65 Lord Hunt of Kings Heath debates involving the Department for Education

Tue 4th Apr 2017
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lords Chamber

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Mon 27th Mar 2017
Technical and Further Education Bill
Lords Chamber

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wed 1st Mar 2017
Technical and Further Education Bill
Grand Committee

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Mon 27th Feb 2017
Technical and Further Education Bill
Grand Committee

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords

Education: Special Educational Needs Budget

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts
Thursday 17th October 2019

(5 years, 2 months ago)

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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that because of the funding problem for many schools, some primary schools have started to close their premises at Friday lunchtime. Can he now guarantee that all those schools will open for the full five days in quick time?

Lord Agnew of Oulton Portrait Lord Agnew of Oulton
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My Lords, I strongly object to the policy of the very limited number of schools that are doing this. There is absolutely no need for it; any school that feels the need to do it should write to me so that we can examine the budgets and see how well resources are being run. It makes me extremely angry and it is unnecessary.

Schools: Indoctrination

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Tuesday 6th February 2018

(6 years, 10 months ago)

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Lord Agnew of Oulton Portrait Lord Agnew of Oulton
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My Lords, we introduced some statutory changes to requirements on schools quite recently. It is now a requirement that a school notify the local authority of what are called deletions from the register, whether the parent has formally notified the school of the destination of the child or not. Local authorities are made aware of closing schools in those situations.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, I remind the House that my wife is a Prevent adviser on further education. Will the noble Lord take the opportunity to commend the head of Ofsted for her very rigorous action in the last few months? At times the head of Ofsted might have welcomed more ministerial support for what she is doing, taking up the point made by the noble Baroness. I understand that Ofsted feels that to tackle the problems effectively it needs more powers. In the light of his response on home education, will the Minister look at whether legislative changes need to be made to give the chief inspector more authority?

Vulnerable Children

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Thursday 14th December 2017

(7 years ago)

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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, I welcome this debate on the report of the Children’s Commissioner and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Dean on her excellent and well-informed speech, which has led to a really excellent debate. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, thinks that the numbers are less important than the range of vulnerabilities set out in the report, while the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, thought that more work needs to be done on refining definitions. These are important points, but in the end the one message that comes through in the report is that the statistics, shocking as they are, are regarded by the Children’s Commissioner as being but the tip of the iceberg. The point she makes is that the figures set out in the report are likely to underestimate the actual number of children living vulnerable lives because many of them are invisible to services. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is surely right to say that the kind of reductions we have seen in the traditional functions of the Civil Service will have an impact on that.

In her report, the Children’s Commissioner argues that the Government must do more to collect better data and questions how effectively the problems that are outlined can be tackled if departments and agencies do not know how many children are affected or cannot agree on how to define and therefore identify them. The first point to be put to the Minister is whether the Government are going to respond positively to this. If not, the way that statistics lead into the analysis of policy, and then lead to changes in policy, is simply not going to happen in the most effective way possible.

The overriding message from my noble friend was the need for joined-up thinking in government and leadership from the Prime Minister. I agree. A number of noble Lords will have experience of how departments work or do not work together, but one thing is for sure. If we have leadership from the top of government and that is backed up by some kind of joint performance—targets, or call it what you will—different departments will be forced to work together. That is the only way to get the kind of joined-up approach to policy development and implementation that we need to see. Again, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to say something about this rather than just relying on saying that there are good relationships between departments. Can he give us some idea of a mechanism for driving forward the kind of changes we need?

Our next debate is about poverty. Of course, the links between poverty and children’s vulnerabilities are very strong. We have had a large number of excellent reports from organisations. I was struck by the joint report from the Children’s Society, Action for Children and the National Children’s Bureau, published just a month ago, which looked at the impact of central government funding cuts on early intervention. At the moment, the reality in the field is that local authorities that deal with children who face abuse and neglect are intervening only when the problems reach crisis point. We all know that early intervention has got to be the answer. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke about an NHS body saying that respite care was nothing to do with it. Clearly, that is absolute nonsense, but it shows how such bodies are under pressure to make lots of cuts—but short-term cuts will lead them into longer-term higher expenditure. Again, I ask the Minister: how will we ensure that early intervention takes place, rather than the kind of disasters that follow when that has not happened?

The work of schools in this regard is crucial. I understand entirely why the Department for Education is responding to the debate. I was struck by the recent work of the National Association of Head Teachers, looking at the experience of their colleagues in schools. It revealed that schools now have to provide food, clothes and even washing facilities for children from poor and chaotic homes. We should offer our thanks to schools for the kind of job they are taking on; whether they should have to do that is very much in doubt, but it shows the scale of the problems that we face. Schools are having to take on the role of supporting children in a way that one would never had envisaged when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, spoke about his early days in education.

My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley made an authoritative statement on the needs of young carers. She suggested that there should be a duty on education providers to support carers who are pupils in their establishment. I hope that the Minister will respond to that, alongside the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that schools should make their policy readily available. That would be very helpful.

A number of noble Lords have talked about mental ill-health, which is a huge problem for young people. We have heard about suicides being the biggest cause of death for boys under the age of 19. That is a shocking statistic. We are also finding that for many people with mental health problems, the first symptoms appear when they are aged 15 or under—yet the funding for child and adolescent mental health services is a scandal, frankly. We can go through any number of reports: a recent one from the CQC, or one from the Centre for Mental Health. All of them point out that young people are not getting access to mental health services, often having to wait for months for their first referral and sometimes being sent miles away from where they live when they need in-patient care. Ministers make the right statements and have Green Papers, but the reality is that not enough progress is being made. I believe that we will have to ring-fence funding centrally. I hope that the Minister will talk to his colleagues in the Department of Health about that.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made some telling points about very vulnerable children being taken inappropriately through the criminal justice system. We heard from my noble friend Lord Judd about the dreadful experiences of young people in young offender institutions. My noble friend Lady Healy talked about the 200,000 children at any one time with a parent in prison and specifically about the problems for children with a mother in prison. One of the telling things she said is that in those situations, very few children remain in their families or are able to visit their mother in prison. I hope that the Minister can say something about his department’s work with the Ministry of Justice on how we can turn some of that around.

My noble friend Lady Warwick made a telling point about housing, which we have not had much time to debate; she said that we need the right housing and support, particularly when it comes to chaotic families. The appalling problem of the lack of social housing in this country must be a factor in such people finding it so difficult to work through the problems that they face.

In congratulating my noble friend Lady Dean, there is one overriding theme. First, we need the Government to work with the Children’s Commissioner to refine statistics, definitions and vulnerabilities. Secondly, we need a joined-up approach from the Government. Above all, we need a high-level commitment to drive progress and ensure that different departments work effectively together. Only then will we have any hope at all of dealing with these pressing issues.

Dyslexia: Disabled Students’ Allowance

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Monday 13th November 2017

(7 years, 1 month ago)

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Lord Agnew of Oulton Portrait Lord Agnew of Oulton
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The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has great expertise in this area, both as president of the dyslexia association and in other commercial interests, so I defer to his superior knowledge. I reassure him that many universities now offer hardship funds for these tests. Perhaps I may quote from the University of East Anglia, which states:

“The cost to students for the 2017/18 academic year will be £30.00 for the screening and £70.00 for the Educational Psychologist or Psychiatrist assessment”.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, I do not think that the Minister has answered the noble Lord’s Question. I do not understand why people with dyslexia have to go through what essentially is a second assessment which they have to pay for—which, as he said, costs hundreds of pounds—when for other students with other disabilities a letter from their doctor will be enough to process them through the allowance. Why are people with dyslexia discriminated against?

