Children and Families Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, one of the joys of speaking towards the end of a long debate such as this is that most of the points that you wanted to make have been made more eloquently than you are capable of. That is certainly the case in respect of Part 3 of the Bill. As others have done, I welcome the aspirations behind the Bill, and I share some of the concerns that the Bill as drafted does not fully meet those aspirations. In particular, I share the concerns about the 1.4 million children with special educational needs who do not have statements. As school action and school action plus disappear, I am concerned about how those children will be properly provided for.

I share the dismay of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and others, that higher education is strangely excluded. I share the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Ramsbotham, among others, about the exclusion of children in custody. I agreed with many of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about further education colleges. In particular, I am perplexed that million of pounds have been spent on 20 pathfinders, to enable them to test out aspects of the funding behind these reforms in local authorities. Little evidence has been provided to date, and they have now been extended until September 2014 in order for sufficient evidence to be gathered and evaluated, and yet obviously that will not be in time to support the passage of this Bill or the development of the code of practice.

That enforces the concern that the Government’s admirable motivation to get on with this may perhaps cause them in part to rush at some of these things without the evidence that we need. I certainly share the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about choice and inclusion. We need to ensure that the parents of all children with special educational needs have a real choice, and that we do not return to the days of some children essentially being parked in provision that is not challenging and not really education, just the minding of those children.

I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions about one area of Part 3, which is the dry subject of data. I understand from those who I have spoken to that we do not actually know on a local authority by local authority basis how many children will be provided for in these plans. I would be interested to know if that is the case and whether there is any evidence that could be published over the Summer Recess to show that. In trying to work this out, I looked for an impact assessment for those clauses of the Bill that would have been drafted by the Department for Education, but I could not find one, despite the Cabinet Office guidance that impact assessments are generally required for all UK Government interventions of a regulatory nature that affect the private sector, civil society organisations or public services. This Bill certainly does that, so it seems odd that there is no impact assessment to help us make those judgments.

I am also interested in the data-sharing powers that might be needed for these plans to work. Having read the draft code of practice, I draw the attention of noble Lords to page 42, where it states:

“Before providing a child or young person with the Additional SEN Support, a rigorous assessment of SEN should be undertaken by the institution using all available evidence/data sources, such as attainment and historical data, the child or young person’s development in comparison to their peers, information from parents and, if relevant, advice from external support services”.

I remember painfully taking through the data-sharing powers around raising the education leaving age to 18. If we are now starting to integrate, as we should, care services and health services, I would like to know where the data-sharing powers are to allow that effectively to happen.

I shall address the rest of my comments to Part 6 of the Bill. I shall tell noble Lords a little of the story of a woman called Lucy Herd and her son Jack. In September 2008, Lucy gave birth to Jack, the third of her children. It was a particularly emotional time for her since she had lost five children through miscarriage and regarded Jack as a miracle child. After three days in hospital because Jack had jaundice, he came home and was a remarkably happy, cheerful and loving baby. In August 2010, Lucy was preoccupied in the kitchen, but then noticed that Jack was lying face down in the garden pond. Despite her efforts to resuscitate him, and those of neighbours and eventually the paramedics, unfortunately Jack died. Lucy’s partner, her husband, was working on the other side of the world at the time and needed a good 24 hours to be able to come back to comfort Lucy and receive comfort for his grief at their loss. Obviously, Lucy was also dependent on members of her immediate family, her mother and her siblings.

What Lucy found was that although she was able to take time off to deal with her bereavement, her husband had to return to the other side of the world after only five days because that was the limit of the time off that he was allowed. Her mother, a teacher, was allowed seven days of time off to cope with the bereavement and to provide support, while her siblings were allowed only 24 hours. Lucy discovered that there is no statutory entitlement to bereavement leave when your child dies.

I think that this is something that we should address in Part 6. I have referred Lucy to the CBI and the TUC to discuss this with interested parties and the current indications from the CBI is that it has some sympathy with doing something about this. Perhaps a period of two weeks’ time off and using the rest of the time as parental leave as one would if the child was alive might be an appropriate way forward. Lucy has put a petition on the No. 10 website and has had a response from the Government, from which I will read a short passage so that noble Lords know their position:

“Whilst there is no specific right to ‘bereavement leave’, all employees do have a day-one right to ‘time off for dependants’ which allows them to take a reasonable amount of time off work to deal with unexpected or sudden emergencies, including when a close family member dies. Time off will cover arranging and attending the funeral. Employees who exercise this right are protected against dismissal or victimisation. The right does not include an entitlement to pay. The decision as to whether the employee will be paid is left to the employer’s discretion or to the contract of employment between them”.

I simply ask this question: why do we need to introduce a statutory right to time off in Part 6 for parents, which I welcome, when their children are alive, but not for those parents who go through the unimaginable tragedy of losing a child? That is an anomaly that we need urgently to address. Would the Minister, or one of his colleagues in BIS, be willing, before we go into Committee, to meet Lucy and me to discuss the current government position, perhaps with a representative from the CBI, to see whether we can find a way forward?

Along with every Member of the House who has spoken or is about to speak, I look forward to improving the Bill. There is plenty of work to be done and I look forward to working with the Minister on this, his first Bill, and wish him all the best with it.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, this is an important amendment and it is important for the Minister to respond to the questions that have been raised. When the Government were first formed, they made great store of talking up the importance of teaching. Indeed, the title of the first White Paper that the new department published was The Importance of Teaching. Just now, I looked up the discussion document on teacher training published in June this year, where the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, begins his foreword:

“If we want to have an education system that ranks with the best in the world, then we need to attract the best people and we need to give them outstanding training”.

Clearly, if we believe what the Secretary of State is saying on that aspect of the Government's policy, the Secretary of State understands the importance of trained, qualified teachers.

I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said in preceding me and it is important to offer people the opportunity to come in with other expertise and knowledge. However, there are ways of doing that while still preserving the importance of qualified teachers. For example, it should be easier for people to become qualified and to train on the job in terms of pedagogy. What I would not want to see is this opening the door to a sort-of “Jamie's Dream School” approach. Just because you are brilliant in your field—you might even be a brilliant noble Lord—it does not mean that you are necessarily going to be a brilliant teacher. I think that those of us who watched any of the episodes of “Jamie's Dream School” will have been appalled at times by the inability of some of those people, brilliant in their subject, to relate to children and to teach them. It needs some training so, yes, we should allow some of those brilliant people to enter the teaching profession but we should also allow them an opportunity to train and gain pedagogical understanding as they do so, under the supervision of a qualified teacher. That is what this amendment offers.

I am concerned that as the free school policy develops, it is being informed by a belief on the part of some in the department that if it works in independent schools, it must work in free schools and in the maintained sector—because independent schools can have non-qualified teachers, it must be fine. We have heard the parallels with health, for example, and about whether it is fair to presume that if I bowl up to a hospital and it has let somebody practise, it will be all right and it does not really matter whether they are qualified. I do not like that idea. I would not trust someone to treat me as a medical practitioner unless they were qualified and I would not want to trust my children to a teacher unless that practitioner was qualified.

Many or most independent schools do a great job but they do that with a very narrow set of pupils. I know that if my friends in the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference were listening, they would be shouting at me but it is fair to say that it is often the case that those pupils are from fairly narrow backgrounds and do not, by and large, have quite the same behavioural challenges or some of the obstacles that have to be overcome in the maintained sector. I would be looking for training to inculcate those sorts of skills in teachers.

This is a good amendment. It seeks to give some guarantees on quality. We have had debates during this Report stage on the weakening of admissions and on some schools being exempted from inspection by Ofsted. We seem consistently to be weakening some of the measures and guarantees of quality in order to pursue and make a success of this free school policy in terms of numbers and flexibility. If we are to go with the free-market approach to education, we need to hang on all the more tightly to guarantees of the quality of the workforce, the quality of the inspection and fair admissions. We have also talked about fair funding. In the end, I will always come back to this in debates on this Bill: I fear that unless we can give some guarantees about the workforce being qualified, we will lose quality in some of these free schools.

In the United States, some of the charter schools were set up with the best of intentions by parents who were dissatisfied with what was going on locally. They might think, “Well, I’m okay as I have done a bit of home education myself. I’ll rock up and teach—it’ll be fine”. They are very well intentioned, and it might be fine for their kids, but I am not persuaded that it is fine. The experience of so many charter schools in the United States is that it is not fine; so many of them have failed. There are some great ones, but many of them are not great. I do not want to take that risk in this country.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, this suggests that teaching is not entirely about qualifications; it is also a gift of God. However, that was not what I intended to ask. I wanted to ask the mover of the amendment what is meant by “non-specified work.” I am concerned —so are the Government, and indeed we should all be concerned—about, for example, those who do not have a tendency to be very successful in academic qualifications and who need to get fulfilment in life from their work, or from other skills. Why should not someone be taught to use a lathe by someone who is brilliant at using a lathe, rather than by someone who has an academic education? Or perhaps I have got it wrong.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this has been an extremely good and interesting debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken from a range of different perspectives, and for some of the advice that I have received, which is helpful. At issue here is, in some way, a distinction between quality and qualification. There is complete agreement that we want the highest possible quality; the difference of opinion is whether the only way that the highest possible quality can be secured is through a specific qualification. I think I sum the mood up accurately by saying there is a feeling that quality is not defined only by one specific qualification.

It is certainly the case that improving overall teacher quality is very much at the heart of what the Government are trying to achieve through their education reforms. I agree with what all noble Lords and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, have said about the importance of teacher professionalism. Across the piece, the Government are introducing a range of reforms to try and raise the status of the profession. We are reforming initial teacher training, trying to ensure that we attract more top graduates, strengthening teachers’ powers and authority in the classroom, and streamlining performance management arrangements.

We think that qualified teacher status has an important part to play in the teaching profession. That is why, in March, we set up a review of teacher standards, led by Sally Coates, to make all teacher standards, including those that underpin QTS, clearer and more focused. The review recommended revised standards that will take effect from September 2012 and raise the bar for entry to the profession.

We certainly think that qualified teacher status has an important role in the system, but we think that it is possible to be an outstanding teacher without having QTS. A number of noble Lords spoke during our debate in Committee and again this afternoon about the value that individuals from a range of backgrounds, experience and expertise can bring to the classroom. It is true that under current arrangements such individuals can already bring their experience to bear in the classroom, but to a limited extent. Broadly speaking, they may only assist or support the work of a teacher with QTS and must be directed and supervised in doing so.

The core purpose of the free schools programme that lies at the heart of the issue is to make it easier for parents, teachers and others to set up new schools in response to demand from their local community for change in education provision in their area. That is the basis upon which free school proposers set out their educational vision. We want to give them the ability draw on as wide a pool of talent as possible to deliver that vision. If a free school believes that that means including among its staff a teacher who has a wealth of qualifications, experience and expertise, but who does not have QTS, we do not want to prohibit the free school from doing so.

My noble friend Lady Perry, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin all spoke persuasively about the need for some degree of flexibility. The kind of example that we have in mind would be that a free school might want to employ an experienced science teacher from the independent sector who has a strong track record of preparing pupils for top universities. That would be one example. We have a free school proposal from a group of independent schools that wants to set up a sixth-form college in Newham to try to get more children from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to top universities. My noble friend Lord Lucas mentioned another example in which the former head of Westminster School was caught by the rules. A free school might want to employ an engineer with a background in training and instruction to teach an engineering technical specialism.

Free schools know that recruiting high-quality teachers will make the biggest difference to the quality of education that they can provide for their pupils. Therefore, I believe that they will themselves want to ensure that the staff that they recruit have the right knowledge and skills, and that relates to the point that my noble friend Lord Storey made about how free schools will be accountable and what mechanisms will be in place to make sure that they want to employ the best possible teachers. As part of their application to the department to set up a free school, proposers have to set out how they will deliver the highest quality of teaching and leadership in their schools, and no school is allowed to proceed without robust plans for doing so.

Because they are new schools set up in response to parental demand, free schools are likely to have a particularly close relationship with parents, who, we believe, will hold them sharply to account for the quality of teaching. They will be subject to the same Ofsted inspection regime as all maintained schools. They will have a pre-registration inspection before they open and a full inspection by the end of their second year of being open.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley, with support from the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, asked, importantly, how we would know what was going on. I would answer that, in part, by talking about the publication of results and parents holding to account, but it is also the case that staff employed in free schools who do not have QTS will be monitored through the school workforce census, which takes place once a year. The results of that will be published on the department’s website and we will all be able to see the extent to which this is happening or not happening.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Beyond saying that there is quite a lot of flexibility in the proposal, can the Minister tell us whether the publication of the number of unqualified teachers in free schools would feature on the Ofsted risk assessment that we talked about last week? If there were a large number of unqualified teachers in a free school, that would mean that Ofsted would be keeping a closer eye on them.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

76: Leave out Clause 39

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[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I am moving Amendment 76, which was tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, at his request. The amendment would delete Clause 39, which we have just been debating in respect of the government amendments. As we have heard, the clause amends the current requirement under Section 5 of the Education Act 2005 for the chief inspector to inspect and report on every school. The clause provides for certain schools to be exempt from such inspections in future, as we have heard, subject to necessary regulations being approved by Parliament. I recognise that exempt schools may still be subject to inspections as part of the chief inspector’s surveys of general subjects and thematic reviews, but I remain concerned, as does my noble friend Lord Hunt, that this still leaves a potential gap in the inspection regime.

