Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Ritchie of Brompton
My Lords, I had not intended to speak to the amendment, but I should like to express sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said. There appears to be some duplication in the amendment, not only of the role of directors of children’s services but possibly of the role and responsibilities of lead members—here, I have to declare an interest as a lead member and my involvement with the Local Government Association. Another layer of bureaucracy could be introduced, so I would not support the amendment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, we have already discussed in Committee the principles that underline the Government’s education reforms: increasing school autonomy, improving the quality—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, with great respect to the Minister, another Division has been called. The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 12.30 pm.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, it is now 12.30 pm—at least, I think it is. It is very difficult to see the time against the red background. It might still be 29 minutes past, but if all Members of the Grand Committee are ready, we can recommence.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, we have already discussed the principles underlying the Government’s education reforms: increasing school autonomy, improving the quality of teaching, and strengthening accountability. Back in 2005, in their schools White Paper, the previous Government set out their vision for all schools becoming autonomous and for the local authority to become more of a commissioner than a provider of education. We are building on that approach.
The Bill makes few changes to the role of local authorities. It is also the case that our approach to the spread of schools converting to academies in last year’s Academies Act was permissive, because we wanted the extent of change and reform to be driven by governing bodies and head teachers of individual schools. The speed of conversion to academy status tells us something about the attitude of schools towards the previous arrangements and their appetite for taking greater responsibility. What has also been particularly striking, as the programme has moved on, is not only the desire for schools to have more autonomy but increasingly the desire to combine that autonomy with greater collaboration.
We are seeing groups of schools forming clusters and chains, building on the collaboration that they have already established and which the previous Government took forward. That is one of the most encouraging developments of the academies programme. We are also seeing early converters themselves becoming sponsors of underperforming schools, with the development of the kind of collaborative work that I think all of us would want to see. While I recognise that the landscape is changing—more rapidly in some parts of the country than in others, it is fair to say—I do not accept the basic premise of the argument that, left to themselves, schools cannot be trusted to act collaboratively and therefore need to be brought under a new set of statutory arrangements.
At the heart of this debate about a local schools commissioner is a difference of view between us and the party opposite about the new schools system. I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, moved a probing amendment to get the debate going. However, she seems to want to reconstruct a system that many schools have been choosing to leave. She seems to prefer a more structured approach, applied equally across all areas of the country and prescribed in legislation. The Government, by contrast, believe in a system with autonomous schools led by professionals who want to collaborate and drive improvement locally.
I agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of collaboration. So far, over 160 schools have created 58 new or expanding chain partnerships across the country. We are increasing the numbers of national and local leaders of education to 3,000 by 2014, building on the previous Government’s initiative to provide support to other schools. The national college has now designated 100 teaching schools to start in September, so that the very best leaders and teachers can drive improvements in the quality of teaching in their area and for the next generation of teachers.
Academies also have to be part of their community. Funding agreements require an academy to,
“be at the heart of its community, promoting community cohesion and sharing facilities with other schools and the wider community”.
A recent study from the London School of Economics found that not only had standards in academies improved faster than in other schools but that other schools in their locality had seen results improve—further evidence of the way in which schools, working together and helping to raise standards, spread those benefits more widely.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, rightly asked about accountability. Our approach to that is to increase the amount of data available about schools and to make sure that in future inspections concentrate on the most important issues: what pupils achieve; the quality of teaching and leadership; and that pupils behave well and are safe. These changes apply to academies as they do to all maintained schools.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, mentioned fair admissions. We have already discussed that at some length. Academies must comply with the admissions code and are part of the co-ordinated admissions process run by the local authority. As we have discussed, this Bill extends the adjudicator’s remit to academies, and local authorities can refer any school to the adjudicator if they feel that admission arrangements breach the code.
I accept the noble Baroness’s reproach about my failure to have circulated before now the list of measures in the Bill and how they affect academies rather than maintained schools. I signed it off this morning. I am sorry that I did not get it across before this debate, but we will circulate it later on. From it, noble Lords will see the way in which the measures of the Bill are applied equally to academies and maintained schools in many regards.
I recognise that it is a time of considerable change, but that change is being driven locally by parents, professionals, schools and others with an interest in education. The noble Baroness talked about localism. I recognise that there is an important debate to have on where localism resides, but I would argue that there is nothing more local than a group of local parents and teachers wanting to set up a school for local children and making that provision fit what those children require, whether it is for children with special needs, an alternative provision or for more of a mainstream school. We are driving change from the department to address entrenched school underperformance, which disproportionately affects the most disadvantaged pupils, and I believe that is the right thing to do.
The noble Baroness specifically mentioned children missing education. Local authorities, maintained schools and FE and sixth-form colleges have safeguarding duties under the Education Act 2002. Academies are required to make provisions for safeguarding under the independent school standards and their funding agreements. Under education regulations from 2006, all schools are required to inform the local authority when a pupil fails to attend school regularly. Noble Lords may also know that the Government have committed in the other place to review the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 and to tighten up and extend the circumstances in which all schools must inform the local authority when a child is missing school or removed from the register. We are also planning to revise the statutory guidance to clarify how local authorities can best carry out their duties to identify children missing education. So there are clear, statutory duties to support that important and vulnerable group of children.
Overall, many local authorities have welcomed the changes that the Government are taking forward. They deliver the stated aim of the previous Government, which I share, for local authorities to be commissioners. There is growing evidence that the best school leaders and professionals welcome the opportunity to collaborate and drive improvement across schools in their area. We hope that these changes will free local authorities, led by directors of children’s services, to focus on championing the interests of parents and children who most need support. We are working with representatives from all sectors through a ministerial advisory group on the role of the local authority, of which my noble friend Lady Ritchie is a member, to help shape our thinking in this area.
Our aim overall is a freer system in which the best schools and professionals are in the lead and collaborating to improve the education for all children in their area. I do not think that the specific proposal for local school commissioners made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, is the right approach. It would add, as my noble friends Lady Perry and Lady Ritchie said, another layer into the system, which would blur accountability.
The noble Baroness made specific points about admissions, children missing education and accountability. There are mechanisms in place. I recognise that it is a time of change, and I acknowledge her questions, but as the process of change is taken forward and driven by schools, professionals, parents and teachers, we will get to a system that will raise quality and provide more choice for parents, which we all want. Therefore, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I thank the Minister for his reply and other noble Lords for their contributions. I make one or two points in response. I was trying to get Members to think about what the future will look like. Therefore, I have to say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie and Lady Perry, that in future if the Government achieve their objectives and when most schools are academies—if that occurs—directors of education will have no powers or responsibilities vis-à-vis most of the schools, because they will be outwith the maintained system. There will therefore be no extra layer of anything—indeed, there will be no layers at all—between the schools and the Secretary of State. That was the picture in the future that I was trying to get Members of the Committee to engage with, and the picture from which my concerns arise about what happens particularly but not exclusively to some of the most vulnerable children in communities, who will fall through the cracks of a system in which schools operate completely freely and make decisions on their own. We have had no satisfactory clear view of how that will work in the future.
The Minister said that this Government are building on what the previous Government were planning. We were certainly planning to move into another phase, having established academies in some of the most disadvantaged areas and some of the most problematic schools. However, there is a clear distinction between our vision and this Government’s vision. Ours was a clear role for local representatives and local parents in that system. We can see from this Bill that at the same time as giving schools greater freedoms the Government are dismantling structures and relationships at the local level.
The Minister said that schools are choosing to leave a system with local accountability. Schools may choose that, but that does not mean that it is right. There are key questions to be answered. If schools are choosing to leave that system, is that in the interests of children and parents? Will that achieve the objective of every child accessing the best possible teaching? Will it close the educational gaps between the most disadvantaged children and the rest? It is clear, despite the Minister trying to be helpful, that the Government cannot answer those questions with any clarity. Rather, they are dismantling the current system on the basis of blind faith, not on the basis of evidence through which they can show that the system they are moving to will be likely to achieve those three objectives and be in the interests of children and parents. They are aligning the interests of schools and assuming that that will automatically be to the benefit of children and parents. That assumption is not testable or proven; there is no evidence to support it.
That is not to say that some schools will not choose to leave the system or that all schools will behave badly; many schools will behave with integrity and try to do the best for children. However, not all will. It is likely that the most disadvantaged children will lose out as a result of decisions that schools will take that are not in the interests of children, and parents’ only recourse in that situation will be to the Secretary of State for Education. There will be no one locally to hold the ring and say, “Come on, let’s do better here”. That was the point of the amendment.
The Minister said that he was strengthening accountability, but I cannot for the life of me see how it increases accountability to centralise powers to the Secretary of State and leave nowhere for parents to go at the local level. He also said that he wants local authorities to develop a role as champions of parents and is talking to them about that, but they will be completely toothless champions. They might well champion the interests of parents but they will have no responsibilities or powers when those schools are academies, so I am afraid that after this interesting debate we are still no clearer as to how the system will work locally, particularly when there are problems, when children fall through the gaps, and when schools do not behave well. Okay, most will behave well, but some will not, and families will have nowhere to go when they have problems.
I am happy to withdraw my amendment in Committee, and will return to this matter on Report.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, we have discussed more than once in this Committee the strong international evidence that greater school autonomy helps to raise standards. We know that the work of the academies programme, set up by the previous Government, is adding to that evidence almost day by day. Traditional academies, of the sort championed by the party opposite, are securing improvements in standards well above the national average. In academies, the attainment of pupils receiving free school meals is improving faster than in other schools—all the more impressive given that academies have tended to start from a low base and operate in challenging circumstances. That is at the heart of why the Government seek to take forward the idea set out in the 2005 White Paper: to make sure that there are more autonomous schools providing greater opportunities for the children who need them most.
We set up the free schools programme to respond to parental demand for new and different school places. That has seen many more parent-led proposals for new schools than there ever were under the previous model—and, if I may say so, significant numbers of teacher-led proposals, which is a welcome development. By requiring local authorities under Clause 36 to consider academies first, we simply want to ensure that all local areas enjoy the proven benefits associated with greater school autonomy.
My noble friend Lady Ritchie is concerned that these changes will make it harder for local authority commissioners to ensure diversity of school provision and that parents should be able to choose between schools that are different from each other, whether in their ethos, their curriculum, their pedagogy or other such characteristics. However, we have already seen great breadth in the variety of schools emerging from both the academies programme and from free-school proposals. As the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, rightly pointed out, our provisions acknowledge the fact that there may well not always be an appropriate academy proposal to meet the need for a new school. In those cases a local authority, with the consent of the Secretary of State, can obviously run a competition that can include all kinds of schools. If that competition does not produce an appropriate school, local authorities may publish proposals for a community school. It will also remain possible for groups to bring forward proposals for voluntary-aided schools outside the competitions process.
My noble friend Lady Ritchie was also concerned that the new process would be cumbersome for local authorities, but thanks to some of the changes made in Clause 36, such as reducing the circumstances in which a competition must be held, the time taken under our proposals to decide on the provider of a new school will be less than the 12 months it currently takes. We are keen to work in partnership with local authorities to help identify potential school providers who can respond swiftly and effectively to the need for school places that local authorities have identified.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, expressed concerns that the Government’s attempts to increase school autonomy may lead to an increase in extremism. I think that was her particular concern, which I understand. All groups submitting a free school application have to be thoroughly checked for their suitability to run a school as part of the approval process. Applications need to demonstrate that they support UK democratic values, including respect for democracy, support for individual liberties and mutual tolerance.
As with all other schools, each free school will be inspected by Ofsted. The department is working with Ofsted to ensure that inspectors have the necessary knowledge and expertise to determine whether extremist and intolerant beliefs are being promoted in a school. New arrangements for inspecting maintained schools, academies and free schools are being developed, and relevant training on aspects of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development will be provided to inspectors. All state-funded schools, including academies and free schools, must also comply with the admissions code and will be accountable to their communities for their admissions arrangements.
We had an interesting debate last night on the Statement on Building Schools for the Future, but sadly neither the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, nor the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, were able to be in the House for it. They have very properly raised today some of the issues that we touched on last night, which were also raised in proceedings on the Localism Bill. I agree with what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said about the environment in which learning takes place. It must be conducive to and support education as far as possible. Good-quality buildings, classrooms and equipment are necessary for children to learn and to ensure that their school is a place where they can feel happy and secure. I recognise their points about the importance of design.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in particular, asked a number of detailed questions. Rather than delay the Committee, perhaps I may write to him and to the noble Baroness and answer those questions as best I can. On the building regulations point, we said yesterday that we will consult on this in the autumn. After this Session, I shall try to pick up on the questions that I have been asked and come back on them.
As to the amendments, we are keen to ensure that unnecessarily high building and design requirements are not a barrier to new entrants to the market, including parent promoters of the new free schools. We are not keen to introduce new statutory requirements in this area, but I shall try to give the noble Lord such reassurance as I can.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, asked about the role of local authorities in planning. They retain the responsibility to meet the particular needs of groups of children under Section 315 of the Education Act 1996, and we are retaining the duty on local authorities to keep under review arrangements for special educational provision in particular.
I recognise the points that have been made. At heart, what lies behind Clause 36 is the wish to bring academy solutions to parts of the country where they are not being pursued because of the benefits that they bring to children—particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds.—and to ensure that they are able to have those advantages. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to withdraw her objection and that Clause 36 stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the noble Lord for his interesting contribution. Is it the Government’s intention that in future all schools should become academies? I think the answer—although the Minister did not put it in these blunt terms—is yes. It was interesting that in his response to the very wide debate that we have had and the comments from around the Room he did not seem to mention parents and communities.
The Government have decided centrally that in future all schools should be academies and that local democracy does not figure in this brave new world that we are creating. That is sad because it means that all the local choice that the Government have been talking about will not exist in practice in the future. The Government are sending out a signal that high-performing maintained schools, of which there are many around the country, are being classified as second class: that they are not the current or future game in town. That is sad, because if you ask most parents around the country they would really like choice. Of course they all want high-quality, high-performing schools, but they want choice— and I do not see where choice figures in Schedule 11.
Under the current arrangements, without Schedule 11 we already have the opportunity for schools to transfer to academies and for new schools to become academies. The figures have already been quoted about how many existing and new schools are becoming academies—the process is already happening out there—and Schedule 11 adds nothing except to give the Secretary of State undue powers to instruct that this will always be the case.
I would have liked to have heard more from the Minister on the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, about the expansion of the school role and communities being able to respond rapidly to and having some control over what happens in the locality.
I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and I was slightly disappointed with what he said. He seemed to be suggesting that we should not worry because there is a loophole. I would have thought that local communities want more than a loophole; they want the right to determine what should happen in their area.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to how the word “representative” has crept into the discussion. As far as I can see—I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm this—there is no intention that anyone elected, appointed or nominated to a governing body should be a representative of a particular group. They are nominated by a group but their main function is as a member of the governing body, and that should remain the priority.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I shall start by thanking the 300,000 governors who work so hard for schools. Without them, schools could not operate properly. The quality of school governors is vital to the success of our schools, which is why the principle at the heart of the changes we are proposing, which are permissive by nature, is to give governing bodies more freedom to recruit governors based on their skills, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, said. Having heard that the noble Lord looked into this area a couple of years ago, if he has the time I would be keen to look at his scars to see whether there is anything I can learn, because we have grappled with some of the same issues.
In fact, the issues around governance are a subset of some of the broader debates that we have had on a range of issues in Committee. We all start with the instinct to try not to be too prescriptive and to trust people, and then find ourselves drawn by stages into saying that we want to be completely permissive apart from this area, this area and this area—areas about which we feel strongly individually. The same thing has happened in our approach to governance and, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, we have ended up with a complex system.
A number of noble Lords have raised fundamental questions about the purpose of a governing body such as what we look to it to do and the kind of people who could best provide the challenge we are keen to see provided. These are very good first principle questions that ought to be asked. However, as even the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was defeated in his attempt to grapple with this issue, I shall be more modest and bring the Committee back to the Bill and the amendments.
The current complex regulations can sometimes get in the way of some governing bodies, and the main purpose of Clause 37 is to free up the constitution of maintained school governing bodies. We also want to amend the relevant regulations to minimise prescription around the proportions of governors required from each category. We believe that the governing body is best placed to determine what will work best for them locally and that—this is an important point—the current governing body should decide on any change to its constitution. As I said, the changes that we are proposing are permissive. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked me about that, and that is the answer—no governing body will be required to change if it does not think it is in the best interests of the school.
As I have said, our wish is to minimise prescription, but having listened to the concerns expressed in another place—which I know my noble friend Lady Walmsley shares—we are bringing forward two government amendments. I accept that there are strong views that maintained school governing bodies should be required to include an elected staff governor, other than the head teacher, and one local authority governor whose skills will assist the governing body. We propose that when a local authority governor post becomes vacant, the governing body should liaise with the local authority to identify a suitable candidate for appointment. The governing body should be able to ask a local authority to make a different nomination if its original one does not have the skills required by the governing body.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas that it is important for a primary school to have close links to its local community. It is, of course, already possible for the local authority or the governing body to appoint governors who represent the local community, and it is right that we should leave the decision to do so to be made locally—it may well appoint a representative from the parish—rather than to prescribe a completely new category.
We had a long debate about student governors. As has been pointed out, many schools already have well established and highly effective school councils. Pupils can already be invited to attend and speak at governing body meetings and can serve as associate members of governing bodies. Like the previous Government, we think that these arrangements allow for governing bodies to take proper account of pupils’ views.
I would be cautious about prescribing a new category of pupil governor and forcing governing bodies to appoint them, because we are keen to try to move away from that. There are some practical issues relating to student governors of the sort that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, referred to which one would need to think through. Another set of issues was then flushed out by my noble friend Lady Sharp. We would need to think very carefully, for instance, about giving pupils responsibility for decisions relating to pupil or staff disciplinary matters, or issues around pay. However, I would be interested to discuss some of these points further with my noble friend.
Baroness Walmsley
It is common practice, whenever there are issues such as the Minister has just mentioned, for staff and student governors to withdraw. It is perfectly practicable to do it that way.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I accept that, my Lords. There are ways of dealing with that, but there are a range of other practical issues that one would need to think through. I would be very happy to explore some of them with my noble friend and others who have an interest and see where we end up.
On head-teacher governors, I again understand the arguments that have been put by both sides. That is probably why the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, having had both these opposing views, concentrated on other issues. I understand the argument both for their inclusion on boards, in the same way as a chief executive of a company might serve on a board, and against in the case of the voluntary sector and other charities, where the chief executive is often not on the board.
We know that there are issues, but overall the system is operating. We are working with the National College to develop training for chairs of governing bodies to assist them in the role of holding head teachers to account. Head teachers can choose to remove themselves from governing bodies. If individual governing bodies wish to move to the position suggested, they can do so and the head teacher can resign from the governing body. The thought of removing head teachers from every governing body in the land, from 25,000-odd schools, seems quite courageous, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, these are issues on which we need to continue to reflect.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked me a specific question about governors. Governors are not there to represent a particular group and should act in the best interests of the school, having formed their own opinion.
I therefore commend my amendments and ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment, which he moved some time ago before we had many Divisions in the House.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comprehensive reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
“(ba) a person elected as a staff governor,(bb) a person appointed as a local authority governor,”
Lord Hill of Oareford
“(4ZA) Regulations made by virtue of subsection (3)(c) in relation to a maintained school in England may include provision for eligibility criteria for the school’s local authority governor to be such as may be specified by the school’s governing body.”
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I shall come back to the issue of the trigger and the risk assessment which lie at the core of many noble Lords’ concerns. There was broad agreement over, and a broad welcome for, a “lighter touch approach”, if I can call it that, though there remain various concerns about how that would be translated into action and what safeguards there would be in place.
I also recognise the concerns emerging from the Committee about exemption, and I will seek to address them by setting out some of the principles and intentions that underpin Clause 39. I will respond to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, as well as addressing the context within which the clause has been developed. I will also say something more about the safeguards that are provided both within and beyond its provisions, and try to respond to some of the questions that I have been asked.
What is driving this? We think that we have an opportunity to respond to the concerns of schools, to reduce central prescription, to avoid uniformity, to eliminate unnecessary burdens and to be more proportionate. Inspection reform has a contribution to make as part of the overall move that we are keen to encourage. Clause 39 will introduce a more proportionate and targeted approach to school inspection by enabling our highest performing schools to be released from the burden of routine inspection as long as they continue to perform well. I shall return to that issue in a moment.
The thinking behind that is so that Ofsted can focus its inspections on where most noble Lords agree they are most needed—that is, on those schools that are inadequate or satisfactory or coasting. I hesitate to say much about the evolution of inspection because so many members of this Committee were instrumental in its introduction. Regular inspection was introduced with the establishment of Ofsted in 1992, which means that by now schools have experienced at least three Ofsted inspections. Also—and this is part of an answer to my noble friend Lord Lucas and his concerns about information—there have been in that period huge advances in the availability and quality of performance information. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that we need to develop more—it is not always straightforward—but the provision of more information is part of our answer to the question of how we can know what is going on in schools.
Inspection has evolved over that time and become more differentiated, with longer intervals already between inspections for stronger performers. Most outstanding schools are now subject to a full inspection once every five years. It is worth making that point because of some of the perfectly proper questions that are being asked as to what are the safeguards and how do we know when schools can change quite quickly. We currently have a system where the schools about which members of the Committee are most concerned are subject to full inspection only once every five years. Our thinking is that, subject to safeguards, it is possible to take proportionality to the next logical step and to free those schools from routine fuller inspections.
I accept the fact that schools decline and can do so quite quickly, a point made by a number of noble Lords. Ofsted’s evidence shows that the majority of outstanding schools are able to maintain their effectiveness over time. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used figures which are true in the way that they break down—what he said was absolutely accurate—but it is also true that 95 per cent of those schools were outstanding or good at their next inspection. Not all remain effective—I accept that point—and that is why we have been clear that exempt schools would not be free from accountability and that any exemption is conditional.
My noble friend Lady Sharp made the point that the safeguards are the key issue and perhaps I may say a few words about the approach that Ofsted is developing to risk assessment. All exempt schools would be subject to annual risk assessment by Ofsted, starting three years after the school’s latest inspection. Risk assessment is currently used to determine the frequency of inspection for individual schools. In future, it is proposed that an enhanced process would be used as a basis for determining whether an exempt school should be re-inspected. Her Majesty’s inspectors would consider a range of indicators. These include performance data; information on staff changes—the point was made about a school suddenly losing a head or a group of senior teachers—the outcome of any Ofsted survey inspection visits; complaints from parents; the views of local authorities; and any other available intelligence.
From September, Ofsted intends to take greater account of parents’ views in helping to decide whether a school should be inspected. One way in which we are going to do that is by having a questionnaire online, which parents will be able to complete at any time to give their views about their child’s school. I can confirm that the powers for Ofsted to consider parental complaints under Section 11A apply to exempt schools and that the arrangements for students to complain will apply to exempt colleges.
Local authorities—a theme to which we have returned a number of times in Committee—have an important role to play in representing the interests of parents and pupils. If they have concerns about any exempt school, including an academy, they will obviously be able to request an inspection, and any such request would have to be considered carefully. The implication of Amendments 114A and 112ZB is that Ofsted would lose its discretion over whether it should inspect in these circumstances. We are not sure that that would be right, because HMI should be able to consider the range of evidence in deciding what action to take.
Where Ofsted has concerns about an exempt school or college, it would have a range of options open to it, including arranging a short-targeted visit or a full re-inspection. Professional judgment by HMI needs to be at the heart of the new arrangements. We think that Ofsted should have the appropriate flexibility to act decisively, but in a proportionate manner. The same powers that allow the chief inspector to visit an exempt school to test out a concern also allow for exempt schools to be visited as part of focused inspections of curriculum subjects and particular themes, including outstanding provision and practice. We expect an increased focus on best practice visits in future, as well as more emphasis on sharing best practice by Ofsted through a variety of means. One question raised in the past is how schools will learn from outstanding practice, and this is one way in which we can help address that.
Some points have been raised about information. As I have said, we intend to give parents easier access to information and so, from next January, parents will be able to access data showing the progress of high, average and low-attaining pupils across a range of subjects. From June, they will have access to data down to individual pupil level in an anonymised form. I hope that that will help.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
In respect of information for parents, can the Minister clarify Clause 39(4)? It refers to charging schools for inspection. If parents have triggered an inspection using their current powers, is there any charge for that and, if not, how do we guard against Ofsted having a disincentive to inspect if, in its judgment, it feels it cannot afford it?
Lord Hill of Oareford
No, that should not be an issue. There would not be a charge in those circumstances. Perhaps I might move on because I want to respond to the underlying concerns about the risk assessment process and to some of the suggestions made by my noble friend Lady Perry and others.