Lord Agnew of Oulton Portrait Lord Agnew of Oulton
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My Lords, specific learning disabilities are treated separately. In a working paper in 2005, where the British Dyslexia Association was part of the consultation group, the view then was that progress into higher education represented a major transition and that more adult-based assessments should therefore be used.

A Manifesto to Strengthen Families

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Thursday 2nd November 2017

(7 years, 1 month ago)

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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to wind up for the Opposition on what has been an interesting and important debate. I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, to the Dispatch Box for his maiden speech. We look forward to working with him in the future. It has indeed been a wide-ranging debate. In a sense, the last three speeches—the noble Lord, Lord Elton, talking about the impact of loss of faith and the unfashionableness of marriage, as he put it; the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, on digital harm; and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on adoptive parents—could almost be debates in themselves. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that I was laughing partly because two of my children got married in the last year—there are three to go. I am not sure that I absolutely agree with him that marriage has lost its fashion; it is just that people tend to do it rather later—and rather more extravagantly—than we used to do.

None Portrait Noble Lords
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Oh!

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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Noble Lords know what I mean there.

The enormity of the consequences of breakdown of so many families has been well documented in our debate today. We all know from personal experience, and from the statistics that are so readily available, the misery and long-term damage that this can cause, particularly to children. Therefore this debate is timely and welcome. One symptom of this was a briefing we had this morning from the Children’s Society which detailed the 72,000 children in care in England and Wales. We know from previous debates—the noble Lord, Lord Nash, in particular focused on this—about the poor outcomes of so many children in care, whether one looks at mental health, their employment prospects, or simply the statistic that 34% of care leavers were not in education, training or employment at the age of 19 compared to 15.5% of the general population.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has explained the background to the manifesto, which was published by a group of Conservative MPs and Peers. I agree with a number of recommendations. In particular, he is right to say that at heart, creating a Government who are focused on families would be a good start—although I agree that it is not everything. I also welcome the recommendation to remove financial disincentives for those on low incomes, promoting healthy relationships to tackle the country’s mental health crisis, and helping prisons to put the role of families at the heart of efforts to reduce reoffending. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, underlined the importance of that.

However, a manifesto produced by one political party might have had somewhat more credibility if it had not rather ignored some of the damage being done to families by so many current government policies. I also share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that in emphasising couple relationships we need to be careful not to stigmatise one-parent families, and we need to acknowledge that there are different families today. That goes to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made; we are in a different situation than many generations ago. My noble friend Lord Parekh and the noble Lord, Lord Popat, spoke about some of the cultural dynamics in families of different ethnic groups. Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned.

In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made some interesting comments about the link between poverty and family breakdown. In fact, he was cautious about it. I understand that; as regards what makes families strong, there are clearly much wider elements than that. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, was very interesting when he talked about a sense of belonging. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, suggested that if Government were prepared to invest more in preventive programmes up front, that would have a beneficial impact on downstream welfare benefit payments and other government expenditures. We cannot ignore the impact that poverty can have on family relationships. Work done recently by Relate, Relationships Scotland and Marriage Care found that a significant number of respondents cited financial matters as the key strain in terms of breaking up long-term relationships. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is right.

The last Labour Government took hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, but new research published today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the number of people living in poverty will soar to a record 5.2 million over the next five years because government welfare cuts are biting deepest on households with young families. As the IFS said, freezing benefits, the introduction of universal credit and less generous tax credits will mean a surge in child poverty, and the steepest increases will be in the most deprived parts of the country. That must have some impact on family cohesion and relationships.

As Polly Toynbee wrote last week, universal credit was introduced as a strong incentive to go to work. However, the taper rate means that claimants lose 63p for every pound they earn. That, to me, is not a work incentive. On top of that, the cruel six-week payment delay is going to leave those without savings in debt and trapped in rent arrears, and many will be forced to go to loan sharks or food banks. I cannot see how that supports families. It would certainly be a very good introduction to ministerial life if the Minister made the triumphant statement today that the Government are not going to introduce universal credit throughout the country and that the six-week delay will be done away with. However, perhaps that will not happen.

I can see why family hubs are supported by many noble Lords. I would have been interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, how he thinks that they might impact on and relate to Sure Start centres. I have to say to him that the closure of more than 1,200 centres as a result of a £437 million budget cut has had a very disadvantageous effect. I believe that Sure Start centres have benefited hundreds of thousands of young children and their parents, particularly those from a poorer background.

It is right to welcome the increased number of people in work but the fact is that for many, work is very insecure. The problem of low pay and the iniquity of zero-hours contracts are the reality for hundreds of thousands of people. That must have an impact on the way that family life works.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, wants to see the appointment of a Secretary of State for government responsibility and organisation. I can see exactly why he would want that and why family impact assessments might work. However, all experience shows that, unless that Secretary of State has a strong departmental responsibility, they will not have the influence required to make such an appointment work. All my experience of government is that, if you give a Minister or a Secretary of State responsibility for cross-government working, unless they have the support of the Prime Minister, and indeed the Treasury, and unless there are targets that other departments have to meet, it might sound good but in practice it does not work. It would be interesting if some further work were done to see how that office could be enabled to work effectively.

The same applies to family impact assessments. If they simply become a tick-box exercise, they will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, knows from experience, simply be a waste of time. Officials can produce impact assessments till the cows come home. They produce equality impact assessments and other sorts of assessments, but at the end of the day I do not think that they have any impact whatever on how a government department does its work. You have to combine tough impact assessments with a policing role in central government to make them effective in the way that the noble Lord would like.

This has been a fascinating debate. I am sure that the preventive measures that many noble Lords have suggested are well worth pursuing, although, like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I have some reservations about tax benefits for married couples, and I should place that on the record. However, I do not think that we can ignore the impact of government policies, which I am afraid in many ways are working against families at the moment.

Education: Funding

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Tuesday 4th July 2017

(7 years, 5 months ago)

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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer—but whatever gloss he puts on school funding, the fact is that the amount of money per pupil is due to go down between now and 2022. As a result, class sizes will grow and schools will replace qualified teachers with unqualified staff. The Minister had nothing to say about this, yet it is worrying parents up and down the country—except, perhaps, in Northern Ireland. Can he confirm that there is now to be an increase in school funding of £150 per pupil in the Province?

The Minister said that no school would have its budget cut as a result of the new funding formula. Can he confirm that that is in real terms and not just in cash terms? His party’s manifesto promised £4 billion of additional money; £650 million of that was to be obtained by scrapping infant school meals. The Minister in the other place has said that that policy has now been scrapped, so where will that money come from? Is it still the Government’s intention to provide universal free breakfast in primary schools—and, if so, does he now have a proper costing of that manifesto offer? Furthermore, is the Government planning to fund new and expanded grammar schools, or has that also been abandoned?