According to the Government, the aim is to introduce greater proportionality to the inspection system for schools and, in particular, to reduce the inspections for outstanding schools. The concerns about this are for two principal reasons. First, the open-ended nature of the clause would allow the Secretary of State to exempt other categories of schools, such as academies or free schools. We all know that Ministers have either been in a state of denial or embarrassed when academies have not done well in their Ofsted inspections. No doubt we will see the same phenomenon with free schools. Will the Minister confirm that the Government have no intention of seeking to exempt academies and free schools en bloc from regular inspections in future?

My second objection is to the principle of exempting outstanding schools per se. This flies in the face of the Government's approach to regulation in other sectors and the evidence is that not all outstanding schools will remain so. Indeed, of the 1,155 schools that have been judged outstanding by Ofsted, on subsequent inspection over 30 per cent had a reduced grading, including 58 that went from the top grade of outstanding to the third grade of satisfactory. Given that, I find it difficult to understand why outstanding schools should be exempted. Perhaps it is because the Government do not want to fund Ofsted to do these extra inspections properly and this is simply a way in which to reduce the cost. If that is the case, I would be delighted if the Minister was frank enough with your Lordships to say so.

The Government apparently believe that risks can be reduced, because Ofsted will develop a risk assessment approach, including a basket of indicators that flag up concerns. We have heard described very well by my noble friend Lady Morgan the risk-based approach being undertaken by Ofsted but, because the data that will inform that approach are likely to be gathered a number of years after a school inspection, there is a real risk of a school deteriorating and students suffering for some time before any intervention on that basis is triggered. For example, I would be concerned about the impact of a free school being established in an area where an outstanding school has a catchment area, attracting children who would otherwise enrol into that school, however outstanding it may be, and causing a sudden deterioration just because of a loss of funds.

There are all sorts of scenarios that are not just around a change of leadership. I remind the Minister of the debate that we had on Monday around admissions, when I put it to him that the fundamentals to which the Government have to have regard in a free market-based system of school improvement such as that which they are adopting are fair funding, fair admissions and inspection as a form of accountability. He replied:

“These are the three principles that we need to uphold”.—[Official Report, 24/10/11; col. 642.]

So he agrees—and yet, as with admissions, he is watering down inspections in the context of moving to a more market-based schools system.

I am grateful to the Government for reflecting on the debate in Committee. As we have heard from the Minister, the Government are now proposing that any move to exempt a category of school will be subject to the affirmative procedure. That is welcome, but, of course, this House only very rarely rejects such legislation. This really is our only chance to decide whether or not we are happy with some schools being exempted from inspection, potentially for ever.

I have also noted the intention to trial the new approach in schools where a new head teacher has been appointed, and the Minister has made it clear that Ofsted will adjust the risk-assessment process so that at least 5 per cent of outstanding schools will be inspected each year. As far as it goes, this is welcome too, but it does not go far enough.

I would contrast, as has my noble friend Lady Hughes of Stretford, what the Minister is currently proposing in education with what is happening in other sectors. Let me refer him to the NHS, as she has done. This summer, the health regulator CQC announced it was replacing its light-touch style with an annual inspection of each NHS and independent sector provider. As the CQC says:

“When people’s lives and well-being are at stake, the public don’t want to hear about light-touch regulation.”

That philosophy should surely apply as much to education and the teaching of our children—to the life chances of children—as it does, perhaps, to our death chances in the NHS. What is so different about children that we do not want to regulate and inspect their education? Indeed, let us look at this in a commercial context. Would a big retailer such as Marks & Spencer not quality-assure its best stores as much as its underperforming stores? I put it to your Lordships that Marks & Spencer would quality-assure every retail outlet that it has.

I find it extraordinary that Mr Gove, the Secretary of State, is seeking to exempt outstanding schools when he was recently so critical of the methodology used by Ofsted to rate outstanding schools. Only five weeks ago, at the National College for School Leadership, he voiced this concern. Yet now his Minister in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, is seeking to exempt the very same schools from regular inspections. The public and parents surely have a right to know whether standards are being maintained or not. If the inspection system is to retain its credibility, regular inspections are essential for all schools.

Finally, I would simply say to the Minister, who I am afraid was floundering around about why he needs to proceed with this exemption—he has had to compromise and come up with all the whys and wherefores in making this all right—would it not just be easier to drop this and give way to common sense and have all schools inspected? I beg to move.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I shall start with what I think is going to be my only line of agreement with the Government on this. To take the attitude that intervention in schools should reflect the risk of schools doing badly, and to say that we should intervene less when schools are successful, is absolutely right. As my noble friend has just said, that is a principle that was followed by the previous Labour Government, so I am with the Minister on that. We should not be constantly going in to excellent schools and getting in the way of them doing an excellent job; that is an absolute principle.

The second absolute principle is that inspection should be universal for all our schools. Does the Minister really think that one visit every five years is going to be a big burden on outstanding schools? One visit by Ofsted inspectors every five years; that is what happens at the moment, that is what the data say.

The reason for drafting this clause perplexes me. I am trying to think what motivates it because, to be honest, I never thought that the Tories would go soft on inspection, and that is what they have done with this clause. They fought hard to put Ofsted in the legislation, they fought hard to put it into schools, they have argued the case with head teachers and teachers, almost all of whom were opposed to inspection when it first started, and the Labour Government did the same. The political parties have been on the same side on this; we have thought that inspection was a necessary part of raising standards. So I am absolutely perplexed why the Tories, of all parties, should go back on this now. This is a principle, and you would have to come forward with some absolutely outstanding reasons why this principle should be broken. That principle is that in a devolved system, more than ever, every school should be inspected. Every parent has the right to know that the school which their child attends should be inspected. Every child should have a right to be reassured that the school which they attend should be inspected. That is an inalienable right and should be a fundamental structure of our school system.

The second question is: is doing that once every five years a terrible burden on schools? I do not think it is. To some extent, that is where the argument finishes. If you believe that those rights should not be given to parents and teachers, vote against this amendment. If you really believe that one inspection every five years is a terrible burden—do not forget that some children will have gone almost right the way through a secondary school in that time while there has never been an inspection, as they will have started in year 7 and might leave in year 11—then vote against this amendment.

I am going to be really helpful to the Minister here. I am going to warn him not to get into a position that I know I got into when I was a Minister. It is a great ministerial habit when you come up with an idea. Listening to the debate, I have to say that when the Minister responded to my friend Lady Hughes on the previous amendment it was the most troubled that I have heard him in the whole consideration of this Bill. I did not believe that he had convinced himself, let alone the House. What is happening now is that the Government have a policy but they are, in honesty, persuaded by the arguments against it. Rather than withdrawing that policy, they are seeking to put plaster in the holes and rearranging the bricks: “Well, let’s have greater risk assessment. Let's talk to the heads when they are new. Let’s do this, that or the other”. I can tell your Lordships that that is how the camel was invented, rather than the horse.

I remember when we ourselves got into exactly that position. You do not want to backtrack, because this is politics, so you start trying to plaster up the cracks. But what you end up with is so disastrous that in two years’ time you are asking, “Why weren’t we just brave enough to say that we got that wrong”?. I say to the Minister that he is at that point now. He should take a deep breath and protect himself from having to come to your Lordships’ House in two years’ time to answer many questions and queries about an inspection system that clearly will not work.

I have two more points to make. I really worry that the Minister may have constructed a terrible bureaucratic tangle in order to get out of the political difficulty that he is in. He will now have an army of Ofsted inspectors doing more risk assessments. They will have to weigh and measure the schools and collect the data. Now they will have to go and talk to every new head when he or she is appointed to a school—perhaps the Minister could tell us how many interviews that is going to be in a year—just to check their plans for that school. The Government would not have to do that if they backed this amendment. From the schools’ point of view, we are meant to be freeing them from this terrible burden of one inspection every five years, but what is the Minister putting in its place? He is making them provide more data. He has the local authority checking on them, so that it can refer back to Ofsted. He has the new heads having to talk to Ofsted and he has a third of them having to be inspected every five years. They will not know where they stand. I can assure the Minister that it would be easier for them and less of a burden if he would just say, “Once every five years, and that’s it”.

My last point is this, and to some extent it is the most important point for me. From the point of view of the Ofsted inspectors, it is crucial that they measure the standards of every single school in this country by the performance of the best. That is absolutely central to effective Ofsted inspection. If you say to your average Ofsted inspector—not the ones doing the one-off thematic reviews—who spends their time going into schools, “Thou shalt not be seeing any outstanding schools”, how do they know what outstanding looks like? When they go to the satisfactory school, it might be the best that they have seen for six months and they might think that that is outstanding. To help the Ofsted inspectors, it is crucial that, as part of their job, they see outstanding schools as part of their regular inspections.

To be helpful to the Minister, I think I know why he, or his colleagues—I am sure that it was his colleagues and not him—came up with this terrible idea: it is this idea of having a long list of freedoms which you can grant to schools to prove that the policy of granting freedoms to schools works. We saw it in the debate on admissions on Monday and we have seen it today. These are wrong freedoms, because they are freedoms that answer the political drive of the Government and they stand in the way of raising standards. This is the moment when the decision is made: go on and the camel will have several extra humps in two years’ time, I promise the Minister that. I passionately support this amendment, more than anything else in the Bill, and hope that noble Lords, having listened to this debate will vote to preserve universal inspection. I praise the Tories for bringing it in in 1988; I think it would be terrible if they voted to get rid of it now.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for her career advice, which I take in good part. I am sure that it was meant in good part. If she sees the humps developing on my back as I respond, she will understand that, camel-like, I must bear the course—I misquote Shakespeare.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, set out the main points, and I will not speak at length because the substantive response in terms of what the Government are trying to do relates to the principle of proportionality upon which this issue is based. In response to the concerns raised in Committee, we went back, thought again and strengthened the safeguards that have been put in place. However, I recognise that they are not to the satisfaction of all noble Lords.

The noble Lord began with two points. His first concern was to ensure that there was no intention to exempt free schools or academies en bloc. There are two answers to that. The first, which he acknowledged, is that we have made changes so that that could not happen other than through an affirmative order. However, that is not the intention of the Government. I have no desire to exempt all free schools and academies from inspection. That comes back to the point made by the noble Lord on Monday, which he half remembered. He talked about there being three principles—fair funding, fair access and fair inspection. I reiterate my agreement with that because the approach to inspection should be the same for any type of school. However, we would argue that an outstanding academy or mainstream school obviously should be treated in the same way. I would not want there to be exemptions for any types of school.

The noble Lord said that in the past—perhaps speaking from his own experience—Ministers may have looked too favourably on academies because they did not want those schools to be seen to fail because they were seeking to take forward a policy direction. That is not my wish at all. One of the things that we are doing is seeking to increase the pressure on underperforming academies to make sure that we apply that approach to them just as we would to any other school.

The noble Lord asked in passing whether our proposal is driven by money. The matter was raised previously so I shall respond to it. It is a perfectly fair question and the answer is that it is driven by the desire to have a more proportionate approach to inspection and regulation. Money is not the driver.

A point raised a number of times concerned how one picks up best practice. I accept that that is a good and fair question and it was put by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk. Clearly, a flow of new outstanding schools will be coming through routine inspection every year, but the thematic reviews and surveys will also pick up best practice. However—this relates to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas—it is also the case that we are keen to encourage more and more the professional sharing of good practice, and it is spreading. I do not think one needs to argue that an inspection which currently takes place once every five years is the only way to deliver the professional sharing of good practice.

I take the point raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas about the process being faster acting. The current regime leaves five years between inspections, but the combination of the triggers which will kick in earlier will mean that, if there are problems, they will be picked up faster under our new system than under the current one.

In response to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, I do not think that a school would have the certainty of there being no inspection. The much tougher triggers will mean that there will never be that certainty because there are all sorts of way in which an inspection can be brought forward.

I understand the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes of Stretford and Lady Morris of Yardley, who argued their case forcefully and clearly. The difference between us is not about the importance of inspection, the fact that we think parents should have information or that we want to go soft on inspection; at heart, it is that we think it is time to develop the existing approach to proportionate inspection and take it one stage further.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, we have had an excellent debate. I am delighted that, having had a busy day, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath is now in his place to hear the end of it, given that he instigated it. In many ways, I do not need to add to the debate. As the Minister has just said, there is a difference of opinion. The case was brilliantly put by my noble friend Lady Morris and supported by others on all sides of the House. I think that the argument has been won and I hope that the vote will now be won. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I very strongly support this amendment. I have a six year-old American grandson, and I have read his kindergarten report. He was making good progress with the computer and the iPad when he was not yet six. We have to keep in touch, and we have to be there. It is very important that this amendment should be supported.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support this amendment. In doing so, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests, as I have a number of clients who work in this area.

We are world leaders in this country in the use of technology in education. That is why more than 70 education Ministers from around the world come to the largest conference of education Ministers that happens annually anywhere in the world, held in London, alongside the BETT fair. It is hugely important that we sustain that position, as others are catching up, and are catching up very fast.

I welcome some of the comments made recently by the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, around technology, in particular what he said about iTunes U and the Khan Academy and how they are, in his words, transforming what is going on in the classroom. That is welcome because over the past year or so, those working in the field of technology in education have been worried that the Government have taken their eye off the ball and want to see some leadership. What this amendment is calling for in respect of a plan from the Secretary of State will give, not a formal direction but a lead, to schools about how they use the money that has now devolved to them in this area.

