Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Perry of Southwark

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

I have declared my interest as chair of Wandsworth Academies and Free Schools Commission. We interview every prospective sponsor. We look at their track record; we listen to what their aims and objectives are; and we listen to their views of education. We can then offer advice from the local authority to the department. I know that the department’s evaluation of every potential sponsor is very detailed. Of course, local authorities will no longer be asked to comment—so my little commission will disappear—but I know that the regional schools commissions will do an extremely thorough job before they hand over any school to a new sponsor. They will have looked carefully at every aspect of the sponsor: its aims, its objectives, its track record, its vision of education and its proposals for what it will do with a school and so on. We sometimes try a little too hard in this House to nail everything down in legislation instead of having more confidence in what professional people will do.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I see the noble Lord’s three amendments as being essentially about the quality and standards of the academy chains being considered to take over individual schools. As a matter of principle, it does not seem unreasonable to require that information be available to those who make decisions and to parents and teachers about the record of that academy chain. I take the point that one does not want to write everything into primary legislation and to instruct Ofsted in everything that it should do. On the other hand, one of the themes through our debates is whether maintained schools are being treated on a level playing field with academies. The suspicion arises because the Government seem to convey the view “Academies are good; maintained schools are bad”. That is why some of us want to see something in the legislation to ensure that academies are dealt with equally, and looking at the past performance of the chain seems to me to be particularly important.