On my noble friend Lady Walmsley’s important point about safeguarding, we know that Ofsted’s evidence shows that outstanding schools perform well in terms of safeguarding. Schools remain under a duty to have appropriate arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils, and we do not think there is reason to think that outstanding schools would not take that matter seriously. There would be a mechanism for concerns to feed in to Ofsted’s risk assessment process, and those concerns might come from parents, the local authority, the local safeguarding children board or any other local body or person.
We recognise that safeguarding is a hugely important issue and we intend to commission Ofsted to undertake a survey of safeguarding procedures in a sample of exempt schools and ask the inspectorate to publish its findings. On the basis of that evidence we could consider whether any further measures are necessary.
I was asked a number of specific questions about exemptions and who would be exempt. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked me that. We issued draft regulations in the other place in March making clear that our plan is to exempt only schools that were outstanding at their last inspection. So the definition is their status at the Ofsted inspection. It could include maintained schools, academies and whatever; it is not a special exemption for any particular groups.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The Secretary of State can, of course, produce draft regulations in future using the clause in this Bill to exempt any category of school he wanted. My second argument here, going beyond inspections, is that this is a great, open-ended power. I am interested to know why outstanding schools were not specified in the Bill because that would give a certain reassurance.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will write on the point of detail. I had this explained to me earlier. The difficulty is because an Ofsted category is not a statutory definition. That is the problem and why it is hard to put it in the Bill. I will make sure that I have got that right and I will write, but I believe that is the explanation.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
When the Minister writes, will he also clarify how, if it is difficult to pin it down in primary legislation, it would be possible in secondary legislation? Secondary legislation is still law, so you would still need a definition in law of what an outstanding school is.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will get some clever person to write me something that will explain why that is the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, raised important points about faith schools. He will know better than me that it is a separate inspection process. Faith schools, including exempt schools, would continue to be subject under Section 48 of the Education Act 2005 to a separate inspection into their religious education. This can also cover spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and reports will be published. That is not a complete answer to the noble Lord’s concerns but it is another part of a possible reassurance.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, asked me whether a cohort could pass through an outstanding school without any inspection. The absence of inspection does not mean that Ofsted will fail to pay attention to exempt schools. Currently outstanding schools have five years between inspections. The risk assessment would start at three years and be done annually but, if there were concerns before then, the whole point of the triggering process is that Ofsted would be able to look into them.
Overall, we think that a lot has changed in the past 20 years in terms of transparency and accountability. There is more information and the inspection system over those years has become increasingly proportionate. We have a large number of schools that are capable of evaluating their own performance and identifying and responding to their own improvement priorities. We are keen to focus inspection on those that need it most— underperforming and inadequate schools. I recognise the strength of feeling that has been raised.
There were a number of thoughtful suggestions, particular around the important question of the rigour of the risk assessment. I understand that Ofsted is due to publish its approach to risk assessment and I would like to use that as an opportunity to discuss these concerns further, to reflect on what has been said to me today and to raise them with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton. I hope that through that process—I will be happy to discuss it with noble Lords who have particular concerns and who have contributed to this debate—I can address some of the concerns that have been raised, reflect on them and then report back to noble Lords. I will certainly reflect on the mood of the Committee. I will listen to the advice that I have been given but in the mean time I ask my noble friend Lady Walmsley to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am grateful for what my noble friend has said. I do not really think that saying that the system at the moment has its defects is a good reason for adding to them. I very much hope that, in what happens between now and Report stage in terms of an understanding of the Ofsted mechanisms and in discussions between ourselves, we can firm this up. It seems to me to be a serious disaster in the making and a very wrong step the Government are looking at.
I want to pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. Clause 40(2) removes the compromise that we reached at the end of that long and, as he says, acrimonious debate. I very much hope the Minister will take the time to read that debate and to understand why that clause got into the 2006 Act. It was a compromise, carefully worked out by the then Government, to deal with questions about the way in which faith schools fit into the system. By removing that compromise you are reopening the whole argument as to that relationship and inviting a repeat on Report of the experience of 2006. I hope the noble Lord, if only in preparation for that, will read through that debate. I am sure we will revisit this in October. I hope that between now and then we will have made some progress.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, this has been a very thorough and rigorous debate and I do not intend to summarise the whole of it. I will respond only on my own amendment as the Minister has been intervened upon a number of times. My understanding of what the Minister said in response to my amendment was that there is no reason to believe that outstanding schools will not take safeguarding seriously. Without intending to be rude to the Minister, I wrote in my notes, “Well, we are hoping for the best then”. Frankly, I do not agree that if somebody is good at one thing they are necessarily good at another. Only on Monday I talked about my own grandsons, one of whom is brilliant at maths and the other is brilliant at English. I think the same applies to schools.
The Minister said that Ofsted will now carry out a survey, but I understand that there are currently no plans whatever to inspect safeguarding regularly in schools that are regarded as exempt—and therefore will not be regularly inspected—unless, of course, the Ofsted survey advises the Government that there is no correlation between a school being good academically and being good at safeguarding. Can the Minister just nod if I am correct in that understanding of his reply?
Baroness Walmsley
In which case, I have to declare that I am very unhappy about that. I rather suspect that my concerns are reflected in other parts of the Committee. It is a matter to which I may very well return on Report. However, in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ouseley
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 118. To an extent, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already said when introducing Amendment 120, in which two additional duties for Ofsteds are mentioned. I will try not to go over the arguments in support of that. I am concerned that the Minister indicated that the framework is, among other things, to give a lighter touch to the work of Ofsted. That in itself worries me to the extent that a lighter touch has proved disastrous—perhaps I am wrong, as the Minister is nodding.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope I would have said that what we hope to get from boiling it down is a sharper focus, not a lighter touch.
Lord Ouseley
That is helpful, and I thank the Minister. I will refer not to a lighter touch, but if in fact the sharper focus is to lighten the burdens of the chief inspector and narrow the focus, however sharply, then the way we are trying to address this worries me. I used “lighter touch” because I heard those words used by the Minister—it may have been in a different context. However, a lighter touch is associated historically with the FSA which, as we saw, led to the disaster which we are all still suffering from.
One of the additions that we seek to make here to provide protection to all pupils in our schools, as associated with the Equality Act 2010, is because a lighter touch has been so light that it has been almost totally ineffective. I worry when I hear about a lighter touch because that Act was predicated on a White Paper that talked about light-touch regulation, which does not work. Light-touch inspection does not work either, although I agree with it being sharply focused. However, in this case we have heard of the variation in the quality of inspection reports over the years. I have experience of seeing some of those reports and how they have either impacted on the way in which people have responded to the needs of children within those schools or avoided saying things that have to be said.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I think this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Monday 12 September at 3.30 pm.
Schools: Funding Reform
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place:
“With your permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on our plans to reform school funding.
As Members from across the House will know, the current systems for funding schools—both for their revenue and capital needs—are too complex and lack transparency, which is why I want to make the way we fund all schools fairer, simpler and more efficient. I want to turn to capital spending first.
Capital investment is crucial to education reform but, at a time of economic difficulty, we need to ensure that we are getting the maximum value for every penny we spend and we must ensure that tight resources are targeted on those most in need. In order to ensure we could target money on those areas in absolutely greatest need, I had to take the difficult decision last year to stop a number of school rebuildings planned under the Building Schools for the Future programme. In areas where planning was most advanced, more than 600 projects will go ahead, but other projects were stopped, and I recognise the deep disappointment that that provoked in communities where hopes had been raised. But we had to ensure that money was spent efficiently, and the design of the old BSF scheme was not as efficient as it could have been. Specifically, it did not prioritise schools in the worst condition and it did not procure new buildings as cheaply as possible.
In order to ensure we spent money properly, I asked Sebastian James of the Dixons Store Group to review the entire DfE approach to capital funding. His report makes compelling reading and I commend it to the House. He found that the whole capital system was bedevilled by a complex allocation process with multiple funding schemes, a lack of good-quality building condition data, inefficiency in building design, a lack of expertise when it came to improving new buildings, a failure to make procurement as efficient as possible, a lack of clarity on maintenance, and overly complex regulatory and planning requirements.
I am grateful to Sebastian James for his exceptionally thorough work and I wish to accept the majority of his recommendations, subject to a thorough consultation process over coming months.
Specifically, I have accepted the recommendation to conduct a full survey of the school estate. The last Government stopped collecting any data on school condition in 2005, which has made fair distribution of funding much harder. I have also accepted the review’s recommendation significantly to revise the school premises regulations so that a single, clear set of regulations applies to all schools. I intend to consult fully on this in the autumn.
In addition, I have accepted his recommendation to move towards greater standardisation of design. One of the aspects of the BSF programme that Mr James criticised was that each school was separately designed, costing unnecessary millions in consultancy fees and often resulting in buildings which were not fit for purpose. Greater standardisation will reduce costs, improve quality and limit the opportunity for error.
However, I recognise that in the short term schools around the country are facing real and pressing problems. The most pressing problem is ensuring that every child has a school place. In some local areas, there are simply not enough school places to meet rising demand. Local authorities have told me that insufficient attention has been given to this issue in the past. That is why I have already doubled the sums available to meet this pressure, announcing £800 million of additional spending given directly to local authorities to meet the demand for school places.
Today, thanks to efficiencies and savings we have identified, including in BSF projects, I can announce an additional £500 million to fund more new school places in those areas of greatest need. Funds will be allocated this financial year to the local authorities with the greatest demographic pressures so that they can provide enough places, especially at primary schools, in September 2012. Details of those allocations will be provided over the summer and finalised in the autumn.
But that is not all. I am also aware that many of our existing school buildings across the country are in desperate need of repair. I am grateful to honourable Members from all parties who have shown me and my ministerial colleagues schools in their constituencies which need investment. The energy and skill with which so many colleagues have lobbied underlines how effectively so many honourable Members represent the most needy in their constituencies.
We have already made available £1.4 billion this year to deal with maintenance problems. Overall, we are spending more on school buildings every year of this Parliament than the last Government spent in every year of their first two Parliaments. But I want to do more, which is why today I am launching a new privately financed school building programme to address the schools in the worst condition wherever they are in the country.
This programme will be open to local authorities and schools that had been due funding via BSF but, critically, it will also be open to those which, despite real problems, had never been promised BSF funding. I believe strongly that those in genuine need should receive the funding they deserve, and no part of the country should be favoured over any other. Individual schools and local authorities will all be able to apply and I am launching the application process today.
The scheme will be rigorously policed to ensure that we do not incur the excessive costs incurred by previous privately financed schemes. The programme should cover between 100 and 300 schools, with the first of these open in September 2014, and it is expected to be worth around £2 billion in up-front construction costs.
Some of those local authority areas which had experienced the termination of their BSF projects asked for a judicial review of my department’s decisions. In February, Mr Justice Holman found in favour of the department on the substantive matters in dispute. But he found against me on procedural grounds and asked me to look again at the decision in six local authorities. He stressed that the decision to restore all, some or none of the projects was a matter for me.
Over the past few months, Ministers and officials have listened carefully to the case made by the six local authorities and I am grateful to them for the constructive way in which they have presented that case. I have today written to those authorities to let them know that I am minded to indemnify them for contractual liabilities resulting from the stage their projects had reached, but I am not minded to restore their specific BSF projects. They now have a further opportunity to make representations to me before I take a final decision.
I appreciate that the local authorities and their representatives will be disappointed. But let me also be clear that this decision, if confirmed after any representations have been made, does not mean an end to new school buildings in their areas. Those local authorities will all be eligible for support from the new programmes I am establishing to cater for population growth in the areas most in need and the new programme to cover the worst dilapidation. That is central to my reasoning on why I am minded not to restore their projects. I want to ensure absolute fairness in the distribution of the resources at my disposal.
Because the previous Government chose not to collect data on the condition of school buildings after 2005, I do not have the facts to judge how the needs of these schools compare with the needs of other schools around the country. The fairest thing that I believe I can do is to help to meet the costs which might arise from the stage these projects had reached and then to invite the affected schools to apply to the new school rebuilding programme, and be assessed on an equal footing with everyone else, on the basis of need. And, of course, should any of these local authorities have severe need pressures, they are likely to receive a portion of the £500 million fund that I have announced today.
I would now like to turn to schools revenue funding. The current funding system is, of course, extremely complex, opaque and often unfair. Most colleagues will have lived with the inconsistencies for years now, as similar schools in different parts of the country received widely differing and inequitable levels of funding. The problems with the system that we inherited have recently been underlined by concerns expressed over academies funding. Under the system set up by the last Government, academies received money in lieu of services that would previously have been provided by their local authority. But local authorities continued to receive the same funding as if they were still providing these services. That meant that local authorities were being, relatively speaking, overfunded, for duties they no longer discharged. So, at the spending review we announced that, from now on, we would deduct money from local authorities to take account of the fact they no longer provided services to academies.
The huge success of the academies programme, with 803 academies open and over 800 more in the pipeline, has meant we need to look at the issue again. A number of local authorities have asked us to reconsider the amount of money deducted. So today, I am publishing a consultation document for local authorities explaining the basis on which it is intended that this money will be deducted in this year and next. But this area is only one where the funding system we inherited is failing to meet the needs of the 21st century and much wider reform is needed. So today, we are also publishing a consultation proposing a fair and comprehensive reform of the way in which schools revenue funding is calculated overall.
At present, similar schools in different areas can receive very different amounts of funding for their pupils. This is not fair on head teachers, on teachers or on pupils. That is why I am proposing a new fairer national funding formula, with appropriate room for local discretion, in order to have a simpler, fairer and transparent system. The problems with the current system run very deep, and we will not be able to solve them overnight. We want to consult to ensure everyone’s views are heard on how much change schools can cope with. We will not introduce change until we are confident in the new approach and certainly not before 2013, and we will ensure that there are substantial transitional arrangements. But we are determined to start moving as soon as we can towards a system which ensures all children are given the right level of funding to meet their needs.
Taken together with our investment in 100 new teaching schools announced last week, our investment of an additional £300 million in the early years and an extra £2.5 billion in the pupil premium, I believe that we can now begin to ensure that our schools are funded in a way which is modern, fair and just”.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. I welcome her offer to contribute to the consultation and to have constructive conversations about the way forward.
I will answer the questions that she asked. I am glad that she welcomed the announcement on capital that we made today. She called the decision taken by the Secretary of State last July to cancel the Building Schools for the Future programme “precipitous”. We had to stop it and act rapidly because of the economic situation that we had inherited. We could not carry on with the programme and, as a consequence of having taken that decision, we have been able to make savings on some of the programmes and projects that have gone ahead, which has contributed to the £500 million that we were able to announce today to help with basic need.
The details on private finance will need to be worked out. The Government believe that they can learn from previous schemes and find ways of doing it better. My noble friend Lord Sassoon announced today that the Treasury has identified £1.5 billion-worth of savings from running current PFI projects, but we will need to work out the details.
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that the condition survey needs to be carried out speedily. We want to start straightaway. She asked about basic need and free schools. This is a pot of money that will be allocated to local authorities on the basis of demographic need, where the need for new places, particularly primary places, is greatest.
I accept the noble Baroness's point about revenue. She said that some schools need more than others. The principle that we are striving for, which I am sure she shares, is that schools in similar circumstances, with similar conditions and similar pupils, should be funded on an equal basis. However, I accept her underlying premise that some schools will have different needs. I also agree with her that moving to a national funding formula may not be simple. The system is inherently complex. That is one reason why we will do this very cautiously—which the noble Baroness welcomed—rather than rush it; we will have a lot of consultation, make sure that there is proper transitional protection in place and not implement it before 2013-14 at the earliest. As the noble Baroness knows, one of the questions in the consultation is whether we should do this on an even longer timescale.
On the question of academies funding, I am absolutely clear that the principle to which we are working is parity of funding. We are having this consultation because of the views expressed to us by local authorities, and the concern that they expressed about the decisions that the Government reached at an earlier point about the basis on which funding would be taken from them, to stop the double-funding that had been going on.
The noble Baroness asked about special needs. It is very much our intention that everything we do should be compatible with the direction of travel set out in the Green Paper. Another proposal out for consultation is that we should have a special block of money for high-needs pupils to make sure that their needs are properly protected.
The subject of 16 to 19 funding is extremely important. We propose to look at that, too, and see whether we can simplify it, on the same lines as we are trying to simplify schools funding. We will run a review on that, which will start in the autumn.
On overall funding, I agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of maintaining funding in schools. In difficult circumstances, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State managed to protect funding for schools at flat cash levels with the pupil premium on top. In the circumstances, that was a good settlement for the Department for Education. On our announcement today about capital and about basic need, I am the first to concede that it is not the answer to everything, but it is a step in the right direction. I am glad that the noble Baroness welcomed our announcements on capital and revenue—with the caveats that she expressed —as a step in the right direction.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, mentioned her concerns about funding for 16 to 19 year-olds. The Minister will be aware of my concerns about young people with ME who have been learning through the Nisai Virtual Academy. The funding continues through local authorities until they are 16, but it is now being cut off for 16 to 19 year-olds. At a vital stage when they are taking their exams, they find that they can no longer continue with their education.
I understand that Harrow College is funding existing students through their courses but will take on no new students. The Minister may agree that, as ME causes more long-term sickness absence in schools than any other illness, and about two-thirds of children on home tuition have ME, this is a very important group of children. Many of them are high achievers who are very frustrated because they cannot get on. Will the Minister give us hope that there will be funding? The virtual academy—it is virtual because it uses the internet—cannot tick the boxes for Ofsted and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance because it has no bricks and mortar. Will the Minister help?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am very sensitive to the noble Baroness's point about children with ME, for a variety of reasons. I will look into the case that she mentions. Perhaps we can talk about it and take it forward.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I heartily welcome the fact that the Government are grasping the nettle of the complexity and unfairness of school funding, which the previous Government did not do in 13 years—indeed, they compounded the complexity problems.
First, I will say a word about capital funding. I notice from the Statement that the Secretary of State has accepted Mr Sebastian James’s recommendation to move towards greater standardisation of design of school buildings. Casting my mind back to the debate during the Localism Bill, I am sure the Government would not want a set of cloned schools all over the country. Can the Minister confirm that there will be a set of standard designs from which local communities can choose the most appropriate for their particular needs, not just one size fits all? That would not be in line with what this Government are trying to achieve. Will he also say whether energy efficiency, including microgeneration, will be included in those standard designs because, moving forward, that is going to be a very important issue?
On revenue, I welcome the consultation on moving towards a fairer national funding formula with appropriate room for local discretion—that is particularly important to those of us on these Benches—and the move towards a simpler, fairer and more transparent system. Schools need to know what to expect. From what the Minister said, I am sure he accepts that if you have a very simple system, it is likely not to be very fair, and if it is a very fair system, it is likely to have some complexity. I am sure that the Government’s consultation will allow for that. I also particularly welcome the Government’s determination to iron out the inequalities between areas and between academies and local authority schools.
On the subject of academies, I welcome the fact that the Government are publishing a consultation document for local authorities explaining the basis on which they intend that the money will be deducted this year and next. Does this mean that local authorities with no academies will have no deductions? Does it mean that there will be a standard costing for the services that academies will provide which local authorities will no longer provide? Finally, will he tell us a little more about how special schools will be treated?
Lord Hill of Oareford
Like my noble friend, I sat through the previous debate on design, and I thought someone would ask me about it. I was expecting the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, to be in her place, but my noble friend has asked the question instead. Coming to listen to another Bill going through its Committee stage and being subjected to some of the same kind of scrutiny to which I have been subjected in the Moses Room makes a nice change.
On design, the Government want to get a balance between delivering savings through a common sense approach and not reinventing the wheel every time. I agree about not having a one-size-fits-all design that can be rolled out across the country. There clearly needs to be proper discretion about the set of standardised designs—plural—that we would work up. In that context, building schools and other buildings that are energy efficient is extremely and increasingly important.
I agree with my noble friend about the importance of local discretion in thinking about revenue. She put the point about simplicity, equity and complexity very well. It is precisely those issues that we will need to tease out in the consultation to try to get to a point where there is more transparency and openness but there is still room for people to make sensible judgments on the ground. As she also said, we want to iron out some of these inequalities across the country. The points she raised about academies and academy funding are the sorts of issues that we will be discussing with local authorities and their representative bodies to try to resolve this issue.
Special schools, like all schools, will be able to apply for funding to help with their condition because we know from the work we have done that, just as with other schools, there are special schools in great need of help with dilapidation, so they will be able to apply to the same fund.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement. Can my noble friend help me with a couple of details on the capital side? First, possibly in parallel with, rather than in sequence with, the study that he is to undertake into the state of school conditions, will he be giving some thought to building up a matrix that will aid him in deciding which schools have the greatest need for capital work so there is a principled basis for doing it?
My second point is something of an extension of the point made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. It is in relation to the cost of building projects. Will he make sure that the costing takes into account the whole-of-life cost so that the building projects are sustainable, rather than simply the cheapest at the time?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, the point of carrying out the condition survey is precisely to arrive at the point, to which my noble friend referred, where one can make a fair comparison between schools across the country to work out which of them have the greatest need and are most in need of having their condition improved. He is obviously right about that.
So far as the cost of the building projects is concerned, my noble friend makes a good point. One of the things that we will be looking at is how to try to secure the best possible value in a number of different ways, perhaps by grouping schools.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, the noble Baroness is a very distinguished Member of this House, but I think Labour Back-Benchers are the only group who have not had a turn so far. We have a certain amount of time.
On design, did not the Victorians produce some extremely distinguished school buildings that have stood the test of time on the basis of just three or four rather standardised models? I hope the Minister will look at that example and perhaps be inspired by it.
On revenue funding, at first sight, one sees that it appears very just and sensible to cut back proportionately revenue funding to LEAs where a portion of that funding is earmarked for services that are now being paid for directly by funding academies. However, is it not the case that there are very considerable economies of scale in education, including in the operation of LEAs, and that the administrative and other fixed costs of those LEAs in providing those services will now, under this new system, fall on a reduced volume of funding for the LEA schools and therefore be a higher proportion of that funding? Therefore, schools that remain within the LEA system, will lose out, simply because there are academies in that area, and they will lose out more, the more academies there are in that area. Surely that is not fair either.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the noble Lord about Victorian schools. I am not an expert, but I think one of the reasons why, when one goes around London, they all look quite similar is because they were procured by a board. He is absolutely right about the question of how one goes about doing that. That demonstrates that it is possible to have something that looks recognisable but is also good quality and stands the test of time. My observation, as someone who gets sent around academies quite a lot, is that they all had fantastic architects and a lot of expense, and they all pride themselves on how original they are, but they all look quite similar if you look around the country. Going back to our earlier debate, I think the point about how design is accepted at a time is well made.
I understand the noble Lord’s point about economies of scale and academies. It is obviously the case, and it is indeed happening, that many academies are choosing to carry on buying services from the local authority if they think they are good quality local services and that they are delivering what they want. It is also the case that some local authorities are embracing, if that is the right word, a different role and are thinking that they want to be in the business of becoming commissioners and selling their services to a range of schools across broader areas. A number of different approaches are developing. I accept the underlying point he makes, but there is a varied response going on across the country.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I want to add to the design debate. First, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has said. Energy efficiency is also very important, but please let us have a design architectural competition to choose some of the best experts in that area. Secondly, the repairing of the older schools is terribly important because, again, pride in your school requires you and enables you to keep it in good order. The less well cared for a school is, the more likely it is to get kicked about and made even worse. Thirdly, and anticipating a debate we might have tomorrow but which sadly I can no longer take part in as I shall not be there, the involvement of the children themselves in the design of these schools and what is required there is crucially important. I have seen it in action with some young children advising student architects on what they should incorporate into a design. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he is thinking of student governors.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will not be joining us tomorrow but I am looking forward to our debate on school governors. I agree with all her points. I agree that involving the children or the students in what is going on in a school is jolly important. Her point about the upkeep of it and people taking pride in it is also obviously right. Getting input from architects will also be extremely important when we are trying to come up with our standardised set of designs.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was not entirely right to say that it was only the Labour Benches that had not yet contributed. We do not like to be overlooked too much, small though we are. I have another question for the Minister about new buildings, and about the procurement process. I speak as the chair of a new academy that has gone through the procurement process for new buildings. I have been struck by just how complex it is and how the costs of that must be built in to the end cost you have to pay when you get to the final preferred bidder. I agree that simplification in the design process should not go too far, but could that simplification also be applied to the procurement process?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The remarks made by the right reverend Prelate echo my almost daily plaint. I agree with him entirely. It is our hope that with the new scheme we will be able to deliver it faster, perhaps up to 12 months faster, which will obviously save money. I agree that these processes can seem extremely complex. If he has experience from the academy with which he is involved, I would be interested to talk about that because we are keen to learn and try to do it better.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, I want to highlight a couple of things in the Statement, but first I must say that I think it was quite a mean-spirited Statement in its very negative description of the approaches taken by the previous Government. Even in the paragraph on academies, there is no recognition of the success of the academies programme, which started under the previous Government and has carried on under this one. It is probably the most negative Statement that I have seen for quite some time in this House, and I just want to put on record the fact that I am very disappointed about that.