As we have heard, ICT is hugely important. We managed to justify the £300 million the Treasury needed to part with on the country’s behalf for programmes such as the Home Access Programme that I was responsible for in government by using data from, for example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies. That showed that access to a computer at home increases performance in science GCSEs by two grades. PISA did some analysis on the use of technology which shows that over time it has increased maths scores in countries around the world. As a result of the Home Access Programme and the evaluation that the department quietly published a few months ago, we have seen the impact in terms of extended learning at home. By having access to technology at home, people are spending longer on their homework and find doing their homework more engaging. I would point noble Lords who are interested in this towards the example of the Essa Academy in Bolton, which has now got every child an iPod Touch and is rolling out more iPads. The learning that is going on in that academy has led to its results over the two years it has been in place for five GCSEs at A* to C rise from around 40 per cent to 100 per cent, and if you include English and Maths, from 28 per cent to 56 per cent. So some significant gains have been delivered in part thanks to technology. The academy certainly attributes technology to its success.

It is important that the Government should continue to extend their activities around the training of teachers and leaders because we know that if they are not in place, any investment in technology does not get you anywhere. You absolutely have to have them in place. The development of resources, home access and how best practice and next practice are spread are also important. Currently, we have a vacuum. Very early on, Michael Gove decided to abolish Becta, the agenda that provided a lead in this area in securing significant savings. That is his prerogative and fine if he wants to do it. But it meant that there was a hiatus in which people felt that there was no leadership in the area, although we may be beginning to see it now. At the same time, the role of local authorities has diminished and their funding to provide a lead on this locally has also fallen. Authorities have largely let all their IT specialists go, which means that they have now all become self-employed IT consultants. A profusion of people are knocking on headteachers’ doors offering advice, but often with vested interests around particular technology solutions. It is difficult for heads to get through the confusion that follows, and certainly to secure the procurement savings that Becta was able to deliver.

A plan is also necessary not just to fill that vacuum, but to point us towards the potential new ways of working which technology has delivered efficiently in so many different industries. In a challenging fiscal environment, if we can deliver more efficiencies in education, I am sure that that is to be welcomed. Assessment takes up a significant part of any school’s budget, and all sorts of innovations in this area can be secured through technology. As I mentioned, in procurement we are seeing the expansion of digital educational publishing. That can be encouraged or not, depending on whether we see some leadership. My noble friend Lord Puttnam talked about resources that are freely available through the TSL Education site, and there are other sources too. A rapid explosion is taking place that is rooted in this country. We are exporting our education around the world, but we really need to take advantage of it here.

There are all sorts of things that can be done in terms of school system improvement on the supply side, and that is what the Government feel comfortable with because that is what they control, but we can also stimulate much more self-sustaining school improvement through a demand-side set of reforms. It is not just about choice and the decision about which school your child will go to, made once or twice in their school career, it is also about giving parents a voice. You do that by giving them information and data that keep them in touch in real time with what is going on in the school. That can only be done on a viable basis using technology, and if that technology is fairly distributed with inclusion across the range of homes.

In respect of new ways of working, we are at the tipping point on this in schools. We can move away from IT suites and trolleys of laptops and towards people bringing in personal devices that their parents are already buying them. A recent Ofcom study showed that 100 per cent of teenagers, who they defined as 12 to 15 year-olds, had access to a computer somewhere, although as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, told us, many do not have access at home. We are also seeing a rapid rise in the ownership of smartphones, while 10 per cent have tablets, and those figures are changing all the time. There will come a point when we embrace these personal devices, even if it means mobile phones with rules about how they are used. That is because in children’s hands, they are very powerful computers which can aid learning. In turn, it means that schools will spend less on IT, less on recharging devices overnight, less on paper and less on textbooks. They can deliver an educational case around the use of data for performance and differentiation of learning, delivering more learning at home, delivering the softer skills of collaboration and communication that employers need, and the pupil engagement between home and school that we know is so important.

I strongly endorse what my noble friend Lord Puttnam said in respect of the economic case. If noble Lords are interested in how it might work, I recommend that they look at Apps for Good that CDI Europe has been delivering in schools and which young people find hugely engaging. That engages them in the world of work as well as in the world of technology. I also endorse what my noble friend said about coding and the need for more programming being learnt earlier on in school. I tried that, against a lot of push from officials. I even had to write it into the galley proofs before they were sent to the printers and they were not looking. I tried to get ICT as a basic skill at the primary level so that we could make sure that children were plug-in-and-play ready when they started secondary school. They should be able to use technology across the curriculum. Unfortunately, while the Rose review did deliver on what that might look like, it was pulled during the wash-up between Administrations. We never managed to get that shift of IT learning into the primary sector, which I think would have been extremely valuable. There are challenges in this. It will need an evolving pedagogy. It will need someone, ideally the Government, to offer guidance around the interoperability of devices in classrooms, along with procurement advice and possibly the curriculum changes that I have talked about. But the prize is a great one.

The noble Lord, Lord Willis, mentioned the death of Steve Jobs. I ask noble Lords to think about what a Steve Jobs school would have looked like. For the staff, certainly it would have been one with a hero head model, someone solidly leading the school and delivering not what the children wanted, but what they needed. There would probably be a fairly flat staffing structure, but to the world outside it would not be the Steve Jobs school, it would be an Apple school: beautifully designed and one in which people just wanted to learn. It probably would not even have school rules, just as the iPad does not have any instructions, because it would be so engaging. That is what technology can give us: really engaging education that sucks learners in and makes them want to find out more and educate themselves more rather than just the flat, didactic one-way learning that is the tradition which some would like to see revived. I think it belongs in the Dark Ages.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I also declare an interest in that I work with a Malaysian company, YTL, in a plan to take ICT provision into every Malaysian school. That background gives me a little insight into what is happening here. Their Ministers and senior civil servants wanted to come here to see what we were doing. I can assure the noble Lord that his officials were very helpful in showing what Britain can and does do in this area. I cannot match their eloquence, but I stress one point that I think has not been stressed sufficiently. This is not simply enabling people to look something up in Wikipedia or whatever and get a few quotes for their essays. This transforms schools completely.

I took these Malaysian visitors—Secretaries of State and so on—to schools here in Britain to see what was happening. It transformed whole schools, not simply the teaching patterns, but all the relationships—with the parents, with the governing body, between the pupils and between the pupils and the teachers. It changed discipline. It took a failing school to one now where there are five applicants for every place. There were other factors, but the headmistress—am I allowed to say that these days?—or the lady who is in charge of the school, the principal, told us that ICT, properly used, was one of the key ingredients. So I think it is important that the Government have a policy that becomes a strategy.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I support the amendments and I, too, look forward to the Minister’s reply. I learnt last week that I cannot speak after him, so I may as well speak now in anticipation of what he might say.

I think that this is a really tricky issue. My noble friend was right to say that if more schools are becoming their own admissions authorities, that is when the problem sets in. The system can just about cope with one or two schools being their own admissions authorities, but, to recall a bit of history, the reason why the legislation that is now being repealed and changed got on the statute book in the first place was that some London boroughs were already in a position, mainly through the predominance of church schools, to make their own admissions arrangements. The sort of situation that my noble friend described of some children always missing out on the oversubscription criteria, through no fault of their own, is not something that he imagined; it actually happened in some of the London boroughs. That is why what I can see might look like a fairly complicated system of controlling admissions came about. It could be even worse if we move to a situation where nearly every school is its own admissions authority.

I have two or three points on this. I do not speak for my party on this because I know that this is not my party’s position but, frankly, I have never seen why being your own admissions authority is a freedom that one should have. Heads need freedom to run their schools but not to select the students who should go through the gates and enrol on the register in the first place. That has always been my view, even when my party was in power. Maybe one could live with it then because there were not as many schools with their own admissions arrangements, but I really cannot see the point of it. I cannot see what advantage there is to a child or a child’s parent.

The reason why this is so important is that we all know the trauma that some parents and children go through when unable to secure an appropriate place at the age of 11. We have all seen children whose start at secondary school is blighted by the fact that they did not get the place that they wanted. We have to live with that; life is not fair and not everyone can have their first choice. Imagine this, though: we create a situation where some child gets to the age of 11 and cannot get a suitable place because they do not fit the rules. That is not the same thing as not getting your first choice. No one wants you, and you end up getting your fifth or sixth choice, all because of this contradictory oversubscription criterion.

I come to the same conclusion as others, despite my relatively strong views on this. I do not say that this is a freedom that schools ought to be granted but, if I accept for a moment that that is to happen, I honestly cannot see how the system will work unless there is a referee in the middle putting down some ground rules. The amendments, containing an overarching duty to ensure fair access, are right.

My last point is this. Let us be clear: schools will play these rules for all they are worth. All the history of schools being their own admissions authorities shows that some of them—not all, but a good number—will seek to admit the children who they want to admit, and they are not usually the poor, the dispossessed and those who do not like turning up to school. I am not just making this up. There is no greater advocate or defender of teachers than me in almost all ways but all the evidence shows that, when the admissions arrangements can be controlled, the schools tend to do so in the schools’ favour and not in the pupils’ favour. We are not on a level playing field here. Schools will not play fair without some overriding principle, and the one that is in the amendment would suit the purpose very well. I support it.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, in some ways there is not much more to add, but I want to reinforce this point. I understand and have sympathy with a model of school system improvement that builds on the international evidence by the likes of Michael Barber, through his work at McKinsey and elsewhere, on the importance of school autonomy, even if it is autonomy collaborating with others, as part of driving forward school improvement. If you go for that big time, as this Government have done with the rapid expansion of autonomous schooling through academies and free schools, there are certain fundamentals that we have to be clear about the Government retaining responsibility for.

I suggest that the core functions that the Secretary of State has to hang on to and be held accountable for in this Palace are fair funding, fair admissions and objective inspection. We can argue about some of the other stuff, such as how much of a curriculum there should be and the teaching of history in school—we debate that beautifully and with much erudition. At the core, though, it is those three things that the Government should be concerned about in order to ensure that the operation of the market, which is almost what autonomous schools become, does not disadvantage those who are least articulate, least advantaged and least able to help themselves. It is a struggle for the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to define fairness in this context but for me fairness is ensuring that no child or family is disadvantaged by who they are, where they live and what their income is, and that they have equal opportunity to access good schooling.

As has been said, the growth of autonomy leads to growth in the number of schools that are their own admissions authorities. I have some sympathy with my noble friend Lady Morris; some co-ordination by local authorities in administering admissions makes it much easier for parents. However, I recall that in my day it was the schools, rather than the local authorities that were admissions authorities, that were most likely to fall foul of the admissions code. I do not think that it was anything to do with the fact that they were largely faith schools or with their faith foundation; it was the fact that they were their own admissions authorities. Some aspects of the code were quite complex and they did not have the expertise in-house or within the school to ensure that they were compliant with the code. We found some gross non-compliance with the code, which is why things were toughened up.

In many ways, I do not have a problem with the Government’s code. What I have a problem with is ensuring that there is proper regulation of the code, with teeth. To remove the admissions adjudicator’s ability to direct schools and the adjudicator’s power to look at the admissions arrangements is to remove teeth. The Government are still unable to answer this through their amendments which we will discuss later. The code has to be independent to protect the Government from charges of political interference, because sometimes these issues become quite political at a local level and Members of Parliament are asked to be involved.

This amendment is the minimum that the Government could get away with. If they are not minded to accept this amendment, we should think again about introducing something tougher at Third Reading and, if we need to, restoring some of the adjudicator’s powers.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I agree with the three definitions that the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, came up with: fair funding, fair inspection and fair access. These are the three principles that we need to uphold as we develop our academy policy. I will return to that in a moment. In response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I am told that, perhaps not surprisingly, there is not a statutory definition of fair access. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, came up with a definition, and I suspect that it is like the elephant—we know it when we see it.

I take issue with the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, about the extent to which the Government are seeking to change the admissions arrangements. The changes which we are proposing are relatively modest. I accept entirely the need for strong and effective safeguards and these are in place. As I go on to explain what some of them are, I hope that I will be able to reassure noble Lords that that is the case.

As I said when we discussed similar amendments in Committee, and reiterate now, we see our commitment in favour of fair access, and protecting and promoting the opportunities of the disadvantaged and vulnerable, as part of our broader agenda. We talked earlier about extending early years education to disadvantaged two year-olds, the funding we have put behind the pupil premium and our efforts to tackle underperforming schools. I would also argue that this commitment can be seen in the changes that we are making on admissions. We have revised the statutory admissions code, which we think over the years—in a well-intentioned attempt to cover every eventuality—had become a bit unwieldy. In revising the code, although we have retained the key safeguards for looked-after children and children with statements of special needs, we have also added new measures to improve access to good schools. These will, for example, allow academies to prioritise children receiving the pupil premium. We have expanded infant class size exceptions to include twins, multiple births and children from our Armed Forces families. I should add that much of the feedback that we have had from the consultation is that, in making it simpler, more concise and more focused on the things that admission authorities must do, parents and their associations who have responded feel that it would be easier to hold schools and local authorities to account.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Jones on this issue. In respect of the non-safeguarding issues—the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just talked about the safeguarding ones—my noble friend mentioned financial irregularity and misconduct. I know that the Minister is likely to repeat the defence that schools have to inform the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which to some extent deals with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. But it does not deal with the other issues.

