Schools: Academies

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Earl. The school-to-school support model, which you could say was pioneered by the London Challenge, started by the previous Government, is one that we favour over other models. That is why we focus all academy groupings on a local and regional cluster basis, whether or not they are part of chains. We think that school-to-school support is the way forward.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, given the enormous success that the academies have achieved in turning round schools and offering opportunities to youngsters, why does the Minister think that we have so many Questions from the party opposite sniping at these very considerable successes?

[Lord Nash]

I think that I have in the past alluded to the fact—without wishing to rise to the challenge too much—that for many years many schools in this country have undoubtedly been allowed years to languish in failure. We now have many successful chains, such as ARK, Harris, Outwood Grange, REAch2, Greenwood Dale, Aldridge and Perry Beeches, which are turning round inner-city schools that were previously just written off. Some of their performance statistics are really quite miraculous.

Schools: Independent Schools

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a very good point; that may be the case. If the Labour Party had abolished state education, that would have happened, but we are where we are. We have an excellent independent sector and we should learn from it and collaborate with it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Will my noble friend explain why, if the Government are in favour of the money following the pupil and in favour of extending choice, they are not in favour of getting the best value for money and of ensuring that people get the best possible education by making resources available to those who cannot afford to go to independent schools so that they can do so?

[Lord Nash]

There are plenty of schemes, such as the Buttle UK springboard, which encourage pupils to go to independent schools. Even if we got a third of independent school places occupied by poorer pupils, we would still be dealing with only 2% of the population. We believe that our money is better spent trying to improve the educational chances of the majority of children.

Education: Academy Chains

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I stand by my original Answer regarding the rigid regime that academies operate under, and resent any allegation that we do not have a grip of the situation. When we came into the Department for Education in May 2010, we found a department with, frankly, a very poor understanding of value for money. Since then, we have halved the cost of building schools under the previous Government; by 2015 we will have cut the cost of running the department by half in real terms; we have slashed the amount of money spent on sponsored academies from an average of more than £300,000 under the previous Government to under £100,000; and we have substantially tightened the rather loose arrangements that the previous Government had in force in relation to these arrangements. I stand by the results of the academies. Sponsored academies open for three years improve their results by 12% versus 5% at secondary level, and primary converter academies are far more likely than local authority schools to be rated outstanding at their next Ofsted when they have previously been rated good.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, did my noble friend have the opportunity over the Christmas Recess to read the interview in the Times given by our noble friend Lord Harris of Peckham about the huge success in transforming the lifetime chances of youngsters in this country? Would a responsible Opposition not be asking why we are not getting value for money like that from local authority schools, which are cheating a generation of those opportunities?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely share my noble friend’s sentiment. We should be praising philanthropists like my noble friend Lord Harris and encouraging more of them into the academies programme, as we are attempting to do. In 2013 the Audit Commission carried out a survey of annual detected fraud and corruption within local authorities and reported 191 cases of fraud in schools. My department is considering what we can do about improving procedures in local authorities in relation to this.