I have some questions about university technical colleges. Where do they fit into all this? What is their relationship to the academies? What is the funding for them? I am quite surprised that the Statement does not refer to them as the way forward. Noble Lords will know from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that they are very much the future, as I know from my involvement with some of the FE colleges that are going in that direction. Where are the university technical colleges going to fit in terms of revenue and the whole process?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I hope that noble Lords who have been subjected to me talking about academies would say that I have always been very quick to make clear the huge contribution that the previous Government made to academies. I have said from the beginning, although this might not always be an altogether welcome message for those on the Benches opposite, that I see my job as trying to build on what the previous Government did and what they intended to do in 2005. We are taking that forward; I am very clear about that. I am also very clear about Building Schools for the Future, having met a lot of the schools, children and heads who were involved with it. I absolutely share the previous Government’s intention to improve the building estate. I know what they were trying to do, and I understand why they did it, so I am sorry if the noble Baroness felt that the Statement was mean-spirited.
We did not mention funding for the UTCs in the Statement, but the noble Baroness will know that the Chancellor found some more money in the Budget to—I hope—double to 24 the number that we were aiming for in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is in place, and is not affected by anything that we have announced today. Given that these are new institutions, I guess that by definition the pot for dilapidation is not going to be relevant to them. As she will know from her conversations with FE colleges, there is a lot of support for them. We have had a large number of applications, which we are considering, and we will in due course make announcements on those which I will be very happy to share with her.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
May I press the Minister a little further? Where does the pupil premium fit into these proposals? As I understand it, there will be an allowance for deprivation and so forth on top of the basic amount, and I assume that that is where the pupil premium will come in. However, given that the local schools forum will still play a part in allocating resources at a local level, how can schools be guaranteed that they will actually get the money that they need from the pupil premium?
Lord Hill of Oareford
That is an extremely good question. Our approach to the pupil premium has consistently been to put it on top of other funding that is made available so that people can see very clearly where it sits and will over time be able to calculate its effect as we build it up. Our intention is that it will continue to be identified separately and go to schools, which over time will report on and account for the purposes to which it is spent.
Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Flather
My Lords, church schools are extremely popular, especially with ethnic minority parents. They feel that there is more discipline and they are better controlled, and there is usually a uniform. Most ethnic minority parents like that. I am not sure it is because of collective worship and we should bear that in mind very carefully. If we take out the word “worship”, we have had things about spirituality and about Christian heritage. It is very important that children from anywhere and everywhere learn about the Christian heritage of this country. That is fundamental: if we do not know anything about the Christian heritage of Britain we do not know about Britain.
I would also like to point out that this is the most irreligious country I have ever come across. The people in this country are not religious and they do not even pretend to be religious. If collective worship is your idea to bring up a generation that will be more religious, it will not, because it has not done so. As far as the worship in the Chamber is concerned, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I went once; I could not go again, simply because it is so ludicrous. Turning your back and showing your bottom is just not on. I would never do that. I do not mind a few words thanking God et cetera—that is fine. I have no problem with any religion, or no religion. I was brought up to believe that all faiths, all religions, are pathways to God and they are equally valid in that sense. I have no problem with that, but there has to be a limit to how we deal with these issues. Certainly there are old people here and people of a generation who are used to that kind of thing. For me, it was very strange indeed. We talked about peer pressure. Peer pressure works here as well.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, that, during the years that I spent in voluntary work in Maidenhead, my closest allies were the Methodists and I have long since learned how good they are. I now judge people not according to what I learned once but as they present themselves to me. However, I would say that the Catholics suppress women, and hundreds of thousands of women die in childbirth. He may not like that, but I do not care.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
Behind me is a portrait of the judgment of Daniel. Actually, I think that it should be a portrait of the judgment of Solomon, given today’s debate—
Lord Peston
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I am very much looking forward to hearing his speech, but the monitor suggests that we are possibly within seconds of voting in the Chamber.
Lord Peston
It is just that I do not want his speech to be ruined by the fact that we may need to march out during the middle of it.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I would have finished it by now if the noble Lord had not intervened.
There is an extremely wide range of views on this important issue, as I knew there would be, and, like others, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Avebury for raising it. In considering the current system and the way forward, the Government’s guiding principle is that the arrangements for collective worship should be flexible and fair to pupils and parents as well as manageable for schools. The requirement for a broadly Christian collective worship is a long-standing one, which I think was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, who referred to it as our Christian heritage. A similar point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port.
If I may declare an interest, as other noble Lords have, I am the son of a Methodist mother, who herself had to go to chapel three times a day on Sunday, and of a father who was a chorister at Westminster Abbey and so went to church almost every day for six years. As a result of that, we had no church at all in our household because I think that my parents suffered from overload. However, as a kind of historian—or a historian manqué—I think that it is difficult to write out the role that the church has played in education and in the history of our country for many hundreds of years—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)
With great respect to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was entirely right, as a Division has now been called. The Grand Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes, to resume again at 5.10 pm.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Countess of Mar)
My Lords, I remind noble Lords that there is a problem if mobile phones are switched to silent in that they still interfere with the sound system. Therefore, can noble Lords please ensure that their mobiles are switched completely off so that we do not get a buzzing noise? I gather that the Minister was in the process of winding up.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I cannot apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for my hubris but I shall do so later.
The Government believe that this educational experience makes a valuable contribution to the spiritual and moral development of all young people and not just for those who attend religious schools. That view is shared by many parents, who still expect their children to understand the meaning of worship as well as to have an opportunity to consider spiritual and moral issues, and to explore their own beliefs, whether or not they hold a faith. The right reverend Prelate referred to some statistics published in September 2010 by the Office for National Statistics, which suggested that 71 per cent of the population still identify themselves as being Christian.
In response to a specific question that I was asked, academies are covered by the provisions on collective worship. Parents can withdraw their children from collective worship if they wish to do so, and sixth-form pupils also have this right. The Government consider it appropriate for parents to exercise these rights on behalf of children of compulsory school age, and we respect the right of parents to have their children educated according to their religious and philosophical beliefs. We would expect that, in exercising this right, parents would take account of their children’s views.
The law also requires schools to provide an educational experience of collective worship that is relevant to all pupils, no matter what their background or beliefs, ensuring that the collective worship is presented in a way that benefits the spiritual, moral and cultural development of all children and young people. In addition, under Section 394 of the Education Act 1996, schools have the freedom to apply for a determination from the local authority if they judge that it is not appropriate for the requirement for collective worship to be of a broadly Christian nature to apply to their school.
Therefore, overall we believe that the current system of collective worship is sufficiently flexible and fair in making provision for a variety of different perspectives and attitudes to collective worship without imposing unnecessarily complex arrangements on schools. I understand the range of views expressed but I intend to take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, that this is an important issue to which we may need to return in a different context. With that, I ask my noble friend Lord Avebury whether he feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, we certainly will have to return to this matter in a different context but we will have to do so on Report, because we are not going to resolve it here this afternoon. As your Lordships will understand, we cannot have a Division on it. However, there are certain things on which we can agree. First, all noble Lords who have spoken have said that an assembly is a good idea—that all the pupils should come together as one and partake of a proceeding that has a moral and ethical dimension. Even the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would go as far as that, although he might not wish to add the word “spiritual”.
I point out that some among us are atheists—that is, we do not believe in a supreme being who is directing our procedures and telling us how to behave—but we believe that there are moral and ethical codes that should be common to the whole of humanity and we want them to be taught in assembly. We want children to have, for example, the virtue of tolerance, which has been mentioned. How can we have tolerance when children are separated into different kinds of religions, even if, as the Minister has just said—
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I rise briefly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Laming, my noble friend and other noble Lords for taking this matter up with the Minister on behalf of almost everyone in the Committee after the earlier debate on this subject. It is clear that they were speaking for all of us. On the withdrawn amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I think that the proposal is a good idea and may well sit better in the health Bill when it finally comes. However, the duty on schools to co-operate would require them not only to co-ordinate with the local health authority at the strategic level, but also in relation to individual children and the packages that they need, whereas the well-being boards will look at services more broadly. The duty to co-operate is still necessary in order for schools to work with other agencies in relation to individual children.
I thank the Minister for his willingness to discuss this issue. All noble Lords in the Committee believe that were it in his gift, I am sure that the matter would not be proceeded with at this time, but obviously and rightly the Secretary of State has to make the decision. I therefore ask the Minister to give us an assurance that we will be clear about the Government’s intentions before we get to Report. Clearly, if the Government decide to proceed with this, Members of the Committee will want to think about their approach at the next stage.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will be brief. I can say yes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. We will be clear before we reach Report; we need to be. I have given that undertaking to the noble Lords I met with and I am happy to repeat it. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Rix and Lord Laming, for what they said. I was glad to have the chance to meet them and we will meet again—I will not finish that line.
I will have to follow up the point made by my noble friend Lord Elton and write to him. Ditto, I am not sure about the position in Finland, but we will look into it.
Again, I am grateful to noble Lords for meeting me. I have undertaken to discuss this further, which will probably be in September but before the Report stage. On that basis, I hope we can move forward.
Lord Rix
My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken. I hope that the Minister can write to me during the Recess because I am going away in the first week in September, when the Bill might well reach its Report stage. I should certainly like to be able to discuss this with the Minister or with my colleagues, if that is possible, before we actually reach the next stage. However, with the Minister’s assurances ringing in my mind, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief intervention because, obviously, one supports a great deal of what has been said, particularly on fairness and ensuring that the least well provided for children are given not only a fair, but a more than fair, chance. I thought that one of the bases on which academy status was to be granted was a clear understanding that academies would take a proportion of these children. If that is the case, how will that be ensured?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I start by responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and recognising her commitment to fair access and the points made by a number of noble Lords. I hope we can accept that there is common ground between us and that there is nothing more important than working to make sure that all children and young people have a fair opportunity for excellent education and training. Part of the answer, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said, lies in increasing the provision of good places. We are not there yet, but that is one of the underlying principles of what the Government are trying to do in their reforms—trying to give schools more autonomy and encouraging more diverse provision. That is, in a way, the other side of the coin to extending autonomous schools, about which noble Lords have concerns. We can address those concerns, but it is the drive towards greater autonomy and variety that will, over the longer term, provide a greater number of better places and deal with the underlying problem with admissions, which is that there are not enough good places.
I shall pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and put the scale of the problem into context. In February, the schools adjudicator gave evidence to the Education Select Committee in another place. He said that,
“the vast majority of admissions authorities … if they are breaching the rules, don’t mean to be doing so”.
In 2009-10, there were 151 decisions, in the context of around 5,500 admissions authorities, in more than half of which the complaint was not upheld. I say that just to provide a little context.
Lord Elton
My Lords, I am as eager as anyone else to help the Committee to move on quickly, so I shall be brief. I was not going to intervene at this stage but, having been Minister for Education in Northern Ireland for two and a half years, and during my watch having authorised the institution of the Lagan integrated school, I feel that I have an interest that I should put before your Lordships.
The most heartening things that I have heard have come from my right reverend friend the Bishop. As I see it, the process of integration is already going on in established faith schools. It seems to me that what we do not want behind the movement for these amendments is an animosity towards religion. We want an animosity in favour of good education, and here I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said. In other words, a good school is always going to be a magnet. Whatever its theological background, people are going to move there to get their children into it, and the same applies to a school that is not a faith school. You are not going to end that with any amendment of this sort. It is in fact competition working its influence on the educational market. Therefore, I say only that if we are to have amendments at Report they should be designed to foster, rather than smother, the movement to inclusivity within faith schools that we have seen, and which I believe to be thoroughly healthy.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this is our second debate this afternoon on faith. Like the last one, it has been thoughtful and stimulating. I want to start with the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield who reminded us first about the tradition of the churches and other faiths providing education being a longstanding one in our country. He also wisely warned us against the dangers of generalisation.
There have been a couple of times this afternoon where we have teetered on the edge of generalisation, and the right reverend Prelate sensibly and calmly brought us back from that. He also used powerful evidence to show the contribution that faith schools make. It is the Government’s position that they provide high quality school places and, as we have heard from a number of noble Lords, that they increase choice for parents and that they secure better results overall, which is one of the reasons why they are popular with parents.
Therefore, my starting point in replying is to say that I will, perhaps not surprisingly, be arguing for the status quo. We think that faith schools should be able to teach according to the tenets of their faith and to have admissions policies that reflect that ethos. The right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious beliefs is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, as we have heard, and we are committed to maintaining that right. The exceptions in the Equality Act that have been discussed today exist to allow faith schools to continue to provide education in an environment conducive to their religious ethos and in accordance with parents’ wishes. We see no reason to remove them.
However, those exceptions do not mean that schools with a religious character can discriminate at will. All maintained schools and academies must comply with the schools admissions code, as we have already discussed. They may give priority to applicants of a particular faith only when oversubscribed and they must admit all applicants without reference to faith-based or any other criteria when they cannot fill all their places. Schools with a religious character, irrespective of their faith, are subject to the same checks and inspections as all other schools and, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, many of these schools have a very good record of reaching out to their local communities and promoting diversity. I remember that Church of England schools score more highly on community cohesion than community schools, which is a fact worth reminding ourselves of.
So far as maintained schools converting to academies are concerned, we set out the principle at the time of the Academies Act that they should convert on an as is basis. Therefore, the process of conversion to become an academy is not in itself a way of increasing the number of faith places available. New academies, including free schools—this is a question I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen—will be able to apply faith-based admissions criteria only to a maximum of 50 per cent of their pupils and, again, only if they are oversubscribed. We were clear about that at the passage of the Academies Act, and I am happy to restate that today.
Overall, we see no reason to change the operation of maintained faith schools and academies. As many noble Lords have said, things are evolving in their own way. They are popular with parents, they are beneficial for pupils and they are an important part of the education landscape. However, we recognise that we need to strike a balance. That is why, with the expansion of the academies, we have been careful to ensure that there is no overloading of the system with religious-based schooling, which is why we have put in the 50 per cent limit.
I think we have struck a fair balance and that faith schools have served us well. I would therefore ask the—
Baroness Morris of Yardley
I agree entirely with the position the Minister has outlined. I just want to invite him to explore one point on which I think the Committee would like some reassurance. It is the point raised, to some extent, by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. The position that the Minister has just defended is the position as it was up to 10 or 15 years ago, and a lot of schools with faiths other than those which we are used to seeing are now coming into the system.
I remember at a meeting or two ago of this Committee that the Minister gave an assurance that he would not let creationist schools go ahead, and that is a religion. Yet his opening comments, however, were about the degree to which a religion is right to teach their faith in school. As we move forward—and there are more schools with a religion other than those with which we are familiar—how worried is the Minister and what actions is he taking to make sure that the position he is at ease with now continues?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I take the underlying point. In my comments, I made reference to the importance of inspection. That is not simple, because inspectors need to know what they are looking for if they go into a faith school where one might think there is cause for concern. It is not always straightforward, but inspection is one way of addressing this.
As to setting up new schools and free schools, about which noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, have concerns, oddly enough I think that because that whole process is being set by and overseen by the Government from the outset—we have due diligence and ways of exploring these questions, which we will do carefully and rigorously—that area is of less concern than perhaps that of independent schools and maintained schools. I am not at all dismissive of the point that the noble Baroness raises. I hope that inspection and the Secretary of State’s powers on academies to make sure that everything is operating correctly will provide some reassurance. We should not stick our heads in the sand about the issue. I was headed towards asking the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, to consider withdrawing her amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, as ever, this has been a fascinating and wide-ranging debate. We are evolving in this, but evolution sometimes needs a little helping hand. I accept the historical role played by the church in education but we have become a different society from the one that we were many years ago. I continue to have fears about ghettoisation. Of course I am not seeking to close faith schools. I am not sure how I gave that impression. I am just seeking to ensure that faith schools are more open, and I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in all this.
In following up the question of my noble friend Lady Morris, which I was also going to ask, I hope that the Minister has no fears that some free school could be set up somewhere and designed solely to promote a faith of one kind or another. I am not so convinced of that. I accept the historical influence of faith schools, and I am not seeking to go back on that. However, we have to continue our vigilance about our schools—be they faith schools or otherwise. As always, I would wish to strike a balance. I hope that at some point we can discuss with Members of the Committee of all faiths some of the issues that came up in my previous amendment and try to reach a greater understanding. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Schools: Homophobic Bullying
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce the incidence of homophobic bullying in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, the Government aim to help teachers to promote good behaviour through new legislation that is being introduced in the Education Bill. We have updated our advice to schools to make it clear that prejudice-based bullying such as homophobic bullying should not be tolerated. This advice signposts schools to specialist organisations, such as Stonewall, that can support them. Accountability in how schools tackle bullying will also be sharpened through the new Ofsted inspections framework.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I welcome the Minister’s response. However, we need more than just words; we need tools to do the job. Will the Minister therefore give an undertaking that Ofsted will investigate how schools respond to homophobic bullying when visiting them in future?
Lord Hill of Oareford
Without wishing to be too prescriptive about everything that Ofsted will look for, as the noble Lord will know the whole purpose of our slimming down the inspection framework for Ofsted to concentrate on four core areas—including behaviour and safety—is precisely so that they have more time to look for the kind of issues that the noble Lord is concerned about. The framework that we are putting in place will sharpen the focus on behaviour and the way in which Ofsted looks for bullying of all kinds.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that any bullying for any reason is absolutely obnoxious and should be assailed and stopped wherever it happens?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with my noble friend. If one is on the receiving end of bullying, no matter what the motivation is it feels pretty horrid.
Lord Laming
Will the Minister reassure the House that the issue of bullying, including homophobic bullying, is part of teacher training? Ofsted inspections are fine but are only once every few years, whereas teachers are there every day. Their training therefore ought to emphasise the importance of identifying this behaviour very early on, and the skills to deal with it.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the noble Lord. He may know that some proposed new standards for qualifications have been published today by a group that has been advising the department. Those standards will then work through to what the initial teacher training providers provide. However, the noble Lord is obviously right; we want to make sure that teachers responsible for classrooms are properly and broadly trained in maintaining a good environment in which to learn, which will include an important focus on maintaining order and discipline and trying to minimise bullying.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Leader of the House. The Minister invested in his Answer considerable confidence in Ofsted inspections, but he will know that in Clause 39 of the Education Bill, which is currently going through your Lordships’ House, the Secretary of State is taking powers to categorise classes of school that will no longer have to receive regular Ofsted inspections. What is the logic of removing schools from those regular inspections, given the problem of bullying that has been reflected here today? It is also known that a considerable proportion of category 1 schools are reduced in category on subsequent inspections.
Lord Hill of Oareford
The objective of the Bill, as in a number of areas, is to try to have a proportionate approach to inspection that is backed up by safeguards. I recognise that schools in an outstanding category can fall out of it, which is why Ofsted will have powers to carry on not only thematic assessments but risk assessments. Any member of the public or local authorities who have concerns of the sort that the noble Lord raises will be able to go to Ofsted and ask for an inspection.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, a few years ago when I was a councillor, I chaired a scrutiny review into the wider issue of bullying. We found that where there is evidence of homophobic bullying, there is often a wider issue in the social environment of the school of bullying in general against children with disabilities and other issues. Does the Minister agree that schools should use organisations such as Beatbullying to combat cyberbullying on Facebook and that sort of thing, which is now very widespread and insidious? Does he also agree that we need greater consistency in standards in schools, including in state-funded faith schools where this is often a difficult subject, and of course academies?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree very much that specialist organisations of the sort to which my noble friend refers can play an important part. I also agree about the dangers to children—and, indeed, to staff—of cyberbullying, which is a growing problem. That is one of the reasons why the Government are proposing measures in the Education Bill to tackle that problem. On faith schools, my note of slight caution to my noble friend is that one has to be very careful in making generalisations about whole categories of school. Nearly one-third of the schools in our country are faith schools. Many of them have outstanding records on behaviour, discipline and their work in promoting community cohesion. However, I agree with my noble friend’s underlying point that one needs as much outside help as one can to tackle these problems thoroughly and consistently.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, does the Minister agree that bullying in schools, as with bullying by newspaper tycoons, needs to be challenged and punished?
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, can my noble friend tell me when this problem arose? It did not happen when I was at school, or I suspect when many of us in this House were at school. What has precipitated it?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The truth is linked to the earlier point raised by my noble friend Lady Knight. Bullying comes in many forms. Types, categories, natures and methods of bullying change over time. When my noble friend Lord Tebbit was at school, homophobic bullying may well not have been an issue. However, it is more of an issue today.
Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Peston
Before the Minister speaks, I unfortunately missed the last meeting of your Lordships’ Committee. I broadly support what is said here but would like, as someone who spends a lot of time using this sort of technology, to offer one or two caveats. First, I know of no other way of wasting more time than in getting on to the net. It is not merely ordinary time-wasting because it is addictive. I am keen for our young people to get involved in all this but we should not be naïve about it. When I come into your Lordships’ House, I am one of the early arrivals at 8.30. By 9.30 I am fed up to the teeth and immediately log-on. I start typing into my machine. Some two hours go by and I have looked at The Wasteland by TS Eliot—you can download it for free, which surprises me. I then begin to wonder if that is a better poem than The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. That is all good for young people except for the amount of time that it takes. Equally, one should not be naïve in assuming that they will do as I do and look for intellectual, aesthetic and scientific things. They will spend a lot of time mucking around. I am not saying a word against any of this being the right path to go down—quite the contrary. We really must go down this path but I wanted to add those words of caution.
The other words of caution already emerged in your Lordships’ earlier deliberations. For a lot of young people, we are talking about a great deal of money. As much as I support my noble friend’s Amendment 107C, it would cost quite a lot of money. Also, one should not forget how many homes still do not have computers. That was perfectly clear from the earlier discussion. It again troubled me a little that—I have forgotten where I read it now, but it was apropos of what is developing in California—increasingly if you do not submit your work via computer it ceases to be acceptable. Are we absolutely certain that we want to be completely committed to that path? I am quite certain that, were our successors to read my speech a generation from now, they would say, “Well, they really had some old fogies in those days, didn’t they?”. By then, it will just be the norm but we should just be a little cautious about the path to that norm. Nothing of what I have said should be interpreted as meaning anything other than support for technology in schools. As I say, the world wide web is a fantastic treasure trove of valuable things. We certainly want our young people to use it. I simply add the caveat that there is a little more to this than just saying what a wonderful thing that is.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
First, I agree very much with the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and with the powerful speech made by my noble friend Lord Willis on Monday, when we last discussed this before being rudely interrupted. My noble friend was absolutely right that the effective use of technology clearly supports good teaching and helps raise standards.
As he argues clearly, it is not an either/or between, for example, Shakespeare and technology. I have had that conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, before. He made the case powerfully to me that technology can bring Shakespeare within reach of people for whom the traditional way of books would be much harder; it can bring it to life in a way that the Arden set might not.
My noble friend was right to suggest on Monday that there has been too much emphasis on the technology itself, the kit, and the idea that we could transform teaching simply by spending money on computers or whiteboards. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, agrees with that. By the same token, I accept that there are far more exciting ways of learning than just by Latin primer.
One point that was not raised about technology is the fact that we have an extraordinarily successful market in educational technology in the UK. We are a leader, so there are strong commercial reasons why we should support it. We want to encourage sharing of evidence of effective practice in the use of technology and improved teacher skills in using it. My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, have given me a useful nudge—I think that that is the word—or prod about the importance of that.
We are talking to a number of interested parties—school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts—about how the department should take forward its thinking about technology. Given the pace of change, we think it important to allow schools and teachers themselves, working with industry, to respond to the changes. We want to give teachers the freedom to choose how to use it to create lessons that engage their pupils and enable them to achieve their full potential. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, gave a powerful example of how that is happening. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and my noble friend talked on Monday about having a conversation with the department. I would certainly welcome such a conversation and invite both of them and any other noble Lords with an interest to help us develop our thinking.
Access to computers and the internet is an important point. Clearly, that can have benefits for the whole family. We know that many schools offer access to ICT before and after normal school hours to help pupils without access at home. Other schools are working with charities such as the e-Learning Foundation and the commercial sector to provide access. We want more of that.
On resources, the financial situation is obviously difficult. We seek to support disadvantaged pupils directly through the pupil premium. The premium enables schools to decide for themselves how best to spend additional resources to support disadvantaged pupils. On Monday, my noble friend gave the figures for the extent to which there is a disparity between rich and poor—unsurprisingly—of access to computers. The premium may well include providing computers and broadband connectivity if the schools think that that is the most effective approach for particular children in the circumstances that they face.