I know that it is a great frustration to governors and head teachers when they find that they have employed someone who clearly is not up to the job and who had not been in their previous job, but the new school did not know about it. In terms of the professionalism of the workforce and teachers, it is very important that we respect that when things go wrong as well as when they go right and ensure that the facility is there to ensure that schools notify a central body. The Secretary of State would seem to be a sensible outcome, which is surprising given that much of my nervousness about this Bill is giving ever more powers to the Secretary of State, but on this occasion it is warranted. I would be interested in the Minister’s response if he happened to have in his back pocket any information around the numbers of teachers who are dismissed on grounds of gross misconduct that are not related to safeguarding. That would give us a better understanding of the exposure around this issue than if he relies just on the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I do not think I have that in my back pocket, but I will rootle in my clothing after this and see what information I can find. If there is relevant information which would shed some light on this I will, of course, send it to the noble Lord and circulate it more widely.

I will briefly set out the Government’s overall proposals on teacher regulation to try to put them in context. The GTCE currently deals with referrals for both incompetence and misconduct. I start with that because it touches in some way on the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. There is pretty clear evidence that the approach taken by the GTCE on incompetence has not been working and this is one of the things that drove us to try a new approach. In 10 years, the GTCE barred only 17 teachers for incompetence, and research has shown that employers are often reluctant to make referrals relating to competence to a national regulator. As we have discussed, they have previously only had a nuclear option and this has discouraged heads from making referrals, on the understandable basis that someone who might not be guilty of serious misconduct, but might need to move on and try teaching in a different school, finds himself grinding through the GTCE process. We are therefore seeking to separate issues of competence from issues of misconduct.

So far as dealing with incompetence is concerned, we want to put that into the hands of head teachers. To help them carry out this responsibility, we are also currently consulting on some streamlined arrangements for performance management and capability procedures. So far as misconduct is concerned, we certainly think there is a role for a national regulator, but we also want to try to give head teachers an appropriate level of responsibility, with only serious misconduct cases that may warrant the ultimate sanction—a bar from the teaching profession—being dealt with by the national regulator.

On the issue of safeguarding raised by my noble friend Lord Storey, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, is partly a response to that. Our proposals will not alter the current arrangements in relation to child protection. The legal duty on employers to refer any issues that relate to safeguarding to the Independent Safeguarding Authority will remain. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, asked what happens when the Independent Safeguarding Authority is informed. If a person is barred by the ISA, a flag would appear on their CRB check and a head teacher carrying out a check would then know.

The present regulatory regime requires head teachers to refer all teachers who are sacked as a result of misconduct to the national regulator. The regulator then investigates those cases and imposes one of a range of sanctions depending on the severity of the misconduct. Our basic position is that we do not think that a national regulator should need to administer intermediate sanctions such as restrictions on the use of the internet on school computers. The purpose of the national regulator should be to investigate the most serious cases in order to decide whether a teacher should ever be allowed to teach again. Under the current system, only 10 per cent of referrals have resulted in prohibition orders. In other words, a lot of the GTCE’s time—and a significant amount of money—has been spent investigating cases of a lower order of significance. Similarly, the current system requires head teachers to go through the process of referring a teacher, even if they believe that there are no grounds for barring them from the profession. This is inefficient and risks placing a perverse incentive on head teachers not to confront issues of conduct, because they think it is inappropriate and unnecessary to refer the case to the national regulator.

The amendments effectively seek to reverse the changes we are proposing to make to the role of the national regulator in relation to misconduct. The reason that I am resisting them is because experience of the current system has shown that requiring employers to refer all cases has had two undesirable consequences. First, as I have said, it means that the regulatory system has spent too much of its time focusing on cases that are not sufficiently serious to warrant the teacher being barred, and secondly, that heads have avoided sacking teachers for misconduct because they know it does not warrant an investigation by the regulator and they would not want them ending up on that path.

There is a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, about inconsistency, which I accept. I agree that arrangements for teacher regulation should seek to achieve consistency, but I do not believe that the current duty which she prefers is delivering that. Research published in 2008 found that between 2001 and 2008, nearly one-third of all local authorities had never made a referral for misconduct. Even when we take into account the different numbers of teachers employed in different local authority areas, the variation of referrals among local authorities indicates significant inconsistency in the current system. To reduce that, and to support head teachers in exercising their discretion, we are developing prohibition advice which sets out the kinds of misconduct that should lead to a teacher being barred from the profession. I circulated a draft on 12 October. We are currently carrying out a consultation on the guidance, which we intend to publish following Royal Assent. I would be happy to receive comments on that consultation from noble Lords to see whether they think it will help us to deliver greater consistency.

We are taking those steps and I hope, by explaining the rationale behind wanting to move to a more differentiated system, that even if the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, does not accept my reasoning she will withdraw her amendment.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I think I understand what the Minister is saying when he says that you should not prescribe a long list, but this is not a long list. It is four of the key groups. They are important to name because we can assume that it is extremely unlikely that an organisation would not consult parents, pupils or staff, but I can foresee plenty of circumstances where an academy group might not want to consult the local authority. I think that the points made by the Minister’s noble friends about allowing the strategic role of local authorities to continue are important.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Whether the list is short or long, the point is that if there is a short list, there will be an argument about people who have been left off. People will ask why they have not been consulted, and then we will have a debate about lengthening the list. If there is a long list, there are the problems that the noble Lord has already accepted. It is perfectly possible to leave it to people’s common sense and judgment. As the noble Lord knows from the work he has done with academies, if you are setting about an academy conversion, you want to do it with the support of local people and the community because that is how you get it off to a good start. I think that we can leave it to their common sense and wisdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I am sorry to come back, but the key word at the beginning of Amendment 126ZBA is “including”. This is not an exclusive list, so whether it is a long list or a short list is to some extent irrelevant. We are not going to have a debate about whether something has been excluded once the word “included” is in it. The key thing is that in statute it would be a requirement to consult the local authority. That is what his noble friends are after.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The view of the Government is the same as it was a year ago. It is the view that the House reached after debates and, indeed, votes; namely, that we do not need to prescribe lists of people, short or long, in legislation in the way that perhaps happened in the past.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I wanted to speak to this group of amendments but not because I oppose any of them. In many ways, I can see the benefits in appropriate circumstances of parish councils being represented. Indeed, when I was the mayor of Frome, which was technically a parish council, we had nominations as a minor local authority on to governing bodies locally, so there is some precedent for it. I am certainly a strong advocate of the student voice in schools and see the benefit of students on governing bodies and similarly of staff local authority representation.

I wanted to take a couple of minutes to put it to the Committee, and particularly to the Minister for him to think about it, that we need to have a wider deeper debate about school governance. It is currently confused. I started a review of school governance that never quite concluded. Indeed, it was more difficult to get some agreement about the future of school governance than it was to get all the faith groups to agree about statutory sex and relationship education in our schools, so I do not underestimate the difficulty.

I certainly do not think that anyone in this Committee or elsewhere would want to give the message that the wonderful job that school governors do is being undervalued, when they are the largest group of volunteers working in our society. However, when people are essentially there as representatives rather than for the skills that they bring to challenge the school leadership, as you would when looking at the governance of organisations in other sectors, you have confusion between what an advisory body is, which is made up of representatives and stakeholders such as staff, students, parents and perhaps local authorities, and what a board of governance is, which is there to recruit and to really challenge the leadership of the school. I am afraid I do not believe that with 23,000-odd schools in this country, we have 23,000 excellent governing bodies that are properly challenging head teachers.

Indeed, most head teachers who I talk to tell me that their governing body is frankly a bit of an irritation. It is something that they have to work out how to manage, rather than something that properly supports and challenges them as leaders. That tells me that we clearly have a problem. The discussion, particularly by my noble friends Lord Touhig and Lady Howarth, on whether heads should serve on governing bodies is in turn a demonstration of that confusion, because points were rightly made about a conflict of interest and it probably being inappropriate for a chief executive to be a full member of the board if we were to use the suggested model from the third sector. The Government would be well served by looking at whether we can move to shared, more professionalised governing bodies, particularly as we see the emergence of clusters of schools, and proper councils or advisory bodies for each school.

That would be a significant and brave reform. However, academy sponsors tell me—I spoke to a leading one yesterday—that they strongly believe that the most important thing we did when introducing academies was to strengthen governance. It was not about autonomy as such, or about the freedom to pay teachers what they liked or about freedom in the curriculum being really important; it was about strong governance, and about getting sponsors in who appointed really good people for their skills in challenging heads and school leaders. It was about leaner, or smaller, numbers of governors, who could then gel as a group, much as the trustees of a charity or board of a private company might do. It is something that we urgently need to look at if we are to make the progress that the Minister and his colleagues in the ministerial team want to make in making every school a good school—and, in particular, in making sure that we attend to the biggest problem that we have with schools in this country. That is not how we fix failing schools and make them successful again—we have worked out how to do that. Our problem is how we stop average schools becoming failing schools. In the end, we do that by strengthening our governance arrangements.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I very much welcome the contribution of my noble friend Lord Knight, as he attempted to widen the debate. I was going to widen it but not quite as widely as he did, but I wanted to make the case for diversity on governing bodies. Although I support the amendments tabled in all noble Lords’ names, including those tabled by the Government, they go only so far. We very much welcome the fact that the Government have listened to the case made by colleagues of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, as she said, for there to be staff and local authority representatives on governing bodies. We made that case as well, and I am glad that it has been taken on board in part. However, the effect will be that a single local authority representative could be on each maintained school governing body, while at the moment there could be up to five local authority representatives on a typical community secondary school governing body.

In my experience, when I was chair of the governors of a secondary school for many years, the local authorities in my area used the opportunity to have a spread of places in order to bring diversity of community representation and people with different skills to the governing body. Governing bodies work best—and here I half-meet my noble friend—when there are strong, diverse voices from the community. What worries me about the legislation now is that it almost seems to want to curtail the spread of knowledge and skills. That might be something that the Minister can respond to, although I may have got that wrong. Diversity is very important.

The governors whom we have make up one of the largest volunteer forces in the country. We should be upskilling them, valuing them and making sure that they can make a greater contribution. Of course, if my noble friend Lord Griffiths was here he would say that we also need to take account of the fact that the ongoing work of being a governor is increasingly arduous and time-consuming, so we need to make sure that we have the support networks and the training to support it. It is a particular challenge for parent-governors who, with all their other responsibilities, as I know from my own experience, find being a governor particularly time-consuming and challenging.

I am anxious about what is to happen when the current governors, who are providing that spread of expertise, are told that they are going to be stood down. There seems to be a lack of a transitional plan. That might mean that it will be more difficult to recruit governors in future if the signal that is going out is that current local authority governors, or their range of skills, are not seen as the future. I hope the Minister can address the whole issue of diversity on governing bodies and how we are going to maintain that strong community voice so that it is not just the parents, teachers or head teachers who help to make the governing body strong but outside challenges and expertise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I would just like briefly to say that I have some sympathy with this set of amendments and in particular to draw attention to the fact that Clause 41 applies these provisions to colleges as Clause 39 applies them to schools. We are all very well aware of how important school leaders are and that a head and a college principal can make all the difference. When they move on to take another job or to retire, a school or a college can go downhill extremely quickly. One needs to have some form of trigger for an inspection in these circumstances; something equivalent to Amendment 114 put forward by my noble friend Lady Perry might be appropriate for colleges as well as for schools. Alternatively, if we move on to Clause 42—I think it is that clause, but it may be further on—local authorities are given the responsibility for taking action when schools are causing concern. They might well have the responsibility for triggering an inspection.

We all probably welcome the slightly more light-handed form of inspection outlined in Clause 40, but at the same time there are dangers with total exemption of the outstanding ones. We are aware that what is outstanding one year can fall very quickly.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support the position of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, in particular. Like him, I would take some persuading to support exempting schools.

I can understand the Government’s probable motivation: they believe that schools should be freed up from unnecessary burdens of inspection. The trend over the past few years has certainly been to lessen the burden of Ofsted inspections and the use of self-evaluation has been relatively successful in that regard. I am sure that the Government and the Minister would not for a second want anyone thinking that they do not think that schools should be accountable and that accountability is an important element of parental choice. Certainly, throughout our perennial debates on testing and tables as the drivers of choice—and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for his reviews around SATS at primary level—the mantra trotted out was that parents should not only look at the test results and the ranking tables, because those were put together by newspapers and, anyway, the Government do not rank schools, but at Ofsted inspections and other sources of information. An Ofsted inspection is always in the line that you have to take when talking about these issues. Yet if a school becomes exempt, all you can rely on is that data.

As the Government move towards opening up and publishing more and more data about schools, a richer picture can perhaps be formed. However, if the Minister were to persuade me that through better, more rigorous and richer publishing of data, we could get to the point of exempting outstanding schools, he would have to further persuade me that there are satisfactory forms of data. The data should relate not only to the achievement of pupils, the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership—difficult as some of those proxies might be in data terms—but to behaviour and safety. Are there good proxies for child safety, the subject of the amendment that I support from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley; are there good proxies for,

“the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils at the school”?

All these items should be covered in a chief inspector’s report on a school. The only way in which you could possibly justify exempting a school is by coming up with accurate proxies in data form for all of the measures that the Government say should be covered in an Ofsted report under Clause 40.

As I said earlier and as others have said during this debate, schools do go backwards—and sometimes they go backwards fairly quickly. People can be tempted and attracted by exempt schools. In some of the conversations that I have had with head teachers who are four or five years from retirement, they have said, “I have had my last Ofsted inspection so now I can do what I like”. That will free people up to innovate and to ignore the Schools Minister in the other place. When Nick Gibb goes on about synthetic phonics and prescribing what kind of text books to use, they can say, “Well, it does not really matter. I do not have to do that because I am not going to be inspected on it. As long as my results are all right and I carry on being outstanding, I can ignore Nick Gibb”. That is quite a persuasive argument but, in the end, it is not good enough and we need that accountability through inspection.

