to the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Baker, and I have been sitting here feeling rather redundant. Between them, they made many of the points that I hoped to make, perhaps more briefly but no doubt less forcefully and persuasively and argued with far less experience, in my case, than that which noble Lords bring to bear. Both their contributions very eloquently made the core point that I would like to make in response, particularly to Amendment 4.

Generally, these amendments probe the Government’s intentions in relation to local authorities and the effect of academy orders on local provision, particularly in circumstances in which a large number of maintained schools wish to convert within a single local authority. We also have a specific amendment to do with new schools, to which I shall come in a moment.

We had an earlier discussion about consultation, which noble Lords will be relieved to know I do not intend to rehash. I said in the light of those comments earlier that I would ponder further and, in doing so, think about the points made to me by my noble friend Lord Greaves. We expect schools to consult parents, staff and pupils.

I move to one general point that touches on the points made by my noble friend Lord Baker and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I think that it is the case—and I am discovering this already with anything to do with academy proposals—that there is no shortage of people coming forward when there are academy proposals, making their views known. The local press tend to make their views known and local groups make their views known very forcefully. Groups of parents not in favour of conversion make their views known and groups in favour make their views known. It is not as though currently these academy proposals are considered in a vacuum or in some kind of Trappist silence. I am sure that that vigorous debate in which local people, whoever they are, make their views known as widely as possible will continue.

Our point of principle in this Bill is that schools that want to pursue academy status should have that freedom. Others have made that case far more forcefully than I am able to do or need to rehearse.

On the point of the role of localism, which in the coalition we discuss frequently and to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred, the debate will clearly continue. People have different views on what localism means and how it should be represented and policed—if that is the right word. With the Bill, we think that individual schools—