The Government certainly recognise the important role that technology can play in supporting education. We are considering that within government. I ask my noble friend Lord Willis—and, as I said, any other noble Lords who would be interested in such conversation—to help us with our thinking. I certainly accept the fundamental importance of the subject, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State set out in the recent speech to which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred. On that basis, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
I warmly thank the Minister for his thoughtful comments and for the way in which he wishes to tackle this issue and take it forward. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Puttnam, for their support. I confess that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, reminded me of St Bede, who wanted a book out of the Vatican library and set off walking from St Albans all the way to get it. You can imagine that when Caxton brought the printing press to Britain, people said, “It’s not the same as having to walk to Rome for it”. We have to be careful, and I take the comments that he made.
What excites me about the investigation—having been watching my wife recently, who has just found Google as well as most shopping sites—is the excitement of seeing children find new information and new ideas. That is what learning is about; it is not simply dealing with what you are taught but finding out information yourself. Experiments have been done in Africa where solar-powered computers have just been left for young children to explore them, and they have been able to access Google and information across the world without any further training. Youngsters today are hardwired into this technology, and to be able to use it is important.
I looked, as did the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, at the Secretary of State’s speech and was hugely encouraged by what he had to say. I mentioned in my earlier remarks that I do not believe that the Secretary of State is a Luddite. He sometimes hides his passion for technology under a bushel or behind volumes of Shakespeare but it is important to take it out. He talks about Du Sautoy, the Li Ka-Shing fellowship and Professor Khan’s work; these are remarkable initiatives to bring learning to millions of youngsters around the world. We need to be part of that, but you can do so only if you have good technology in school that is being used wisely and effectively and you have access to that at home as well. As the Government, local authorities and other statutory bodies move forward with delivering more and more on the internet—rightly, in my view—it is children who become the educators of the future. It is for that reason that I hope that this will be taken forward.
I thank the Minister for his comments. We will take up his offer of a meeting with him and his officials. With those assurances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, this is also my maiden intervention in this Bill. I support the final comments that were made, for two reasons. First, I declare an interest: I work with and support EAL, a bespoke awarding body. Its view is that the extremes that are currently available are really quite worrying. Secondly, and importantly for it, if we do not have those opportunities to bring to a halt and remedy the situation, it does no good for those awarding bodies that try very hard to make sure that they work very well. For those reasons, I support those comments. Perhaps the Minister will think about whether there is something in between, but certainly something detrimental should happen if things are not working out well.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, on the core point of this amendment, we certainly want to create a system that encourages all schools to offer high quality qualifications and gives pupils and parents the clearest possible information. To achieve this, first, we are committed to giving everyone access to the underlying data on all the qualifications taken in schools, in both the independent and state sectors. We plan to publish all the information the department holds on schools in a single place in a way that is accessible to everyone. We have made some steps already in opening up information on qualifications and we intend to do more. This puts parents in a stronger position to judge whether a school is meeting their child’s needs.
However, qualifications reported in performance tables should first be accredited by Ofqual in order to secure standards. Ofqual’s scrutiny provides a safeguard that qualifications are rigorous and challenging. It is open to all the qualification-awarding organisations to present the qualifications that they offer for accreditation. The majority of qualifications taken in the independent sector and all qualifications taken in the state sector are accredited.
In recent years, school performance tables have shown schools’ performances based on a system of equivalencies, which have ascribed a points value to a wide range of qualifications, and presented information about schools’ performance based on those points. However, sometimes that approach serves to conceal more information than it reveals, and it treats very different qualifications as if they are the same. Both may be excellent, valuable qualifications in their own right but they are not necessarily the same.
We want to try to give parents detailed and specific information about qualifications and not lump it all together. It is also the case that the current system of equivalencies has created some perverse incentives for schools to offer courses that score highly in performance tables but are not necessarily in the best interests of the children concerned. That is why we have accepted Professor Wolf’s recommendation that we should replace the existing performance table measures based on equivalence points and try to introduce more sophisticated criteria for deciding which qualifications should count in performance tables in future.
My noble friend Lord Lucas is extremely experienced in slicing and dicing data and I would welcome the chance for him to come in and talk to officials about whether there are ways that we can benefit from his experience and put it to the most effective use.
My noble friend Lord Lingfield raised the possibility of Ofqual taking a more nuanced approach, with a range of sanctions rather than the current, as he described it, rap over the knuckle or the nuclear option, and that perhaps it would be sensible to have something more graduated, maybe with some kind of fine. It is clear from the comments that have been made that the Government ought to think about that and reflect on it, to see whether it could be made to work in a sensible way, and to give Ofqual this kind of power as it develops. I am very happy to take those suggestions away and see whether that is something we can do and come back to at a later date.
With that and with the earlier points on the performance, I hope my noble friend feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Peston
My Alzheimer's is worse than I thought it was. The Secretary of State must be aware of that technology. Other things are in the national curriculum that, when I was at school, I found inimical to education. Geography was the most extreme example. We were made to do geography. I was not persuaded then and I am not persuaded now that geography should be part of anybody's education. If I want to know where somewhere is, again, I go to my computer. These days, I have to type in the name of countries that did not exist in my day, but I can find out where they are.
I believe that education is about finding things out and appreciating them—all that my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said. If we all reflect on what was the best part of our education and schooling, it was things that were not merely part of the curriculum but, in my case, not something I was ever examined on. I was in the economic sixth at Hackney Downs School and the headmaster decided that economics was clearly not part of education. He told the English master to see the five of us who had taken that option in the sixth form. The English master, Mr Brierley, who was the great discoverer of Harold Pinter, introduced us to things that we had never heard of, one of which has become a total obsession of mine—philosophy.
To return to my earlier remarks, I have wasted more time reading about analytical philosophy than I care to remember, but that was part of my education. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me, but I do not believe that those responsible for our national curriculum have ever said that rational argument and logical reasoning are what education should be about. All that tells me that the last people—having worked at the Department of Education as its first ever special adviser, I include in my admonitions officials as well as the Minister—who should be deciding these things once and for all are Ministers and their officials. We need outside comment.
I partly address my next remark to my noble friend Lady Hughes. The one thing that gives me hope is that, although I entirely support her amendment, the department should know that many of the rest of us still have our views. Therefore, if something comes up that we think is totally crackers, the department will still hear from us on this subject, whether we are officially consulted or not.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I agree that philosophy is very helpful to young children. It helps them understand who they are and how they fit into this great big world. I hope the Minister can assure us that when we take advice about what should be in the curriculum, there will be representation of our diverse society in the approach that it takes. I believe that will go a long way to helping people from diverse backgrounds understand who they are and how they fit into our society.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, in abolishing the QCDA we are not seeking to give the Secretary of State greater control over the curriculum, nor do we wish to reduce the external expertise that can be brought to bear on qualifications or curriculum policy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, and others have acknowledged, the formal accountability to Parliament for the curriculum, qualifications and national curriculum assessment will remain as it is now, with Ministers. I note that no one has fought for the QCDA to be maintained in its current form. By removing it, we will bring the delivery of those essential functions, which are continuing, back into the department. This will improve clarity and transparency, simplify the system and save money.
As has been pointed out, under the existing legislation, the Secretary of State already makes decisions in respect of the national curriculum. What will change is that the Secretary of State will become directly responsible for taking forward the statutory consultation process whenever the national curriculum needs to be amended. In future, the Secretary of State will have to have more direct responsibility than has arguably been the case previously, for changes to the curriculum, for justifying how the decisions to make those changes have been arrived at, and their implications.
I hope I can give some reassurance to noble Lords on the issue that I think lies at the heart of this. Consultation on changes to the national curriculum will continue to be a requirement. The Secretary of State will have to conduct a formal consultation with interested parties, including local authorities, schools, teachers and others—the kind of people that my noble friend Lady Benjamin mentions. The precise groups with which he will need to consult are, as now: associations of local authorities, bodies representing the interests of governing bodies, organisations representing school teachers and other persons with an interest in the proposals, which is a fairly broad group. Everyone would have to have a reasonable opportunity to make representations, there would have to be a consultation, and the Cabinet Office advice, as now, is that that should be for at least 12 weeks. After the consultation has ended, the Secretary of State has to consider the responses and must publish a summary of the views expressed—which relates to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. The summary published by the Secretary of State will deliver the degree of openness and transparency for which noble Lords have argued. Then, as now, final decisions would remain with the Secretary of State.
The Government are certainly committed to ensuring that everyone with an interest in the national curriculum is given an opportunity to offer their views. The current review of the national curriculum, launched in January, is being conducted in an open manner and we are looking for views from a wide range of interested parties. Once we have published our proposals for a new national curriculum early next year there will be further wide-scale public consultation before final decisions are made.
My noble friend Lady Sharp asked about international evidence. The expert panel to the current curriculum review is looking at the curricula used in the most successful education jurisdictions, including Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, but if I can find more detail I will send that to her. My noble friend Lord Willis asked about academies. As he knows, academies are required to provide a broad and balanced curriculum and we think that that has been successful to date. Although they will not be required to teach the national curriculum, we hope that by slimming it down and making it less prescriptive academies will want to use it as a benchmark. All the material previously available to schools from the QCDA will be accessible to all those schools that want to use it. Finally on the national curriculum, so regards the current review, we intend to publish all the evidence we have considered when we bring forward proposals.
We think that the arrangements are in place to draw on appropriate advice as policies are developed. We do not believe that the abolition of the QCDA will lead to increased government power or control over what I accept are critical elements of our education system. There will be safeguards to ensure transparency and hold the Secretary of State to account.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. An academy will have total control over its curriculum and will not have to consult anyone about the subjects it teaches. While I take his point that most will want to follow the national curriculum, if an academy wanted to substitute creationism for Darwinism in its science curriculum, will it be able to do that without having to ask permission of the Secretary of State or to consult with anyone else? Is that correct?
Lord Hill of Oareford
It is not the case that the teaching of creationism in science, for example, is possible in academies because I believe that there are safeguards in place to prevent it. Further, there are various ways through the funding agreement by which one can exercise control. The basic point about freedom over the curriculum is that, through the funding agreement, academies need to provide a broad and balanced curriculum that includes English, maths and science. That is the degree of specificity over the governance.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
The Minister’s answer to his noble friend’s question is substantially right in that if a school tried to teach creationism, something would happen to prevent that. I accept that. But I thought his comments on how that would happen were interesting. He said that something in the funding agreement would stop it. I cannot imagine that a funding agreement would be drawn up merely to prevent creationism being taught in a school, which leads me to believe that the agreement also gives the Secretary of State further influence and powers over the curriculum in academies. Can he explain what those powers are and how they might be used?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The point on the funding agreement is the one that I mentioned to my noble friend Lord Willis, which is that the agreement specifies that academies will provide a broad and balanced curriculum that includes English, maths and science. I will need to follow up on the point about creationism and write to the noble Baroness explaining what the mechanism is to prevent that happening. It is prevented and I will make that clear in a letter.
On that point, I would now ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Could we all have a copy of the letter explaining how creationism is prevented being taught?
Lord Morris of Handsworth
I indicated at the outset that I support the group of amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. That was my start point. Within the context of those amendments, the points I have made refer to issues that coincide clearly with the face-to-face provisions and the provisions about experience, and so on. I am clearly satisfied in that respect.
My point here concerns the shift from the duty to provide to the duty merely to give access. There is an opportunity in the amendments for real change to improve the Bill. I support the group of amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, we know that the most important determinant of success post-16 is attainment pre-16. I start with a simple point to explain why the Government have been focusing on investment in the early years, why we have been seeking to improve the quality of new teachers, why we are bringing in reforms to the curriculum and why we have introduced the pupil premium to help to address the gap in attainment between more affluent and more disadvantaged backgrounds, which is of concern to everyone in the Committee.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I will refrain from testing noble Lords on what I said before the Division. I was merely agreeing with my noble friend—she is my friend, but not in that sense—the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in her amendments. I will say simply that parents and pupils support PSHE and that it is for the benefit of young people.
Sometimes schools provide the only source of information for young people on these issues. Parents may feel that they cannot provide it and, indeed, welcome the fact that someone else is giving their children this information. There will be more on that in a minute. Times change and the world has become increasingly complex. Years ago, who could have predicted a pandemic on the scale of HIV infection? I salute the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on his courage and determination in raising awareness of the issue—in the face of much opposition at the time—and on his continued support through his committee. I see that awareness of HIV has now dropped and that young people between the ages of 16 and 24 make up 12 per cent of all new diagnoses. That is worrying.
We should also be concerned about other health issues such as teenage pregnancy, obesity, drugs, smoking, alcohol use and so on. I have read that we are in danger of facing an obesity pandemic, largely due to inappropriate diet. But these health issues are only part of the story. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, PSHE aims to foster good relationships with friends, parents and others. It aims to increase self-awareness and self-respect through an exploration of values and aspirations. It is known that young people who have good relationships along with a strong set of values and aspirations tend to be those who do not get pregnant or take drugs, and have a more confident body image.
Teaching has come a long way. I will not regale the Minister again with the full story of my own sex education when we—the girls, that is—had to knit a uterus. I would say only that it put me off knitting. I remember—
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me. I just wanted to say that the noble Baroness did tell me the story about the knitted uterus when we completed the Academies Bill. The Bill team then kindly presented me with a knitted uterus in honour of the noble Baroness.
Baroness Benjamin
I totally agree with my noble friend Lady Walmsley and I support her amendment and the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. We need to teach our children to develop social and interpersonal skills and, most of all, to help them to understand what unconditional love is. We have talked about sex, relationships and family life, but lots of children do not know what true unconditional love is. They also need to develop a kind of strategy whereby they can think for themselves. Helping them to develop interpersonal and social skills will go a long way towards achieving that. That is what the amendment is all about.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I will not be quite as brief as the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, but I shall do my best. As she said, it has in many ways been an extremely interesting and engaging debate. At its heart, apart from a few outliers, it boils down to a judgment that one has to reach as to whether the best way forward on addressing these important issues around PSHE, which we all agree need to be addressed, is through the statutory prescriptive route or through a different approach by trying to slim down the statutory provisions and the national curriculum, and leaving more space and opportunity for more skill—words used by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth—for teachers to give children and young people the support that they need. Almost my first debates in this House just over a year ago were about PSHE and faith. Whoever said how tenacious my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—with whom I have had many discussions—have been on this subject was absolutely right.
We know that in a recent report on the subject, Ofsted found that PSHE education was good or outstanding in three-quarters of the schools visited and that pupils’ personal development was good in most schools visited and was outstanding in about one-third of the schools. However, that same report also found that there were weaknesses, particularly around sex and relationships education, and in some other areas that we need to find ways of addressing. At heart, therefore, is a generally broad agreement on the ends to which we are working but disagreement about the means.
The Government’s aim is to shrink the curriculum and to leave schools and teachers more time to decide for themselves what to teach—a point of view that received a fair amount of support from a number of noble Lords. Teachers have said that they feel that their professionalism is undermined by the overall degree of prescription to which they have been subjected. By stripping the curriculum back we want to give schools the space they need to offer a rounded education, including of course PSHE.
We know that PSHE covers a range of important areas and schools teach it in a variety of ways. It seems to me right that schools should have the discretion to teach it. They know their children. Different schools have different circumstances, and different kinds of children will need different support from their school. Ofsted has said that the most effective curriculum model seen was one in which discrete, regularly taught PSHE lessons were supplemented with cross-curricular activities. That point has also been raised. We are keen to see good practice being shared with the minority of schools that are not teaching the subject as well. Our priority should be to support schools in their efforts to do better by their pupils. That is why we are carrying out the internal review which we have heard about, which has two main objectives: to consider what should be taught; and to look at how schools can be supported to improve the quality of all PSHE teaching. That may be a new element, different from the work previously carried out by the noble Lord, Lord Knight.
I completely understand the impatience of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend to hear from the Government when this fabled review will heave into view. I have been saying for some time to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that it will be soon or shortly; I think it is very soon or very shortly, and as soon as we are there, I will of course circulate that to all Members of the Committee.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
Does the noble Lord mean that it will be finished soon, or that it will be started start soon?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I know that the noble Baroness is keen that the review should be as short as possible and that she thinks that much of what it covers has already been covered—we have had that discussion before. I hope that it will start soon, and then aim to conclude by the end of the year.
On the points made about sex and relationships education, as part of our review we will determine how we can support schools to improve the quality of their teaching in this area. As I mentioned, Ofsted’s report on the matter says that sex education is one of the weaker aspects of PSHE. This is perhaps a sign that legislation of itself is not a necessarily a guarantee of good quality teaching, since that is the part that is statutory.
On as emergency life support skills are concerned, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that equipping young people to be able to step in where lives are at stake is extremely important. I know that many schools, and organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance, do absolutely brilliant work. My own wife is a trained first-aider, something which she needs for the work she does for Riding for the Disabled; so I know how important it is. That is one reason why we are so keen to review the national curriculum: so that the statutory content will take up less of the timetable, which in turn will enable many more schools to get involved in things such as the British Heart Foundation’s Heartstart programme.
We know that there are many things—and my noble friend Lady Walmsley spoke about them with great experience and passion—that pupils need to learn about and can benefit from. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who sadly is not in his place, about the link between well-being and the ability to learn. Of course that is true, but attempting to define those things from the centre, and be prescriptive about what schools must teach, removes teachers’ and school leaders’ ability to use their professional judgment.
We had an interesting exchange about inspections. Of course the new school inspection framework will cover the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, was making a point echoed by my noble friend Lord Lucas about the frequency of inspection—we will come on to talk about that under later groups. We will also come back to discuss thematic reviews and the risk assessment process, issues mentioned by my noble friend Lady Perry of Southwark. We know that the majority of schools already deliver good PSHE education, which is not currently a statutory part of the curriculum. I agree that we need to look at how the quality of PSHE teaching can be improved and what its content should be; that is what our review will look into. I know that I will disappoint my noble friend Lady Walmsley who has clear and strong views on this, but with these comments I ask her to withdraw her amendments.
Lord Hill of Oareford
This may be a convenient point for the Committee to adjourn until Monday at 3.30 pm.
Children: Parenting
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Lord Northbourne
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they propose to accept the recommendations in the recent report by Frank Field MP on child poverty that all children should receive age-appropriate parental education in school.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, we will consider Mr Field’s recommendations as part of our review of PSHE. Evidence suggests, though, that parenting skills are best taught to parents through a mix of practical application and learning, which is likely to be more effective the closer it is to the age at which people have children. My honourable friend Sarah Teather will shortly publish a foundation years policy statement to respond to recommendations from the Field, Allen and Tickell reviews that deal with the foundation years.
Lord Northbourne
I know that the noble Lord is aware that Frank Field, in this and previous reports, carried out research in his constituency on the teaching of life skills in schools and found a widespread majority of young people in favour of such instruction. This is not necessarily a question only of parenting; I believe that Frank Field recommended life skills and parenting. Is the noble Lord prepared to institute a wider inquiry to find out what children and young people really would find helpful in life skills and parenting education?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, part of the purpose of the PSHE review to which I referred is to look at what element of the content of PSHE is most helpful to children and young people. The other part is to look at what support teachers need in order to teach these important skills to children.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and the Minister for being a bit hasty just now. Is the Minister aware that several programmes were run in schools that proved incredibly effective at, apart from anything else, ensuring that young people became parents later rather than early? If the Minister were to talk to some of those young people who had those very effective programmes, he might revise his view that it was better to leave it until they nearly were parents. This is about how young people and prospective parents begin to understand things about their own relationships and about the responsibilities that parenting brings. My experience is that when this has been done in secondary schools it has been very effective, and I hope that the Minister will look at this again.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the points that she makes, and I listen to her experience very carefully. The evidence that the department has had about later life is there, but I am not saying that to disagree with the point that what one wants ideally is a mix. That is why the PSHE review will take the views of children into account. We want to ensure that we learn those kinds of lessons and have the best possible PSHE that deals with those points.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, the Graham Allen report made clear the vital importance of the first few months, certainly up to three years, of a child’s life in brain development, personality development and so on. In the light of that, will the Minister accept that parenting education is needed before the parents are parents—that is, at school?
Lord Hill of Oareford
As I said in my earlier reply, my honourable friend Sarah Teather will respond in her early years foundation statement to the important points that have been raised. We will look at precisely these points and respond to Allen.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, does the Minister agree with the thrust of the Good Childhood report, published by the Children’s Society a couple of years ago when I was chair, that argued that if PSHE education is to be undertaken in schools it is absolutely vital that it is undertaken by properly trained and qualified teachers who have as much experience and qualification as in other major subjects?
Lord Hill of Oareford
Yes, my Lords, I take that point. The right reverend Prelate will know of the Ofsted report that referred to three-quarters of PSHE education in schools being good or outstanding, but it also pointed out that there were some other areas of weakness. As I have already said, part of the review that the department will carry out, which I hope will benefit from the views of outside and expert opinion, is precisely to look at the kind of support that needs to be provided to help teachers provide good quality PSHE.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that in the past two years the number of children before the courts has doubled, that the number of children in care is increasing and that the accommodation and opportunities for children in care are decreasing. With that scenario in mind, what else does he hope to do to ensure that children from poor families, whose choices will be even more limited, get the education that they need so that they do not repeat that cycle?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, there is a range of measures that the Government need to take, starting with our response to the early years, which will be coming shortly, the provision of the 15-hour free entitlement to two year-olds, the increase of that to 15 hours for three and four year-olds and the introduction of the pupil premium. Then there is what we can do to raise standards in our schools, which is clearly vital because we know the connection between failure at school, illiteracy and life going off the rails. There is a range of measures that we need to take across the board.
Education Bill
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, will the Minister clarify one further point? There is concern that the Government imposed a freeze on recruitment for a period, which may have contributed to some of the applicants becoming disillusioned and choosing not to apply to teacher training. I would appreciate it if he could tell me whether that is correct.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I have never been accused of being Maoist and believing in permanent revolution before. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, I do not come to bury marketing but to praise it. I agree with a lot of his points about marketing and why one needs to have professional marketing. I know how much he did and I know the good job that the TDA has done. That is not in dispute and I completely accept that it has played a valuable part in raising the quality of our workforce, as many noble Lords have said.
Given my praise for the work that it has done, the question that may follow is: why are we proposing to bring those functions into the department? In a way, that links to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. It is to increase accountability. I accept the noble Lord’s point that one of the consequences of bringing things closer to home is that Ministers will have accountability. If in the new arrangements the success of recruiting teachers is less than it has been before, that will be clear to see and it is clear whose responsibility that is. That is what lies behind the move and across the piece; namely, to deliver services, to increase accountability to Parliament and, by bringing services together, to make savings with back-office functions.
We are intending to transfer the key functions of the TDA, including recruitment and the promotion of teaching as a career, to the new executive agency, the Teaching Agency. It will continue to have the lead role in marketing, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred, the opportunities and attractions of teaching. We want to retain the expertise that exists to carry out that role. We in many cases, would want the roles and the people currently performing them to carry on at the agency. One would not want to lose that professionalism, to which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, rightly referred.
The noble Lord and the noble Earl asked questions about the marketing freeze across government. As we know, there was a freeze in marketing as we tried to get on top of the huge ballooning of expenditure on marketing in recent years. We have managed to save many hundreds of millions of pounds across government by doing that, which was a necessary step. In response to the noble Earl, I am glad to say that that freeze having happened, things have picked up. We are back to where we would have wanted to be. As regards acceptances, the proportion of places filled is in line with previous years. In fact, I am told that we are doing a little better in physics and maths than we were last year, but we obviously have to keep going.
The coalition Government set out in our Programme for Government our commitment to reduce the number and cost of arm’s-length bodies. The Cabinet Office set out the criteria to test when it is right to have an arm’s-length body performing functions and whether a body should continue to exist. When we made that decision, we discussed our intention with a range of interested groups, including teacher and head teacher unions. On the point raised by the noble Earl about the advisory board for the new Teaching Agency, as we said last week when we were discussing another body, we need to have arrangements in place so that the Teaching Agency can benefit from the knowledge and views of a wide range of interested parties. We want to put such arrangements in place. The Teaching Agency will be bringing in functions from four different existing organisations and we want to ensure that we get advice in relation to all the functions of the new agency. Any new group that we set up will have to ensure that it has appropriate representation across all the areas of interest of the new agency.
It might be that an advisory board of the sort suggested by the noble Earl will be what we eventually decide to have, but, as regards his amendment, it would be premature to restrict ourselves to a particular mechanism before we have had a chance to develop further the way in which the new Teaching Agency will operate. However, we will look to the boards of the four existing organisations, the GTCE, the CWDC, the QCDA and the TDA, to offer their views on what may provide the best way forward.