I want to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, half way on her interesting amendment. When I talk to head teachers now about Ofsted—which they do not admire without criticism—they tell me that they would like a much greater feeling that the people doing the inspection are head teachers who are currently in the workforce. Their worry is that the people who come round are sometimes a little out-of-date in terms of what is going on. There is a lot to be gained from peer review—from heads inspecting other heads. One of the most successful forms of school improvement that we have at the moment is the national leaders of education, who perform that kind of peer review function in respect of school improvement.

There might be a middle way—I will not call it a third way because that may confuse people—of having lighter touch inspections, still as Ofsted inspections, but, by and large, being carried out by head teachers inspecting each other. They would not inspect schools that they know or have an association with, because that independence would have to be there. That might enable Ofsted to carry out its own burden of inspection in a relatively lean way in terms of cost, yet still give the accountability which parents and those of us who have to care about the spending of public money need. In the end, that is very important.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I shall not repeat all the arguments about why we should continue with inspection because they have been made fairly clearly and in some depth. I shall make two points. I certainly support all those arguments, and I am not an uncritical observer of Ofsted, having been on the receiving end of its investigations, both positive and negative, in a number of roles and having had both positive and negative levels of inspections.

I am most concerned, and I speak from my experience as well as from my general understanding of safeguarding, that safeguarding will not be regularly inspected. I sit as chair of a safeguarding board and as chair of a number of organisations that have safeguarding boards, and I advise organisations that need to develop their safeguarding boards. In those roles, one thing I find is that whereas many social services establishments are keen to develop their safeguarding and to report on it, there is a culture within schools not to report but to develop their own safeguarding plans, if they possibly can, and not necessarily to co-operate with the wider organisation, if they are part of it. I understand all that, and I understand why. Reporting on something that has happened in your school has consequences, certainly if you have to report it to the local authority and it does not react appropriately, but also if the thing develops and you find that you have gone to the outside world. I understand that, but we cannot possibly have a regime where there is no inspection of safeguarding and safeguarding procedures.

I say to the Minister that if the Government intend that to happen, they are on an extraordinarily dangerous path. When we last discussed Ofsted, I was so vehement about some of the issues that I got sent off by the Minister to see the chief inspector—I got sent to see the headmaster. This was because I was concerned about the level of expertise of the people inspecting these sorts of areas; I will come to that again when we come to talk about boarding school inspections. I hope that the Minister will take the seriousness of this to the others in his Government who are looking at it. I predicted when children’s services went into children’s trusts that unless those heads of service who came from the education stream rather than the social care stream were thoroughly educated and understood safeguarding, there would be difficulties. I do not have to run through the series of cases for noble Lords to know that that prediction was unhappily proven. I simply encourage the Minister to look at that.

My second point is about visitors. I absolutely understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is getting at in this—she knows I have huge respect for her—but as a director and an assistant director of social services in the past, I had responsibility for implementing visitor schemes developed by a series of previous Governments, none of which were ever truly successful. If you talk, as I do, to head teachers—I also talk to people in social care—you find that they have real anxieties about any old body being able to come into their school. There would be issues about how the people are selected and whether they are going to be totally lax, and not know what they are looking for, or the kind of busybodies who get into organisations and institutions and drive those who are trying to run the place absolutely mad. There is the whole question of qualification: how they are trained in observation, what they are looking for and whether they have to be CRB checked. There is a whole issue about visitors, which you have to be absolutely clear about before you embark on that sort of path.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I shall come back to the issue of the trigger and the risk assessment which lie at the core of many noble Lords’ concerns. There was broad agreement over, and a broad welcome for, a “lighter touch approach”, if I can call it that, though there remain various concerns about how that would be translated into action and what safeguards there would be in place.

I also recognise the concerns emerging from the Committee about exemption, and I will seek to address them by setting out some of the principles and intentions that underpin Clause 39. I will respond to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, as well as addressing the context within which the clause has been developed. I will also say something more about the safeguards that are provided both within and beyond its provisions, and try to respond to some of the questions that I have been asked.

What is driving this? We think that we have an opportunity to respond to the concerns of schools, to reduce central prescription, to avoid uniformity, to eliminate unnecessary burdens and to be more proportionate. Inspection reform has a contribution to make as part of the overall move that we are keen to encourage. Clause 39 will introduce a more proportionate and targeted approach to school inspection by enabling our highest performing schools to be released from the burden of routine inspection as long as they continue to perform well. I shall return to that issue in a moment.

The thinking behind that is so that Ofsted can focus its inspections on where most noble Lords agree they are most needed—that is, on those schools that are inadequate or satisfactory or coasting. I hesitate to say much about the evolution of inspection because so many members of this Committee were instrumental in its introduction. Regular inspection was introduced with the establishment of Ofsted in 1992, which means that by now schools have experienced at least three Ofsted inspections. Also—and this is part of an answer to my noble friend Lord Lucas and his concerns about information—there have been in that period huge advances in the availability and quality of performance information. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that we need to develop more—it is not always straightforward—but the provision of more information is part of our answer to the question of how we can know what is going on in schools.

Inspection has evolved over that time and become more differentiated, with longer intervals already between inspections for stronger performers. Most outstanding schools are now subject to a full inspection once every five years. It is worth making that point because of some of the perfectly proper questions that are being asked as to what are the safeguards and how do we know when schools can change quite quickly. We currently have a system where the schools about which members of the Committee are most concerned are subject to full inspection only once every five years. Our thinking is that, subject to safeguards, it is possible to take proportionality to the next logical step and to free those schools from routine fuller inspections.

I accept the fact that schools decline and can do so quite quickly, a point made by a number of noble Lords. Ofsted’s evidence shows that the majority of outstanding schools are able to maintain their effectiveness over time. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used figures which are true in the way that they break down—what he said was absolutely accurate—but it is also true that 95 per cent of those schools were outstanding or good at their next inspection. Not all remain effective—I accept that point—and that is why we have been clear that exempt schools would not be free from accountability and that any exemption is conditional.

My noble friend Lady Sharp made the point that the safeguards are the key issue and perhaps I may say a few words about the approach that Ofsted is developing to risk assessment. All exempt schools would be subject to annual risk assessment by Ofsted, starting three years after the school’s latest inspection. Risk assessment is currently used to determine the frequency of inspection for individual schools. In future, it is proposed that an enhanced process would be used as a basis for determining whether an exempt school should be re-inspected. Her Majesty’s inspectors would consider a range of indicators. These include performance data; information on staff changes—the point was made about a school suddenly losing a head or a group of senior teachers—the outcome of any Ofsted survey inspection visits; complaints from parents; the views of local authorities; and any other available intelligence.

From September, Ofsted intends to take greater account of parents’ views in helping to decide whether a school should be inspected. One way in which we are going to do that is by having a questionnaire online, which parents will be able to complete at any time to give their views about their child’s school. I can confirm that the powers for Ofsted to consider parental complaints under Section 11A apply to exempt schools and that the arrangements for students to complain will apply to exempt colleges.

Local authorities—a theme to which we have returned a number of times in Committee—have an important role to play in representing the interests of parents and pupils. If they have concerns about any exempt school, including an academy, they will obviously be able to request an inspection, and any such request would have to be considered carefully. The implication of Amendments 114A and 112ZB is that Ofsted would lose its discretion over whether it should inspect in these circumstances. We are not sure that that would be right, because HMI should be able to consider the range of evidence in deciding what action to take.

Where Ofsted has concerns about an exempt school or college, it would have a range of options open to it, including arranging a short-targeted visit or a full re-inspection. Professional judgment by HMI needs to be at the heart of the new arrangements. We think that Ofsted should have the appropriate flexibility to act decisively, but in a proportionate manner. The same powers that allow the chief inspector to visit an exempt school to test out a concern also allow for exempt schools to be visited as part of focused inspections of curriculum subjects and particular themes, including outstanding provision and practice. We expect an increased focus on best practice visits in future, as well as more emphasis on sharing best practice by Ofsted through a variety of means. One question raised in the past is how schools will learn from outstanding practice, and this is one way in which we can help address that.

Some points have been raised about information. As I have said, we intend to give parents easier access to information and so, from next January, parents will be able to access data showing the progress of high, average and low-attaining pupils across a range of subjects. From June, they will have access to data down to individual pupil level in an anonymised form. I hope that that will help.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

In respect of information for parents, can the Minister clarify Clause 39(4)? It refers to charging schools for inspection. If parents have triggered an inspection using their current powers, is there any charge for that and, if not, how do we guard against Ofsted having a disincentive to inspect if, in its judgment, it feels it cannot afford it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will write on the point of detail. I had this explained to me earlier. The difficulty is because an Ofsted category is not a statutory definition. That is the problem and why it is hard to put it in the Bill. I will make sure that I have got that right and I will write, but I believe that is the explanation.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

When the Minister writes, will he also clarify how, if it is difficult to pin it down in primary legislation, it would be possible in secondary legislation? Secondary legislation is still law, so you would still need a definition in law of what an outstanding school is.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will get some clever person to write me something that will explain why that is the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, raised important points about faith schools. He will know better than me that it is a separate inspection process. Faith schools, including exempt schools, would continue to be subject under Section 48 of the Education Act 2005 to a separate inspection into their religious education. This can also cover spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and reports will be published. That is not a complete answer to the noble Lord’s concerns but it is another part of a possible reassurance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, asked me whether a cohort could pass through an outstanding school without any inspection. The absence of inspection does not mean that Ofsted will fail to pay attention to exempt schools. Currently outstanding schools have five years between inspections. The risk assessment would start at three years and be done annually but, if there were concerns before then, the whole point of the triggering process is that Ofsted would be able to look into them.

Overall, we think that a lot has changed in the past 20 years in terms of transparency and accountability. There is more information and the inspection system over those years has become increasingly proportionate. We have a large number of schools that are capable of evaluating their own performance and identifying and responding to their own improvement priorities. We are keen to focus inspection on those that need it most— underperforming and inadequate schools. I recognise the strength of feeling that has been raised.

There were a number of thoughtful suggestions, particular around the important question of the rigour of the risk assessment. I understand that Ofsted is due to publish its approach to risk assessment and I would like to use that as an opportunity to discuss these concerns further, to reflect on what has been said to me today and to raise them with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton. I hope that through that process—I will be happy to discuss it with noble Lords who have particular concerns and who have contributed to this debate—I can address some of the concerns that have been raised, reflect on them and then report back to noble Lords. I will certainly reflect on the mood of the Committee. I will listen to the advice that I have been given but in the mean time I ask my noble friend Lady Walmsley to withdraw her amendment.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

I, too, declare an interest as a bishop of the Church of England. It will not surprise your Lordships to know that I resist the amendments in this group. As a preliminary, I say that we easily encounter in this kind of debate the myth of neutrality, with the idea that the amendments might lead us into a distinction between church schools—or, at least, religious schools—and religiously neutral schools. That is a common myth: that we would have religious schools and non-religious schools. I am not sure that we have a basic philosophical agreement on that point; I do not want to pretend that we do.

It is unnecessary to change the law, which seems to be working well. We have the existing safeguards; we have the possibility of withdrawal. The fact that so few parents use that right of withdrawal suggests to me that most parents think that it is working pretty well. A generous experience of spiritual and religious reflection goes on in assemblies; obviously, I go to a lot of them. In them, I experience not just Christian worship but spiritual reflection. I know that that is one possibility under the amendments, but it is the religious and spiritual element that is really important. If we take religion out, we have lost the key domain.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I had no intention to intervene in this debate, but the right reverend Prelate said that he thought that the current law was working well. I have no doubt that it may be from parents’ perspective, but when Ofsted inspections of schools take place, do they not often find that the daily act of collective worship is not taking place? From the point of view of the practicality of the school, it is not working that well. I am not aware of huge numbers of parents complaining that the daily act of collective worship is not taking place. People like school assemblies, but if, for practical reasons, it is hard for them to come off because there is not a big enough hall, parents are not complaining in large numbers.

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

I just point out the statistic that 98 per cent of primary schools have a daily act of worship. The noble Lord is quite right that in secondary schools the figure is not as high as that: it is between two and three acts of collective worship a week; on other occasions, the school is meeting for an assembly purpose. That is what I mean by the generous interpretation of religious and spiritual reflection, which is crucial.

Secondly, the system of opt-in rather than opt-out would drive a wedge into our schools which would be regrettable. We could find social division. As it is, there is a difference between collective worship and corporate worship. Collective worship is a gathering of everyone who is together in a certain place at a certain time, such as a school. Corporate worship is when people opt into the faith and want to go to a church. Therefore, we have a collective gathering which allows youngsters to experience something and not just learn about it. As we are legally charged with promoting the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and society, experience matters, and the candle, the singing, the prayer, the stillness and the silence, which are so often present, are all part of the experience of the spiritual, which is part of what we are required to provide.

Thirdly, there is the problem of a wedge appearing between two different types of school. One of the glories of our system is that it is an integrated church state system or a system of church schools within the state. It works well because it is integrated and, if we drive a wedge by saying that there are church schools over here and non-religious schools over there, we will deny ourselves something rather precious about the British system. There is much more that I could say but I will not go on.

