Schools: Admissions

Debate between Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Adonis

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Yes, my Lords, the Government’s position on selection is clear and we have no plans to change it. The existing legislation that governs the prohibition on the introduction of new selective schools remains in place. The only change that the Government have made since we came in is the ability of schools of all types to expand their number locally in response to parental demand, if they are popular schools, because we are keen to give parents more ability to get their children into local popular schools.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, will the Minister congratulate the growing number of independent schools which have joined the state system in recent years as academies by giving up both fees and selection? In particular, will he commend Belvedere School in Liverpool, William Hulme’s Grammer School in Manchester, Bristol Cathedral Choir School and Colston’s Girls’ School in Bristol, which are doing a fantastic job as state academies and are open to their population as never before by becoming academies, giving up fees and giving up the 11-plus?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I know that this subject is very dear to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I am extremely aware of all the work that he has done for many years to pursue that goal. Those schools are making a fantastic contribution. I was looking at their results the other day. Since they have come into the maintained sector, without selective admissions, they continue to perform an extremely good job. A number of schools across the country demonstrate that it is possible to achieve outstanding results if they have high aspiration, high ambition, an orderly environment and work hard for all of their children to do well.

Schools: Curriculum

Debate between Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Adonis

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I hope I have explained, but if I have failed I will try to make it clearer. My understanding is that there is a clear distinction between what is able to be taught in schools and teaching that encouraged homophobic bullying or inappropriate behaviour of any sort, which would clearly fall foul of a range of different pieces of legislation. That is clearly wrong and we would deplore it. However, the ban on that kind of behaviour and what is done in lessons does not extend to particular source material. For example, there may be people who think that the “Merchant of Venice” as a script, a text or a document encouraged anti-Jewish sentiment. Should that be outlawed? No, it clearly should not. That is the distinction I am seeking to draw between the use to which materials are put and the materials themselves.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, has the Minister read the book and does he have a personal view on it?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As it happens, I have read the material to which the noble Lord referred. Many views expressed in it are not ones to which I would subscribe. However, there are many pieces of information, material and literature that contain views to which I do not subscribe, and I do not have a great desire to ban people who hold views different from mine.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Adonis

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords—

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, my understanding of the rules of procedure is that if I do not speak now, I cannot speak after the Minister. Is that correct?

[Lord Adonis]

In that case, I need to speak now. I wish to put to him the specific points raised by a number of noble Lords—including, implicitly, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in her Amendment 31—about subsection (3) of his Amendment 30. Why does he think that it is satisfactory for consultation to take place after an academy order has been made? The noble Baroness said that the order may be permissive. That may be true, but it would have to have been applied for in the first instance, and only the governing body can apply for it. My reading of subsection (3) of the noble Lord’s amendment is therefore that it will be possible for a governing body to apply for an academy order without any consultation, and then to go through a second procedure as to whether it wishes to activate the powers in the order. I am anxious to know what circumstances the Minister could conceive of in which that would be a reasonable course of action. Surely the reasonable course of action is for the consultation to take place at the point at which the school applies for the powers. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could explain to us why he thinks it would be reasonable for the powers to be applied for without any consultation, and then for the consultation to take place later.

In respect of my noble friend Lady Royall’s Amendment 26, I should point out that under the Education and Inspections Act 2006, for which of course the previous Government were responsible, schools may change from community to foundation status. That is a significant change of status that enables the school to become the direct employer of its staff, the owner of its land and buildings and its own admissions authority and to make significant changes to its governing body. It can undertake that process by a decision of its governing body without the Secretary of State playing any role at all.

In terms of consistency, I see no case for Amendment 26. Crucially, it depends on the validity and confidence of the local community in the consultation on the decision that a governing body takes in the first instance when applying for academy status. I look forward to the Minister’s response. However, it would look peculiar to the local community if the whole process of seeking to become an academy happens without any consultation, and if a consultation takes place only at the very last stage when it will be clear to all concerned that the school intends to go down that course.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, when we discussed consultation in Committee, I said that I would think further. In doing so, I have kept very much in mind the distinction drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in that debate between what he called the spirit of consultation and an overly prescriptive legislative approach. That is an important distinction that will inform my response to the other amendments in the group.

Before responding to those amendments, I wish to speak to Amendment 30, explain the background to it and respond to the points that have been made. Many noble Lords expressed the desire in Committee to see something in the Bill on the expectation to consult. That point was put to me by my noble friend Lady Williams and other noble friends, and by Members on the Benches opposite. I reflected on that and, while the general direction of our policy is rightly to be less prescriptive, I recognised the need to reassure the House further and came back with my amendment.