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions. To be clear, first of all, on grammar schools, as the noble Lord will know there is no education Bill in the Queen’s Speech and the ban will remain in place, although we will keep working with the Grammar School Heads’ Association and good grammar schools to see how their excellent practice can be spread more widely.

As far as breakfast is concerned, we do not plan to introduce free breakfasts, although we will continue to work on a number of schemes for breakfast clubs, such as Magic Breakfast.

There has been a lot of talk about the expansion of class sizes. Despite the fact that, by this September, schools will already have experienced an increase of more than 3% in their cost base, the actual increase in class sizes in the last six years has been very marginal indeed. This is at a time when we have 1.8 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools and have created nearly 750,000 new places. I have already said that there will be no cuts in per-pupil funding as a result of the national funding formula. We will be responding in full to the consultation shortly and I am afraid that the noble Lord will have to wait until then for the answers to the rest of his questions.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

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Lord Warner Portrait Lord Warner (CB)
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My Lords, I too welcome what the Government have done in responding to some of the concerns that have been expressed about the Bill. They have shown their willingness to listen and to make amendments and I commend them for that.

I just want to raise an issue around secure accommodation. My warning lights always start flashing on the subject of children’s secure accommodation. It is very difficult to regulate this area and to ensure that good care is provided, because the unit costs tend to be extremely high. If we have now got to the point where we have to take children over the border—where they have to cross the Tweed to get their secure accommodation—we should start to be concerned. This sector has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk in England. This was starting when I was chairman of the Youth Justice Board, up to 2003, and it is very difficult to get people to work in it, to set the systems up and to ensure that they continue to be safe.

There is something to be said, not just for the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, but for taking an independent look at this sector and its economic viability. This is an area where, in effect, you almost have to pay for spare places to be available because you do not know when a child is going to require that accommodation. The Government now need to have a long, hard look at this. The sector has been shrinking for some time; it has proved difficult to get the finances right and to secure good staff. People are doing their best, but things can often go wrong in this sector. It is very difficult to ensure that these places are regulated properly. The Minister might want to write later, rather than responding today, but will he and his department consider whether a review of the sector is long overdue?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, the Minister has paid due tribute to Members of this House for their contribution as the Bill was scrutinised some months ago. In return, the Minister’s willingness—and that of his colleague in the other place, Mr Edward Timpson—has been commendable and is much appreciated. There is no doubt that the Bill has changed quite considerably. I particularly welcome the fact that regulation of social workers is now to be undertaken by an independent body, subject to the oversight of the PSA. I also welcome the Government’s decision to accept that the innovation clauses which the Lords took out would not be reinserted in the other place. Essentially, they involved giving local authorities the ability to override primary legislation, so we have maintained an important principle.

The Minister has introduced a number of interesting amendments. I will follow other noble Lords in asking one or two questions. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, have raised important points in relation to secure children’s homes in Scotland and the amendments brought forward by the Minister. There can, of course, be no objection whatever to dealing with the technical deficiencies which have been identified, but there is a concern that, across the last six years, there has been a, I think, 22% reduction in secure accommodation places for children. There would be a concern if these provisions were used inappropriately to transfer young people across the border because there were not sufficient resources in England. I hope that the Minister can assure me that this is purely a technical provision, that the Government are actually committed to ensuring that there are sufficient places in England, and that young people are not sent unnecessarily long distances from their homes. As the noble Lord and the noble Earl said, that cannot do very much to improve the quality of their lives, which is the purpose of secure accommodation.

I recognise that the provisions on improvement standards for social workers are a logical outcome of the Government accepting the proposition that social worker regulation should come under an independent regulator. The noble Lord said some welcome words about the Government’s desire to encourage the development of a sector-led improvement body. Clearly, efforts have been made in this regard in the past that have not been deemed to work, but the Government are right to try to inspire another go at getting this right. The noble Lord will probably know that both BASW and UNISON have raised concerns about the Secretary of State setting standards and whether they are linked to the national assessment and accreditation scheme. I shall not go into that in detail, but clearly there is a concern among social workers about the way in which the scheme could be used potentially to penalise individual social workers. I hope that the noble Lord will set my mind at rest on that.

In taking forward these proposals on the establishment of a new regulator and the setting of standards and their assessment by the Secretary of State, I hope that there will be, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, full engagement with the sector, including with UNISON, BASW and other bodies. There is a particular role for the chief inspector of children’s services here. I look across the Floor of the House at the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who was a most distinguished chief inspector of social services a few years ago. It is a very difficult role comprising being a principal adviser to Ministers and being head of a profession while upholding the public interest. The chief inspector of children’s services has a very strong role to play in trying to pull the stakeholders together rather than necessarily just confronting them. I hope that she and the Minister will take this suggestion as one that is meant in the best possible way. In the end, if this provision is to work effectively, it is very important that we take the profession with us as much as we can on this journey of improvement. The Opposition fully support the Government in seeking to improve standards in the profession. That is why we support the broad thrust of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about training providers. There has been concern, particularly in the light of the debate on the higher education Bill, about who the providers might be. If the Minister could give some assurance about the quality of provision in social work training, that would be very helpful.

I am grateful to the Minister for his work on the Bill, the amendments he has brought forward and for the overall thrust of where we are now going, which we support.

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their helpful comments. I repeat that these amendments, although important, are, for the most part, relatively minor. However, I will attempt to answer the points that were raised.

On the point about the role of higher education institutions, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as I said, the amendments in this group already include provision for financial assistance for organisations, including HEIs, providing social work training. The Government already play a role in ensuring that adequate initial HEI training is available and are absolutely committed to continuing to do this. This clause allows for this funding to be provided to HEIs, and the Government are committed to continuing this support.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about funding. We have published a new burden assessment of the Bill’s provisions, including a commitment to provide additional funding where appropriate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about issues that some parents face when their child transfers from primary to secondary education. I would be delighted to meet her and the parents concerned to discuss this matter further.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Warner and Lord Hunt, also talked about secure placements in Scotland and generally. Placements in Scottish secure homes have happened, commonly, over time. These amendments are necessary to fill a legislative gap relating to secure placements in Scotland by English and Welsh local authorities—a technical point. While important, they do not seek to change policy; as I say, they are a technical fix.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts
Moved by
18: Before Clause 41, insert the following new Clause—
“Constitution of further education corporations
(1) Section 20 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (constitution of corporation and conduct of the institution) is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (4) insert—“(5) An instrument must provide for the role of the Clerk to include providing advice to the corporation with regard to matters including—(a) the operation of its powers,(b) the conduct of its business,(c) matters of governance practice, and(d) general procedural matters.””
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, we had a very interesting debate in Committee about the role of clerks in FE institutions. It is clear from our debates on the Bill that these institutions face many challenges. We have agreed that it is important to have the highest quality of people appointed to their governing bodies and that clerks can be very helpful in giving advice to them. The Minister said he would give some consideration to this and I look forward to his response. I beg to move.

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to continue our discussion in Committee, about the importance of good governance in FE colleges, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has referred. As I said in our earlier discussion, I fully recognise the important role played by clerks as expert advisers to governing bodies of FE institutions. As the Minister responsible for governance in schools, I have made it a priority to improve this vital area, including the important role of clerks. However, we believe that it is essentially a matter of improving practice, not legislative change, for reasons that I will outline.