Lastly, let us remember that in 2010 the Office for National Statistics said that 71 per cent of the population of this country still want to identify with—I think that that is the phrase—the Christian religion. If we are swapping statistics, 86 per cent of people in this country go into a church at some point during the year, but if 71 per cent want to identify with the religion, that would seem to indicate that most parents are happy with the way that we go about things at the moment. We have a good British compromise and, if we rock the boat with this, I do not know quite where that will lead. I think that it will probably be to our detriment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I want to speak to this group of amendments in part to avoid speaking in a clause stand part debate not only because that is more efficient but because, I have to apologise to the Committee, I will need to leave in around 20 minutes in order to fulfil a speaking engagement. If I miss the Minister’s response, I apologise. I hope, nevertheless, that it is in order for me to make some comments.

In many ways, I think that Clause 34 is possibly the worst clause in the Bill. I know that there is some stiff competition for that accolade, but the issue of fair admissions is of vital importance. In passing, I want to thank Chris Waterman, who has done some excellent work on and analysis of the issue for us.

The reason I say that fair admissions are very important is because I support diversity and more competition between schools. As moves are made to increase choice and accountability and thus to drive competition in that way, it is all the more important to ensure that admissions are fair and every child is given an equal chance to attend the good schools so that, in the end, parents are choosing schools and not the other way around. It is on that basis that I strongly support Amendments 100A, 102 and 103 because they seek clarity on the overarching aim of fairness in school admissions. They seek to improve the situation presented in Clause 34, but in the end they will not fix the problem. The problem is that Clause 34 makes the job of the adjudicator pretty toothless by taking his powers away.

Paragraph 168 of the Explanatory Notes makes the position clear by stating:

“Subsection (3) restricts the powers of the school adjudicator. It repeals section 88J of SSFA 1998 which requires schools adjudicators, upon referral of a specific matter concerning a maintained school’s admission arrangements, to consider whether it would be appropriate for changes to be made to any aspect of those admission arrangements”.

Similarly, the notes in respect of subsection (4) state that it,

“removes the requirement under section 88P … for local authorities to provide to the adjudicator reports on admissions to schools in their area”.

Why do I think it is so bad to remove these two powers? As my noble friend Lady Hughes said, every school is potentially an academy so every school is potentially its own admissions authority. That means a confusion of the arrangements faced by parents. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made a strong argument in that cause. There are numerous oddities in the arrangements of schools. We have oddities of scale in areas such as South Hertfordshire, with its particular preference to parents from Islington because of some historic arrangement, as well as partial selection—something I had to wrestle with at some length and which was very odd.

In the constituency in which I used to live, the school of Budmouth, a very popular school, gave particular priority to children from the village of Chickerell for some historic reason. It was difficult for people struggling to get their children into the school to understand. There are issues of siblings. There are issues of faith, which I do not want to get into for fear of stimulating a very long debate. There are issues of children of staff. How will staff be defined? If we are true to some of the themes running through the Committee, staff might be defined just as teachers. If we go down that road, we should include all school staff, but then a parent whose children a school might want to attract might get a job for just an hour a week helping out as a member of the support staff and then, magically, their children would be allowed priority. It is very important that we get that definition right.

The problem of coherence is already an issue with voluntary aided schools and academies being their own admissions authority. The admissions forums—fora; I am struggling with my Latin—are now being abolished in subsection (2)(a), despite the fact that they provided some co-ordination and tried to ensure that local unfair anomalies did not emerge. It is a retrograde step to get rid of them as we move into even greater proliferation of arrangements.

In many ways, the simplicity of the new code, which is currently being consulted on, will create massive local complexity, for the reasons I have described. That is a view held among many admissions officers, which is why I support Amendment 101A, with its focus on the views of parents. With every school its own admissions authority, as their resources come under pressure—as they are at the moment, for understandable reasons—fair admissions must remain a sufficient priority for the admissions code to be consistently adhered to by every school and admissions authority. We know, through the work of the Sutton Trust, that even with the current tougher admissions regime in place at the moment schools still find covert means to attract children who are more likely to succeed and discourage those less likely to attain five A* to C-grade GCSEs.

The removal of subsection (4) of section 85A of the 1998 Act, under Clause 34(4) of the Bill, removes the policing of admissions and the requirement of local authorities to report to the schools adjudicator—effectively, the prosecutor—all admissions arrangements. I was interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, had to say about around where they would report to. It seems clear to me that, in the same way that the police get in touch with the CPS if an offence might need prosecuting, local authorities should report to the school adjudicator.

The removal provided for in Clause 34(3) removes the teeth from the adjudicator making changes to admissions arrangements to ensure compliance. It is obvious to me that if we are to have a fair admissions system, the person in charge must have the power to get the admissions arrangements changed to make them comply with the law—we are talking about the law. The measures that Clause 34 will remove are necessary.

Finally, it is worth reminding the Committee why the current rules came in. In 1998, when the Department for Children, Schools and Families—as it was then—commissioned a look at the admissions arrangements in three local authority areas, the abuses found included: schools asking parents to commit to making financial contributions as a condition of admission; asking about the marital, occupational or financial status of parents; and ignoring the priority for admission that schools are legally obliged to give to looked-after children. Other cases uncovered included schools giving priority for places to family members who were not siblings and interviewing children before making an admission decision. Those are not fair practices. They allow schools to select parents, and not vice versa. For that reason, I very much support Amendment 101 and would support omitting Clause 34 altogether.

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, Amendment 102 addresses a variety of concerns I have in relation to the relaxing of duties of schools regarding the admissions process for children with special educational needs, including those with a learning disability. My concerns are clearly shared by other noble Lords in the amendments that surround mine.

Schools must be held to account for their admissions policies and the way they operate these policies in practice. If the parents of disabled children are to have full confidence that their children are not being discriminated against in terms of admissions, schools must be aware of their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and make the reasonable adjustments required. In the interests of openness, transparency and the genuine empowerment of parents, the second part of my amendment would set out the rights of parents in appealing and complaining against admissions and oblige schools to publicise these details.

It is often said that information is power; I want parents to have easy access to the information to which they are entitled when it comes to challenging unfair decisions by schools over the admission of their children. However, in his letter to me to which I have already referred, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, advised me that parents and others would still have the option to make their objections known to the school adjudicator. There are also proposals to include academies and free schools, which of course I welcome. No doubt he will explain more in his response to these amendments.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

76: Clause 14, page 22, line 32, at end insert—
“( ) This section shall only come into force if its provisions have been approved, by a simple majority, in a vote of registered teachers.
( ) For such a vote to be valid, 50 per cent of registered teachers must have voted.”

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, Amendment 76 repeats the amendment that we debated regarding the General Teaching Council for England, and I will not repeat at any length the arguments that were made then. As with the GTC, in this amendment we are looking to trust teachers, which seems to be a theme of the Committee. We are simply saying that if teachers value the TDA and the training and development it has been offering them, we can put it in their hands to decide whether it should continue.

I shall also speak to my Amendment 76ZA. It is no secret that I oppose the abolition of the TDA. I made it clear in the substantial part of my Second Reading speech that I think that the TDA has been doing a good job. People come from around the world to look at how successful we are at recruiting and retaining teachers. Prior to its formation, we missed our targets in teacher recruitment and under-recruited teachers quite chronically. In those days the Whitehall machine used to try to manage teacher recruitment and professional development from the centre. We have excellent civil servants in the Department for Education, but I am an advocate, at times, of putting some things at arms’ length from them, particularly—if we want to learn from history—with the attempts that we had in the past to recruit from the centre, which did not work. They did it so badly that they had to set up the TTA, the successor to today’s TDA, which we are debating.

The TDA is a success. It is still tough-going with the shortage subjects, but the agency has been doing well. It has met its target, even when it was as high as 40,000 teachers a year coming into the profession. That target has been reduced and is currently around 32,000 teachers a year. How did it do it? It did it with a mix of things including bursaries. In an earlier day in Committee, in an exchange with the government Whip who was at the Dispatch Box, I said that I felt that the proposals for bursaries in the document currently being consulted on, setting the maximum for secondary recruits at £20,000 compared with a maximum for primary recruits of £4,000, are sending a difficult signal to our best and brightest graduates about which section of the teaching workforce we value the most. I accept that we need to deal with the shortage subjects. However, we should look at the mix that the TDA uses, because it does not use only bursaries, it also uses proper integrated marketing—and not just TV adverts, although they have been extremely effective and successful and are memorable for those who have time to watch commercial television, but also billboards and proper cross-media advertising, including social media. When deployed, the marketing has always worked because of the professionalism and expertise of the agency working at arm’s length from Whitehall.

I am pretty shocked that there is no mention of marketing in the consultation document, Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers, as if the department does not value it. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Ministers do not like marketing. It is true that when the Government first came in they issued, I think, some kind of central diktat from the Cabinet Office saying that all government advertising was bad and they would not do any of it, and it was suspended for some time. I gather—it may be just rumour—that soon after the Secretary of State was appointed he went on a tour of the wonderful Sanctuary Buildings in Great Smith Street which included a visit to the eighth floor, at the top of the building, which is where the communications department’s staff hang out. Having checked out the press team and the speech writers, he stumbled across an assembly of desks bristling with awards and said, “What goes on here?”. The reply was “Marketing”. He replied, “I don’t like marketing”, and walked off. That is just what I am told, and it may or may not be true.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

That does not sound like him.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My noble friend says from a sedentary position that it does not sound like the Secretary of State, but it is also true that the Government have now closed down the COI. That also sends a signal about what they think about professional marketing and its importance. As a result of the advertising ban that we had once the Government took office, we have had a significant reduction in applications for people to be teachers, which also suggests that professional marketing works. I gather that we should just about scrape through in meeting the recruitment targets, but with applications 10 to 15 per cent down this year, that makes you question whether we will recruit the same quality, because we will be recruiting from a smaller pool of applicants.

The real problems will come next year because of the lag effect that we normally see around stimulated interest in teaching from people who are thinking about what jobs they will do once they graduate. I really worry about the effect on teacher recruitment for next year, especially in the shortage subjects, science and maths in particular, that we are so concerned about.

Hence the reason for tabling Amendment 76ZA. This repeats the clauses that established the TDA relevant to promoting careers in the school workforce. There were four main aims of the TDA when it was established in statute. I have simply repeated one of them: the aim of promoting careers in the school workforce. It is a probing amendment. I cannot pretend to be an expert parliamentary draftsperson and I cannot pretend to believe that the Minister—however reasonable a chap he might be—is suddenly going to cave in and allow this arm’s-length body to be created. However, the abolition of the Central Office of Information means that there is no other obvious capacity that I know of within government to do a professional job in running and procuring the integrated marketing campaigns to recruit teachers that we know from recent history are so effective in ensuring that we have the best quality recruits into the profession.

Therefore, the amendment proposes an arm’s-length body to perform this function to ensure that we sustain recruitment into teaching. If the Minister disagrees with my reasonable request to set up this arm’s-length body, I simply need him to give me a confident answer as to how this will be done as successfully as the TDA, and that he will ensure this marketing function is taken more seriously than in the current policy document. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask what the initials COI stand for.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

COI is the Central Office of Information, a substantial agency that works across government in order to provide capacity around buying advertising, marketing and so on. It was announced a couple of weeks ago that it was going to close with the loss of a few hundred jobs. When the initial arm’s-length body review by the Cabinet Office took place soon after the Government came in, resulting in the Public Bodies Bill which is currently in the other place, the signal was that the COI would be retained but—as I said—the decision was made a few weeks ago. On the noble Earl’s Amendment 78, which is also in this group, his proposal to retain an advisory board to government has some attraction to me as a defender of the status quo in that it is a variant on the status quo; it allows the Government to have their way to some extent by taking functions in-house as part of the centralisation of functions that this Bill represents. I would like to see the specific aim around professionalising marketing. I am pretty flexible about this but I think that those functions need to be retained.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to speak to Amendment 78, which is in my name, and to support Amendment 76, to which I have attached my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, said, Amendment 78 would simply replace a board. Perhaps we can retain the current board as a special advisory group for the Department for Education.

The amendments are partly in response to a meeting recently of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Skills. The new chair of that group, in post for one year, concluded the meeting by saying two things. First, he said that when he visited Finland and had a meeting with politicians from across the political spectrum, he was very impressed by the strong consensus on education policy. Secondly, he said that the more he learnt about this issue the more it seemed to him that if politics could stay out of education, the better it would be for education. By tabling my amendment, I hope to probe the Government about how one might encourage that position of distancing politics from education.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the rather disappointing results in recruiting teachers. It seems to me that this is a golden opportunity to get hold of bright young graduates who might have gone into the City at other times, but who might now choose to go into social care and education. It is sad that we are not getting the cream of the crop. If the noble Lord’s concerns are correct, and this is to some degree to do with interference from the Government, perhaps this is a good illustration of how it is sometimes better for politicians to leave the professionals and experts to do the job. There is an important role for politicians in ensuring that the right experts are appointed and that the criticisms from people sitting in their armchairs are answered.

I refer to the Youth Justice Board, which was an arm’s-length organisation. When there was a spate of thefts of mobile phones and muggings because of that, the Government responded by strengthening the laws around mobile phone theft. Unfortunately, one young man, Joseph Scholes, who had just begun at a children’s home, was out for the day with a group of young people. I understand that he was involved in the periphery of a mobile phone theft. Because of the response to the understandable and popular concern about mobile phone theft, when he was found guilty of being involved in this activity, he was placed in the secure estate, in a young offender institution, even though he was a very vulnerable young man. Unfortunately he hanged himself. The judge recognised that it was not appropriate for him to be placed in the YOI but that he should have been in a more sensitive environment.