My amendment aims to introduce a statutory requirement for a maintained school to consult on its proposal to convert to academy status. The school's governing body must consult such persons as it thinks appropriate. The consultation, as has been pointed out in the amendment, may take place before or after an application for an academy order has been made in respect of the school, or after it has been granted. That will allow each school to determine when it has sufficient information on which to consult, and at what point during the application process it wishes to do so. It is our view that schools are in the best position to determine when and how best consultation should take place. They might prefer to approach parents or others at the point at which they have firm proposals. The requirement in the amendment is therefore that the consultation must be held before the funding agreement is signed, since that is the point at which the school would be legally committed to the conversion process.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley made a point about academy orders. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, knows probably better than I do, they are a step along the way but are not irreversible. It is proper for consultation to take place based on the facts, the evidence and the specific proposal, right up to the point at which the funding agreement is signed—when, as noble Lords know, the process is irreversible.

Many types of schools will have different views on whom and how to consult, and we prefer to trust them to determine how to do this rather than provide an inflexible checklist. I think that that point is broadly accepted, although not by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I will pick him up on one point. He said that these deals could be stitched up in smoke-filled rooms. Because of legislation passed by his Government, the rooms could not be smoke-filled. We are not in favour of the more inflexible approach. We must trust professionals to make decisions of this sort. In line with the commitment that we are giving, we are amending our advice to converting schools on the department's website to include guidance on good consultation practice. We will discuss with an applying school as part of the conversion process what arrangements it has made for consultation.

I turn to Amendment 28. The Secretary of State will want to review each application for an academy order on its merits. As we discussed earlier, there needs to be flexibility in those considerations, as there always has been with academies policy. Our guidance for academy converters that are not yet rated outstanding will be published on our website. It will include details of the information to be included in an application.

We are not persuaded of the need for the Secretary of State to consult on academy conversions, as Amendment 29 proposes. It should be the school's decision to become an academy except in those cases where the school is eligible for intervention. Therefore, we do not believe that it is necessary for both the Secretary of State and the school to consult on the matter.

I do not expect that this will satisfy everyone. I have sought with my amendment to capture what I felt was the mood of the House and the desire for more reassurance, given the importance that the Government attach to consultation. Making it a statutory requirement in the Bill provides the greater degree of reassurance that noble Lords asked for. I therefore commend Amendment 30 and ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Adonis

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

I support what my noble friend Lady Morgan has just said, with particular reference to Amendment 11A. We need to distinguish sharply between deficits and surpluses. At the moment, unless the policy has changed in the past 18 months since I was in the department, schools with deficits are not allowed to transfer to academy status. The deficit must be written off before the school can transfer. I remember many long and very difficult negotiations with local authorities about how deficits would be dealt with.

The issue of deficits then becomes very important if not clarified. Schools with deficits, particularly those with difficult relationships with their local authority because it quite rightly is seeking to get to grips with the deficit, might regard the opportunity to transfer to academy status as a way of evading their responsibilities to deal with the deficit. It can be in no one’s interests that that should happen. If a school is being poorly managed, its budget may be suspended under Section 66 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. It is not clear under the current Bill what will happen to schools whose budgets are suspended. I should welcome clarification from the Minister on that point, perhaps in writing. There is a statutory procedure for a school’s budget to be suspended, which has to do with very poor management, so will such a school be allowed to transfer to academy status? I imagine that it would be allowed to apply but would not be allowed to transfer. I think that the general principle should be that schools with appreciable, non-trivial deficits should not be enabled to transfer to academy status until the deficit is dealt with. In the early phases of the expansion of academies I find it inconceivable that a school with a large deficit would be able to transfer in any event, as I cannot see how it could be rated as outstanding if it has a non-trivial deficit. That is an important point in terms of taking the policy forward. Will the Minister confirm that it is not the Government’s policy to allow schools to transfer to academy status as a way of evading responsibility to manage their budgets properly if they are currently in deficit?

On the issue of surpluses I take the view entirely of my noble friend Lady Morgan. I do not believe it right that schools should be penalised for being well managed and accumulating surpluses. I can see no reason whatever for a school that has a surplus to have that surplus seized by the local authority if the school chooses to become an academy.

That raises the issue of excessive surpluses. As I know only too well, an excessive surplus is a much debated concept. It may seem excessive to the local authority but, generally, it does not seem excessive to the school, which regards the fact of the surplus as a testament to its excellent management of its own affairs. I am sure that if you ask a school about the purpose for which it has maintained that surplus, it will give you 100 good reasons why it needs the surplus and 100 good reasons why it should not be seized by the local authority.

Therefore, I do not have much sympathy with the notion that schools with surpluses should not be able to transfer to academy status, but I believe that there is an issue about deficits which the Government need to address.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, before I respond to the detailed points on the amendments and pick up directly on deficits, perhaps I may draw noble Lords’ attention to the published policy statement setting out our intention regarding deficits. In a nutshell, it makes clear that no school with a substantial deficit, which is defined at around £100,000, will be able to convert. However, I will go on to explain what we will do about deficits, because the purpose of the policy is absolutely to prevent any school evading its financial responsibility by converting to academy status and thereby writing off any kind of deficit.