I accept the force of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about the importance of marketing. I have given my background in this funny world. He would not expect me to be a luddite on that issue. I accept the need for the provision to continue and to be delivered professionally. By bringing it in-house, we will have a cost-effective, streamlined and professional organisation. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, just before he does, I thank the Minister for his reply, particularly for what he said about an advisory group in relation to the new arrangements. I hope your Lordships will agree that the meeting last week with Charlie Taylor was a success. Certainly, the group I was with was impressed by the Government’s choice of adviser. I have met Bernadette Cunningham, who the Government have chosen to advise them on early years care. Her work with the Coram Family is well respected. Therefore, the Government’s track record in choosing advisers is a very good one so far.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I hesitate to speak, but the amendments raise very important issues about the teaching profession and the future professionalism of teaching. Will the Minister keep in mind what happened to social work? At one time it was a highly respected profession with high thresholds of entry, but those thresholds were lowered for various reasons. A short while ago one could get on to a social work course with a couple of Ds as qualification. The result has been a highly variable quality in social workers.
While I wish to be as flexible as possible to recruit the right people into teaching, it would be a backward step if we were to lower standards trying to do so. I look to the Minister for reassurance that that will not happen.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this is a timely debate—only the week before last the department published its strategy for initial teacher training. That set out a vision for raising the quality of teachers, which I hope will address some of the concerns of my noble friend Lord Willis about how we might move forward. It also set out our plans to give schools more involvement in training. The reason for that is that schools are employers of teachers as well as places where trainees can learn from outstanding teachers. So we are keen that schools should form an important part of the mix of our system for recruiting and training new teachers. In saying that, and responding to my noble friend Lady Brinton, I assure noble Lords that the Government’s intention is certainly not to remove universities from teacher training. As the Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers document says:
“There is an important role for universities in any future ITT system. They provide trainees with a solid grounding in teaching, and space to reflect on their school experiences”.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, a Division has been called. The Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Lord Hill of Oareford
As I was saying, the Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers document says:
“There is an important role for universities in any future ITT system. They provide trainees with a solid grounding in teaching, and space to reflect on their school experiences. We expect universities to continue to be involved in most teacher training, responding to the demands of schools for high quality training to supplement school-based practical experience”.
Our proposals for teacher training are part of our broader efforts to put schools at the heart of our drive to improve educational standards. In most cases, we expect this to be in strong partnerships with successful universities and we have set out a series of proposals to achieve this. The Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, whose members are universities that provide teacher training, has welcomed the publication of the Government’s strategy.
My noble friend Lady Brinton asked for reassurance on a couple of points. First, do all new teachers need to be graduates? The answer to that is yes. Undergraduates can gain a degree through their course and other trainees must hold a degree before entering ITT. Her second question was about accredited ITT providers and the Quality Assurance Agency process. ITT providers that are HE institutions will be covered by these arrangements and be accredited by the TDA and, in future, by the Teaching Agency. As now, school-based ITT is also accredited by the TDA. Both are inspected by Ofsted.
On the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, our proposals for teacher training will ensure that teachers have practical teacher training experience of supporting pupils with additional needs, including SEN. Indeed, we want there to be a stronger focus on support for children with special educational needs. Initial teacher training courses that prepare trainees to meet the qualified teacher status standards currently ensure that teachers are able to differentiate their teaching to meet the needs of each pupil, including those with special educational needs. The White Paper stated that the revised standards should, among other things, provide a stronger focus on responding to pupils with additional needs, including those with special educational needs. An interim report of that review is expected to be submitted in the coming week.
In addition, our Green Paper sets out a range of measures designed to enhance the knowledge, skills and understanding of teachers in relation to teaching children with special educational needs and disabilities. These include: making it easier for more trainees to conduct some, though not all, of their training placements in special settings, including special schools and mainstream schools with specially resourced SEN provision; commissioning a range of free training resources for serving teachers to support children with a range of specific special educational needs; funding a scholarship for teachers’ higher-level professional development to improve their practice, where half of the funding available will be for supporting disabled children and children with special educational needs; and ensuring that networks of new teaching schools will help schools to share practice and resources in meeting the needs of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
I am grateful for the Minister’s patience with me. I am interested in his view of the bachelor of education. Having a training over years rather than a single year or—in the case of Teach First, of which I am an enthusiast—a few weeks, allows, particularly primary school teachers, not only training across the range of subjects that are taught in primary schools, but to drill down in more detail into special educational needs. The feeling out there is that the Government are not as keen on the bachelor of education as postgraduate routes from other subjects. Can the Minister give us some reassurance on that from the Dispatch Box?
Lord Hill of Oareford
As the noble Lord knows, we are keen to encourage people into teaching via a variety of routes, whether through Teach First or through PGCE. In due course, if we can, we want to build on initiatives such as Teach First to see if we can get people who have been successful in other professions to come into teaching. We are keen to make sure that there is a variety of ways. It is true that in terms of the financial support which we announced in the initial teacher training strategy that we published a couple of weeks ago, the focus of the funding that we are making available is on those who have high-quality university degrees in shortage subjects. However, we want to see a range of provision.
I have already written to a number of noble Lords who spoke at Second Reading about teacher training to draw their attention to the publication of our strategy and to invite them to meet the Minister of State for Schools. As the document we published is a discussion document rather than a statement of final policy, I encourage noble Lords with an interest to read it and to let us know what they think. I would be very happy for those who have an interest—I am thinking of my noble friend Lady Brinton and, given his remarks, probably my noble friend Lord Willis as well—to organise a meeting with the Minister of State with responsibility for these important areas so that we can discuss this further with him.
I hope that I have been able to reassure my noble friend Lady Brinton about our continued commitment to high-quality teacher training and the essential role of universities. I also hope that given the range of measures which we are planning to put in place in relation to special educational needs, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, will agree that we do not need this prescription. I ask my noble friend Lady Brinton to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, have both spoken cogently and persuasively about the importance of school support staff. I hope there is no one in this room who does not recognise the immensely important job they do and the status they have within every school. However, this clause and these amendments are not about the status, standing and job descriptions of support staff—they are simply about their national negotiating body. Although I have listened carefully to what has been said, I have not heard anything which has convinced me that the national negotiating body over pay and conditions is anything to do with the standing and status within individual schools of the splendid support staff who work there.
I strongly argue that each school has—and has a right—to develop the individual job descriptions, relationships and the jobs assigned to their support staff. Every school has its own requirements and needs, and it deploys its staff and support staff in ways that meet those needs. I believe it gives greater status to the support staff when they have a position within the school, which is recognised within the school and has been negotiated within the school, and a job which is assigned to them. So although I endorse entirely everything that has been said about the importance of support staff, I have heard nothing that convinces me concerning the national negotiating body over pay and conditions. Though of course such bodies are dear to trade unionists—you have more clout as a trade union if you have a national negotiating body—this only damages the trade union body which supported it. It does not damage the standing and status of individual support staff in individual schools.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, it is clear that everyone is agreed on the important contribution that school support staff make, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, my noble friend Lady Perry and others. Whether we are talking about teaching assistants, caretakers or catering staff, schools cannot function without them. That is not at issue, nor is it at issue how much we value them. The question is whether, like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, we think there needs to be a single national pay and conditions framework backed up by statute or whether, as my noble friend Lady Perry argued, employers should be able to continue setting local pay more flexibly to account for local conditions. As the noble Baroness would expect, the Government favour greater local autonomy and flexibility because we know that is a feature of the most successful school systems in the world.
Let me give one concrete example. The first matters on which the SSSNB was working to reach agreement would have been a set of national role profiles and an associated job evaluation scheme. To implement the scheme would have required every one of more than 500,000 school support staff in England to have their roles re-evaluated. According to the impact assessment for the ASCL Bill this would require in excess of 200,000 hours of time from head teachers or senior leadership.
There is already a national framework in place in relation to pay and conditions for the majority of support staff working in community and voluntary-controlled schools in the form of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services agreement. It is a voluntary agreement known as the Green Book. It was negotiated by the local government employers, UNISON, GMB and Unite and is used by all except three local authorities. In making our decision to end the SSSNB, we asked the views of those most closely involved—its membership, which includes trade unions and employers—and its independent chair. The trade unions were in favour of retaining the SSSNB but the support staff employer organisations took a different view. The local government group, which incorporates the Local Government Association and draws its members from Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and independent political parties, reaffirmed those views recently to the Minister of State for schools.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley argued for a delay to the abolition of the SSSNB, arguing that it should have an opportunity to complete its work and be judged on that basis. Certainly we would be happy for the SSSNB member organisations to decide to work together independently of government to complete the work on the job role profiles. I believe that that is being considered by trade unions and the employers. However, we want to allow schools and local authorities to choose whether to use the materials being developed rather than being required to do so by law.
I believe that the Government’s decision is not based on a premature judgment of the quality of the work of the SSSNB. It is based rather on our view that schools should have greater rather than less autonomy in matters of staffing. Given that, I fear that delaying the abolition would leave the SSSNB member organisations working in vain on a framework that the Government would not in the end support and that employers have made clear that they do not want.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Perhaps I may respond to that point because we want to get on. We are proposing the perpetuation of the current situation. The people who are currently responsible, the local authorities and other bodies, would continue as now to be responsible. The legislative regulatory framework in terms of employment law, equality law and everything else remains in place. It is not the case that the proposed abolition of the SSSNB would change what we currently have going on. The change would have been if the SSSNB had gone ahead.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
With the change in role and the scope of responsibility being exercised by the local authority being radically revised, it will not be the same local authority that we will have to deal with and to which we will have to look. Where I live, we now have other bodies providing what has been provided in the past. Consequently, it is not just a return to the status quo. If this Bill goes through, the status quo is no more. In fact, it is not a status quo at all.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Yes. We will be seeing an update of this going on the whole time and, to my mind, it could not be a more important age group or area so I hope that the spirit of what my noble friend's amendment stresses will be very much borne in mind.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, like the noble Earl, we are committed to a diverse and high-quality early years sector. The department will be publishing its foundation years policy statement later this summer and, as we discussed earlier today, it is currently consulting on a revised EYFS framework following Dame Clare’s review, which will set out our proposals to build on existing requirements relating to qualifications and training for childcare providers. The early years foundation stage, we think, outlines staff qualification requirements that are proportionate and encourage suitably qualified staff into the early years sector. Nursery managers, for example, require at least a full and relevant level 3 qualification, equivalent to A-level, and at least two years’ experience of managing an early years setting or other suitable experience of working with children. We have seen steady progress in recent years in the skills of the early education and childcare workforce, with over 70 per cent now qualified to level 3.
In her report, however, Dame Clare Tickell noted the need to reduce the complexity and burdens of the existing framework, and to recognise the sector’s growing capacity to take on more responsibility for its own quality and standards. It is ultimately employers who have the strongest interest in ensuring the best possible skills and qualifications among their staff and in ensuring that the most effective arrangements are in place. I am sure that many noble Lords would agree that improving the quality of early education and childcare is not just about the level of staff qualifications because it is also supported by the wealth of dedicated, experienced staff in the sector with on-the-job experience, which in some roles can be as important as formal qualifications.
Lord McAvoy
I hear what my noble friend said. She is a very formidable person and I have some trepidation in having a difference of opinion with her. Nevertheless, I remind her in all benevolence and kindness that she used the expression “indoctrination” in the same context as faith schools. A lot of people would take exception to that. I certainly take exception to that because I do not believe that faith schools indoctrinate. I doubt that a faith school, irrespective of whether it is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist, would accept that it should have a curriculum and teach no faith. I can give an example of that because faith schools were mentioned by the mover of the amendment. In Scotland, in one of the biggest Roman Catholic schools I am told that between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the school population are Muslim children because it is a part of Glasgow where there is a high Muslim population. It seems to me that there is no indoctrination going on there. In my opinion, and I am entitled to put my point of view, this amendment would impose restrictions on faith schools and limit their ability to tailor their curriculum, not to tamper with the core curriculum or to ignore it, but to build their curriculum around their faith and ethos. I oppose the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I will be brief in my response as I am very conscious that there are a number of noble Lords waiting to move amendments. The issue at heart in this typically wide-ranging and thought-provoking debate is quite simple and is one that we have debated many times before; namely, what is the proper amount of prescription that there should be? It does not follow that the only way to demonstrate the value of a subject is that it should be in the national curriculum. Not everything needs to be in it to show its worth. I agree very much with the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made at the beginning about the importance of art, music and sport. I agree with her wholeheartedly on that. It is obviously the case that maintained schools, CTCs and academies are required by law or through their funding agreements to provide a broad and balanced curriculum. I would not want schools to provide a narrow education.
I do not agree with the criticisms of the EBacc as a narrowing measure. As noble Lords know, what is driving us on the EBacc is the simple fact that at the moment 4 per cent of children on free school meals have those EBacc subject qualifications, which are the qualifications most likely to get them to a top university. It is about trying to redress the balance and give some of those children more of a chance. It is not about wanting to narrow the range of subjects that people have. As the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, pointed out most forcefully, and my noble friend Lord Baker also made the point, over the years, the national curriculum has come to cover more and more subjects, to prescribe more and more outcomes and to take up more and more school time. We want to move away from that approach to give teachers greater freedom to design a curriculum that meets the needs of their pupils, which is why we are reviewing the national curriculum to ensure that in future it does not absorb the overwhelming majority of teaching time in schools and provides more space. Then the important subjects that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, talked about will have more time and space to be delivered in the appropriate way by the staff who know their pupils in their schools. There is an important distinction to be made between the national curriculum and the wider school curriculum. We want to get away from the approach that just because a topic or subject is important, it has to be specified in the national curriculum, or that because it is not in the national curriculum, that means that it is not important or should not be taught. Neither of those positions is true.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, asked specifically about the national curriculum. It might be helpful if I reply briefly. However, if I can let her have a fuller reply on where we have got to with the national curriculum review and on some of her questions about the terms of reference—where we have got to and how we are going forward—which we can circulate more widely, I shall do so. In essence, it is being conducted in two phases. The first phase is drafting new programmes of study for English, maths, science and PE, which we have confirmed will remain statutory in maintained schools at all four key stages. I think that that was the assurance that my noble friend Lord Moynihan was seeking. This first phase is also considering which other subjects, if any, should be part of the national curriculum in future and at which key stages. We expect to announce our proposals from this phase early next year. Then they will follow a full public consultation on those proposals.
In the second phase, we will consider the content and design of the programmes of study for any other subjects that are to remain within the national curriculum and whether non-statutory guidance should be produced to support the continued teaching of any other subjects or topics. We are being advised by an expert panel as well as by an advisory committee consisting mainly of successful head teachers and including representation from higher education and employers. The terms of reference which the noble Baroness asked for are on our website, but I will send them to her. I hope that soon—she will know this because we have discussed it over many months—I will be able to let her have the remit of the PSHE review, which she also asked me about.
We have spoken briefly about sport. She asked me specifically about the Chance to Shine initiative. Over the period 2009-13, the ECB is receiving £38 million from Sport England to support its whole sport plan, of which £7.2 million is being invested directly into Chance to Shine, which I think is a small increase.
We had a brief conversation about Singapore and what it can teach us. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, it is the case that life skills are taught. As it happens, it also does the equivalent of the EBacc, which suggests that these things are not incompatible and which is where we want to be. That is all I want to say in response. We will come back to some of these other issues in further groups, which will raise important issues. But, at heart, it is our view that boiling down what is in the national curriculum—providing more space, being less prescriptive and looking to professionals who know more about what they are doing in the classroom than do Ministers—is the right way forward. With that, I would ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I thank the Minister for that sympathetic reply and for his assurance that he will send me the terms of reference on the progress of the curriculum and PSHE. I also thank all noble Lords for taking part in that very impassioned—I am glad that it was impassioned—debate because it is important. I am really glad that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said that it was about time that we talked about the curriculum and I agree with everything he says about school and the age of 14. I have no problem with that. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, mentioned the sort of potpourri curriculum. That is not what I intend. Many of the things mentioned will be included in PSHE, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I have talked many times.
I really fear that schools might end up teaching to achieve good test results, as some do now, and will exclude some subjects because they want to give more time to getting good results, a good place in the league tables and so on. My fear is that if we disengage pupils and disengage them from the curriculum, that can result in exclusion from school and from life chances. I of course agree that the core subjects are essential and that if they are well taught that is absolutely wonderful. A close relative of mine used to truant for all lessons except English because there was a wonderful teacher who taught literature supremely well, including Shakespeare. For the rest of the time, my close relative went fishing, which I think is a sitting-down sport. Is it a sport at all? I do not know.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday at 3.45 pm.
Lord Elton
My Lords, perhaps I may make an observation, and a plea. We have heard some fascinating speeches today but some of them are really outwith the bounds of what a Committee is for. We are here to advise the Minister on what is possible within the boundaries of the Bill. The great flights of empire building and hope that we were led into, and greatly enjoyed, begin to threaten, I fear, another day or two off our recess. So I do hope that your Lordships will exercise some restraint.
Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I think that the aspiration behind these amendments is to be applauded. The hours that might or might not be available are more of a problem. Whether there should be some tinkering with the hours required must be a matter for more careful thought on Report. Certainly, I am intrigued by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and there is a lot to be said for it.
We have got quite a lot of flexibility in how academies will develop. Whether there is room for this in the new schools, I do not know. At one of the schools I was at, the Fleming report approach worked extraordinarily well. There was no question of other students knowing about it at all. Everyone was very much on a par and no one knew who was entering in that way and who was not.
My question for the Minister is: who is in charge and are they sufficiently qualified to teach those who are being educated in prisons—young offenders and so on? There is a great deal of young offender education, which I know the Government want to put on a much more comprehensive basis and for many more hours. Under those circumstances, it would be good to know whether any of these amendments might apply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising the issue of teacher quality and continuing professional development. We have heard that evidence from practitioners—which can be supported, as if that were needed, by a study by McKinsey—has found that the most successful education systems are characterised by strong systems of professional development, high levels of lesson observation, as the noble Earl argued, and continuing performance management. Also understood is the importance of teachers learning from the best and applying appropriate changes to their own teaching practice. Our approach to CPD and leadership training for teachers is based on that evidence. We are keen to improve the capacity of schools to take the lead for the training and development of teachers, and to create more opportunities for peer-to-peer training.
A key part of our overall proposals is the creation of a new network of teaching schools. This will help give outstanding schools the role of leading the training and professional development of teachers and head teachers so that all schools have access to high-quality professional and leadership development. We have also set up an independent review of teacher standards led by outstanding head teachers and teachers, whom we have asked to recommend to us new standards of competence and conduct for teachers. We hope that these standards will underpin our proposed reformed performance management system to make it easier for teachers to identify their development needs. The terms of reference for the standards review specifically require the standards to include the management of poor behaviour.
The noble Earl also suggested that teachers should have to be qualified in child development and behaviour management. I completely agree that these issues are of the utmost importance. Those points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, and by my noble friend Lord Elton. Training in relation to these issues is already included in all initial teacher training and trainees must demonstrate their knowledge and skills in these areas in order to attain qualified teacher status. However, I was struck by the points made by my noble friend and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and I will follow up those points with my honourable friend Mr Gibb, who is the Minister responsible for this area. I hope that the noble Earl will also be pleased to know that the Training and Development Agency for Schools has recently developed and put in place a package of support to improve training in behaviour management for all teachers.
The noble Earl also raised the important question of classroom observation. Again, I agree with him—as I think do all noble Lords—about the importance of that. We are keen to encourage more teachers to take part in school-based collaborative and peer-to-peer professional development and to get feedback on their own practice. That is one of the reasons why we are taking steps to remove the so-called three-hour limit that the current performance management regulations place on the amount of time that a teacher can be observed. I know that these are probing amendments but, as regards some of the specific suggestions, I agree with the points made by a number of noble Lords that a requirement to undertake a minimum amount of 50 hours of CPD is not the route down which we want to go, but I know that he was seeking to elucidate the broader points.
My noble friend Lord Lexden raised the important issue of partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. I am sure that we can all think of lots of examples where that is going on. I agree with him that it would be good to see even more of that. We are working with groups in the independent sector such as the Independent Schools Council and the independent state school partnership forum to explore how we can get more partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. As he said, schools from the independent sector can apply for teaching school designation. I think that three independent schools have already made such an application.
It is also the case that independent schools can apply to the education endowment fund that helps support new approaches to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in maintained schools that are below the floor standard. I hope that will be another area that will please my noble friend, as we are trying to build closer relationships and break down some of these barriers that have divided the sectors. As regards his specific amendment, however, he may not be completely surprised to discover that a statutory and particularly prescriptive approach is not one to which I am attracted. However, I would certainly be very keen to do all that I can to bring the two sectors together.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about the quality of offenders’ education. I am afraid that I am not able to reply to her specific points but I will follow that up with the Ministry of Justice to see whether we can get her an answer on those.
There is clearly broad agreement that raising the quality of teaching is important. I hope that I have reassured the noble Earl that there are plans in place to improve this aspect of the education system. We are keen to raise teacher quality by creating the conditions in which schools and teachers take responsibility for driving their own improvement, as has been discussed. In thanking the noble Earl very much for—
Baroness Morris of Yardley
Perhaps I might ask one brief question about the second part of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. If my reading is right, teachers in the independent sector would have access to training on the same terms as those in the state sector, which would mean that the state would pay for their professional development, or at least some elements of it. The two of us have had discussions about this over the past 15 years. I would be surprised if the Minister responded positively, but the fact that he has not responded at all has left a question mark in my mind about his views.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My view is that independent schools are independent, and I would not look to the taxpayer to pick up the tab. That is my reaction off the top of my head. It is probably the answer that the noble Baroness hoped for, even if I have disappointed my noble friend Lord Lexden. Some noble Lords will know that I am a great supporter of the independent sector, but the word “independent” is important in that regard.
I thank the noble Earl for giving us the chance to have this debate and ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very encouraged by what my noble friend said in response to the amendments. Perhaps I may pick him up on a couple of points. He said some good things about the integration of the independent and state school sectors. Will he confirm that there is no longer any consideration of the idea of excluding teachers in independent schools from the main state teachers’ pension fund, which would make migration between the two sectors extremely difficult?
Secondly, there has been a history of initiatives, of which teaching schools is the latest, intended to develop and spread good practice. In my view such initiatives have always foundered on the lack of information flow between good schools and schools that need good advice. I will not detain the Committee with ideas on how that might be improved, but when the Minister is no longer under so much pressure, perhaps I might try to persuade him that the Government have a role in helping to set up structures to enable information to flow better than it does.
Lord Elton
Very well. I would be grateful if my noble friend would turn his mind again to the question of the integration of the independent and state sectors, and co-operation between the two. I take it that there would be no philosophical objection to the private sector buying into the provision of these facilities, which he rightly says should not be given away free.
The Earl of Listowel
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, reminds me of a meeting that I had with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and some head teachers a year or so ago. One subject that came up was mentoring. I am not sure whether it was the mentoring of newly qualified teachers or teachers in initial training. The head teachers were making the point to us that it is very important that the quality of their mentors is right. I forget the gradations, but perhaps they are outstanding, good and satisfactory teachers. The head teachers regretted the fact that sometimes teachers in initial training might be given just a satisfactory mentor when they should have a good or outstanding mentor. They may have been saying that they should have outstanding mentors all the time. Perhaps the Minister will bear that in mind. One way to improve outcomes in this area might be to ensure, more consistently, that the mentors are of the highest standard for people in initial training or their first year.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, as was clear in the previous group of amendments, I very much agree with my noble friend Lady Perry that we have to encourage the best teachers into the profession and support their professional development. I understand that the intention of her amendment is to ensure that only those teachers who are good enough to pass the induction should become full members of the teaching profession. I support that aim.
We have talked a little about the numbers. The figure of 15 is the correct figure but in response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, in terms of managed moves the figure is something like 10 per cent. That lends some credence to the point of the noble Baroness. Part of the process is that people drop out—the 15 who do not make it—but there are others who do not make it in a less apparent way.
Perhaps I can briefly set out the current arrangements for induction, although I thought that my noble friend Lord Storey gave some helpful observations on that. As he said, each NQT is provided with a tutor who is an experienced qualified teacher and their role is to mentor the NQT on a day-to-day basis, to observe their teaching practice throughout the year and to give them feedback. They contribute to formal assessments of NQTs, which take place each term. At the end of the year the NQT is judged on whether they have met the required standard to become a full member of the teaching profession. Schools do not make that final judgment; they have to work with the independent appropriate body, which has overall responsibility for ensuring that the induction is fair and rigorous and that the NQT gets the appropriate support. It can visit the school, speak to the head teacher and to NQTs to check up on progress. The independent appropriate body makes the final decision on whether the required standards are met, based on the assessments that have taken place over the year and the recommendation of the head teacher.
Arguably, no set of arrangements is absolutely perfect. We are currently looking at induction and, if my noble friend has any individual cases of appropriate bodies not maintaining the required standards, I would be keen to meet her to discuss the issue further. In any case, it might be helpful if I could arrange a meeting for her with the Schools Minister with responsibility for this area just so that we can tease out some of these issues a bit further.