Perhaps it is not a particularly good example, but it seems to me that the Youth Justice Board has a similar history to that described by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which was that the Government despaired of being able to do the right thing in youth justice in 1998 or so. They were disappointed in the outcomes. We have had the highest level of children in custody in western Europe. The Youth Justice Board was set up with good positive outcomes. In the past three years the number of children in custody has reduced by 30 per cent. One sees positive outcomes. I am sorry to go on for so long and shall try to wind up as soon as possible. However, in Hackney, for example, politicians decided to give great authority to two very senior social workers. They challenged a culture in Hackney that had let down a lot of young people and children. After three years, they reduced by 30 per cent the number of children coming into care and saved the council a huge sum in doing so. They did this by putting in charge people who had a lifetime’s experience working in this area and by backing their work.

I think we will see best outcomes for our children if we give as much responsibility to people who have actually done the work, who are experienced professionals, and if we can keep politicians—who nevertheless have an important role—as far away as possible from such decisions. The TDA is a good example of a body which worked as a buffer between politicians and education and had good outcomes. I am looking for reassurance from the Minister that this will not have the adverse consequences that I fear.

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[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, the TDA has undertaken excellent work in raising equality in schools. Recruitment from BME groups is important to ensure that white and BME pupils benefit from a more balanced representation of society. The experience of teachers from diverse groups is important. Therefore, I hope that the Minister can confirm that this policy will continue under the new body.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, we have had a useful debate and I was pleased to hear the comment that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has just made. I listened carefully to the Minister’s reasonable tone in responding to it. I understand the argument that runs through the Bill about increasing ministerial accountability. He knows that I think the Government are being brave because we all know that there are periodic crises in education and Ministers will be a lot more accountable for those than they have been to date.

I say in passing that Ministers are not the only individuals accountable to Parliament. The Permanent Secretary is the accounting officer and is accountable to Parliament through the Public Accounts Committee. I worry who on earth will want to be the next Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, not just because they will follow a class act in the form of David Bell but because they will be accountable for so much to the Public Accounts Committee. The TDA has a chief accounting officer in the form of the chief executive but the Permanent Secretary will replace the roles of five or six other accounting officers as well as being accountable for his own department. I think that permanent secretaries will also be taking a pay cut. It is going to be a tough task to recruit them. Perhaps the Government need to set up a recruitment agency for permanent secretaries.

Now that we have seen that dip in applicants, perhaps the Minister would be minded to write a letter to tell us how much was saved in the freeze on advertising in terms of the TDA in isolation. Given the current labour market conditions, which we know make teaching more attractive because there are not so many alternative graduate careers, it is extraordinary that we have had that dip. In the end, I did not hear an argument from the Minister which told me why the previous experience of things being run from Whitehall would be improved this time around. I cannot say that I am persuaded but being a co-operative sort of chap, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 76 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 76A in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I am also supportive of Amendment 77 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. Internationally, the countries performing well in the PISA rankings recruit teachers from among the brightest graduates in their country. In Finland, prospective teachers must have achieved a first-class degree, and are regarded and treated as top professionals in their country with excellent pay which is considerably above the average for our teachers’ salaries in this country. Interestingly, they are also given total responsibility for the curriculum at a school level.

On the previous group, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke about Finland and the lack of politics in education. I believe that that is partly because education is such a national priority that all parties do not regard it as a key issue over which they need to fight. Four years ago at an OECD conference, I spoke to Finnish colleagues in higher education. While they are not complacent, they know that their system works and produces excellent results. This Bill aims to trust our professional teachers more and I hope that we will move to a system more along the Finnish lines.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness met her friends from Finland, I wonder whether she had similar answers to the last time I met the Finnish Education Minister. I asked her why Finnish schools were so successful. She answered that it was because of a culture within the country that loves learning, which is demonstrated not only in the widespread membership of public libraries. She also told me that in Finland it used to be that you were not allowed to get married unless you could prove that you could read. Does the noble Baroness think that that is a good idea for us to copy from Finland?

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As I was saying, the Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers document says:

“There is an important role for universities in any future ITT system. They provide trainees with a solid grounding in teaching, and space to reflect on their school experiences. We expect universities to continue to be involved in most teacher training, responding to the demands of schools for high quality training to supplement school-based practical experience”.

Our proposals for teacher training are part of our broader efforts to put schools at the heart of our drive to improve educational standards. In most cases, we expect this to be in strong partnerships with successful universities and we have set out a series of proposals to achieve this. The Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, whose members are universities that provide teacher training, has welcomed the publication of the Government’s strategy.

My noble friend Lady Brinton asked for reassurance on a couple of points. First, do all new teachers need to be graduates? The answer to that is yes. Undergraduates can gain a degree through their course and other trainees must hold a degree before entering ITT. Her second question was about accredited ITT providers and the Quality Assurance Agency process. ITT providers that are HE institutions will be covered by these arrangements and be accredited by the TDA and, in future, by the Teaching Agency. As now, school-based ITT is also accredited by the TDA. Both are inspected by Ofsted.

On the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, our proposals for teacher training will ensure that teachers have practical teacher training experience of supporting pupils with additional needs, including SEN. Indeed, we want there to be a stronger focus on support for children with special educational needs. Initial teacher training courses that prepare trainees to meet the qualified teacher status standards currently ensure that teachers are able to differentiate their teaching to meet the needs of each pupil, including those with special educational needs. The White Paper stated that the revised standards should, among other things, provide a stronger focus on responding to pupils with additional needs, including those with special educational needs. An interim report of that review is expected to be submitted in the coming week.

In addition, our Green Paper sets out a range of measures designed to enhance the knowledge, skills and understanding of teachers in relation to teaching children with special educational needs and disabilities. These include: making it easier for more trainees to conduct some, though not all, of their training placements in special settings, including special schools and mainstream schools with specially resourced SEN provision; commissioning a range of free training resources for serving teachers to support children with a range of specific special educational needs; funding a scholarship for teachers’ higher-level professional development to improve their practice, where half of the funding available will be for supporting disabled children and children with special educational needs; and ensuring that networks of new teaching schools will help schools to share practice and resources in meeting the needs of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I am grateful for the Minister’s patience with me. I am interested in his view of the bachelor of education. Having a training over years rather than a single year or—in the case of Teach First, of which I am an enthusiast—a few weeks, allows, particularly primary school teachers, not only training across the range of subjects that are taught in primary schools, but to drill down in more detail into special educational needs. The feeling out there is that the Government are not as keen on the bachelor of education as postgraduate routes from other subjects. Can the Minister give us some reassurance on that from the Dispatch Box?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As the noble Lord knows, we are keen to encourage people into teaching via a variety of routes, whether through Teach First or through PGCE. In due course, if we can, we want to build on initiatives such as Teach First to see if we can get people who have been successful in other professions to come into teaching. We are keen to make sure that there is a variety of ways. It is true that in terms of the financial support which we announced in the initial teacher training strategy that we published a couple of weeks ago, the focus of the funding that we are making available is on those who have high-quality university degrees in shortage subjects. However, we want to see a range of provision.

I have already written to a number of noble Lords who spoke at Second Reading about teacher training to draw their attention to the publication of our strategy and to invite them to meet the Minister of State for Schools. As the document we published is a discussion document rather than a statement of final policy, I encourage noble Lords with an interest to read it and to let us know what they think. I would be very happy for those who have an interest—I am thinking of my noble friend Lady Brinton and, given his remarks, probably my noble friend Lord Willis as well—to organise a meeting with the Minister of State with responsibility for these important areas so that we can discuss this further with him.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my noble friend Lady Brinton about our continued commitment to high-quality teacher training and the essential role of universities. I also hope that given the range of measures which we are planning to put in place in relation to special educational needs, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, will agree that we do not need this prescription. I ask my noble friend Lady Brinton to withdraw her amendment.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I rise to speak to our opposition to the Question that Clause 18 stand part of the Bill. While we welcome the initiative of those who tabled Amendments 78A and 78B, regrettably we do not feel that they have gone far enough in maintaining a national framework of pay and conditions for support staff.

Perhaps I should also make it clear at this stage that I am an ex-UNISON employee, and spent many years observing in schools how the distinctions between teaching and non-teaching staffs have, quite rightly, been breaking down over the years. Support staff are increasingly playing a professional role. They make up a range of functions crucial to the whole school learning environment as teaching assistants, welfare support staff and specialist and technical staff. They make a huge contribution to improving learning outcomes, which was confirmed by Ofsted in its fifth report.

As we have heard, since its establishment the SSSNB has been playing a crucial role in preparing core documents setting out the wide range of non-teaching roles being carried out in schools. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly pointed out, when it was established it was not opposed by any party. Since then it has received widespread support from teachers, heads, governors and parents. There was certainly no chorus of concern calling for its abolition. Importantly, its remit when it was established was to combine national consistency and local flexibility in pay and conditions, and it was working to deliver that model. However, when the clause was debated in the Commons the Minister argued that retaining it would involve,

“creating and imposing additional rigidity on schools” .—[Official Report, Commons, Education Bill Committee, 22/3/11; col. 595.]

But that argument fails to recognise that the SSSNB was not like other negotiating bodies. It has the power only to recommend, not prescribe, and as such the local flexibility and autonomy is maintained.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly identified, in abolishing the SSSNB now, the Government are scrapping it before it has had time to finish delivering the job profiles that it was set up to produce. That is wasting good work. Already more than 100 support staff roles have been profiled and were being tested by schools; a school-based job evaluation scheme was being designed; and a pay and conditions model was being developed. Given that these job descriptions would have been recommendations, not prescriptions, it is hard to see how they would have hindered schools going forward. On the contrary, having job profiles could have been used as benchmarks, which would have cut the time and cost. Self-governing schools would otherwise have to use their own time to create their own job descriptions. Apart from the more general use for those benchmark job descriptions, schools and local authorities would then have a greater chance of avoiding being subject to equal pay challenges.

In addition, without the work of the SSSNB, there is a risk—perhaps even a likelihood—that the status of support staff in a largely female workforce will be undermined and that over time their terms and conditions will become less favourable in some schools than is currently the case. Ofsted itself identified that,

“members of the wider workforce and their managers were confused and uncertain about pay and conditions attached to the increasingly diverse roles that have developed as a result of workforce reform”.

It went on to urge the Government to provide more detailed guidance on pay and conditions. This is exactly what was happening. In the Commons Committee stage the Minister said:

“The Secretary of State has made it clear to trade unions and support staff employee organisations that he believes that there is a clear argument for completing some elements of the work begun by the SSSNB, on the basis that the outputs might be of some use to employers and schools”.

He went on to say:

“Those elements include the set of support staff job profiles, for example, and the associated job evaluation scheme. Should trade unions and employers deem that it would be a useful way to proceed with support staff pay and conditions to continue with that development work independently of the Government, I believe that that would be a positive outcome”.—[Official Report, Commons, Education Bill Committee, 22/3/11; col. 596.]

Once again, we seem to be playing the game of dismantling a perfectly good mechanism for dealing with a need in education only to have to assemble it in a different form. That point was made by a number of noble Lords on Second Reading. The Bill seems to be focused on structures rather than on improving educational outcomes, which we are all trying to grapple with. Can the Minister confirm whether those elements will be in place to continue the work that was established by the SSSNB; what organisation they have in mind to continue them; and by when? Interestingly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, the people who have been working on the job profiles have not gone away; they have simply been absorbed back into the Office of Manpower Economics, and are therefore available to carry on with the work where they left off, so there is no great saving to be had by abolishing the SSSNB.

Finally, I hope that I will be forgiven if I mention another injustice to support staff arising from the abolition of the SSSNB. Last year when the Chancellor announced a two-year pay freeze in the public sector, he promised that all staff earning less than £21,000 would receive at least £250 in each year. But the Secretary of State for Education says that he has no way of delivering this to school support staff despite having the power to direct it because the SSSNB has been unable to clarify who would qualify. As well as the indirect difficulties that this clause will cause support staff, it makes them all £250 a year worse off. We still believe that school support staff are entitled to fair pay and conditions. The SSSNB would have delivered a framework to make this happen and we believe that it is worth maintaining it to deliver that programme.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I very much want to speak against Clause 18 stand part, and I will talk to the other amendments in due course. I guess that it is just an occupational hazard of being an ex-Minister that when a new Government take over you hold your head in your hands as you watch some of the things that you slaved over to create for many hours, days, weeks and months being abolished at a stroke. There were quite a few in the first few months of this Government, but this is one that I found really hard when I heard that the School Support Staff Negotiating Body was to be scrapped before it really had had a chance to get going.

To some extent, that reflects a view—I am sorry to say a default view in Sanctuary Buildings—that you start thinking about schools in respect of secondary schools and secondary schools in London. You then start thinking about the workforce by thinking simply about teachers. We saw that in earlier clauses, such as Clause 13 which we discussed at some length in Committee, on false allegations being made against teachers not being extended to support staff. That reflects an attitude of mind. We heard in the excellent speech of my noble friend Lady Jones about the importance of support staff. They perform a vital range of functions in schools. An additional 130,000-plus since 1997 are working in schools, performing roles not just in classrooms as high-level teaching assistants. Many of the people in classrooms work one-to-one supporting those with special educational needs. There are also non-classroom roles, from school business managers and those assisting them in the school office, through to caretakers, crossing patrols, dinner ladies—or is it catering assistants? I cannot remember the correct term but dinner ladies will do.