Basically, it would work as follows. If a school had a deficit of less than £100,000 and the Secretary of State therefore decided it was able to convert, the Department for Education would compensate the local authority for the sum of the deficit. The academy would not get a financial advantage out of it as it would have to pay the amount of the deficit back through reduced levels of grant. That is how we would deal with the deficit problem.

Overall, the aim of all these arrangements is to try to ensure that they are fair and reasonable to both the converting school and the local authority. Amendment 11A would mean that the Secretary of State would not be able to enter into academy arrangements with a person with an excessive surplus or deficit. We do not believe that that is necessary because we would put in place arrangements for dealing with surpluses and deficits.

As regards schools applying to convert to academy status—particularly the first wave of outstanding schools, which tend to be pretty good at running their financial affairs, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said—they are retaining their same leadership and management. It is not like the original model for academy conversion whereby one is starting a new school. Therefore, we think it only fair that what is essentially the same school keeps the same money it has put aside as part of its long-term financial planning, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. However, to underline the point, we think it also right that if a school converts when it has a deficit, it should deal with that deficit.

Amendments 140 and 141 would require the local authority to determine whether a school had a deficit, as well as whether it had a surplus. In our view, those amendments are not necessary because if the local authority is making a calculation to determine whether a school has a surplus, by definition it will have determined whether it has a deficit.

Amendment 142 seeks to maintain the current position when a school closes and becomes an academy. That approach had considerable logic when original academies replaced predecessor schools and gained new management and governance. In effect, in that case an institution was closing and a new one was opening. But in this case, the school is continuing, and if it has put money aside as part of its long-term financial planning it should be able to keep it.

Amendment 143 would prevent the academy from retaining a surplus, and the same argument applies. The local authority will not be losing out from the approach as the money is already accounted for in current surpluses. Therefore, it is not an additional charge on local authorities from which other schools will suffer.

Amendments 144 to 149 would treat a converting school's surplus as a loan from the local authority which the academy would have to pay back over time. Again, we do not want schools to be disadvantaged financially. Maintained schools can carry forward their surpluses from year to year; we think that the same principle should apply to academies. To pay back a loan over a long period would set up a whole new bureaucratic process, which we do not think would help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

These are difficult and complicated matters and I do not have a simple and straightforward answer for the noble Lord now. I have said that it is an important matter that we can debate further outside this House. Let us do that by all means.

As I was saying, we think it important to ensure that local children of all faiths or none—I take the point that has just been made—have access to new academies. We will ensure that there is the balance that I discussed between community and faith places. All academies will have to have admission arrangements.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord has just made an incredibly important statement of policy in respect of new schools. After this debate, will he clarify whether the 50 per cent provision that he mentioned in respect of new academies covers existing independent schools that transfer into the state system by means of academy status? That would be the principal means by which schools that are exclusively of one faith in terms of admissions could seek to come into the state system.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That is an extremely good question, which I will need to follow up separately with the noble Lord either orally or in writing, in which case I will circulate the letter. The principle of independent schools coming in is that academically they should be not selective but open in their admissions. I will need to follow up that precise point and come back to him.

We expect that in most cases the relevant religious body would be represented on the governing body of the school that converted. I am talking about existing religious schools converting. Therefore, those people would be informed of the Secretary of State’s decision not to issue an order. The relevant religious foundation or trustees would obviously be closely involved in the process and could veto any academy application. In many cases, they would be the people signing the funding agreement as the academy trust. They would be closely involved in all stages of the application process and fully informed of all decisions.

Where there is currently an existing foundation or a trust associated with the predecessor school, we expect those bodies or their representatives, if they wish to, to become members of the new academy trust. That academy trust, once established, would appoint the majority of academy governors. That mirrors the current arrangements for both academy sponsor appointees and the appointment of governors to voluntary aided schools. As members of the trust and as signatories to the academy’s memorandum of association, they would be fully involved in the process of a school becoming an academy. The governance arrangements will be agreed between the Secretary of State and the academy trust and set out in the articles of association. As I explained earlier, the articles cannot be changed unilaterally by either the Secretary of State or the academy trust.

The Bill does not change the required processes in respect of consultation, objection and adjudication on admission agreements for religiously designated academies. A school will continue to be required to consult its religious authority on any changes. Neither will it be affected by our policy on the provision of new non-faith places that a new academy is required to provide at least half of available places to the broader community. The Government’s intention overall is to maintain the current relationship between religious bodies and their schools. My letter to the churches set out that commitment.

If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln would like to discuss this further, I shall be happy to do so. More generally, as I have said on those other important points that have come up, I will do my best to provide further clarification. I hope that I have dealt with the broad issues of what has been a long and interesting debate and I ask the right reverend Prelate to withdraw his amendment.