Induction arrangements are just one element of the Government’s overall reforms, the key aim of which is to raise the quality of new entrants by toughening entry requirements and by investing more in attracting the best graduates. We hope that that will improve the quality of NQTs entering induction in the first place, which seems to me to be the key issue. I believe that, taken together, our reforms are more likely to achieve the increase in quality that we all seek than would be achieved by the introduction of a new check—to check the checkers, as it were—into arrangements that already feature an independent appropriate body. However, I understand the points that my noble friend made and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the matter further by asking that she raise her concerns with the appropriate Minister. On that basis, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, would he accept that there is a difference between a system in which, by and large, those who make the assessment—that is, the referees—are either coaches or mentors or colleagues and a system in which the independent referee is not also a coach? The difficulty in that relationship is, I think, the point of the amendment.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I, too, apologise for intervening at this point, but there is one issue on which I would be grateful to have a little bit of clarification. My noble friend the Minister talked about the substantial changes that are being made in teacher training provision. The biggest change is the switch from training teachers in ITT settings, within a higher education environment, to training teachers within schools. Am I right in thinking that there is no legislation—certainly there is nothing in the Bill—that covers that change? Does it require legislation?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I do not believe that legislation is required for that, but we will come on to that issue in a later group, where we have some specific amendments on the role of the HEIs.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his characteristically generous response and for his understanding of the point that is being made. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for making the point that I was trying to make, which is that those who have been colleagues, coaches and mentors—and all the other good things that we must have during induction—are not the best people to make a final, and perhaps rather harsh, judgment at the end of the induction. I feel that having an independent judgment is important.
However, in view of the Minister’s generous response to have further discussions, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I shall try to pull together some of the strands from this extremely good and thought-provoking debate. I fully accept that these are not simple issues. I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, approaches this matter from a slightly different point of view from the generality of the Committee, with her concern for the children involved, whereas generally there was acceptance of the principle that one needs to protect teachers in schools. However, the debate concerns whether one should extend that further. I recognise noble Lords’ concerns, some of which were raised by my noble friend Lord Black, which we shall discuss in more detail when we consider amendments in the next group in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips.
I accept that the reporting restrictions introduced by the clause interfere with rights to freedom of expression. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, made this point. I think all noble Lords agree that any such interference would need to be carefully targeted, proportionate and justified. Teachers already have legal remedies if they are the victims of libel and defamation, as we all do, but those remedies are available only once the damage is done. My noble friend Lord Black raised that point.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
First, my Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for giving me an annotated photocopy last week of his proposals because it enabled me to work my way through them and really think about them. Having done so, if we are to have legislation of this form then the amendments that he has put forward and the powerful arguments he has made from his own experience are compelling. However, I want to draw the Minister's attention to Amendment 73HB, which would delete that phrase in subsection (5) where the court, in thinking about “dispensing with the restrictions”, can have,
“regard to the welfare of the person who is the subject of the allegation”.
That was picked up by a number of Members here. In our debate on the previous group, we were concerned that the Government were considering teachers, and only teachers, and not other professional groups. For this phrase to be included in the legislation is so illuminating. It speaks volumes to me of the mindset with which the Government have approached this issue. Again, we see the Government thinking of only the teacher vis-à-vis, in this situation, the child. That is so disturbing and demonstrates their tunnel vision approach to this whole issue. I hope that they will take this whole matter away and think again.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I know that my noble friend Lord Phillips is always helpful, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, because I benefited from his advice when I stumbled into this House last year on the Academies Bill. I was grateful for his help and advice on that, as I am sure I will be on this Bill. I know that my noble friend is always helpful.
The final point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, implied that the Government care less about children than they do about teachers. She did not put it in those words but there was that sense in the way in which she described the mindset of wanting to think about teachers before thinking about children. I am sure that the noble Baroness accepts that in a whole range of other ways the Government are demonstrating their commitment to thinking about children. But we certainly want to make sure that the interests of teachers are taken fully into account and that, in making sure that absolutely the right balance is struck between the interests of the children and the interests of the teachers, the interests of the teachers weigh properly in the balance. That lies behind a whole range of measures we are taking where the Government feel that there are ways that one can demonstrate that support to teachers.
This group of amendments and our very good debate have echoes of the previous debate. My noble friend Lady Walmsley rightly makes the point about trying to strike a balance. We have tried to draft Clause 13 so that there is clarity about when reporting restrictions commence and when they are lifted. We are keen to try to keep that. The provisions are about protecting teachers, but I understand that there may be cases where there should be balance with other matters in the public interest and the courts will be required to strike that balance when considering dispensing with these restrictions.
We have had a fair discussion about Amendment 73HB and the suggestion that under the clause as drafted it looks as though the teacher’s welfare is represented as the overriding consideration. It is true that the provision requires the court explicitly to have regard to the likely effect of publication on the teacher. The interests of other parties will also be taken into consideration by the court when considering what is in the interests of justice. But I take the point made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Hughes, my noble friend Lord Phillips and others. I will try to rattle through some responses to some of his amendments because I hope that we can allay some of his concerns. But, clearly, with a couple of them, I should like to sit down with him and make sure that we have got the balance right in the drafting to make sure that we do not inadvertently open up some of the concerns that he raises.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, perhaps I may pick up on what my noble friend said about private conversations not being included. I entirely understand that, but I do not understand where the Government think the border is in modern social media between private and public. Does he agree that Twitter is at all times public but that Facebook is a pretty difficult area? Kids these days communicate over Facebook in the way that we use e-mail. Communication between children talking about a particular allegation and saying, “Has this happened to you?” or “Have you seen anything like that?” will take place in an environment that might be considered public even though the kids will see it in the same way that we see e-mail. Will the noble Lord say which bits of the social media are public and which are private for the purposes of the Bill?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I will have a go, and if I need to follow up subsequently, I will. We have made it clear that an offence is committed not only when somebody publishes an article or broadcasts a programme in the traditional media, but when somebody posts an allegation on the internet, even anonymously. I recognise, as the noble Lord pointed out, some of the practical challenges posed by investigating the source of allegations on the internet, with which we are all familiar: but that is the intent. It will not affect private conversations, including via e-mail or text. However, where such communications constitute a publication—this is the definition in the clause, which I am sure we can have some fun with—by being addressed to the public at large, or to any section of the public, we propose that reporting restrictions will apply.
Baroness Walmsley
Will a private letter from the parent of one child to the parent of another child in the class be regarded as a publication, or will that be private?
Lord Knight of Weymouth
The issue of Facebook is challenging, because it is possible to establish closed groups within Facebook, which people can join only if they are invited. You would not regard those as public because you are there only by invitation. However, once you are in the group, things can be said. Where would that sit?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am not answering. I cannot respond to the speaker. We want to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his, as usual, careful and considerate reply. There are a lot of very difficult technical issues involved in that group of amendments. I welcome his invitation to talk about them outside this Committee Room, and I will certainly do that.
I want to refer to only one of his answers particularly, because I am wholly, as opposed to partly, unsatisfied by what he said as regards Amendment 73HJ. The Minister’s claim was that one could get a parent who wanted to start a vindictive campaign against a teacher. I think that is at the far end of speculative possibility, not least because a parent who did that would be in direct danger of libel proceedings by the teacher concerned. One might argue that teachers do not do that, but I have acted for a few people who have done that and have prospered from doing something to recover their reputations. Anyway, we shall talk about that when the time comes.
The only other thing I would say is that I am most grateful to the other Members of the Committee for their extremely wise and informative contributions to this mini debate and I note that not a single person opposed the amendments. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, will sleep on that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, I will delay the Committee for just one minute. I originally raised these matters at Second Reading and I wanted to say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who has made a compelling and overpowering case. I am also mindful of the remarks that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, made earlier about the work of the NSPCC, Childline and others involved in this area.
During our debate in Committee on Monday, I was struck by something that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said. He said that,
“the fact that these people are young children does not mean that they have no human rights. None of us would tolerate being treated in this way on anything else that we encountered as adults. Whatever was going on, and if we were doing something wrong, we would certainly expect to be dealt with with due process and the right of appeal against anything that was relevant”.—[Official Report, 4/7/11; col. GC 8.]
To sum up, my main concern with this clause is that what we are doing—this is the real mischief of this clause—is removing from vulnerable children the right that every other citizen in the country enjoys, which is to publicise a grievance or complaint. We should be very clear about that. We are saying to children—this is where the work of the NSPCC and others has been so important in previous years—“Unlike any other group in society, your complaints are treated as false until a charge is made”. I do not believe that that is what the Government want. I support the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I will also be brief as we have already rehearsed many of the arguments this afternoon, so I will not detain the Committee for long. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, referred to assembling the information that we have. We will, of course, do that although some of it is slightly harder to come by, given its nature.
We have moved a long way in the course of the afternoon—this often happens in your Lordships' House—from the views that have been expressed to us all by the unions and by teachers. Some of their figures as regards the scale of false allegations are so high that I do not believe them in the sense that this is the sort of story that people relate to other people and so it spreads. Like me, the noble Baroness will have seen survey research which shows that 50 per cent of teachers claim to know someone who has been the subject of false allegations. That seems to me a suspiciously high and precise figure. One should not suggest that there is not a problem that needs to be addressed or that a consequence of this measure is that child protection and safeguarding will be weakened.
I support the great British media but arguments have been adduced in relation to the crusading role of the media in child safeguarding issues. I can think of many cases where that is true but I can also think of many where the crusading purpose has been directed at increasing newspaper sales and producing salacious articles. We must be careful not to go too far in taking the moral high ground and taking our eyes off some of the practical issues which teachers and head teachers tell us that they face and fear. We should see this provision as part of a broader range of measures to try to make teachers feel that they have the backing of us all in their difficult job of maintaining order and discipline so that children can learn. One must not lose sight of that point.
My noble friend Lord Phillips quoted powerfully from the exchange between the JCHR and the Secretary of State. Paragraph 1.48 of the JCHR report states:
“However, we are satisfied that the evidence and justifications relied on by the Government are sufficient to justify the imposition of such reporting restrictions as a necessary and proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation and rights of teachers and supporting teachers in their role as the professionals responsible for classroom discipline”.
It is worth recalling that the JCHR concluded that the evidence—not as complete as my noble friend would like—led it to that conclusion.
In the course of this afternoon, there have been forceful arguments in favour of extending the clause from the Benches opposite and from some of my noble friends. There has also been opposition to its current breadth. I am aware of the concerns. I would be happy to speak to my noble friend about the earlier issue and try to provide further reassurance. As I have said, we will bring forward the review of the impact of these provisions and we will continue to monitor closely the issues that have been raised.
I argue that these provisions would not enable a teacher to get off scot-free from wrongdoing. Safeguarding duties remain in place. The clause states simply that anonymity should remain in place until someone is charged. I have a difference of opinion with my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lord Black about the effectiveness as a practical act of recourse of the PCC or of a libel action. I understand the arguments of both noble Lords—one with great experience as a lawyer, the other with great experience of working with the press. In previous situations, people have always said, “There’s always the PCC”, or, “You can always bring a libel action”. I am afraid that I do not believe that the PCC is an effective protector of people, and I do not believe that bringing a libel action would be a practical course of action for a teacher who has had all kinds of awful things going on and their reputation traduced.
Those are the arguments in favour of the clause. I have listened to the points raised by noble Lords on all sides this afternoon. I will try to provide some more statistical information, which I hope will help the Committee. I will also reflect on the points that have been made. On that basis, I beg to move that Clause 13 stand part of the Bill.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
As before, I am grateful to the Minister. I ask him to reflect on the statistics, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, invited him to do. It is essential that the unions provide us with concrete examples of pre-charge newspaper reports of a salacious nature, because so far they have not produced one. The only reports they have produced have been four-line factual reports. They must produce pre-charge reports.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, berated me—no, not that. He would not do that.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
No, it would be slander. He very reasonably said, “Look at the end of the JCHR report where it exonerates the Government”. Indeed it does, but how it does is beyond my tiny brain to understand. I suspect that the committee was confused.
Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Storey spoke for us all when he said that we all agree that exclusion should be the end of the process. We have debated this point many times. I state again that that is absolutely the Government’s position. That is why we are holding exclusion trials. We are trying to reach a point where exclusion is a far less frequent outcome for pupils and that the number who end up in this category shrinks. That is what we all want. That point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley. I strongly agree. My noble friend Lady Walmsley set out the case for exclusion appeals to go to tribunal with her customary clarity. Other noble Lords argued in favour of retaining a right for a panel to order reinstatement.
I shall start by restating what we are proposing in this clause, which provides for independent review panels that will be responsible for hearing appeals brought by parents against the permanent exclusion of their child. The panels will have to consider permanent exclusions very carefully. They will be free to reach their own conclusions and to conduct an independent fact-finding exercise. They may then uphold the decision, recommend that the governing body reconsider its decision to take account of the panel’s findings, or quash the decision and direct the governing body to reconsider the exclusion. If the decision is quashed, the panel will have to provide the school with the reasons for its decision. At that point the governing body will have to reconsider its decision. As several noble Lords have argued, in those circumstances most governing bodies would be likely to offer to reinstate pupils.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, asked whether we assumed that the school would always be right. The answer to that question is no. If we thought that, we would not have gone for an independent review panel, as my noble friend Lady Perry pointed out. However, there may be local circumstances in which the detrimental effect on the wider school community of a pupil being reinstated means that the school decides not to do so. This, in essence, is what the whole debate boils down to, and is the root of the difference of opinion between us. As we have already discussed and will return to in more detail, in those circumstances the panel would be able to impose a financial penalty. In addition to the general safeguards associated with the independent review panel process, we are putting in place measures to protect the interests of vulnerable children, especially those with special educational needs. As we discussed earlier, parents will be able to request an SEN expert.
My noble friend Lord Lucas asked about scale. I heard my noble friend Lady Walmsley whispering but he may not have heard her. We are talking about a small number of cases. In 2008-09, there were 6,550 cases of permanent exclusion. Appeals were lodged in fewer than 10 per cent of cases. Of those appeals, around one-10th resulted in the pupil being reinstated, which is the “60 pupils” figure that we are talking about.
Noble Lords, including my noble friend, have asked why we are making changes when the numbers are so small. We do so for one simple reason: while the numbers are fortunately small, each case can create significant problems for the school, creating anxiety for pupils and undermining the position of staff. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, spoke of schools being “left to their own devices”. Because of the review panel process, they would not be left to their own devices, but I am sure that she did not mean this. Her comments seemed to suggest that schools might have an agenda to exclude pupils, and I do not believe that that is true either.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I did not mean that, and I do not generally think that schools have an agenda. However, the crux of the Minister’s argument seems to be that in most of those cases where a review panel comes back to the governing body and says, “We think that this decision is wrong or flawed”—or whatever—“so reconsider”, he expected the schools to reinstate the child. What evidence does he have for that assumption?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The evidence was a point made by a noble friend. It is reasonable to think that where the process is conducted properly and the independent review panel comes back to the governing body saying, “We think that you are wrong for this, that and the other reason”—so that the governing body is confronted with that evidence and realises that others have reached a different view, or that they have made mistakes in how they have gone about it—most people will listen to what is being said to them. Obviously I do not have hard evidence because we do not have the system in place.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, talked powerfully about the example of Lewis Hamilton. I understand that example. Because the numbers are so small, one ends up having anecdotal exchanges of that nature. When this was debated in another place, a letter from a chair of governors was quoted which reads:
“In February a violent incident occurred at our school and after an exhaustive investigation the Principal took the decision to permanently exclude both the pupils involved in the attack. In short, they had come into school after issuing threats on ‘Facebook’ and sought out an individual to beat up. Failing to find him, they subsequently violently assaulted another boy, leaving him with concussion and in a state of shock. The police wanted to pursue the matter further but the family of the victim were fearful of reprisals and refused to press charges. In March, an exclusion hearing took place and the Governor’s Disciplinary Committee upheld the Principal’s decision to permanently exclude both the pupils involved in carrying out the assault. The mother of one of the excluded pupils appealed and the IAP overturned our decision and directed that we should reinstate the excluded pupil … The whole school environment was deeply shocked”.
That is an anecdote, but is illustrative of the effect these decisions can have on other pupils and the school. I wanted to start the point about the exclusion trials because there may be an assumption that the Government want in some way to be gung ho or vindictive about this, or that we start from the point of view that heads are Victorian figures of authority who must never be questioned and their writ must always run. That is not our position. Our position is that there could be a small number of cases where the effect on the attitude of other pupils and staff is worth giving the school space to take that into account. The principal of Burlington Danes Academy gave evidence to the Education Select Committee in the other place, where she said:
“I am very pleased that the appeal panels have gone, having had a permanent exclusion overturned. A teacher was attacked with a knife and the child was able to come back to the school”.
Although incidents are fortunately rare, these events are not unique. Schools have to be safe environments where pupils can learn. To achieve this, as we have already discussed, schools need to be able to manage behaviour, and heads and governing bodies need to know that they can go about that with confidence.
I turn to the specific amendments on the First-tier Tribunal and the amendment about giving panels the power to reinstate. Clearly, requiring all cases to be taken to the First-tier Tribunal with a power to order reinstatement would defeat the purpose of Clause 4. Our proposals reform the current arrangements for exclusion appeal panels, remedying what we consider to be a weakness in relation to the power to force reinstatement. We believe that the new review panels will ensure quick resolution, which is in the interests of all parties.
I think that there was a question about the timing. We believe that the panel will have to meet and consider a case no later than 15 school days after the parent requests the review.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Storey for speaking to his amendment, which addresses an important issue about the amount of adjustment to a school’s budget that an independent review panel can set. Again, there are balances to be struck in wanting any financial penalty to be sufficiently high that the governing body would want to reflect seriously upon it. However, I understand my noble friend’s concern that the adjustment should take account of the size of the school and its total budget, as well as his point about a flat-rate penalty. Therefore, although there are arguments in favour of such a scheme because of its simplicity, I am happy to accept the principle behind his amendment and say that, when consulting schools and local authorities later this year on the new arrangements, we will include the issue of whether the penalty should take account of the size of schools—for example, having different penalties for primary and secondary schools.
Lord Peston
Will the noble Lord clarify a minor matter of logic? If he is saying that the review panel has the right to fine a school if the school does not go along with it, how can it be in the interests of any school to have its budget reduced when it is doing what it thinks is the right thing? Whatever we do, that seems to be about as absurd an idea as you could dream up. Who would suffer from having less money? Presumably, the school would buy fewer text-books or less of this and less of that. To me at least, none of this makes any sense. Why the Government have gone down this path, I have not the slightest idea. I have worked very hard to follow this issue since Second Reading but the fine business makes no sense to me whatever.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, the purpose is to compensate the local authority for the additional costs of the services that it would then have to pick up because the school was no longer providing them. That is the benefit.
We have heard important points raised about the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I shall make a couple of points about that. The JCHR set out its views on the compatibility of Clause 4 with convention rights. We disagree with the view that the proposal to establish review panels is incompatible with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Our central legal argument is that the existing statutory framework around exclusion and educational provision for children who are excluded, whether on a fixed-term basis or permanently, is not determinative of a civil right, so Article 6 does not apply. In all the Strasbourg cases where civil rights have been found to engage Article 6, the civil right in question must have a basis in the domestic law of the state concerned. There is no domestic law right in the UK which guarantees the right to be educated in a specific institution. The right to an education, which is a right guaranteed at Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the convention, is not a guarantee of education at or by a particular institution. Article 13 of the convention requires that everyone whose convention rights and freedoms are violated shall have an effective remedy. As no convention rights are at issue here, we are clear that Article 13 is not engaged. We will shortly set out these arguments in more detail in a response to the Joint Committee.
I was asked about the consistency of school rules and the criteria for exclusion. The guidance is clear that a decision to exclude should be taken only in response to serious breaches of the school’s behaviour policy and if allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school. The guidance is also clear that the head teacher should consider all the evidence, taking account of the school’s equal opportunities policies and, where applicable, equality legislation. We will continue to collect data on exclusions, which include exclusions by SEN and by ethnic group.
The Earl of Listowel
Before the Minister replies to those questions, perhaps it might be helpful to ask another question for information. How do the numbers of exclusions break down between primary schools and secondary schools? He may already have mentioned that but I would be grateful for that information.
Lord Hill of Oareford
On that specific point, I do not have those figures in my head and I will try to find them and send them to the noble Earl. In response to my noble friend’s first question, the new arrangements are intended to apply to permanent exclusions. So far as his other points are concerned—again, they are generally not in the Bill—in terms of the way forward with the exclusion trials and with a point that we are trying to take forward and which we will come to later on about improving the quality of alternative provision available, the responsibility for a child in the situation he describes is unchanged and remains with the local authority.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
Can I press the Minister on one point, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Peston, who drew attention to the philosophical difficulty of new subsection (6)? I notice that the review panel will have the discretion to impose a fine for an adjustment in budget but it is not a requirement that the review panel would do so. I am puzzled as to how a review panel is going to decide between one case and another and on what basis. You almost then have the prospect of review panels grading the substance of their requirement that a responsible body review it according to a scale of fines. This strikes me as odd. It is in the subjunctive—that the review panel,
“may, in prescribed circumstances, order an adjustment”—
and I wonder whether the Minister would expand a little more on what the “may” represents.
Lord Hill of Oareford
It is our intention to publish guidance to cover these issues which we will be able to then share with Peers so that they can see how that is proceeding. That will address some of these issues.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply and to all Members of the Committee who have taken part in this fascinating debate. I have a confession to make. I did not declare an interest at the beginning of this debate: I was once actually excluded. At the age of four, the head of my dancing class asked my mother to take me away because I was not prepared to stand in a row with all the other little girls and point my toe and wave my arms in exactly the same way as everyone else. I wanted to stand in the corner, be creative and do my own thing. I was not prepared to be a clone, so I was asked to leave. However, I remember feeling that sense of injustice because I had not been disruptive in any way; I had not been naughty; I just did not like standing in a row and doing the same as all the other little girls.
Therefore, I suppose that what we need to think about is the cause of the behaviour, and there have been many powerful speeches about the underlying factors that lead to these serious permanent exclusions. A large number of points have been made and I should like to take up a few of them. Much has been made by the Minister and my noble friend Lady Perry about the power of the independent review panel to quash the original decision and ask the school to reconsider, but what is the point of asking it to do that if there is no redress and if it continues with its wrong-headed decisions? The child actually has no right to any redress at all.
An innocent child cannot, in the current situation, be blamed for not wanting to be sent to a referral unit because only today there has been a report from, I think, Ofsted about the poor results that are frequently obtained by pupils in referral units. We must do something about the quality of alternative provision and I very much welcome what the Government are doing with the pilots that we talked about last Thursday. They have the potential very much to drive up the quality of alternative provision, and they are a very good idea.
What the Government are proposing is discriminatory because—not perhaps for the reasons suggested in the debate—we are setting up one system for children with special needs and a completely different one for children without special needs. In fact, we are taking away the current independent appeals panels and setting up something completely new to deal with only the 30 per cent of appeals that do not have any special needs connotations. That strikes me as being daft, particularly in the current financial situation. Why are we doing that? As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, commented, we are dealing with very small numbers here. The vast majority of children behave well in school; the vast majority of cases of exclusion do not lead to an appeal; and three-quarters of the appeals are not upheld. We are talking about only 25 per cent of appeals being successful—and a very small proportion of those involve the reinstatement of a child where the school does not want it. We are talking about only 60 cases a year.
I ask the Committee: are we throwing away an important principle of natural justice for the sake of 60 cases out of 11 million children? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, that this is an issue of principle—but not the principle that she enunciated. It is the principle that if you have been found innocent or if the punishment has been found to be excessive, you should have a right to reinstatement, as long as other factors do not outweigh that right. We have to bear in mind—I absolutely accept this—the effect on the rest of the school. I therefore draw noble Lords’ attention to proposed new paragraph (c) in Amendment 59, which states that one of the powers of the tribunal could be to,
“decide that because of exceptional circumstances, or for some other reason, it is not practical to give a direction requiring reinstatement, but that it would otherwise have been appropriate to give such a direction”.
That gives the tribunal the opportunity to say, “This child’s case has been made. We are not convinced that the child did what the child was supposed to have done”, or, “We are not convinced that exclusion is the appropriate punishment for it. However, we accept that if this child were to go back into the school, it would cause major problems for the rest of the school community”.
There may be several thousand people involved in that community. Therefore, for the sake of their best interests, and probably those of the child concerned—who wants to go where they are not wanted?—it might be better if the child went somewhere else, even if the case has been made and it is accepted that the decision was wrong. It could well be that that “somewhere else” can better meet the needs of the child. Therefore, that part of the amendment provides a very important power, which I should like to see given to the First-tier Tribunal that I am proposing.