A really important range of roles is performed and valued by schools and those in the school community, such as parents, pupils and staff. I have taken quite an interest in reflecting back on how we should improve schools in the future and the underachievement of white working-class boys, in particular. I have visited and talked to those who are running some of the particularly successful academies doing work in that area. The Richard Rose Federation in Carlisle in Cumbria has turned round a very difficult circumstance. The North Liverpool Academy in, as the name suggests, Liverpool, is within sight of both Anfield and Goodison Park football grounds in a very tough environment for schools to succeed. What was interesting was that, in both circumstances, they are now doing really well in narrowing attainment gaps for white working-class boys. When I asked them how they did it, one of the keys was the deployment of support staff and how they were using learning assistants and others to engage the home.

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[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I salute schools which provide a broad and balanced curriculum and teachers who teach it. But before they can do that they need a curriculum. I do not mind what a school is called or calls itself, but I am passionate about all children and young people receiving an education that equips them not only to survive but to be productive in society. I am also concerned that there should be independent evaluation of whether they are providing that education. Schools can change rapidly.

We hear from senior managers in companies that for them an important issue is that young people should be able to read and that they are numerate. They also say that young people should have the ability to be socially adept, to organise and manage themselves, to work in teams and to present well. Many young people will do that anyway, but many will not. I fear that with an increasing narrowing of the curriculum and emphasis on academic success, many young people will miss out. Schools may be forced to cut down on the disciplines listed in my amendment because of time or cash constraints. Many primary schools already complain about having to teach to pass aptitude tests, and I have witnessed that. Of course academic learning is important, but so is the broader curriculum. What is sometimes forgotten is that the broader curriculum supports academic learning, discipline and attendance. Children do better with access to many forms of learning. Confidence in one area, for example music, can support confidence in other areas, such as mathematics. I have concerns about certain types of schooling encouraged by the Government which may narrow the options for young people.

We will be coming on to PSHE later in the rather lengthy amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I, but I shall say a word now about its importance. If young people have an opportunity to discuss with other pupils and responsible adults issues that concern them, such as relationships, sexual and otherwise, alcohol, drugs, transmitted diseases, diet, safety and so on, they will gain two things: knowledge and information about the issue; and the ability to communicate with others, to learn with others and perhaps to manage conflict. Those are very important skills. Recent research shows that the vast majority of parents want pupils to have these skills.

As for the arts, they are important in themselves. Knowing something about literature, drama, music and fine art may inspire a lifelong love of any one of those forms. It may even inspire a child to go on to seek a career in one of them. How will they know their talents and interests if they do not get a feel of them at school? Many children will not have parents who have an interest in the arts or who can afford private tuition or to take them to the theatre or to art galleries. Art education can also be therapeutic and can enhance social skills. Every child should do some form of sport or exercise. It is proven to enhance well-being and improve health. The sport may or may not be team sport. I happen to be very keen on team sports, which involve interaction with others, collaboration, discipline and respect for rules as well as fitness. I also recognise that team sport is not everybody’s bag—but some exercise will be, whether it is dance, movement, yoga, gymnastics and so on. Every child should have the opportunity to participate. Where are the guarantees for sport in government policy? Will initiatives for the inner cities such as cricket’s Chance to Shine continue to be supported? What imaginative schemes not about team sport will be encouraged?

Last Saturday I spoke at a speech day at a prep school in Derbyshire. It is an excellent school with top academic ratings and excellent facilities and has the advantage of being set in the wonderful Derbyshire dales. This school has prizes for art, music and IT as well as for academic subjects. There was a cup for sport, a cup for citizenship and a shield for the hand of friendship for helping others. If that school did not offer music, art, sport and other broad-based opportunities, the parents would be incandescent. They would be incandescent if there were no inspections—the school is inspected by two bodies—and they would be apoplectic if the teacher was not qualified. I fear that what we could see through government policy is an increase in unregulated and unaccountable maintained schools. What sort of inequality might we perpetuate by narrowing the curriculum for children at maintained schools, by even thinking about no inspections for some and by having unqualified teachers? I will move on.

Information technology is an essential skill for young people and most of them are better at it than—certainly—I am, but every child does not have a computer at home and children also need to learn about the downsides of technology, such as spending too much time at it, and the potential dangers, such as online grooming.

Noble Lords may come from different perspectives on faith, and I have specific amendments tabled later on as a humanist, but I am not talking about detail, I am talking about a child’s right to education for life in this country and in this century. I am worried that some schools will not be balanced about faith or no-faith education or about cultural diversity. I have no problem with schools having a particular ethos but I do have a problem with indoctrination masquerading as education. I have a problem with schools being allowed to teach what they like, possibly with unqualified teachers and without inspections. What about the pupils in those schools? What skills and knowledge will they end up with? All children deserve a broad education. All children will be living in a diverse society. They, too, will need skills for employment. They, too, have the right to knowledge on which to base choices. We often hear about how wonderful Chinese academic results are. I looked at this, not in China but in the Library here and found that China, indeed, has higher success rates. If one looks at their curriculum, they have provision for sport, art and music. They also have provision for daily group work and other interactive time on the curriculum—I think it is 10 minutes a day. I am not sure what this time means but the point is that the Chinese curriculum is not just founded on academic subjects.

What this amendment seeks to do is to guarantee that all children have access to balance and breadth in the curriculum in schools. Will the Minister say what the terms of reference are for the curriculum review that is being carried out? What terms of reference are there for the PSHE review, which I believe has not yet started? Who is carrying out the reviews and when will they report to us? Parents should have choice about where their children are educated. Schools should have choice about how that education is carried out, but not at the expense of denying some children the right to experience the wonders of education in its wider sense, both when they are at school and as preparation for when they mature. I beg to move.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I speak in support of this proposed new clause, which I have also put my name to. It is a pleasure to follow on from my noble friend Lady Massey who made the case extremely well. I am sure those who are worried about time would ask what more have I to add. There are a few things. I have not reminded the Committee, although I did at Second Reading, of my interest in respect of education, which some of this discussion may stray into. I advise Apple on education matters, I do some work for TSL Education and I have a number of other education clients overseas.

This amendment, as we have heard, seeks to ensure we have balance in the curriculum. At its heart, the importance of that is ensuring that we give every child the chance to realise their talents. Some of us are not particularly right-brained, some of us are not particularly left-brained. That means that some of us are not desperately academic and some of us might be more creative. We need to ensure that we have a curriculum that can bring out those talents, use them and foster them, so that every child can be a success in later life.

At the root of my support for this amendment are my concerns about some of the changes that Government are making that I think will narrow the curriculum rather than giving it more breadth. I hate to keep harping back to my time but it informs my view. I sought to reduce the amount of prescription in the national curriculum at secondary with a review—perhaps I should have gone further. When instigating the independent review of the primary curriculum by Sir Jim Rose, we also sought to include a lot of balance in the new primary curriculum but unfortunately that has now been abandoned. In both cases, the question is: how do we get every child to want to get up in the morning and go to school? It means making sure that there are things in the day that will motivate them and, in part, what is in the national curriculum informs that.

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What is required is a new, focused and clearly defined sports curriculum, built on an emerging delivery of participation between clubs, public sector, voluntary, charitable and commercial sector providers of physical activity and sport for schools and within schools. That is the way to extend curriculum delivery and to work alongside enthusiastic teachers. Within sport, clubs and schools—independent and maintained—must work far more together. Working together must be at the centre of the provision, not least because the future members of clubs are the children in today’s classrooms. Their expertise provides the ladder on which the enthusiastic and talented youngster will climb to become the Olympic champion of tomorrow. Only by pursuing this route will we move away from the current status quo; namely, the sad and unacceptable disconnect between the success delivered by 7 per cent of our independent children at the Olympic Games who win more than 50 per cent of the medals. As chairman of the British Olympic Association, that is the most saddening statistic I have in my mind. We must move forward from a position where, as I have said, just 7 per cent deliver more than 50 per cent of the medals to where 93 per cent of the children of this country deliver 93 per cent of the medals. That is the challenge, which is huge.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

The noble Lord obviously speaks with great passion and expertise on these matters. However, to some extent, is it not the case that things have been skewed in terms of medals being won by the product of independent schools by the fact that we are really good, as the noble Lord, Lord Coe, has described it, at sitting-down sports? We are good at rowing, sailing and horse riding, which are expensive sports and out of the reach of many of our state schools.

[Lord Moynihan]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. If you assess the success of Beijing, regrettably, we were heavily dependent on three sports, which were all sitting-down sports. One of my passionate objectives in terms of success in London 2012 is to make sure that we see more medals come from a much wider base of the 26 summer Olympics sports. That same principle should apply to the Paralympics’ sports as well. I believe that that can be delivered.

It is interesting that when it comes to football in this country, there is a perfect symmetry between the number of professional footballers playing in this country who come from the independent sector, which is 7 per cent, and the 93 per cent who come from the state sector. There is a huge lesson to be learnt about the relationship between schools and local clubs, and parents and volunteers to achieve that. My call is that that should be the basis for all sports in this country and my wish is that we move through the curriculum inclusion of sport to achieve that objective.

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[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords, could I thank the noble Baroness for the kind words that she said about me and fashioning the national curriculum? I am usually criticised more than praised for it these days, but it fell to me and to many hundreds of others to fashion that curriculum 25 years ago. For the first time, we were putting on to the statute book a national curriculum. It was very broad and very balanced; that is what I was criticised for. It could not have been more broad or balanced. It had many things in it which have now been dropped: languages up to 16; art and music up to 16; history and geography up to 16. All of those have disappeared and gone, but it was certainly broad and balanced.

I have now come to the conclusion that if I was given the task of fashioning it today, a much more fundamental change really would be needed. I would actually stop it at 14. I am now quite convinced that the right age of transfer in our English education system is 14, not 11. I draw some strength from that because the Board of Education, meeting in 1941 to plan the pattern of education after the war, in the event of victory—it actually met before El Alamein—said to have selective grammar schools, selective technical colleges and secondary moderns and that the transfer age should be 13 and 14. The decision to change that never went to Ministers, as far as I can see from the records. It was decided by the Permanent Secretary of the day, who simply said, “You can’t have selection at 13 or 14 because grammar schools start at 11”.

It was a great opportunity missed. Why do I say that? First, I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, was saying. During the fashioning of the national curriculum everybody wanted everything in it. Not only that, but he will remember the battles on the content of the national curriculum. I set up independent committees to advise me on maths as on maths there can be no controversy. Surely you can define a maths curriculum. Feudal armies marched across this battlefield. Some said, “You must teach children tables by heart”. Others argued, “No, that is appalling”. Some said, “You mustn’t let them use calculating machines”. Others asked, “Should you teach calculus before 16 or not?”. Blood was spilled on these battlefields. When I came to English, I thought I would outwit all these people by appointing the most reactionary and right-wing educationalists I could find, who wrote the black papers, who would deliver the sort of English curriculum I wanted. I was bitterly disappointed. They produced a curriculum, which said, “Don’t worry about spelling and don’t correct the grammar of little boys and girls who get it wrong at the primary level. Let them enjoy it”. I had to turn to an engineer in Bristol University to right the sense of that. When it came to the history curriculum, I knew perfectly well it was going to be a battlefield, so I appointed someone who owned a castle to write it. He was also a highly intelligent scholar who became the chairman of the British Library and produced a very good curriculum. Having done all of that, why do I now say it should really be at 14?

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I agree with the noble Lord about 14, but I am interested to hear that he would keep a national curriculum for key stage 3 when most secondary schools—if the Government’s ambitions are realised—would become academies and free of the national curriculum. Why would he keep the national curriculum at key stage 3 and does he think academies should stick to it?

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I do not support everything that the present Government do. I think a lot of what they are doing is brilliant and wonderful and I speak in favour of that, but up to 14, I would make it a very prescriptive curriculum. Rab Butler said in one of his minutes that all children should go through the common mill of education. I think there is a connective knowledge required in our country that all children should have, whatever part of the country they come from and of whatever race or creed. At 14, there is a natural division of the ways. It is rather like the pattern in Europe. Europe generally distinguishes between upper secondary and lower secondary at the age of 14. What I would like to see slowly develop is four different pathways open for youngsters at 14: an academic pathway, perhaps a bit similar to the grammar school, but wider than that; the technical pathway; the voluntary pathway; and a creative arts pathway. I am coming round to this, it is very true. Do wait; there is better to come.

I am directing my remarks precisely to the curriculum and to this amendment because I am going to say why some of these things should or should not be in and that will take a very long time. Do not tempt me to get into that area. In the requirements mentioned in the amendment—there you are, I am on course again now—there is a spread of different activities. I am engaged in establishing technical schools at 14, which have some of these things in them—in fact, they have all of these things and go rather wider. One might think that by having technical schools, I am narrowing the curriculum. Not at all. In the technical schools, they will have technical subjects to study but they will also study three GCSEs: English, maths and science. We do not think that an IT GCSE is necessary because IT is so infusive today a particular GCSE is not needed for it. They would also have a foreign language: German for engineering, not Goethe; French for business, not Molière. They will also have humanities subjects: history of engineering and great scientists.

When we come to the curriculum, it goes much wider than the amendment. The amendment fights the battles in the way of yesteryear because much of what is said in the amendment is covered in school today. Sport, for example, is legally required up to 16 in schools, and that will be in our academies as well. This is the first occasion we have been able to actually speak in the Committee on the curriculum. It is probably the most important, radical change still waiting to be made in the education system.