Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Greaves and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

I shall also speak to Amendment 58. In doing so I am conscious that we are about two and three-quarter hours into day 2 and still on page 1 of the Bill. I shall try to be brief, which is always difficult for people like me. I am also conscious that we are moving from matters of deep philosophical and religious belief on to the meaning of words, where some of us are a bit more at home perhaps.

This amendment seeks to delete the description of an academy as “an independent school” in subsection 5(a). Subsection (4) refers to financial agreements and academy financial assistance requiring undertakings from the persons setting up an academy, or converting. Subsection 5(a) states:

“The undertakings are … to establish and maintain an independent school in England”.

My eyebrows raised a little when I saw “independent” because I think that it is the wrong word. My noble friend Lady Walmsley suggests that I said that “autonomous” was a better word. I am sure that she is right although I do not remember doing so. Independent schools are a well established and well understood part of the education system. Most people who go to those schools pay fees and they are within the independent sector.

I do not believe that academies will be independent schools because they are a sector of education on their own. They are different from local authority-maintained schools and from independent schools. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells suggested that schools becoming academies would enter the independent sector. I do not believe that that is true—academies will not be the same as independent schools as we know them, whether they are small and local or places like Eton and Harrow. It therefore seems to me that “independent” is the wrong word. I notice that the Labour Party has tabled a similar amendment which appears in a later group. It suggests that the term should be deleted and another put in its place.

The truth is that academies will be schools with considerably greater freedoms and abilities to run their own affairs—their own finances, staffing and curriculum—than existing maintained schools have. However, they will be directly funded by the state, so to that extent they will be state schools. He who pays the piper has the ability to choose the tune. The intention is that these academies will have a great deal of freedom to make decisions for themselves, but the state will always have the ability to step in if for whatever reason it decides to do so.

That relates to academies and to individual schools. Indeed, if there are to be a large number of academies, there will be occasions—perhaps quite a few—when the state in some way or another will have to step in to sort things out when they go wrong. There is absolutely no doubt about that because, however excellent and well run academies may be when they are set up, they will be run by human beings who make mistakes. Collectively, human beings sometimes make big mistakes. Academies will not be responsible directly to local authorities, but they will be responsible directly to the Secretary of State or through whatever mechanisms are set up to inspect, monitor and supervise them and to step in when things go wrong. To that extent, they will have a completely different regime from independent schools. I therefore think that “independent” is being inserted not as a name for the schools—it is not suggested that they are independent in the way that true independents schools are—but as a description. However, it is a wrong description and it ought not to appear.

Amendment 58 is a probing amendment about primary schools. It suggests that primary schools should not at this stage be included in the dash to academies. It seems to me that in many ways primary schools are different in kind from secondary schools. Usually, secondary schools are much bigger and much more capable of running their own affairs. They are usually under Local Management of Schools, which has in my view been a considerable success. They are already responsible for managing considerable aspects of their budget and management arrangements. They certainly have considerably more freedom than they did when I used to teach in a secondary school, and it is right that they should. Primary schools have those freedoms, but often they rely much more on support and advice from the local authority. Primary schools are often small, and although some of them could manage as academies, a great deal more thought should be put into the matter. As we discussed on Monday, if primary schools are to be considered for academy status, the process should at the very least proceed by way of a pilot and not as a general invitation for all excellent ones to put themselves forward.

As we are talking about names, I quibble a little about “academy” as a name for primary and infant schools. The word is wrong. I believe that words matter and should be used sensibly and that another word should be used here. “Academy” suggests a level of academic involvement and attainment which, although appropriate for a secondary school, is not appropriate for much younger children.

There is also a problem in allowing primary schools in many areas to have academy freedoms from the local authority in a willy-nilly sort of way. Many primary schools, particularly in urban areas, are still in old buildings. There have been programmes of replacement and modernisation—many of them were in wonderful Victorian buildings, many of which are no longer appropriate for their modern use. If a local authority is to have a serious programme of replacing buildings and considering the provision of primary schools, allowing some of them to float off before the programme can be fully examined across an area, town or city seems to carry problems. Furthermore, because primary schools are small they are much more prone to the vagaries of falling and increasing rolls than are secondary schools. These problems have to be managed carefully. Although there are problems with academies being set up in areas where reorganisation in response to changes in rolls has taken place, or is likely to take place, the issue is likely to be much greater in relation to primary education.

It seems to me that there are many worries in relation to primary schools and the academies programme which ought to be looked at seriously. The greatest of all is that primary schools are small institutions, often ones that live in a world of their own. When the head teacher and the staff are successful and the governing body works well, it is wonderful; but if things go wrong, they often will go wrong in a very big way indeed. If the head teacher goes off the rails in some way or other, the governing body, having been hand-picked by him or her, may not be in a position to step in and do something drastic about the management of the school. It is a fact of life that nowadays people are arm-twisted and persuaded to serve as governors—it is the way that many governing bodies are put together. The school might go wrong educationally, financially or in terms of staff management. That happens.

Anyone who has followed schools in an area over a period will know of instances where a school has gone wrong. If it is a big secondary school, one can understand that the system of monitoring and supervision of academies may work and set in, but when it is a small local school, it will be much more difficult and, potentially, much more damaging to the education of the children in that school. There are serious problems about allowing a lot of primary schools to become academies. At the very least, the Government ought to be conducting some pilots to see whether they work and perhaps go ahead on the basis that some or all of the primary schools in an appropriate place become academies together, so that at least people are working together in a federation, a network, or whatever, rather than just allowing individual primary schools, which may be quite small, to opt out. I therefore commend my second amendment for discussion by your Lordships. I beg to move.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

In this group of 22 amendments, I shall speak to Amendments 22A and 23, with which my noble friend Lady Walmsley is associated. The first amendment would insert the little word “and” at the end of Clause 1(5)(b). The purpose of that is to make it plain that the undertakings which must be given for an academy agreement to be entered into are both of the matters referred to in subsection (5)—paragraphs (a) and (b). The word “and” would fulfil exactly the same purpose there as it does in subsection (3), where paragraphs (a) and (b) are linked. It is as simple as that.

My second amendment, Amendment 23, would delete from Clause 1(5)(b) the words,

“or provide for the carrying on of”.

That would mean that the undertakings require the undertaker to carry on the school, rather than to delegate the running of the school to someone else. It would be a bit of a hole in the carapace of the Bill to allow anyone to take over the carrying on—the running—of a school from the charity which had negotiated the academy arrangements with the Minister. I cannot believe that the intent is to permit that, because it would mean that there was no control by the Minister over the ultimate organisation running the school. One could envisage—because it does not seem to be prohibited by that wording—a profit-making entity running the school. That would run counter to the whole culture of the Bill, and state schools of whatever type. I would be grateful if my noble friend would respond sympathetically to those amendments.