I thank the Minister for what he said about Amendment 47—that the Government will look at the issue of the fine in the consultation. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that the fine does not make sense. You have just to ask yourself: who will suffer if money is taken away from a school? It will not be the child who is supposed to have misbehaved. He will have gone to some other school. It will be the children who remain in the school who will suffer if the school is fined. It really is not the sort of deterrent to schools expelling incorrectly that makes sense. I accept that reinstatement can often be difficult but I draw the Committee’s attention to proposed new paragraph (c) in Amendment 59, which would take care of that situation.
I have just one more point on the consultation over the fine. Will the Minister confirm that special schools and PRUs will also be consulted? They are often very small schools. The Minister is nodding; I thank him.
In conclusion, I ask the Committee to think about how adults would respond if, in an employment tribunal, a case had been made in favour of the employee and against the employer, finding that the response to what had happened had been disproportionate, but the employee was unable to get any redress at all. If it is wrong for adults, it is wrong for children. As has been said, children have a very strong sense of what is fair and what is not fair. A decision of this sort could turn a child totally against society. As one noble Lord rightly said, it could flip somebody who already feels disengaged or victimised—as though nobody understands them and everybody is against them, or as though they have no opportunities and are discriminated against—into becoming an extremely antisocial person. Although I accept that there are enormous difficulties in this situation, I ask the Minister to consider very carefully whether it is right to throw away a principle of natural justice in favour of doing something in only 60 cases a year out of 11 million children. It seems a disproportionate act by the Government. I hope we can have more discussions about it over the next few weeks. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
“In section 31A of that Act (consideration of adverse reports), in subsection (3)(c), for “exclusion appeal panel” substitute “exclusion review panel”.”
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, the noble Lord is right. The power to innovate gives schools the right to ask whether they can be covered by this piece of legislation. You do that in advance; you do not do it because you want to keep a child in that night. I support what the noble Lord is saying, which is that the Government are making the case that only a small number of schools will use this power. If it is so important to them, looking across the array of legal powers they want to take themselves, if they think the most important thing is that they can keep children in on the same day, the power is there to do it. The noble Lord is absolutely right. The point is that this legislation leaves so many loopholes and so many risks of children not being safely looked after. We do not need to take that risk. If a school thinks it is important to them, they can apply for the power to innovate in advance. My understanding is that they have the power for five years.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am the Minister who is in receipt of applications for powers to innovate. I have not been overwhelmed over the last year and a half by applications for powers to innovate. It may be there but the point is that for it to be there it is a more complicated process than it ought to be. Every school would have to apply individually. They apply to officials and officials put up submissions and Ministers decide and opine and then the power to innovate, like Zeus, is given. It is time-limited.
As a way of dealing with the issue, if one accepts that this is a permissive power, as it clearly is, and if you say to schools that all those that might want to use this power have to go through the rather cumbersome and protracted process of applying for a power to innovate, no one will go through the process of applying. They will say that this has been made difficult for them, whereas something that is simple, which gives them the opportunity and which applies to all—to choose either to use or not to use—with safeguards in place, seems a more rational way than making every school try individually.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
Could I respectfully say to the Minister that this is not about powers and process, it is about message. If the message you want to convey is that you want to support schools and head teachers in whatever powers they wish, that is a message that will go out. But it will not be generally helpful in forging relationships between families, communities, parents and schools or indeed between children and their teachers. That is what it is about. It is about ethos and message. A better message is that these powers do exist. I am a strong believer in discipline in schools. Children learn much better if you have discipline. You need these sorts of structures in schools. But it is unhelpful to put into statute something which every speaker in this Room, even those who think we should do something, sees as unsafe and as poor communication with parents. I hope the Government will re-think how they convey that message of support to teachers without putting children into danger.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I briefly add a point about this being a Forth Bridge issue. It is perpetual and we must work at it all the time. I am interested in what the Government’s strategy for tackling bullying in schools is. The previous Government certainly had a strategy, which I assume the current Government will carry on and build on.
When I was involved with Childline, bullying was the most significant issue for children. I understand that this is still the case now that the NSPCC runs Childline. It came above safeguarding, relationships and issues to do with friends. It had an emotional impact on children. I know this because I spoke personally to hundreds of them over the telephone about their view of themselves, particularly young children from ethnic-minority communities, for whom this was a very confusing issue. More recently, we know that homophobic bullying has become much more rife, with names being called in the playground. Therefore, I recognise that collecting statistics may not be the Government’s way of taking this forward but I should like to hear more about what they are doing strategically. This is not something that needs a plan for today or yesterday; it has to happen all the time.
I remember advising the head of a school in the south of England where a young man had taken his own life. He said, “But we don’t have bullying in this school”. I said that the healthy position was to recognise that every school has bullying, but to have a strategy to deal with it that involves its pupils. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the strategic position.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, first, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for raising this important issue and, if I may say so, for doing it in a very thoughtful way and getting the debate off to such a good start. He and other noble Lords have described the terrible impact that bullying can have on a child. I agree with him and other noble Lords that schools, pupils, parents and the Government must work together to tackle bullying in schools, and prejudice-based bullying in particular.
We set out in our White Paper, as the noble Lord mentioned, our clear expectation that schools should take a tough and firm stance on all forms of bullying. They should seek to identify what bullying is happening in their school and take steps to support pupils who have been bullied and prevent it happening in future. To support schools, we have issued the guidance to which the noble Lord referred, setting out their legal powers and duties, the principles that underpin the strategies used in successful schools, and the specialist organisations that can provide information to help schools to understand and tackle different types of bullying. This guidance makes it clear that primary legislation, introduced by the previous Government, already requires head teachers to determine measures to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. The Equality Act 2010 further requires them to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and to consider how they can positively contribute to the advancement of equality and good relations.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said—and I agree with her—bullying is a problem which happens to children and young people in schools on a spectrum of severity and for all sorts of reasons. The noble Lord’s amendment addresses a particular kind of bullying, which is particularly horrid, but if one is on the receiving end of bullying all kinds of bullying feel completely horrid and vile. It is, as has already been explained, a complex issue that is too often hidden from parents and teachers, as noble Lords have said. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that in order to tackle bullying schools must have a good understanding of what is driving bullying in their schools. That is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made as well. We need a much broader approach. Schools must also understand the types of bullying that are a problem. It is crucial that they create an environment where pupils know that bullying is not tolerated and feel able to report it where it occurs.
The nature of bullying changes over time. If the noble Lord, Lord Rix, were here, he would talk about the concerns that he and others had about the rise in bullying of disabled children. If we had been here 10 years ago, we probably would not have had a debate about the rise in homophobic bullying. Therefore, understanding the issues and how they change over time is extremely important and will require different action in different schools. I have been told that 35 per cent of bullying goes unreported, so any system that relies on reporting alone cannot give a full picture of what is happening in a school.
The most effective schools use a range of approaches to monitor bullying. They combine evidence from incidents reported with other sources of information, such as anonymous surveys of pupils, surveys of parents and making use of school councils. We want to see more schools take a sophisticated approach that allows them to understand the problems in detail, address them and improve their approach based on evidence of what works. The new, more focused Ofsted framework will encourage schools to do this. Inspectors will have more time to look at how schools address poor behaviour, including bullying. That greater focus will flush out some of these things. The report that Ofsted will produce will provide information to parents about the detail of a school’s approach and how effective it is.
All that having been said, on the specific amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I fear that there are potential practical pitfalls with requiring all schools to collect and publish information about bullying in one way. That point was alluded to by my noble friend Lady Brinton. Information about bullying is by its nature fairly subjective, and the amount of bullying recorded will not necessarily depend on the amount of bullying taking place. I can envisage a situation where a low number of recorded incidents could mean that a school was exemplary at tackling bullying. Alternatively, it could mean that staff were not aware that it was going on or that children were afraid to report it.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, having for some years taken an interest in the low status of professionals working around children, particularly the low status of social workers, I have always been drawn to the model used in the health service and in the law. Senior practitioners in the health service very much have the responsibility for bringing on new blood, having an impact on the supervision and development of juniors. There is the same approach, particularly in law, with pupillage. It is retrograde to move away from a position where teachers were perhaps beginning to take more control over their continual professional development. The GTC might have allowed for that. As all noble Lords have said, it seems extremely ironic and strange when the Secretary of State says that teachers are the key to improving outcomes above all things and then takes away the professional body for teachers without offering a strong replacement. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, on the status of the teaching profession, I agree with everything that has been said. The issue that we are debating today is whether professionalism can be captured only in some national regulatory body or whether it can be found in other parts of the wood.
I was very struck at Second Reading when the noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke of the success of Teach First as being great achievement of the previous Government. He could have spoken about the work of National Leaders of Education or Local Leaders of Education, or the work of the National College, which are all very good examples of professionals working to raise standards and help other professionals. He could have mentioned the growing numbers of academies taking on responsibility for helping other schools in chains or clusters. Those all seem to be aspects of a profession taking responsibility for itself. I may be wrong because I was not around at the time, but I am not sure how prominent the role of the GTCE was in taking forward Teach First, National Leaders or partnership working between schools. Having a national body of that sort does not deliver professionalism, raise standards or deal with important issues about continuous professional development. The Government believe that we need a regulatory system that is credible, effective and provides value for money—I think that there is acceptance for that today.
I do not take any particular pleasure in the ending of the GTCE. I know that it was started with high hopes and that there were many who had wanted it, as we have already heard, from the 19th century. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, both today and at Second Reading, spoke eloquently of the practical problems that it faced at its birth—I think that the phrase he used at Second Reading to describe his appointment was “hospital pass”. However, what is clear—I do not want to labour this too much—is its record. Since the GTCE was formed in 2000, nearly two-thirds of local authorities have never referred a case of incompetence to it, despite employers having a statutory duty to do so. Since 2001, the GTCE has concluded only 82 competence hearings and struck off 15 teachers for incompetence. The majority of our teachers, we know, are highly competent professionals, and we would not question that, but it seems unlikely that in the whole 10 years there have been only 15 incompetent teachers.
One fact that struck me as evidence of the attitude of teachers towards the GTCE was the point raised by my noble friend Lord Lingfield; that is, of the modest £36.50 annual registration fee, the taxpayer has to subsidise £33. That does not seem to be a very powerful sign of a profession that feels strongly about the role that the GTCE performs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made reference the views of the NASUWT. I recognise that its views can change over time, and they clearly did, because the general secretary of the NASUWT has said:
“I have frequently said that if the GTCE was abolished tomorrow few would notice and even less would care. I have absolutely no doubt that the Secretary of State’s decision will be warmly welcomed by teachers across the country”.
The key question is that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam; namely, what should replace the GTCE if one accepts that it has not delivered in the way that he and others had hoped at its beginning?
Perhaps I may set out what we are proposing. It is, in essence, the following. A smaller, more cost-effective body, the teaching agency, would deal only with matters of misconduct. Hearings would be heard by a panel made up of representatives of the profession and independent lay people, with a right of appeal, as now, to the High Court.
Issues of incompetence would be dealt with separately. I have always thought that the GTC’s current sanction for incompetence was a surprisingly nuclear option. Rather than a slow, cumbersome process that led painfully to a national process and ultimately—for 15 teachers—to barring from the profession, we think it would be better to have a much more flexible, local system whereby issues are resolved more quickly. We can all think of people who have not made a go of it with one employer, but who flourished somewhere else. We are therefore keen to move to a system with all the same protections in employment legislation whereby employers can exercise judgment, address problems more swiftly, and help teachers to improve.
We have been carrying out a review of the professional standards for teachers, which will give employers clearer national benchmarks for performance and conduct. We are currently consulting on simplified arrangements for performance management and tackling poor capability. That will streamline the system and remove the current duplication that employers have found is a barrier to tackling performance issues. We will also strengthen the training and support available to school leaders, so that head teachers and aspiring heads are better prepared for their management role through a revised national professional qualification for headship. We think that these measures will leave the powers to deal with teacher incompetence in a more appropriate place and help head teachers to exercise those powers more effectively than the current regulatory system does.
So far as conduct is concerned, none of this is to say that we think there is no role for a national regulator. On the contrary, we are clear that where teachers are guilty of serious misconduct, they should be referred to the national regulator for potential barring from the profession. That mechanism is cumbersome for head teachers and the regulator, because every case where a teacher is sacked for misconduct must be referred, even though the vast majority of these cases do not warrant barring. The new arrangements will be more effective by giving employers discretion, while still ensuring that the most serious cases are referred. Where cases are referred to the regulator, the Bill gives the Secretary of State a new power to make interim prohibition orders. This power was always intended for use in the very rare cases where it is in the public interest to bar an individual from teaching while an investigation is under way. Amendments 64AA, 65A 65B and 65C have been tabled by the Government in response to your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations that the safeguard for this power be put in the Bill.
Noble Lords have asked for reassurance that the element of discretion that we are introducing will not lead to a weaker and less consistent system. It is of course important that the new system protects pupils and maintains confidence in the teaching profession. Let me say straightaway that the proposals make no change to the duty on all schools to refer any cases of serious misconduct relating to children to the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
I should also draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that the Bill provides for referrals to the Secretary of State from members of the public. Where a parent or other member of a community disagrees with the judgment of a head teacher who has not referred a teacher dismissed for serious misconduct, they may make the referral themselves. This provides a further safeguard that teachers in the most serious cases will not in some way slip through the net.
I turn to the important issue of the Register of Teachers, which a number of noble Lords raised, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, my noble friend Lady Jolly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. The Government said in another place that we would consider the arguments in favour of making available data about teacher qualifications. We have listened to what the head teachers’ unions have said—that point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I have also listened to the case eloquently made today by noble Lords, particularly by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. It is right to say that the teaching agency will maintain a database of teachers who have attained qualified teacher status and who have passed their induction period. That seems to be an eminently sensible point and we will take it on board. That database will be available online to employers from April 2012.
Some amendments concerning surveys and statistics—CPD and so on—were spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The Government will continue to commission research and to support the effective management, assessment, planning and development of the teaching profession. We are in the process of considering what the data and research needs of the new teaching agency and the department will be.
The CPD part of the GTCs’ work is currently shared with the TDA, and in future work on CPD will form part of the remit of the new teaching agency. However, as I have already said, over time we would tend to see more and more of that work being delivered by schools.
With regard to some of the more technical issues, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, raised the question of information-sharing between the GTCs in the devolved Administrations. Officials in the department recently met their counterparts and the GTCs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to discuss this issue. We have an agreed approach to sharing information between the four nations and will continue to meet regularly to discuss that.
On cash reserves, I agree with the noble Baroness that, if money was originally paid to the GTCE for the benefit of teachers and some of that money is still available, it should continue to be used for a similar purpose. If there were any cash reserves, we would use them for the benefit of teachers and the teaching profession—for example, to contribute to the continuing administration of the regulatory function, which a large proportion of the GTCE’s fees was spent on.
I recognise that my answer is disappointing to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I never like to disappoint the noble Lord, for whom I have great respect. I hope that what I have been able to say about the register will provide some reassurance to noble Lords who I know were concerned and that, taken together, my response will enable the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Puttnam
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hill. I certainly do not want to detain the Committee but wish to make two points. I was very impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, said and was very impressed at Second Reading by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. I should like to touch on those for one second. As both of them know, I am conscious of the fact that the job I took on was very much a question of standing on the shoulders of giants. I had read a lot about but, sadly, never met Sir Alec Clegg, and I knew John Tomlinson very well. These were great men. They were noble and decent, and my job was to try to deliver something of their vision. I fought hard and successfully, and I think that it was a good move to bring the independent schools on to the GMC. I could not have had two more heroic figures than Ian Beer and Elizabeth Diggory to support me, and I feel very strongly that, were they both here today, they would not wish to throw in the towel at this point.
I also want to touch on Scotland, which both noble Lords mentioned. I spent a fair amount of time in Scotland and took a lot of advice from the then chairman of the Scottish GTC. He said, “Give it time, laddie. Give it time”. He was right. We needed to give it time but we have not given it sufficient time. I should possibly have listened to him even more. No one is pretending that Scots unionists are any person’s pushover; they have intense pride in the profession. My amendment is simply intended to challenge the English teaching profession to show similar pride, similar determination and a similar commitment to getting their act together. It requires them to create something of which they and we can be proud, and we can be very proud that we protected it when it was under pressure. For the moment, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Lord Hill of Oareford
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday at 3.45 pm.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel)
My Lords, the Committee stands adjourned until Wednesday at 3.45 pm.
Education Bill
Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I follow on briefly from what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has just said. I have experience of school councils working extremely well. Not only do they discuss the usual problems of boys’ toilets, dining, eating snacks and so on but they discuss discipline issues. I am a governor at a primary school and the youngest children are involved in deciding on the school rules and discipline. As a result, a contract is passed down to each classroom regarding how the children should participate and how they should behave in the school. I am glad that the noble Lord mentioned school councils. I think that school councils should be included somewhere in the Bill in relation to consultation with school pupils. In my experience, that is one of the best ways of consulting pupils in deciding what the school rules should be and how they should be applied.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, before I respond to the points raised in today’s debate, I should like to pick up briefly on the issue that we were discussing when we ended our session on Tuesday, including the points raised by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and other noble Lords about training in relation to searches. In the intervening day and a half, I have reflected on some of those points and I agree that some additional advice to schools would be useful. Therefore, I am happy to commit to recommending to head teachers in guidance that, when they designate a member of staff to undertake searches, they should actively consider whether that member of staff requires any additional training to enable them to carry out their responsibilities. This revised advice will be published in July before the start of the summer holidays.
So far as concerns today’s amendments to and discussion on Clause 2, the main purpose of the clause is to try to give schools as much freedom as possible to respond to their own circumstances and challenges. We know that under the existing legislation head teachers and authorised members of school staff can search for knives and weapons, alcohol, illegal drugs and stolen property. The current situation, as set out by my noble friend Lady Walmsley is that the person conducting the search must be the same sex as the pupil being searched and the search must be witnessed by a member of staff. Where practical, the witness should also be the same sex as the pupil. That is where we are now.
With regard to the provisions in Clause 2, we propose to extend these powers to allow schools to search for any article that they suspect has been or could be used to commit an offence, cause injury or damage property. It will also allow them to search for items banned by the school rules where they have been identified in the rules as an item which may be searched for.
In addition to adding to the range of items which may be searched for, the provisions will make changes to how searches can be conducted, as my noble friend said. They will allow searches to be carried out by a member of staff who is of the opposite sex to the pupil being searched and also searches without a witness. I emphasise that these changes are subject to what we believe to be strict safeguards. Searches can take place only where the searcher reasonably believes that there is a risk that serious harm will be caused to a person if they do not conduct the search immediately. Therefore, these powers could not be used to search for innocuous items banned under the school rules; there must be a risk of serious and imminent harm.
Amendments 25, 13 and 14 relate to searches being conducted under the school rules provisions. Perhaps I may briefly set out our intention behind this provision and the safeguards here that I think will help to guard against it being used inappropriately.
Our intentions in including a specific power which enables teachers to search for, and confiscate, any item identified in the school rules are to enable teachers to deal effectively with items which, although not harmful, can still cause problems in the school.
The current powers to search pupils without consent are already subject to a number of safeguards. Searches can be carried out only by the head teacher or someone authorised by them to search; they can take place on school premises or off the school premises only when the member of staff has lawful control or charge of the pupils; and they can be conducted only if the staff member has a reasonable suspicion that the pupil is in possession of a prohibited item. The pupil cannot be required to remove any clothing, other than outer clothing.
The school rules provisions introduced by this Bill will be subject to additional safeguards. First, an item can be searched for only if it is identified in the school rules as an item that can be searched for; and secondly, the school rules must be determined and publicised by the head teacher in accordance with Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 or, in the case of academies, in accordance with regulations that mirror Section 89. That point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. This means that the head teacher must publicise the school behaviour policy, in writing, to staff, parents and pupils at least once a year. Furthermore, the use of force is explicitly excluded from this provision. These specific requirements will help to ensure that teachers, pupils and parents will know which items are subject to searches. The power is, in the Government’s view and in that of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, compatible with convention rights.
I turn to the test of reasonableness and the points raised by my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lord Elton. I understand the thinking behind the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Walmsley; she is obviously concerned that schools could include frivolous or unreasonable items in the list of items that can be searched for. While I do not believe, and I do not think that she would believe that in practice governing bodies and heads would be likely to behave in a frivolous way, we think that there are existing safeguards in place which govern how schools set their school rules. That relates to the question posed by my noble friend Lord Elton. These are set out in Sections 88 and 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Section 88 requires that the governing body of a school must make a written statement of general principles from which the head teacher will draw up the school’s behaviour policy, which includes the school rules. The governing body is required under Section 88 to consult parents and pupils as part of this process. I hope that in some way that will reassure my noble friend. The governing body is also required, when making the written statement of general principles, to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. There is also a legal requirement on head teachers to have regard to this statement in determining the school rules and to bring the school’s behaviour policy to the attention of staff, pupils and parents at least once a year.
The Government intend to use that guidance, among other things, to explain the nature of the obligations of necessity and legitimate aim under Article 8.2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As with public authorities generally, the head teacher in drawing up the school rules would have to act reasonably. So I hope overall that my noble friend may accept that there are safeguards in place and that with those safeguards we should feel more reassured that we can trust schools to judge which items they need to search for in the context of their particular school.
I turn to the content of electronic devices and the examination and deletion of what might be on them. Clause 2 would permit the member of staff who seizes an electronic device to examine any data or files on the device, if they think there is good reason to do so. Following such an examination, the person may erase any data or files from the device if they think there is good reason to do so. I think that this point was accepted earlier in the week. There is agreement that the misuse of mobile phones and other electronic devices is a growing problem in our schools. According to Bullying UK, around one in seven young people have been threatened or harassed by mobile phone.
A study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers published last year in March, suggested that one in seven teachers had been the victim of cyber-bullying by pupils and parents. I was struck that the Association of School and College Leaders welcomed this provision in its evidence to the public evidence session for this Bill in the other place as a way of schools dealing with cyber-bullying without involving the police, which is an important point. We do not want to get to the point where schools have to call the police to deal with matters when they could deal with them with some common sense and in a safe and orderly environment within the school.
I understand the concerns of my noble friend Lady Walmsley that the provisions in the Bill might give members of staff carte blanche to examine or delete the content of a pupil’s mobile phone. But we believe that by requiring the member of staff to have a good reason before doing so, and to have regard to guidance, the clause protects pupils from random searches of their property and provides a robust test which must be passed before a pupil’s personal information on his or her mobile phone can be deleted.
I did, however, listen to what my noble friend said and obviously like her read the comments from the JCHR. In order to address those points, I think we should make more explicit in our guidance that any examination or erasure of data or files must be justified. By this I mean that the guidance should make it clear that the staff member must reasonably suspect that the data or file on the device in question has been, or could be, used to cause harm, to disrupt teaching or break the school rules in some way. I can also commit to the guidance providing advice on the circumstances in which data can be erased and when that can be handed to the police. I hope that that provides my noble friend with some reassurance.
My noble friend also raised the point about the need to respect the private life of the pupil and the pupil’s family, and on the circumstances in which it is appropriate to involve the parents of the pupil. I understand her concern that pupils are protected from any unnecessary intrusion into their private lives. The Secretary of State’s guidance will make it clear that any examination or erasure of data or files must be justified. It will also explain to schools the nature of their obligations under the ECHR and emphasise the importance of respecting a pupil’s personal information and right to privacy.
As my noble friend Lady Walmsley suggested, I would be happy to share with her and other Members of the Committee who would be interested a draft of the Secretary of State’s guidance in advance of Report, so that she can be assured of its helpfulness and we can benefit from their expertise.
I hope that that reassures noble Lords that checks are in place to ensure that these powers could not be used inappropriately. I have committed to include additional safeguards in guidance and to share that guidance as the Bill progresses through this House. On the basis of those reassurances, I hope that my noble friend Lady Walmsley will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I would be very grateful if my noble friend would include me in that correspondence. I do not yet understand why, under any circumstances, a teacher should be able to delete something from a mobile phone. Surely, the point of finding something is that it then becomes evidence that can be used. In fact, it may be important to show it to the child's parents so that the parents become aware of what is going on. I do not understand the need to delete.
I am also concerned that while one might want and need under some circumstances to explore what is happening on a child's mobile phone, any teacher doing so will discover a lot of stuff that is personal and irrelevant. There is a problem over how that is dealt with. Perhaps it should be done by somebody not involved in teaching the child who can therefore keep separate any knowledge gained from looking at the mobile phone. I agree that there has to be this power in the Bill, but it has to be carefully used.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, I support my noble friend. I was not going to speak, but this important point strays into another agenda that is relevant here because we could be doing something that is not great. When I have visited schools, I have seen that mobile phones present a real issue—a huge potential advantage and a current problem. Schools are struggling to know what to do.