We are supporting the role of clerks through development programmes run by the Education and Training Foundation. The noble Lord will also have received a copy of a letter from the Association of Colleges setting out some of the steps it is taking to strengthen governance. Hard copies of that letter are available for noble Lords today, should they wish to see it. I note from the letter that the AoC is currently undertaking a review of the existing code of practice on governance, to which many colleges adhere. I will be meeting it shortly to hear what further action it intends to take. There is clearly a strong and shared aspiration across this House for strengthening governance. The sector is keen to engage and it is only right for others, including government, to take up that invitation, and to offer the right combination of challenge and support. While legislation might appear attractive, it should not be something that is reached for without good evidence as to the nature of any problems, and full consideration of the most appropriate solutions. In an area as complex as governance, simple legislative approaches are unlikely to be effective in delivering real improvement.

The effect of the noble Lord’s amendment would be to reinstate one element of model articles for colleges that applied prior to the Education Act 2011. That would deliberately limit the freedom that colleges currently have in respect of the contents of their instrument and articles, by requiring them to retain provision in those articles regarding the role of the clerk. I have significant doubts about the efficacy of such an approach. A recent sample of the contents of the instrument and articles of 10 colleges, carried out by my officials, found that in every case the relevant documents already contained a provision similar or identical to that proposed in the amendment. If that sample is representative of the sector as a whole then it would suggest that the amendment will have no substantive effect—certainly not in terms of delivering the improvement to standards of governance which I believe is the noble Lord’s intention—particularly as all 10 colleges in the sample had been subject to intervention by the Further Education Commissioner. In many cases, the commissioner found significant failures of governance. Although I will not read out the relevant sections from the commissioner’s reports, which are published on GOV.UK, there is more than one instance of unsatisfactory clerking arrangements being a significant contributory factor. Those failures occurred despite the role of the clerk being set out in the instrument and articles.

This evidence strengthens the argument that setting out the role of the clerk in the instrument and articles, as would be required by the amendment, is by no means a guarantee of good governance in practice. Nor, unfortunately, is it an effective protection against poor governance. Our focus has to be on good practice in governance, and what more we can do to share good practice, not introducing additional box-ticking measures.

In conclusion, I stress that strengthening governance clearly remains a priority for the sector and for the Government and we will continue to drive this. In the small number of cases where there are significant failures in governance, we will continue to intervene swiftly and effectively to ensure that governing bodies are held to account, and that lessons are learned. We must continue to drive up the performance of all governing bodies. This approach strikes the right balance in helping to ensure a robust and well-governed sector that is in the best position to deliver its important mission for learners, employers, and the community. For these reasons, I believe that greater statutory prescription, as set out in the amendment, is unfortunately unlikely to be effective in achieving those goals. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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My Lords, as the Minister mentioned the ETF, I remind the House of my declaration that my wife is a consultant to it. I am grateful to the Minister, particularly because he is going to meet the AoC to discuss the outcome of its review. I accept that good practice is probably the best way forward. However, I hope the Government will keep up the pressure on the AoC and colleges to ensure that they employ good people who can provide robust advice. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.
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Baroness Garden of Frognal Portrait Baroness Garden of Frognal
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My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for her full reply on all this, but I am left as confused as at the start. There is this curious thing that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding body that actually created the materials in the first place or can give them to multiple awarding organisations. I find that a curious concept given that awarding organisations have to have a commercial structure and to make ends meet, and the materials with which they trade are very often their assessment materials. The Minister has made great play of the fact that there is flexibility in the Bill. But the trouble is that, by the time the Bill goes through with these measures enshrined that copyright is transferred to the institute, there is not much flexibility there if copyright is once lost to the institute.

There were a number of other things that I will read in detail in the Minister’s reply. I will not go through the different points that I have scribbled down because they merit a lot of thought. I also pick up the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that we will need some serious conversations about this because it will come back at Third Reading for a vote unless we can get some clearer reassurance.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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Can we be clear that this can be brought back at Third Reading and that we can have a debate on principles? That would be very important in bringing this to a conclusion tonight. It is essential that we know that we can bring this back at Third Reading.

Baroness Garden of Frognal Portrait Baroness Garden of Frognal
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Yes. It will definitely come back at Third Reading.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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There is no guarantee at all because the clerks are tight about what they will allow. The Government have to agree that they will allow us to bring it back. That is why I made the point.

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I should make it clear that if the noble Baroness and the noble Lord wish to test the temperature of the House, they should do so now.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts
Moved by
64: Before Clause 39, insert the following new Clause—
“Constitution of further education corporations
(1) Section 20 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (4) insert—“(5) An instrument must provide for the role of the Clerk to include providing advice to the corporation with regard to matters including—(a) the operation of its powers,(b) the conduct of its business,(c) matters of governance practice, and(d) general procedural matters.””
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, I remind the House of my interest in that my wife is a consultant at the Education and Training Foundation.

The very fact that we have been debating insolvency measures in the Bill underpins the responsibility of the boards of FE institutions. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, referred to the issue of financial competence and the initiatives being taken on governance, which are welcome. We should certainly pay tribute to the public-spirited citizens who undertake these roles, which have become ever more onerous in the past few years.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, will know that my main experience is in the National Health Service. Between 2011 and 2014, I chaired the board of an NHS foundation trust. In many ways, the way that FE colleges and NHS foundation trusts have developed is similar. They are very similar institutions: they both provide a public service and are almost entirely dependent on public funding, although the routes by which it reaches the institutions are a little different, but increasingly they have to stand on their own two feet and, if you like, the buck stops with the board. That is very different from the way that FE used to be, with institutions that were owned by the local authority. It is the same for NHS foundation trusts.

However, there is a difference in governance. In the NHS there is essentially a two-tier structure. As chairman of the board of directors, I was appointed by the governing body, which was elected by the members of the foundation trust—in my case, 100,000 of them—who were essentially patients, members of the community and staff. As chairman of the board of directors, I had regularly to account to the governors in public meetings every other month and meet them individually as well, as did the chief executive—whose appointment had to be ratified by the governing body—the executive directors and the other non-executive directors. I and the non-executive directors had a term of office that was subject to reappointment, but only at the pleasure of the governing body.

We also had a senior independent director, a non-executive director to whom any member of the board could go if they were concerned about anything to do with the running of the board, the performance of the chairman or indeed the performance of the chief executive. When outside regulators came to review the performance of the organisation, they would be able to talk directly to the senior independent director. In addition, we had a highly qualified and experienced company secretary who was charged with ensuring that the trust acted within the law and exercised good governance, and acted as an adviser to the chairman on difficult issues, including the performance of the chief executive and the executive directors. This was not an issue in my case but if, for instance, I as chairman had decided along with my non-executive colleagues that we wished to remove the chief executive, it is to the company secretary that we would have gone, and he would have advised us on the way to do it. He would have done so without informing the chief executive, except where due process would at some point be required.

Looking at governance in further education, I just do not get the sense that there is that robustness. In too many colleges, the members of the governing body tend to be self-perpetuating—it was interesting to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about financial literacy among those governors—the principals often play too much of a role in deciding who the members of the governing body will be, and the board’s members are of course accountable to no one but themselves and do not meet in public. So there is very little transparency about the performance of the boards of FE institutions, and there has to be some suspicion that, at least at some colleges, they do not exercise challenge and scrutiny as much as they should.

