Education Institutions: Autonomy and Accountability

Lord Nash Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Perry for securing this important debate and for her insightful speech. I also thank all noble Lords for their valuable contributions. Autonomy and accountability are the two key pillars of our school system, and the OECD PISA results show clearly that greater autonomy coupled with strong accountability can lead to a better-performing school system. Strong evidence of this can be seen in countries such as New Zealand and Poland.

By contrast, we have seen in Sweden the perils of an autonomous system which is not strongly coupled with accountability, and we can see in Wales the shambles created when you have neither. It is therefore critical to strike the appropriate balance and we have done exactly this in creating a self-improving, school-led system, which has the resounding success of the academies and free schools programmes behind it. As my noble friend Lady Perry mentioned in quoting the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the academy programme gives schools the magic ingredient of the freedom to run their schools in the best interests of their pupils.

We are continuing to work to bring decisions much closer to schools through the introduction of our eight regional school commissioners, through which we are trusting school leaders to run their own system and provide the department with much better local intelligence to enable it to insist on matters to which my noble friend Lady Shephard referred. Unlike the Labour Party, we believe that breaking the country into eight regions run by leading heads and supported by other leading heads on their teacher boards is the way to run the system. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the Blunkett report, which talks about breaking the country into 50 bureaucracies, each with their own layers of management. We feel that that would basically be a retrograde step.

As the PISA findings show, the more freedom given to schools, the better the performance of the whole system. In sponsored academies open for three years, for example, the proportion of pupils who achieved five good GCSEs, including English and maths, has increased at twice the rate of local authority-maintained schools. Converter academies are more likely, against the new tougher Ofsted inspection framework, to retain their “outstanding” ratings, or to improve from “good” to “outstanding” than LA schools.

Combined with this is the outstanding success of the free schools programme. I should also mention that academy chains, with their clear lines of sight mentioned by my noble friend Lady Shephard, are working particularly well, as recently outlined in an excellent study by the University of Southampton. Of course, these chains and other local groups are very much focused on schools working together locally to create a less, rather than more, fragmented school system.

On the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham’s point about local arrangements, I assure him that—certainly since I came into office—we have concentrated the academy programme on local regional clusters of schools working together, such as in his own diocese. It has worked well in the London Challenge, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, referred.

The free schools programme has been an unqualified and outstanding success; I use the word “outstanding” advisedly. Free schools are inspected by Ofsted after only four or five terms from opening and, so far, of those free schools which have been inspected, 24% have been rated “outstanding”. This is a truly remarkable experience and the facts speak for themselves. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is still in denial about this, but those facts are pretty powerful. The fact that we have closed one and a half free schools with 200 pupils in them—although that is significant for those 200 pupils and their parents—compares not only to the 24% “outstanding” figure but to the 175,000 new places we have created under the free schools programme.

By comparison, 73 local authority maintained schools have gone into special measures this year alone, and 38 council-run schools have been in special measures for 18 months or more. In 2013, Ofsted found that one in three local authority action plans in relation to underperforming schools were not up to standard. As my noble friend Lady Shephard said, no one is making the case for reinstating the local authority model. Indeed, Ed Miliband said exactly that himself in other place only a few days ago; although, as I have said, the 50 bureaucracies planned by the Labour Party are, in fact, a return to the local authority system.

We are committed to increasing autonomy for all schools, not just academies and free schools. Through reforms linking pay and performance, bringing teacher training closer to schools and reducing bureaucracy and box-ticking, and dramatically reducing regulation, we have made it easier for schools to focus on what is important: ensuring that children succeed. With Ofsted reporting that schools improved faster last year than at any time in Ofsted’s history, we are clearly getting it right. Autonomy must be strongly coupled with accountability and, under this Government, academies and free schools are held more rigorously to account than council-run schools.

All schools should have strong financial controls in place. However, academies and free schools have stronger and tougher financial frameworks and are held up for greater scrutiny than council-run schools. That enables swift resolution if there are any financial issues. In local authority maintained schools, it is the local authority that has responsibility for financial oversight. The frequency and depth of audit is variable and maintained schools are often not subject to the same rigour as academies and free schools, which must publish annual audited accounts submitted to the EFA. We monitor those carefully and will investigate immediately and diagnose any problems. That accountability mechanism works extremely well.

We also have the ability to issue a pre-warning notice if we have any concerns. Since 2011, we have issued 44. Over half, 26, were for the relatively few academies approved under the previous Government; 18 were for those approved under this Government. In the eight academies issued with pre-warning notices in 2011, there was an average improvement of 16 percentage points in the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs in 2012. For those issued with a pre-warning notice in 2012-13, the average improvement rate so far has been 8 percentage points.