Coincidentally, on Tuesday I was in a good secondary school in Cambridge that, to be honest, was not faced with huge behavioural problems. I accept that it was not your average challenged secondary school. Its approach to mobile phones gave a clue as to how important they will be on the information technology agenda. Given that the Government do not have much of an IT agenda, with the abolition of Becta we must look at what schools are doing on that. I hope that in the coming months we might get to the point technologically at which we can as a society support schools in using devices such as mobile phones as an essential part of learning in school and with links to home.
That is not for now and that agenda is not quite here at the moment. I would hate to do anything now that would give a message that would make it difficult for some unconfident schools to move along that road in future years.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I shall try to reply briefly to some of those points. I agree with the point made by my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that one must be careful not to legislate in a blanket fashion that stores up problems for later. I listen in particular to my noble friend Lord Storey because he knows what he is talking about. He has day-to-day direct involvement and we should listen carefully to his reminder of the problems faced by schools. However, I also accept that a lot of technology can be used for good or for ill. That is to do with what people make of it rather than with the nature of the technology.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, our purpose in a number of these approaches is to give individual schools discretion in what to do, taking their circumstances into account. On the regulations that list the items mentioned by the noble Baroness, we have not laid them before the House because I thought that it was important first to take these issues through the House and Committee and to have this debate. We are not seeking to have a blanket ban on mobile phones, but we want to reach the point at which schools can exercise discretion. More generally, the Government will need to take into account the points that have been raised.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Although the Government do not want to move towards a blanket ban on mobile phones, is it their current intention, notwithstanding any shift brought about by this debate, that the regulations will allow an individual school to impose a blanket ban on all its pupils?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I believe that that could be done at the moment. That would not therefore be a change, and overall we want to give schools discretion.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, this has been an interesting and illuminating debate. Before dealing with the issues debated today, I thank my noble friend for his comments on our debate on Tuesday. He told us that there will be advice in guidance from the Government to head teachers that they should consider the level of training of the teacher who is designated to be allowed to search. That is all very well, but what happens if they do not do that? What happens if the school designates a teacher who has not had adequate training? What if someone is hurt and the teacher in question is not trained? Would my noble friend like to answer now or would he prefer to come back to me on that?
Baroness Walmsley
I thank my noble friend. A number of points have been made in the debate today, and I absolutely agree with those who have emphasised how important it is that schools consult parents and pupils when setting their school rules. Indeed, I believe my noble friend Lady Sharp and I were slightly influential in getting that duty to consult pupils into the Education and Inspections Act 2006, if my memory serves me correctly.
It is incredibly important that pupils and their parents understand what the school rules say. It is quite right that the Government do not seek to specify exactly what a school bans and what it will search for if that ban is flouted, but the rules should state why the school is going to ban the items that could be used. The school should ban only the things that could interfere with teaching and learning or that could be used to commit an offence, cause disruption in the school or be otherwise unlawful. Schools should not go over the top and be silly about what a pupil might want to bring in.
As for phones, my noble friend Lord Storey, who the Committee will know is still a practising head teacher, has reminded me that schools already deal with these matters in their own way. Most schools have a mobile phones policy—indeed, many local authorities such as my noble friend’s own authority in Moseley have one—and many schools are sensible enough to allow children to bring in a mobile phone if the parents feel that they would like the child to have it for their own safety or on the way home in case they have a problem with their transport and need to contact the parents. However, they insist that the phone is either handed into the school office during the school day or locked up in a locker. That is quite a sensible approach, as the phone cannot be used to distract lessons or to take photographs of other pupils—one head teacher who supports what the Government are going to do told me recently of a boy even taking photographs of one of the girls in the toilets. We do have to bear in mind that children sometimes do horrendous things. Of course this is not just about phones; DS games can send messages, and most schools would not wish pupils to use those during lessons, and the more affluent pupils might even have an iPad.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, the other day that these devices can be used for good educational purposes. This is a difficult matter for schools, which is why it is more and more important to specify that these things should be searched for and confiscated and files deleted only if there is reasonable suspicion that they are going to be or have been used to disrupt, to bully or to do something unlawful.
That is why I welcome what my noble friend the Minister has said about sharing draft guidance with us as soon as possible, certainly before Report. I also welcome what he said about the Government wanting to avoid police involvement wherever possible. Of course the criminal justice system must be involved if a very serious offence comes to light, but I certainly believe—and I see many Members around the Committee today who I know agree with me—that we should not get children involved in the criminal justice system unless it is absolutely necessary. Then, of course, we should deal with them properly, but that is another debate altogether.
I have some questions for my noble friend the Minister. If files are erased and the teacher who erases them has reasonable justification for being suspicious, can the child challenge the erasure? If the child loses files of particular sentimental value to them, such as photographs of the family that they do not have on any other electronic device, what is the challenge?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I thought that this would be a good and interesting debate and so it has proved. The key issue was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood; namely, whether legislation should in every respect preclude the possibility of some situation that none of us sitting here can necessarily envisage, although the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised one such possibility, or whether we should take the view in approaching legislation that, if we are going to be serious in what we say about trusting professionals, we should provide them with a bit of space to exercise their professional judgment and give them support in doing so. That seems to me to be the argument of principle that lies behind, and has already emerged in, our discussion. The decision that we ultimately reach on these provisions will hinge on it. Are we prepared to allow that small bit of space in emergency situations, or do we take the view that we would prefer to close down that possibility by legislating?
I accept the points made from the outset by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and by a number of other noble Lords. Opposite-sex searches are extremely sensitive—more so at secondary school than at primary school. We have discussed previously the practical issue arising in primary schools from the fact that there are no male teachers in 25 per cent of them. That may have been the relevant age in the instance to which the noble Earl referred. I recognise the sensitivity of searching without a witness. Given that I do so not being a teacher or being in these difficult circumstances, I believe that every teacher or head will understand the sensitivity of the matter even more sharply, because they will know that the consequences to them, professionally and personally, of making the wrong judgment would be disastrous. As a head teacher put it to me the other day, “Any teacher will be very careful about putting themselves in harm’s way”. That is an extremely important point for us to remember. It links to the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, quite rightly raised about putting teachers in danger by giving them such powers.
As we have already discussed previously, these are permissive powers. Under provisions relating to searching powers, head teachers may not require anyone other than school security staff to undertake the search—that will not change—so teachers can draw on this should they feel it necessary for them to do so. There would be very few instances where this situation would ever arise, and, even if it did, an individual teacher may say, “No, thank you. That’s not for me”, and exercise their professional judgment.
I know that I shall have a hard job persuading some noble Lords, but I will attempt to set out why the discretion granted to school and college staff in Clauses 2 and 3 to use their professional judgment, combined with the safeguards which we have included in both, is a sensible way forward.
A number of safeguards already apply to all aspects of the powers to search in Section 550ZA of the Education Act 1996 and Section 85AA of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. I shall not go through them again, but they are in place. There are additional safeguards, which my noble friend Lady Walmsley referred to, for the new powers. Searches would be permissible only where there was a risk that serious harm might be caused to the person if the search was not conducted as a matter of urgency and if, in the time available, it was not practicable for the search to be carried out by a person of the same sex or in the presence of another member of staff.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, raised the point about a parent. The response given by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, is the one that I, too, would give: that is, if it is an emergency situation, trying to get a parent there—although, all other things being equal, it would be rather nice—would not be relevant here. However, I understand the thought that lies behind it.
Given that this is an emergency provision and, by their nature, emergencies can arise at any point, and while I hope that schools and colleges will have little cause to use this power, it is important that they should have the flexibility to act in the interests of students and staff where their safety is threatened in the kind of case that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned. We expect that the vast majority of searches in future will still be conducted by a member of the same sex and will still be witnessed by another member of staff, as my noble friend Lord Lucas argued. The extension of the provisions is simply intended to give staff the power to act in the interests of the safety of all in emergencies.
In terms of who supports this extension, I take my noble friend’s point that it is clear that some teachers and heads do not want it, but it does have the support of the Association of Colleges, the Sixth Form Colleges’ Forum and the Independent Schools Council. Our broad approach on search has support from the Association of School and College Leaders.
I recognise that there are concerns and that this is not a simple and straightforward case, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, reminded us. We have listened to what the JCHR said. In wanting to help buttress the position of teachers who find themselves in difficult situations and to help protect other children, I recognise that a balance needs to be struck. I think that the Government should take those concerns on board and include in their guidance the specific points raised by the JCHR; namely the expectation that powers to search pupils of the opposite sex or carry out a search without a witness are likely to be used only on rare occasions. Also, the expectation of privacy should increase with the age of the pupil. That point was made by the JCHR and is a matter of sheer common sense. That is the right thing to do and I am happy to give that commitment today.
I know that we will want to discuss these issues further, but as I suggested on Tuesday, the department's expert adviser on behaviour is organising a meeting for noble Lords when I hope we will have a chance to go through some of these issues. I think that the invitation is on its way today and that the date is fixed for next week. I hope that he will be able to share his experiences and that noble Lords will be able to raise their concerns with him.
I hope that the safeguards in the legislation and the fact that we will address in the guidance points raised by the JCHR will, to some extent, reassure noble Lords and that my noble friend may, for now, feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Walmsley
I thank the Minister for his reply and all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I will pick up a few points. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, suggested that if I had my way there would be no need for training, but I point out to him gently that the current situation requires training. There are currently pretty wide powers for teachers to search pupils for quite a wide range of objects.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised the scenario of the young child with a piece of glass in his pocket on a school trip. My noble friend Lord Storey may be able to correct me, but on the vast majority of school trips, there is more than one member of staff because the dreaded health and safety rules and the risk assessments that schools have to do these days would ensure that there are at least two members of staff. I do not think that the situation of having to act alone would arise in that scenario.
The Minister mentioned that he did not want us to close down possibilities. But possibilities are closed down by sensible checks and balances under current legislation. He said that these are permissive powers. But I am afraid that when you give people permission to do something, at some time some idiot will go and do it in ridiculous circumstances. Yes of course I accept that 99.999 per cent of teachers would be sensible, but I do not want to open up the possibility by repealing some of our current sensible checks and balances for that 0.001 per cent of teachers to do something silly. The Minister talked about the safeguards that appear in Section 550ZA of some Act of Parliament or other. I ask him whether teachers know about that; I certainly do not. It is important that teachers are very clear about what they can and cannot do, which they will not be if we leave it to those obscure little bits of legislation.
I finish by asking the Minister: have any injuries occurred to any child because a teacher had to send for a witness or a member of staff of another gender? If that situation has not arisen, we should not make these changes to the current legislation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I think that a pattern is beginning to emerge in this last group. For that reason, I shall keep my remarks fairly short.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for the way in which he raised and introduced his amendments. I wish him well with the dentist and hope that the exploration that he is about to undergo will not be as painful as the one that I have just been subjected to—and I hope that they will remember to supply him with some anaesthetic. Maybe I will speak to his dentist.
Before responding to the suggestion with which the noble Lord, Lord Laming, concluded his remarks, I wanted to pick up one point that had been raised about whether removing the duty to co-operate may inadvertently send a signal to schools that the Government do not take children’s well-being seriously. I want to put on record the fact that clearly we do, and we have duties on schools to safeguard and promote the welfare of pupils under Sections 157 and 175 of the Education Act 2002. We have retained the important duties on maintained schools to promote the well-being of pupils, which is in Section 21 of the Education Act 2002. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, said, there is a duty on the local authority to take reasonable steps to ensure a diverse range of schools are represented on local safeguarding children boards. Obviously, we have no plan to change any of those duties.
There is a debate one can have about statutory duties as opposed to a voluntary approach and whether statutory duties automatically work better than a voluntary approach. I think what everyone who has spoken this afternoon would agree with is that it is the importance of people working together in partnership working across a range of different fronts that is the key here. There is no disagreement between us that that is something that we want to encourage.
I shall not reply at length, but I clearly recognise—as do all noble Lords—the experience that the noble Lord, Lord Laming, brings to this area, as do many other noble Lords who have spoken. It clearly behoves the Government—me—to listen to what he says with great care. I know from having spoken to him before that he understands our concerns about a one-size-fits-all approach and not trying to treat all schools in all situations in exactly the same way. I know that he understands that, but equally I understand the point that he has made. In essence, I clearly need to consider the points that he has made this afternoon. He kindly offered to come in and speak further; I would very much welcome that. As soon as he is able to speak again, perhaps we can do that, certainly before Report stage. I would invite him to do that if he would.
Lord Laming
My Lords, I am—I was going to say “most grateful” but that is an understatement—slightly overwhelmed. I am so proud of your Lordships’ House. I read the debate on this that took place in what we call “the other place”. Being at my most judicious in choosing my expression, I shall say that it was a touch disappointing compared with what noble Lords have said here today. The debate here has stood out. I am not surprised but hugely impressed, as ever, with the calibre of the people who have contributed to this debate, with the experience that they bring and with the quality of compassion that they share.
We would all like to impress upon the Minister, who responded in a characteristically thoughtful and generous way, that none of us wants to defend duties that are there purely to serve bureaucratic ends. Frankly, too many such duties simply serve bureaucratic ends. I would support the Government if they said that with every duty you had to demonstrate the value that it brought to, in this case, children and young people. We should ask what impact it has. Does it enrich their lives and their life opportunities? If it does not, it is simply serving the machine. Therefore, if the Government wish to remove bureaucratic duties, I assure the Minister that he will have my complete support. There is a huge difference between that and trying to remove these duties, which, as all noble Lords have said, are about co-operation. They are not just about safeguarding but about promoting the welfare and proper development of every child. Today, we have heard many examples of children in different circumstances. However, time is going on, so I shall not mention them.
I am immensely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I absolutely understand the Minister’s position. I know that by working together—an example that we should set to everyone else—we can do something that will achieve the end that we all wish to see. I shall not delay the Committee further, as I know that noble Lords have a long agenda. I shall follow the good example set by the Minister and just say that, on the basis of the assurances given by the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I apologise for being absent for much of this debate. I have an amendment in this grouping, Amendment 52A, and I would like to speak to it briefly if I may. It states:
“A review panel may, following a review under this section, direct the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills to undertake an inspection of the school concerned”.
I hope that the amendment has not been degrouped from this grouping of amendments.
The Minister was kind enough to write to me with some information about the review of Ofsted. I understand that it is looking for new triggers for inspections and I tabled the amendment in order to probe the Minister on whether this might be one way of doing so. It may not be to direct but to encourage Ofsted to inspect a school that has excluded a child. Having spoken recently with a head teacher who sat on a panel dealing with young people who had been excluded, it seems to me that a small number of children are put back into the system and that it is a necessary check. The Minister knows how much sympathy I have for his push to give more autonomy to schools and the professionals working in them.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, exclusion should be the last resort, a statement with which everyone here wholeheartedly agrees. There was agreement on that when we discussed it on Tuesday and it was a message that I received clearly from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children, which I was lucky enough to meet last week, and it has been reiterated again today.
Therefore, in responding to this group of amendments, I want to start backwards with Amendment 54 spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the case for trialling a new approach to exclusions. In our White Paper, published last year, we set out our plans for such a trial. It is worth rehearsing our objectives because this goes so much to the heart of what we have discussed today on exclusions. They are to encourage early intervention; to address behavioural problems and their causes; to keep pupils in their schools wherever possible; and, if it is not possible, to ensure that they receive high-quality education elsewhere. It is worth restating that because it comes down to a point that we debated previously—that the way in which legislation is drafted means that one often starts the discussion back to front. I want to emphasise clearly that our objective, which I know is shared by everyone here, is that exclusions should be absolutely the last resort and the drive of government policy going forward will be to try to find ways of avoiding it.
We know that some areas have already made a lot of progress in this area of the kind referred to by the noble Baroness. Cambridgeshire has devolved responsibility for all its alternative provision to clusters of schools, and they are given a share of the local authority’s budget to spend and are allowed to keep the savings. It has seen a reduction of about two-thirds in the number of pupils referred to PRUs by secondary schools. At the all-party group meeting last week, we heard also about Devon. There is clearly good practice out there from which we are keen to learn.
In the trial areas, a school that excludes a pupil will then have to find and fund an alternative full-time placement. That relates to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. Knowledge of the pupil’s needs and history should assist in finding the most appropriate provision. Some of the funding currently retained by local authorities for alternative provision would be delegated to schools for this purpose. That is the idea of the trials. More than 50 local authorities have expressed an interest in taking part in the trial and we are finalising plans for it to start this autumn, involving between 15 and 18 local authorities. Officials are discussing the final details with those schools, and we hope and believe that this large trial will enable us to identify and work through all the issues, find solutions and modify our approach should that prove necessary.
Amendment 54 seeks to legislate now for that approach. I am sure that its purpose is to provide an opportunity for this debate. However, our view is that we need first to have discussions with head teachers and other people with know-how in this area and that we should not rush into legislation on this matter. We hope that the trials will start in the autumn and run for two or three years. We do not need legislation for the trials, but having learnt from them we will then legislate if we need to. That is something that my honourable friend Sarah Teather is running with.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Will the Minister make it clear in the guidance that, if the assessments are done at an early stage as he envisages, they will be made available and the governing body considering a permanent exclusion—and then the review panel at the point of review—will be required to see the assessments that will have recently been done?
Lord Hill of Oareford
In that case, we would expect the panel to ask for such an assessment if it has been made.
We then turn to the amendments that require an automatic trigger to initiate an assessment when a child has been given a certain number of fixed-period exclusions. Whereas I hope that I have set out our thinking on the importance of good early assessment, we are reluctant to set in legislation such an automatic link, tying assessment to a set number of fixed-period exclusions. The approach that we have set out in the Green Paper can achieve the same objective, and multiagency assessments should take account of all special educational needs, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which was the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who is no longer in his place. I will follow up with him his specific points.
We then considered amendments that require certain conditions regarding special educational needs to be met before a pupil could be permanently excluded. For example, the governing body would have to consider a report from the special educational needs co-ordinator, the SENCO, before excluding a child; or a school could not exclude a child with special educational needs without showing that it had made attempts to address those needs.
Governing bodies must take account of relevant information pertaining to the child when considering exclusion. They already have a duty to secure as far as they can that special educational provision is made for those pupils with special education needs, and I will be happy to ensure that future versions of guidance make it explicit that they should take account of information relating to the child’s special educational needs, if any, in this situation. That is currently implicit in the guidance, but in view of the proportion of excluded pupils who have special educational needs, I accept that we should make a more explicit reference in future guidance.
I would hesitate to be so prescriptive as to say that there must be a report from the school’s special educational needs co-ordinator. In many cases, I agree that the SENCO may well be the appropriate source of information, but I would rather limit guidance to the principle that the governing body should take account of information that relates to the child’s special educational needs but allow it some flexibility on the question of from whom that advice should come.
With regard to whether a school should be able to exclude a pupil without demonstrating the attempts that it had made to meet his or her needs, I hope that what I have said will have demonstrated to noble Lords that we are committed to ensuring that children’s needs are assessed early. We would wish governing bodies to consider what their school had done to assist the child, and that should be a factor in their decision.
However, to say that a school could never exclude a child if it had done too little to meet his or her needs would be a step too far. To take an extreme case, if a child whose needs had not been suitably addressed was guilty of a serious assault on another child or a member of staff, exclusion may well be the most appropriate action for the sake of other pupils and staff. We would then want action taken to address that child’s needs so that they could better participate in education, but that would be after the exclusion rather than instead of it.
In terms of the part played by the special educational needs expert in the review panel process, noble Lords will know that we made a commitment in the other place to include provision in the regulations to give parents the right to ask for a special educational needs expert to attend the panel. It will be for the parents to determine whether they believe the SEN expert is required, irrespective of whether the school or local authority has identified any special needs. Given that, I am not convinced that there is a pressing need to include a reference to this in the Bill.
We will ensure that parents are made aware of their right to ask for the presence of such an expert. After the passage of the Bill, we will consult on regulations and guidance, and I have asked officials to consult local authorities, schools, parents’ representatives and others on how we can best ensure that parents are made aware of their rights.
I move on to Amendment 43, spoken to by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. The principle that the pupil’s views should be heard during the exclusions process is very much one that I support. More generally, the Government are committed to ensuring that children and young people’s views are listened to and respected. I can confirm that we will work with children’s organisations to revise the current statutory guidance to set out clearly the legal obligations that apply to schools in relation to consultation with pupils.
Through guidance, we have encouraged the involvement, where appropriate, of pupils at all stages of the exclusions process—subject to their age and understanding. This begins at the start of the process. The guidance says that before excluding a pupil, the head teacher should inform him of the reasons for the intended exclusion, the length of the exclusion, if for a fixed period, and give the pupil a chance to have his say.
The section of the guidance that covers appeal panels states that pupils under 18 should be encouraged to attend hearings and speak on their own behalf if they wish to do so, subject to them being able to understand the process. We will need to revise the guidance in the light of the changes to panels proposed in this Bill. I can reassure noble Lords that we will keep similar messages in the revised guidance. I hope that the noble Lord will agree that this guidance does not merely pay lip service to young people’s participation but actively encourages it. This guidance was prepared under the previous Government, but that principle is one that we support.
It is important that a pupil should have the right to his or her say in this way, and we want schools and review panels to listen to them. However, that is rather different from making more formal representations, and we believe that parents should have that more formal role. However, we do not want to rule out further changes in future. We have taken note of the views of those who want to extend children’s rights in this area, and we are willing to consider how such arrangements could work. Noble Lords may have seen in the SEN and disability Green Paper that we are planning to run pilots where children will have a right of appeal to the first-tier tribunal for all tribunal hearings. I ought to make clear the distinction between the trials of the new approach to exclusions and these pilots, which focus not on exclusions but on how young people could appeal directly to the first-tier tribunal on all the issues for which the tribunal is responsible.
The pilots will test in a couple of areas of the country whether this approach can work. They cannot begin until we have modified primary legislation, which would not be until 2012 to 2013 at the earliest. But we will use those trials, assuming that we get the legislative go-ahead, to inform our future policies in these areas.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned an important point about Ofsted. I support the principle behind this amendment that a review panel should be ready to highlight concerns and bring them to the attention of Ofsted or other relevant bodies, but I would not go as far as directing Ofsted to inspect the school. But a review panel would be able to write to Ofsted, or to the Secretary of State, expressing its concerns, and suggesting that an inspection might be useful. I believe that an independent appeal panel could do that now, although I do not know if it has ever happened. I think it would be useful for us to refer to that possibility in guidance so that review panels consider the option of making a reference to Ofsted. I am therefore grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising the issue.
Before I finish I would like briefly to speak to government Amendment 60, which is in my name. It replaces the wording of “exclusion appeal panel” with “exclusion review panel” in Section 31A of the Local Government Act 1974. This is a consequential amendment and should have been included in Schedule 1, but was overlooked when the Bill was drafted, for which I apologise.
We have had a broad set of amendments and debate. I hope that I have been able to provide some reassurance generally about our approach and some specific further reassurance, as well as some more information. In the light of that, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Ouseley
I make a small intervention on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Howells. The Minister has not responded to the point that she made on the issue of race and ethnicity. If the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was here now he might be able to confirm the issue to which he referred—the high percentage of 72 per cent of SENs in prison. There is also clear disproportionality associated with that, within the context of colour discrimination, as it affects black young boys in exclusions and in custody, black young boys experiencing stop and search, as well as black young boys’ DNA being on data registers. Those are all contributory factors that lead back into issues of behaviour in schools, which we have to address.
We cannot have a debate and a consideration of these provisions and the subsequent ones without recognising the issue of colour discrimination. It would be helpful if the Minister could say before he concludes what efforts he will make to have discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, and others, about the arrangements to put together guidance and the provisions dealing with assessments before exclusion, which would be helpful to reduce the disproportionality that exists.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I, too, support what the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, has said. I feel very sad that three people of culturally diverse backgrounds have had to bring up this point. I should like the Minister to respond to her and for others to be part of this conversation.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Forgive me, my Lords. I meant no discourtesy to the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, and I hope she will understand that. I meant no discourtesy to any noble Lord in my reply. I am grateful to noble Lords for having raised the point and for reminding me that I did not do so. I was responding to the specific points relating to SEN. I obviously accept the point that the noble Lord made about exclusions and disproportionality, and the statistics speak very powerfully. That is precisely the sort of issue that the exclusion trials ought to take into account. Regarding where we have got to on the trials, my understanding is that we want to look at a range of issues concerning exclusions in different parts of the country and in different settings. It would be absolutely right to do that. If it would be helpful, clearly I would be more than happy to speak to the noble Baroness and to bring together some officials who can explain where we are with the trials. We could have a conversation to make sure that these important points are picked up.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Monday at 3.30 pm.