This therefore makes the role of the clerk to the governing body very important. However, there is a problem, to which I referred at Second Reading. The Minister will know that one of the reasons we are having these insolvency provisions is that some institutions have got themselves into trouble financially. We also know that in some cases that is because principals have decided to undertake ventures that, if they were subject to proper scrutiny, I do not think they would have been allowed to. There is an instance in Birmingham where basically a principal was going on foreign adventures—there was a fashion in FE for colleges to try to open up and do deals abroad—without the kind of expertise and scrutiny that we are talking about, and almost all those adventures ended up in trouble. There is evidence that the college’s board of governors did not exercise due scrutiny and diligence when it came to those issues.

There was a paper by the former Learning and Skills Improvement Service identifying a number of issues with governance. It stated that in FE there can be too much polite consensus to avoid conflict, with insufficient challenge, a business focus at the expense of core educational performance, a taking on of big risks but not managing them, with the clerk being undervalued in being able to stimulate and facilitate good governance. This is where I come to the role of the clerk. These days, I do not think the word “clerk” aptly describes what needs to be done. Unfortunately, some principals seem to have mistaken the role of clerk for that of secretary, and that is a big problem. At national level, I have no argument at all with the Minister’s department, the FE commissioner or Ofsted, all of which have on a number of occasions given their support to professionally qualified clerks at a high level.

On the ground, there is a suspicion that that has not always been reflected. There is some evidence that, when clerks leave, it is not unusual to see the role offered at a lesser salary with lesser hours and for it to be offered internally, to an administrator. Unbelievably, there have been reports of examples of the principal’s secretary being asked to undertake that role. That is completely unacceptable, and I am surprised that the national regulators have not ruled on that. It reflects the fact that governing bodies are poor and simply do not challenge principals when they make decisions that are totally unacceptable, such as that one.

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Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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My Lords, I recognise the very important role played by clerks as expert advisers to governing bodies of further education institutions, and I pay tribute to the contribution by clerks and governing bodies up and down the country. As the responsibilities of those bodies increase, we must also support the development of the capability and professionalism among clerks. As the Minister responsible for governors in schools, I can completely see the importance of this matter. That is why we support the Education and Training Foundation in the delivery of a new professional development programme for clerks to be rolled out this year. Sector representative bodies also deliver a range of activities to support clerks, including a very active clerks’ network and best-practice materials. The ETF is also supporting the increased professionalism of clerks through the improving clerk to company secretary programme to take account in changing college structures and clerks’ responsibilities, whereby clerks can attain company secretary qualifications. We are supporting chairs of boards of governors through the national leaders of governance programme, where experienced chairs mentor others who need support.

There is a well-established statutory requirement for the instrument of an FE institution to make provision for there to be a clerk, and for provision for the responsibilities of that role to be set out in the instrument. That is set out in Schedule 4 to the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. This means that the importance of the clerk’s role, which I know is recognised by members of this House, is also reflected in law.

While further statutory prescription in relation to duties and responsibilities of the clerk may appear attractive, I do not believe that it is the right approach in this case. I will elaborate. The amendment proposes a few high-level matters relating to advice that clerks should provide and, as proposed, overlooks certain features that would reasonably be expected to be an important part of any clerk’s role. These include, for example, independence from the senior management team at the institution and a duty to take appropriate action if the board, the chair or one of the committees appears to be at risk of acting outside their powers or to be proposing actions that may be unlawful.

The 1992 Act sets up high-level requirements for the instrument and articles, including a requirement for there to be a clerk and for the clerk’s responsibilities to be set out in the instrument. Since 2011, colleges have not required the consent of the Secretary of State to amend their instruments. The detailed content of the instrument, including the details of the responsibilities of the clerk, now largely rests with the governing body of the FE corporation rather than with Ministers.

In my view, the existing balance between the requirements set out in legislation and the responsibilities of the governing body is the right one. We should be very careful about removing from colleges the necessary flexibility that enables governing bodies to adapt and tailor their governance arrangements to fit the circumstances of their institution. That is particularly important in a sector as varied as further education. It is obviously important to guard against the possibility that greater prescription has the unintended effect of undermining the responsibility and thus the accountability of governing bodies. The careful balance set out in the current legislation in relation to matters of governance, including in respect of the role of the clerk, remains important going forward.

Principals do not appoint board members. Governors are appointed to the board by the board itself. A good principal will have a strong interest in having a capable body. When there is a material pre-existing relationship between the principal and a member of the board, it should be declared as part of the appointment process. The Association of Colleges’ model job description states that the clerk should be independent of the senior management team and should provide unbiased advice.

We do not think this amendment would add materially to the conduct of clerking or to governing bodies of FE colleges. We believe clerking is generally working well, and the quality of clerking has undoubtedly improved significantly in recent years. However, as I have spent part of the last four years attempting, I think with some success, to raise the importance and effectiveness of governance in schools, and in view of what noble Lords have said, I will go back and investigate their concerns and see what more we might be able to do in this regard, because it is important. Legislation may be a very blunt instrument, but I will go back to look at it further.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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I am very grateful to the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 64 withdrawn.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts
Moved by
15: Schedule 1, page 21, line 7, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (5) insert—“(5A) In the exercising of its functions, the Institute must cooperate with—(a) Ofqual,(b) Ofsted,(c) The Office for Students,(d) The Skills Funding Agency, andany other body identified by the Secretary of State as having an interest in the delivery or monitoring of apprenticeships.””
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, at the heart of many of our debates so far there has been a desire to ensure that there is clear accountability for ensuring that at the end of the day we see the development of high-quality apprenticeships. Given the number of bodies involved and the complexity of the organisation and regulation of apprenticeships and technical education, I do not think there is any surprise that we see some ambiguity around this area. The question raised just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, about the definition of an apprenticeship and how to change it showed some of the complexities that we are struggling with.

The Minister very kindly sent us a chart showing where current responsibilities lie. In summary, they seem to be as follows. The Education Funding Agency funds provision for pre-19 students. The Skills Funding Agency funds provision for students over 19, plus apprenticeships, and operates the apprenticeship service. Ofqual regulates the qualification and awarding bodies, including certain apprenticeships. The Institute for Apprenticeships determines the scope of technical education, sets the criteria and awards licences for the delivery of technical education qualifications; it approves and reviews standards and ensures they are upheld through contractual arrangements. Then there is Ofsted, which inspects the quality of training for level 2 and 3 apprenticeships. The information from the Minister is that HEFCE’s role in relation to levels 4 and 5 is still to be determined.

On any reading, that is a pretty complex picture. Is any one of those organisations responsible, in the end, for high-quality apprenticeships? Which of those bodies does the Minister hold ultimately accountable? For instance, which would be called in by the Education Select Committee, or, as I suspect, would they all be because no one is actually going to take ultimate responsibility?