We have also recently strengthened the guidance for local authorities by putting in an expectation that they act quickly and do not wait for Ofsted to go in before intervening. We expect warning notices to be issued in instances where, for example, standards are below the floor, disadvantaged pupils are achieving low standards, or there is a sudden drop in performance.

In giving schools greater autonomy, good governance becomes increasingly important, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned. Our reforms are designed to encourage that and we are focusing governors on three core functions: the vision and ethos of the school, as the right reverend Prelate again mentioned; holding the head to account for the progression and attainment of pupils and the performance management of his or her staff; and money. Since 2012, the quality of school governance has been central to the overall inspection judgment on the overall leadership and management of a school.

We are committed to ensuring that children at primary school have the best possible start in life and have increased primary accountability in a number of ways: with the new curriculum; an increased emphasis on the importance of grammar, punctuation and spelling; abolishing the requirement for schools to use national curriculum levels; reintroducing level 6 stretch papers for key stage 2; and the introduction of phonics at every stage of teaching. That helps help children to develop faster; evidence shows that children taught to read using phonics could be “two years ahead” by the age of seven.

As my noble friend Lady Perry mentioned, in secondary school we have introduced new accountability measures to provide clear information and give a fair and balanced picture of each school’s performance. She was quite right about the failure and falseness of the exam accountability system previously. As a result of the scandal of false equivalence that operated previously, under the previous Government the number of pupils doing a core suite of academic subjects fell from 50% to 22%. All the evidence from all successful education jurisdictions around the world is that it is necessary for pupils to do that core suite of subjects, particularly those from a disadvantaged background. I am delighted to say that, under this Government, the number of pupils doing that core suite as a result of our EBacc is now back to 36%, and we expect it to rise further this summer.

As the noble Baroness mentioned, our new accountability measures include: progress 8, which will track the progress of all pupils of whatever ability throughout their school careers, and should focus schools on the attainment of all pupils rather than on what Tristram Hunt has described as the great crime of the C/D borderline; attainment 8, the percentage of pupils achieving a C grade or better in English and maths; and the EBacc. Alongside that, our destination measures will be important. The Government have also set tougher minimum standards for schools. We have raised the floor standards at primary to 65% from 60%, and at secondary to 40% from 35%.

High-quality inspection is an important aspect of the school accountability system. Building on the changes that the coalition Government put in place in 2011 to focus inspection more strongly on teaching and learning, Sir Michael Wilshaw has set his own priorities, which are helping to drive improvement. The inspection framework was amended in September 2012 and a higher benchmark has been set. When inspecting schools, Ofsted now holds them to account for the attainment and progress of their disadvantaged pupils, and the gap between them and their peers. The abolition of the “satisfactory” label was clearly an important move.

The number of Ofsted categories has also been substantially reduced to avoid confusion, and as my noble friend Lady Perry said, in future Ofsted itself will take control of far more inspections. Moreover, the regional operation to which my noble friend Lady Shephard referred is working extremely well. She also mentioned a number of cases, and I am reasonably sure that I recognise one of them. I can assure her that the department is monitoring the situation closely, and I would encourage any teacher or parent who has concerns about any matter that they do not feel is being dealt with effectively at the local level to contact the Education Funding Agency. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the Permanent Secretary’s report. I do not know whether it will be published, but I am sure that the Secretary of State will be very happy to answer any questions about it; of course, it is looking into any warnings that the department may have received in 2010 and previously.

I turn now to the excellent points made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to thank him for all the work that is done by the diocese of Birmingham Educational Trust, and ask him if he would kindly pass on the department’s thanks to Reverend Jackie Hughes for her excellent work over the years and its best wishes for every success in her retirement. I also pay tribute to the trust’s academies accountability framework, a copy of which I have with me, which is particularly clear on matters like challenge and lines of accountability.

My noble friend Lady Sharp talked about the relationship between the local governing body and the centre, which is very important. The academy chain may appoint the head, but it is important that the local governing body is made aware of all the KPIs and targets so that it can advise the centre of its performance. Only today I had an interesting conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, about this in relationship to a playgroup, and I suggest that it would be very helpful to her if she talked to my noble friend about it.

I come back to the old story about non-qualified teachers, which we had again earlier today in the House. I think that noble Lords know our arguments on this. We do not think it is right to deny people the opportunity of having the best teachers, and there is no clear evidence at all that QTS is an effective arbiter in itself of the quality of teaching.

I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords for this debate, and to my noble friend Lady Perry for her comments and support. In conclusion, by creating a system that is autonomous by giving schools the freedom to innovate and upholds them to a higher level of accountability, we are giving more children and young people a firm educational foundation on which they can build the rest of their lives.

Committee adjourned at 6.07 pm.