What about the actions of employers? We know that some apprenticeships fail because of a lack of commitment from employers. My noble friend Lady Cohen described this very eloquently on our first day in Committee. What enforcement powers can be taken against employers who, for instance, undermine the apprenticeship schemes which their employees are on, for one reason or another? Ultimately, if the institute is the nearest we have got to an oversight body, does it have enough clout to ensure that it can influence all the other agencies involved? If the answer to the question is Ministers, what mechanisms do they have to give strategic direction and oversight? My noble friend doubted whether the noble Lord liked to bang heads together. I assume he does like to, but can he and how is it going to be done?

The amendment is a modest but, I hope, useful contribution to this. I have borrowed the concept from health legislation, where we are used to having a number of national bodies—either quangos, quasi-independent or to a certain extent independent—which are under a statutory duty to co-operate with each other. It might be useful to have a similar concept in relation to apprenticeships and technical education, given the diffusion of responsibility among many different organisations. The amendment is modest, but behind it lies the plea that, in the end, there is some organisation that can clearly be held to account for the quality of apprenticeships in future. At the moment, I have some doubts as to whether we can actually do that. I beg to move.

Lord Lucas Portrait Lord Lucas (Con)
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My Lords, I have a couple of questions to add to those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It is important that a single organisation should keep a list of approved qualifications. At present, it is unclear whether this is going to be IFATE or Ofqual. I hope the Committee can have an answer to that. Secondly, I am unclear how far IFATE’s remit goes into the world of commercial qualifications: the sort of things where a commercial training provider will persuade an industry that this is a particular bit of training they should have for their staff; it has some sort of qualification name attached to it but is completely outside the government-funded system. Will IFATE have any influence in this area, or is it entirely outside its remit?

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Lord Nash Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
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I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Hunt, for this amendment. I could not help but notice that the moment the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, made the very inappropriate comparison with Superman that I appeared, according to the annunciator anyway, to be in two places at once, as was pointed out to me by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. I am not sure that even Superman managed that, but at least I am back now.

It is essential that all the public organisations that have a role in the delivery of apprenticeships and technical education, as elucidated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, work together to ensure a coherent system which delivers a high-quality result.

The noble Lord asked the perfectly fair question, “Who is in charge?”. The Government will work to ensure that the system works and will keep this under review via the accountability statement, which we will share with noble Lords.

The noble Lord asked what the Minister’s role in this was. I guess, if the system does not work, Ministers will intervene to change the system, but individual bodies are responsible for their individual part of the system. The strategic guidance document will ask the institute to carry out a leadership role—a co-ordination role—across the system.

In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on quality versus quantity, I repeat a point I made on the first day of Committee that our target is 3 million. We believe it is a realistic target, but quality must come first.

Paragraph 10(1)(b) of Schedule A1 to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, which will be inserted into that Act by the Enterprise Act 2016, will allow the Institute for Apprenticeships to co-operate with any organisation that it deems necessary for it to carry out its specific functions. It is therefore unnecessary to include the requirement in the Bill.

The Bill includes a data-sharing provision to allow the named organisations freely to share data and information between them, to ensure that they can all deliver their functions properly. This, in addition to the legislation referred to above, is all that is needed in primary legislation to allow those bodies to work together.

In addition, the amendment would require the institute to co-operate with the named organisations but, without a similar requirement on them in return, the effect would be unbalanced. However, that is not my main point.

It is in the interests of all of the organisations named in this amendment to work well together to enable them to fulfil their statutory duties. Past experience demonstrates such a willingness. As the legislation will permit this, we see no need for a further requirement. In preparation for the launch of the institute in April this year, these organisations and others are working together to agree an accountability statement which sets out each of their separate roles and responsibilities in relation to apprenticeships. There is a very positive working relationship between them and a palpable desire to ensure the institute is a real success.

In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, about how Ofsted will carry out its risk assessment approach, I am meeting Ofsted later this week and will discuss this with it in some detail and write to the noble Lord and copy my letter to other interested Peers. I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured enough by what I have said to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. We always thought that he had super powers and are glad to have confirmation of it. This debate has been helpful.

The Minister has promised an accountability statement and it would be helpful to have that before Report. He said that Ministers will intervene and, importantly, that the institute will have a leadership and co-ordinating role. One question is whether it would be helpful to have that backed up by some legislative provision to reinforce it, which is perhaps something that we can come back to.

On the question of the 3 million and quality, I hear what the Minister says. I take his point that 3 million is deliverable but that quality comes first. The question I would like to ask him is whether the Treasury and No. 10 Downing Street share that view. My experience is that, when push comes to shove, the key indicator on which his department will be held accountable will be the 3 million, rather than the quality indicator. Essentially, we are trying to give some cover to the Government to say that at the bottom line quality is more important than the numbers.

I take the point about the drafting of the amendment —that the duty should have been reciprocal—and we can probably come back to it, but this has been a very helpful short debate. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in saying that, at heart, we want to hear how this will operate, because that will inform our future debates. Like my noble friend Lord Knight, I have no problem at all with competition where it can drive quality and innovation. However, that depends on the nature of the market and the capacity and nous of the commissioning body. Frankly, my concern is that government procurement has not usually shown itself able to have the agility that my noble friend asked for. The constraints put upon public sector procurement drive you to award tenders on a crude price basis. Ministers always sign up to concepts of value for money and outcomes, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said. But as anyone dealing with the Government will know, the reality is that it always comes down to price. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made a very convincing argument on the principles, but the real question is on the practice of procurement and licensing.

There was a tension in what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said. He had two worries: one was that the franchising system envisaged would allow too little time for a provider to invest morally, intellectually and financially in the very long term; equally, the other was that because of the single-provider approach, there will be little competition at the end of the franchise period. I suppose he would say the risk is that we end up with the worst of all worlds, with low-quality provision and a provider that is not interested in the long term, and the institute having no choice at the end of the day.

It comes down to capacity. We are talking about an institute with 80 people. I hope that most of their time will be spent overseeing standards, because I for one simply do not trust the approach that is being taken. How can we rely on employers, given that their record in this country is so dismal? I hope the institute will have people who can talk to and challenge the panels. But who will be left to oversee these contracts? The record of government and public sector bodies in procurement is dismal.

My other question is to the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. In its deliberations, did the review look at the ability of the public sector to commission in a sensible, grown-up way, rather than the usual crude way that is taken? My noble friend Lord Adonis is in his place, and I am tempted to invite him to talk about some examples of that in rail franchising. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned this at Second Reading, and clearly there are a number of examples of where the Department for Transport has gone for a bid that was overambitious from the company concerned and has had to come to the rescue. There are also examples of the argument around whether a franchise can be extended to enable the train operator to invest in the future development of services. I hope that the Minister’s department will look at that experience before getting into this sort of system. For me, it is not so much about the principle but about the capacity of the institute to handle what could be a very difficult issue.

Baroness Buscombe Portrait Baroness Buscombe
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords, and in particular my noble friend Lord Lucas, for this very helpful debate on these amendments. My task is to try to reassure all noble Lords that we are on the right page and that we are not talking about what we have had in the past, which was all about a race to the bottom. That was the reason the Sainsbury review was set up in the first place. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we are trying to achieve the right thing, and I shall explain in more detail how this is going to work.

On Amendment 17, good-quality standards developed by employers and other relevant experts are at the heart of the apprenticeship and technical education reforms, and we must ensure that they are fit for purpose. In future, standards will form the basis of both apprenticeships and technical education qualifications in the reformed system, and they must be appropriate for both pathways. One of the cornerstones of the apprenticeship reforms has been to move away from a qualifications-based system—in the past, apprentices have collected a number of small, often low-quality, qualifications throughout their apprenticeship—to a single end-point assessment that tests all-round competency in the occupation.

By mandating, as the amendment proposes, the inclusion of a technical education qualification in each standard, we would be moving back towards this system, and reintroducing something which was a significant factor in the decreasing quality of apprenticeships in the past under the framework model. There may be some cases, such as degree apprenticeships, where including a qualification is appropriate, but we should not require it in every case. The purpose of the apprenticeship reforms is that they are employer led, so employers and other experts should have their input for each standard.

In addition, this approach may also blur the lines between the two pathways, which are intentionally different. For those on an apprenticeship, the individual primarily gains the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the standard through learning on the job and 20% off-the-job training, which is then tested through a single end-point assessment. A technical education qualification is taught largely in a college environment, often supplemented by a work placement and other steps leading to the new TE certificate. By including a technical education qualification in all apprenticeships—which would be the effect of the amendment—we would lose the essential flexibility of standards developed by employers and others and limit the breadth of skills that can be obtained through an apprenticeship.

I noted that a number of Second Reading speeches, particularly that of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, were very strong on this point of flexibility. Several noble Lords have touched on this this afternoon. We do not want to lose flexibility through this process, and we must have some clarity.

The apprenticeship end-point assessment is the equivalent of the technical education qualification for those who have undertaken an apprenticeship, but also captures a wider range of skills and behaviours as well as knowledge. It needs to be given time to gain the value and worth with employers that many currently associate with qualifications. Including a technical education qualification would undermine this by narrowing an apprenticeship so that the measurement is more focused on a knowledge-based qualification and less on occupational competency.

I can, however, reassure the noble Lord that our apprenticeship system is flexible and that qualifications can be included in apprenticeships where that is what employers need, in circumstances, for example, where failing to include a qualification would put the learner at a disadvantage in the workplace or where it is a statutory requirement. We do not believe that technical qualifications should be included in all apprenticeships.

Amendments 26 to 30 relate to copyright. I understand the concerns my noble friend Lord Lucas has raised on copyright, and I hope that I might be able to provide an explanation that will put his mind at rest. My noble friend has proposed that the institute should retain the copyright for standards and common qualification criteria rather than for relevant course documents. Amendments in the Enterprise Act, due to come into force in April, already make provision for the copyright for standards to transfer to the institute upon approval. It follows that the institute would own the copyright for any common qualification criteria that it has produced. By common criteria, we mean design features of the qualifications that are the same, irrespective of the route studied.

The qualifications system in England is unique. Qualifications that attract public funding are developed and supplied not by the Government but by awarding organisations. Our reforms will see the institute taking responsibility for ensuring that only high-quality technical qualifications that match employer-set standards are approved by the institute. This will see the institute working with employers and other relevant stakeholders to set the content of qualifications. There will be a number of people involved in this, on the different panels, including ex-apprentices.

While we recognise that it is a departure from the current system, the transfer of copyright for relevant course documents is an important feature of the reforms. The scope of the licences for the delivery of qualifications and the details of relevant course documents will be established in due course. These may well include a specific technical assessment design specification, as well as other documents that are key to the make-up and assessment of a qualification. We would expect the institute to work closely with key stakeholders, as we propose to do, to make sure that the detail is right. This will, of course, include the organisations that develop qualifications.

If copyright for relevant course documents does not reside with the institute, we could end up with a technical education system where any innovation and employer needs are undermined by commercial interests. While we believe absolutely in competition, we want competition to raise quality and standards. If an organisation other than the institute holds the copyright for a particular qualification indefinitely, this would effectively create a stranglehold that would make it difficult for other organisations to enter the market. This would clearly not be in the public interest or fair value for the taxpayer.

However, we do not want an inflexible system. The institute will be able to grant a licence to an organisation or person for use of documents for which it owns the copyright. This could include granting a licence back to the organisation that has developed the qualification. There are also important safeguards provided for in new Section A2DA.

Amendments 28 and 29 seek to clarify that the institute may grant more than one person a licence or be assigned a right or interest in any copyright document. I would like to reassure noble Lords that it is precisely our intention that more than one person may be assigned a licence if in particular circumstances this is appropriate. I would also like to draw noble Lords’ attention to Section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978. This stipulates that, unless it is clear that there is a contrary intention, wherever there are words in the singular these include the plural and vice versa. This means that the institute may grant a licence, right or interest in any copyright document to more than one person, should this be appropriate.

I hope that that goes some way towards reassuring noble Lords. In addition, I would like to touch on one or two of the questions—all of them if possible. If I do not reassure everybody, I would be very happy to write to noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Lucas questioned this single route, but each route will include a number of qualifications, each based on a cluster of occupations. If an awarding organisation fails, the institute’s copyright arrangements will allow another awarding organisation to step in. What is important is that this primary legislation does not tie our hands. Panels will be starting work this summer on the detail of the different courses. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is, sadly, not in her place, has explained in detail why the commission decided to depart from the existing system and say that it is much better to have one organisation.

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I say to the noble Lords opposite that the one thing we are not doing is leaving it to the public sector—I look at the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and hope that he is listening. He talked about it all coming down to price. Absolutely not. That may have been the situation under his Government, but if it was, we want to move away from it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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With the greatest respect, that is a ridiculous comment, and I do not know why the noble Baroness said it. We have not heard whether the institute, with its 80 staff, has the capacity to handle what looks to me like a very complex procurement situation. In fact, we have heard very little about the institute’s capacity, when it must also be concerned with whether the panels producing the standards are doing the right thing. I have yet to hear any explanation of why the contracting process that has been undertaken will ensure that quality is at the forefront. What I said was that public sector procurement tends not to go down that route. If the noble Baroness wants an example of what the Government are doing at the moment—I must declare my interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association—I would say that many of the current procurement processes in health are very much about price at the expense of quality.

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Baroness Buscombe Portrait Baroness Buscombe
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First, it is not being handed over to the Government but to the institute, which is funded—

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
- Hansard - -

My Lords, there is no such thing as independent bodies in this area. All the bodies listed are going to be in one way or another under the heavy influence of government. The very fact that we are legislating for it means that, in the end, Ministers will take responsibility for what the institute does. There is no other way the Government can discharge accountability. Clearly, the Government will use the usual public sector tendering approach, which is a dead hand and will not, in my view, allow for innovation.

I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is going to do, but one thing that has struck me about the meetings we have had so far is that we have not really met the institute or its acting chief executive or the board members. I think it would be invaluable to listen to them to understand how they are going to take this process forward. We have not been convinced that the institute, to which I assume all the usual public accountabilities will apply, will have the actual capacity to handle the kind of sophisticated tendering that is required. That seems to me to be the problem.

Baroness Buscombe Portrait Baroness Buscombe
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am sorry that the noble Lord seems to be taking quite a negative approach to this. As I said earlier, this Bill is for primary legislation to set a framework. Of course, there may be a situation where Ministers may have to have oversight, but the reality is that we want this to work as charged by the Sainsbury review. We are responding to a situation where we want to turn around something that has clearly not worked, and has clearly not been successful or provided the best outcomes for young people going into the world of work. We are trying to change that.

All I can say at this point is that we are happy to write to noble Lords to explain in more detail what we are trying to achieve through this process. As I said earlier, the legislation will not tie the hands of the institute. Flexibility and quality are key words in how this will develop.

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Moved by
20: Schedule 1, page 25, line 23, at end insert—
“(1A) A technical education qualification approved under this section, which is undertaken by a person over compulsory school age but under 19, must support the person’s entitlement to the core entitlement under section 17C of the Education Act 1996 (the core entitlement).”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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My Lords, Amendment 20 is designed to ensure that 16 to 19 year-olds in danger of an endless cycle of resitting maths and English GCSEs have the right to a full technical course in those fields. The background to this is the decision of the Government that, from August 2014, all students aged 16 to 18 who are starting or have already started a new programme of 150 hours or more and do not hold a GCSE at grades A to C in maths and English, or the new GCSE grades 9 to 4 equivalent, are required to study those subjects as part of their study programmes in each academic year. In 2015, this was changed so that the requirement applies also to all those with a grade D in those subjects—I am not quite sure who I am addressing at the moment on this; usually one addresses hot air, but there we are.

One can understand why the Government went down this route, but the problem is that figures released in August 2016 by the Joint Council for Qualifications show that almost 122,500 learners aged 17 or above did not get at least a grade C in maths, while 93,000 failed to secure at least a grade C in English. I looked at the comment of Mark Dawe of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, who said:

“this is evidence … that hitting students over the head with the same form of learning and assessment is not the way forward. Functional skills, designed to develop core maths and English skills but with the learning contextualised and relevant, is proven to engage and motivate these learners, particularly those who have been turned off these subjects by their school experience”.

Anyone who has come across teachers who have to teach and meet these students, resit after resit, will know that it can become a totally depressing exercise for everyone involved.

This was discussed in the other place and I note the comments of the Secretary of State, Justine Greening. She said:

“We have been clear that we do not want children to be left behind by not getting a GCSE in maths or English when they could have achieved one, so we want those who score a D to take resits. For others, however, there is the option to study for functional skills qualifications, and it is important for employers that we make sure those functional skills qualifications work effectively”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/16; col. 41.]


I understand that the Minister, Mr Halfon, has pointed out that the Secretary of State has directional powers over the institute to achieve this.

No one doubts the need to ensure that relevant literacy and numerical skills courses are available to young people aged 16 to 18 that clearly support further technical education and apprenticeships. Clearly they are an opportunity to get employment. There is, however, a real concern that at the moment too many young people are having to go through a very dispiriting process of repeating studies that they have already failed, and which many of them will continue to fail.

I hope that the Minister will be able to assure me that the Government are looking again at this area, in parallel to Sir Adrian Smith’s study into the feasibility of compulsory maths being continued for all pupils to the age of 18—the two very much run together. I beg to move.

Baroness Garden of Frognal Portrait Baroness Garden of Frognal
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My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 21, 24 and 25 in my name in this group. I pass on apologies from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. She has had to leave for an emergency meeting and has said that she will bring her Amendment 23A on Report.

Amendments 21 and 25 deal with issues of copyright. The Minister addressed issues of copyright in the previous group and I have been left somewhat confused. Issues of copyright were not referred to in the skills plan. It appears that the Government wish to retain copyright and intellectual property rights of qualifications, thus enabling them, if they should so choose, to transfer delivery of qualifications from one awarding body to another. It is not clear why the Government should wish to do this. It is hard to think of another market in which a supplier would freely cede ownership of copyright of its product for no material benefit. The model offers no incentive for any provider of regulated qualifications to enter into a market or take the responsibility for developing and supporting a qualification for which the copyright ownership has been transferred to a third party.

The issue of copyright is complex. The policy intention here seems to be one of control and safeguarding delivery of a consistent qualification should the Government wish to remove a supplier from the market. Surely adding further complexity to intellectual property ownership is not the best way to meet this policy objective. There is no detail on how the process might work. A lack of clarity in this area, especially if export earnings were put at risk, could be a further disincentive to awarding bodies to engage.

If the proposal is that the qualification should be wholly owned and developed by government, we would counsel some detailed research into previous forays by central Government into the vocational qualifications market space, including individual learning accounts or as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has mentioned, the 14 to 19 diploma. I bear the scars of the development of GNVQ, which nearly bankrupted BTEC when the Government came up with a new design of the qualifications, and it was not at all clear that any promotional material had gone into convincing the public, pupils, teachers and learners that this was a good qualification. GNVQs did some good things, but they had such rotten publicity that they never had the chance really to get off the ground. A great deal of time and money were spent in trying to promote those. If we are to learn anything from the past, surely it is that qualification and assessment ownership, and design and development work, are better left to professional bodies with specialist expertise in qualification and assessment rather than being controlled centrally by civil servants or quangos or, dare I say, even by politicians.

Government ownership of qualifications is not a feature of other qualifications, or of undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications offered by the higher education sector. No evidence base has been provided to support the proposal to move to nationalisation of qualifications, nor any assessment of the intended benefits, costs or risks of any such model. If an awarding organisation did not wish to hand over its intellectual property, it would be in a position where the institute would not approve its qualification for use in the funded market. This effectively closes the 16 to 19 market to awarding organisations which do not wish to relinquish their intellectual property.

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Baroness Buscombe Portrait Baroness Buscombe
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Yes, that is right. It would be absolutely outside the scope of the Bill.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, with two completely separate discussions. On the issue of copyright, a meeting would be helpful. I am puzzled, because the Government are saying they would encourage those people who wish to bid for work to be innovative in the bids they put forward, but actually the reward for innovation is to be stuck in a competitive tendering exercise—and, by the way, at the end of the tendering period we will nick your ideas. That does not seem to be quite what we want. Surely we want some partnership here and some commitment from the private sector to commit to R&D and innovation, but they must have some share of the proceeds. The idea that they can get that back in the short tender period that is going to operate is, at the least, problematic.

It seems that the Government are relying on the institute to be the innovator and then to tender that out. Okay, if that is the way it is going to work then we should be explicitly told that, but I do not think they can have it both ways. It would be interesting to have that debate.

On Amendment 20, regarding resits, I take what the Minister has said—that many of those young people who resit their GCSE maths and English as a result of the new policy introduced in 2014 now have grade C —and that is a good thing. However, we know there are thousands and thousands of young people who resat but are never going to get their GCSE maths and English. My point is that this can be a very discouraging process for both students and teachers, and I am looking for a more imaginative approach. I acknowledge it is important that someone going into employment can add up and understand percentages and percentiles, but this does not necessarily mean they have reached the GCSE qualification.

Some clarification is required as there is a point I am not entirely clear on. Is it the case that for someone who goes on to an apprenticeship under the auspices of the institute and continues to resit, and can satisfy the employer at the end-point assessment, because they do not have their GCSE maths they are not going to be able to qualify as an apprentice? I may have got that wrong, so having a letter in response to that would be helpful—I am certain I have got it wrong because officials are telling me so.

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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
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It is. I look forward to getting the letter. I think this has been an extremely useful debate, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 20 withdrawn.